Inquiry Epistemology Epistemic activities and epistemic evaluations Vices

§ Inquiry Epistemology § Epistemic activities and epistemic evaluations § Vices and virtues § Sensibilities, Thinking Styles, Character Traits § Agency § Motivation

§ Classical Epistemology § Definition of knowledge, etc § Answering the skeptic § Ameliorative Epistemology § Understanding human epistemic activities § Developing interventions to improve performance

§ The study of inquiry and other epistemic activities § Evaluating them by how they meet relevant epistemic standards such as: § Conducive to knowledge § Conducive to responsibly held belief § So the focus of evaluation are activities rather than exclusively processes or their outputs

§ An epistemic activity is something one does whose goals are primarily cognitive § Observing, listening § Doing an arithmetical sum § Teaching a class § Epistemic Evaluation § Assessment by epistemic standards § E. g. , is it true, reliable, does it promote the agents’ epistemic goals, is it a likely means to goals § Often epistemic activities are themselves evaluations § One may investigate whether a belief is true § Epistemic activities are generally monitored and guided by evaluations

§ Doxastic Evaluations § Deliberations about evidence resulting in belief or suspension of belief § Metacognitive reflection about the epistemic status of a belief or about the epistemic properties of a cognitive process § Affective Evaluations § Fear, excitement and other affects that guide attention § Metacognitive or noetic feelings (feeling of doubt, certainty confidence) § Feelings need not represent to serve as evaluations. § They might indicate the presence of evaluative properties by tracking them. § Evaluations regulate epistemic activities by § Guiding them § Monitoring them § Affective evaluations also play a motivational role

§ Virtues and vices reflect well or badly on the person § Epistemic activities are exercises of epistemic agency § Virtues and vices are dispositions to carry out these activities in distinctive ways. § Vices are ways of doing these badly because § Set inappropriate epistemic goals § Frustrate the achievement of epistemic goals § Vices partly consist in characteristic patterns of epistemic evaluation (cognitive and affective) § At the root of vices lie epistemically bad motivations

§ Sensibilities are ways of deploying one’s perceptual capacities in the service of epistemic activities. § Seeing and observing § Being observant is a virtuous sensibility § Feelings of salience direct attention § It is a domain specific skill § Its acquisition requires motivation and commitment § Testimonial injustice and wilful ignorance are partly vicious sensibilities § The difference between the observant, the inobservant, the testimonially injust and the wilfully ignorant does not lie in the reliability of their vision

A sensibility is epistemically virtuous when (a) it is a skill that promotes the achievement of the subject’s domain-specific epistemic goals, and (b) it is developed as a result of a general motivation to acquire epistemic goods. A sensibility is epistemically vicious when (a) it frustrates the achievement of some of the subject’s domain-specific epistemic goals, and (b) it is developed as a result of a motivation to turn away from epistemic goods

§ Thinking styles are ways of deploying one’s inferential abilities in the service of epistemic activities § Inferring and evaluating lines of inquiry § Thinking styles: playing devil’s advocate; modus ponens/modus tollens § Enjoying cognitive activity as a virtuous thinking style § Need for cognitive closure as a vicious cognitive style § Motive to seek certainties § Freeze § Seize § Reduced exploration of hypotheses rather than impairment of one’s inferential abilities

§ Noetic Feelings § Feeling of certainty § Feeling of doubt § Need for cognitive closure and feelings of certainty § Decalibrate feelings derail inquiry § Need for closure as a motivational psychological state

§ Thinking styles are virtuous if § (a) they systematically promote the agent’s epistemic goals and § (b) are driven by motivations that are epistemically good. § They are vicious when § (a) they systematically frustrate at least some of the agents’ epistemic goals and § (b) when they are driven by motivations to turn away from what is epistemically good.

§ Character traits are styles of carrying out epistemic activities as a whole as guided and monitored by epistemic feelings and reflective evaluations § Open Mindedness § Some character traits concern self-evaluation § Virtues: humility, pride § Vices: arrogance, servility, hyperautonomy § Arrogance: feelings of certainty and self-certainty

§ Character traits are virtuous if § (a) they systematically facilitate the agent’s setting of epistemic goals that are appropriate to the agent’s abilities and promote the achievement of epistemic goods, and § (b) foster the achievement of the agent’s epistemic goals, and § (c) are driven by motivations that are epistemically good. § They are vicious if § (a) are driven by motivations to turn away from what is epistemically good, and § (b) systematically hinder the achievement of the agent’s epistemic goals, or § (c) they systematically frustrate the agent’s setting of epistemic goals that are appropriate to the agent’s abilities and promote the achievement of epistemic goods

§ Sensibilities are skills that are acquired § They presuppose the well-functioning of perceptual capacities § Give agent some control over the deployment of these capacities § Thinking styles can be cultivated § They presuppose no significant cognitive impairments § They may build on temperament

§ Character traits can be habituated § Likely to be acquired in childhood § Sensibilities, thinking styles and character traits are agential. § They are what controls cognitive processing § They are akin to skills or habits § We have some control over their acquisition § We have some control over their retention, rejection or modification

§ Vice attributions as psychological explanations of belief and action that belief or action as lacking any rational grounds in its support (Cassam, 2016) § Justification, rationalisation, and explanations § The Galileo example and rationalisations § Vicious motivations as explanations of epistemic activities