John Greco

Virtues and Vices of Virtue Epistemology

Probleme de gettier mis a part. La connaissance est croyance veridique, resultat de vertu cognitive.

Worries about Pritchard’s safety

I take issue with two claims that Duncan Pritchard makes in his recent book, Epistemic Luck. The first concerns his safety-based response to the lottery problem; the second his account of the relationship between safety and intellectual virtue.

Internalism and epistemically responsible belief

In section one the deontological (or responsibilist) conception of justification is discussed and explained. In section two, arguments are put forward in order to derive the most plausible version of perspectival internalism, or the position that epistemic justification is a function of factors internal to the believers cognitive perspective. The two most common considerations put forward in favor of perspectival internalism are discussed. These are the responsibilist conception of justification, and the intuition that two believers with like beliefs and experiences are equally justified in their like beliefs. In section three it is argued that perspectival internalism is false, and that in fact the position is not supported by a responsibilist conception of justification. Section four explicates two other forms of internalism, which are rejected for reasons similar to those presented against perspectival internalism. In section five, an internalist theory of justification is defended which is supported by a responsibilist conception of justification. Roughly stated, the position is that justified belief is belief which arises from the use of correct rules of reasoning. The idea of correctness is explicated, and the position is distinguished from others which are similar to it.

Virtue and luck, epistemic and otherwise

: This essay defends virtue reliabilism against a line of argument put forward by Duncan Pritchard. In the process, it discusses (1) the motivations for virtue reliabilism, (2) some analogies between epistemic virtue and moral virtue, and (3) the relation between virtue (epistemic and otherwise) and luck (epistemic and otherwise). It argues that considerations about virtue and luck suggest a solution to Gettier problems from the perspective of a virtue theory.

How to Reid Moore

Moores ‘Proof of an External World’ has evoked a variety of responses from philosophers, including bafflement, indignation and sympathetic reconstruction. I argue that Moore should be understood as following Reid on a variety of points, both epistemological and methodological. Moreover, Moore and Reid are exactly right on all of these points. Hence what I present is a defence of Moores ‘Proof’, as well as an interpretation. Finally, I argue that the Reid-Moore position is useful for resolving an issue that has recently received attention in epistemology, namely, how is it that one knows that one is not a brain in a vat?

A Different Sort of Contextualism

A number of virtue epistemologists endorse the following thesis: Knowledge is true belief resulting from intellectual virtue, where S’s true belief results from intellectual virtue just in case S believes the truth because S is intellectually virtuous. This thesis commits one to a sort of contextualism about knowledge attributions. This is because, in general, sentences of the form “X occurred because Y occurred” require a contextualist treatment. This sort of contextualism is contrasted with more familiar versions. It is argued that the position: (a) yields a better solution to the lottery problem, and (b) may be grounded in a more general theory of virtue and credit.

Why Not Reliabilism

When I was a graduate student I would have gone to great lengths to talk with Keith Lehrer about epistemology. In fact, I did! Hearing that Lehrer would be talking at my alma mater, Georgetown University, I drove down to Washington D.C. from Providence, listened to his talk, and got myself invited to dinner. Much to the Georgetown students’ horror, and probably Lehrer’s as well, I proceeded to monopolize his time with my questions and commentary. (Sorry about that, Keith.) In any case, it is a great honor for me now to be invited to engage Lehrer more formally and more appropriately. I very much appreciate this opportunity.