Jesse R. Steinberg

Abrol Fairweather

The philosophy of the blues From B.B. King to Billie Holiday, Blues music not only sounds good, but has an almost universal appeal in its reflection of the trials and tribulations of everyday life. Its ability to powerfully touch on a range of social and emotional issues is philosophically inspiring, and here, a diverse range of thinkers and musicians offer illuminating essays that make important connections between the human condition and the Blues that will appeal to music lovers and philosophers alike.

Thinking Deep About Feeling Low

Blues - Philosophy for Everyone

Despite the considerable attention the topic of luck has received in ethics and epistemology, very little has been published in the philosophical literature overtly on linguistic luck. The essays collected here provide the first sustained examination of the diverse forms of linguistic luck, the mechanisms available to reduce the impact of linguistic luck and how to cope with residual luck not eliminated by the causal, inferential, and intentional mechanisms which aim at its eradication. Of primary interest is not some, hitherto unnoticed widespread prevalence of luck in the determinants of meaning and communication, but rather the impressive extent to which luck is reduced or eliminated therein. Whether through casual, inferential or intentional means, the determinants of meaning and communication are impressively independent of luck and chance. In fact, it is difficult to imagine a world with human language where efforts to communicate succeed no better than chance. Linguistic communication is only possible because robust luck reducing variables are at work. The essays collected seek to understand the diversity, scope and mode of operation of luck reducing mechanisms in language. While it is not possible here to cover the full range of linguistic phenomena affected by luck, a wide range of issues in linguistics and philosophy of language are investigated, including, syntax processing, demonstrative reference, conversational implicature, testimony, lexical innovation, joint attention, communicative value, conventionalism vs. anti-conventionalism, metasemantic safety, and semantic skepticism, to name a few.

Safeguards and Threats to Linguistic Communication

Linguistic Luck

Linda Zagzebski

Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski

Virtue epistemology is an exciting, new movement receiving an enormous amount of attention from top epistemologists and ethicists; this pioneering volume reflects the best work in that vein. Featuring superb writing from contemporary American philosophers, it includes thirteen never before published essays that focus on the place of the concept of virtue in epistemology. In recent years, philosophers have been debating how this concept functions in definitions of knowledge. They question the extent to which knowledge is both normative (i.e., with a moral component) and non-normative, and many of them dispute the focus on justification, which has proven to be too restrictive. Epistemologists are searching for a way to combine the traditional concepts of ethical theory with epistemic concepts; the result is a new approach called virtue epistemology--one that has established itself as a particularly favorable alternative. Containing the fruits of recent study on virtue epistemology, this volume offers a superb selection of contributors--including Robert Audi, Simon Blackburn, Richard Foley, Alvin Goldman, Hilary Kornblith, Keith Lehrer, Ernest Sosa, and Linda Zagzebski--whose work brings epistemology into dialogue with everyday issues.

Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility

Virtue Epistemology

Mark Alfano

This volume is the first sustained examination of epistemic situationism: the clash between virtue epistemology and the situationist hypothesis inspired by research in empirical psychology. Situationism began as a challenge to the psychology of character traits, targeting ethical theories that presuppose a trait psychology. Psychological research suggests that (often trivial) environmental variables have greater explanatory power than character traits. Epistemology pursues questions about the nature of knowledge. While there are internal differences within virtue epistemology between responsibilists and reliabilists, they all analyze knowledge in terms of epistemic virtues and vices. However, despite promising normative results, virtue epistemology appears to assume the same character-based psychology as virtue ethics does. Until recently, virtue epistemology and situationism were separate literatures, but philosophers have begun to examine the apparent incompatibility between situationist psychology and virtue epistemology. Much of the psychological research that raises questions about the empirical adequacy of the moral psychology of virtue ethics also appears to raise doubts about the empirical adequacy of the epistemic psychology assumed by virtue epistemology. Responsibilist virtue epistemology appears particularly vulnerable because epistemic virtues like open mindedness, conscientiousness and intellectual courage are traits of intellectual character, but reliabilist virtue epistemology appeals to the psychology of cognitive skills, abilities, and competences that may be similarly vulnerable. The essays in this volume take up this new problem of epistemic situationism from multiple points of view - some sceptical or revisionary, others conservative.

Epistemic Situationism

"This volume is the first sustained examination of epistemic situationism, the clash between virtue epistemology and the situationist hypothesis supported by research in empirical psychology. Current research in social psychology suggests that environmental variables have greater explanatory and predictive power than traits in explaining human behavior and this has raised serious challenges to ethical theories, such as virtue ethics, that rely on a psychology of personality traits. However, virtue epistemology appears to assume the same trait-based psychology as virtue ethics does, and the research challenging virtue theories in ethics is relevant to philosophical theorizing about knowledge as well. Until recently virtue epistemology and situationism were separate literatures, but philosophers have begun to examine the apparent incompatibility between situationist psychology and virtue epistemology. Much of the psychological research that raises questions about the empirical adequacy of the moral psychology of virtue ethics also appears to raise doubts about the empirical adequacy of the epistemic psychology assumed by virtue epistemology. Responsibilist virtue epistemology appears particularly vulnerable because epistemic virtues like open-mindedness, conscientiousness, and intellectual courage are traits of intellectual character, but reliabilist virtue epistemology appeals to the psychology of cognitive skill, abilities, and competences that may be similarly vulnerable. The essays in this volume take up this new problem of epistemic situationism from multiple points of view - some skeptical or revisionary, others conservative."--

This book presents four bridges connecting work in virtue epistemology and work in philosophy of science (broadly construed) that may serve as catalysts for the further development of naturalized virtue epistemology. These bridges are: empirically informed theories of epistemic virtue; virtue theoretic solutions to under determination; epistemic virtues in the history of science; and the value of understanding. Virtue epistemology has opened many new areas of inquiry in contemporary epistemology including: epistemic agency, the role of motivations and emotions in epistemology, the nature of abilities, skills and competences, wisdom and curiosity. Value driven epistemic inquiry has become quite complex and there is a need for a responsible and rigorous process of constructing naturalized theories of epistemic virtue. This volume makes the involvement of the sciences more explicit and looks at the empirical aspect of virtue epistemology. Concerns about virtue epistemology are considered in the essays contained here, including the question: can any virtue epistemology meet both the normativity constraint and the empirical constraint? The volume suggests that these worries should not be seen as impediments but rather as useful constraints and desiderata to guide the construction of naturalized theories of epistemic virtue.

Abrol Fairweather

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