Intellectual Virtues
- LAST REVIEWED: 28 October 2020
- LAST MODIFIED: 28 October 2020
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396577-0413
- LAST REVIEWED: 28 October 2020
- LAST MODIFIED: 28 October 2020
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396577-0413
Introduction
Intellectual virtues are qualities that make us excellent thinkers. There are different analyses of exactly which qualities count as intellectual virtues: virtue responsibilists have emphasized praiseworthy character traits, such as open-mindedness and intellectual humility, while virtue reliabilists have emphasized reliable skills and faculties, such as vision, memory, and skills of logic. Importantly, all agree that intellectual virtues are (i) excellences, as opposed to defects; and (ii) distinctively intellectual and not, or not simply, moral. In other words, intellectual virtues are qualities that make us excellent (and not defective) as thinkers, not (or not simply) as people in general. This bibliography provides an overview of philosophical work on the intellectual virtues. It includes articles and books addressing responsibilist and reliabilist analyses of the structure of intellectual virtue; analyses of individual intellectual virtues; the application of intellectual virtue to education and other professional fields; the role of intellectual virtues in epistemology; and, finally, the structure of intellectual vice. It also includes some historical sources on intellectual virtue, though its focus is contemporary. Analyses of intellectual virtue (and of individual intellectual virtues) have developed in tandem with the epistemological subfield of virtue epistemology, which employs the notion of intellectual virtue in an account of knowledge. These analyses also frequently draw on virtue ethics, especially in the Aristotelian tradition. Some of the sources cited touch upon connections between intellectual virtue and these fields, though a fuller treatment of these topics can be found in the corresponding bibliographies on Virtue Epistemology and Virtue Ethics.
General Overviews
Three masterful overviews will help readers get situated. All are well written, and accessible to nonspecialists. Baehr 2004 and Battaly 2008 pay special attention to explaining the differences between virtue responsibilism and virtue reliabilism, which are the two primary analyses of the structure of intellectual virtues in the literature. Both also evaluate responsibilism and reliabilism, identifying advantages and weaknesses of each view. Turri, et al. 2017 provides a broader overview that also includes a survey of work on the virtue of intellectual humility.
Baehr, Jason. “Virtue Epistemology.” In Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2004.
Baehr focuses on defining responsibilism and reliabilism, identifying key figures, and exploring the prospects and problems for each camp. He argues for bridging the divide between responsibilism and reliabilism on the grounds that each camp needs the other.
Battaly, Heather. “Virtue Epistemology.” Philosophy Compass 3.4 (2008): 639–663.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2008.00146.x
Battaly identifies key features of responsibilism and reliabilism, and argues that we need not choose between them, since each succeeds in identifying a kind of intellectual virtue. This overview is a bit broader than Baehr’s. It defines virtue theories in epistemology, and links reliabilism and responsibilism to low- and high-grade knowledge, respectively.
Turri, John, Mark Alfano, and John Greco. “Virtue Epistemology.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by Edward N. Zalta. Stanford, CA: Stanford University, 2017.
This overview is broader still. It situates the debate between reliabilism and responsibilism within the concerns of virtue epistemology as a whole, which include defining knowledge in terms of intellectual virtues, and grappling with the value problem (what makes knowledge more valuable than true belief) and with situationism (skepticism about global character traits). Especially noteworthy are its sections on individual intellectual virtues, and on understanding.
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Article
- A Priori Knowledge
- Abduction and Explanatory Reasoning
- Ability
- Abortion
- Abstract Objects
- Action
- Addams, Jane
- Adorno, Theodor
- Aesthetic Hedonism
- Aesthetics, Analytic Approaches to
- Aesthetics, Continental
- Aesthetics, Environmental
- Aesthetics, History of
- African Philosophy, Contemporary
- Alexander, Samuel
- Analytic/Synthetic Distinction
- Anarchism, Philosophical
- Animal Rights
- Anscombe, G. E. M.
- Anthropic Principle, The
- Anti-Natalism
- Applied Ethics
- Aquinas, Thomas
- Argument Mapping
- Art and Emotion
- Art and Knowledge
- Art and Morality
- Artifacts
- Assertion
- Astell, Mary
- Atheism
- Augustine
- Aurelius, Marcus
- Austin, J. L.
- Autonomy
- Bacon, Francis
- Bayesianism
- Beauty
- Belief
- Bergson, Henri
- Berkeley, George
- Biology, Philosophy of
- Bolzano, Bernard
- Boredom, Philosophy of
- British Idealism
- Buber, Martin
- Buddhist Philosophy
- Burge, Tyler
- Business Ethics
- Camus, Albert
- Canterbury, Anselm of
- Carnap, Rudolf
- Causation
- Cavendish, Margaret
- Certainty
- Chemistry, Philosophy of
- Childhood, Philosophy of
- Chinese Philosophy
- Cognitive Ability
- Cognitive Phenomenology
- Cognitive Science, Philosophy of
- Coherentism
- Color
- Communitarianism
- Computational Science
- Computer Science, Philosophy of
- Computer Simulations
- Comte, Auguste
- Concepts
- Conceptual Role Semantics
- Conditionals
- Confirmation
- Confucius
- Connectionism
- Consciousness
- Constructive Empiricism
- Contemporary Hylomorphism
- Contextualism
- Contrastivism
- Cook Wilson, John
- Cosmology, Philosophy of
- Critical Theory
- Culture and Cognition
- Daoism and Philosophy
- Davidson, Donald
- de Beauvoir, Simone
- de Montaigne, Michel
- Death
- Decision Theory
- Deleuze, Gilles
- Democracy
- Depiction
- Derrida, Jacques
- Descartes, René
- Descartes, René: Sensory Representations
- Descriptions
- Dewey, John
- Dialetheism
- Disability
- Disagreement, Epistemology of
- Disjunctivism
- Dispositions
- Divine Command Theory
- Doing and Allowing
- du Châtelet, Emilie
- Dummett, Michael
- Dutch Book Arguments
- Early Modern Philosophy, 1600-1750
- Eastern Orthodox Philosophical Thought
- Education, Philosophy of
- Emotion
- Engineering, Philosophy and Ethics of
- Environmental Philosophy
- Epicurus
- Epistemic Basing Relation
- Epistemic Defeat
- Epistemic Injustice
- Epistemic Justification
- Epistemic Philosophy of Logic
- Epistemology
- Epistemology and Active Externalism
- Epistemology, Bayesian
- Epistemology, Feminist
- Epistemology, Internalism and Externalism in
- Epistemology, Moral
- Epistemology of Education
- Ethical Consequentialism
- Ethical Deontology
- Ethical Intuitionism
- Eugenics and Philosophy
- Events, The Philosophy of
- Evidence
- Evidence-Based Medicine, Philosophy of
- Evidential Support Relation In Epistemology, The
- Evil
- Evolutionary Debunking Arguments in Ethics
- Evolutionary Epistemology
- Experimental Philosophy
- Explanations of Religion
- Extended Mind Thesis, The
- Externalism and Internalism in the Philosophy of Mind
- Faith, Conceptions of
- Fatalism
- Feminist Aesthetics and Feminist Philosophy of Art
- Feminist Philosophy
- Feyerabend, Paul
- Fichte, Johann Gottlieb
- Fiction
- Fictionalism
- Fictionalism in the Philosophy of Mathematics
- Film, Philosophy of
- Foot, Philippa
- Foreknowledge
- Forgiveness
- Formal Epistemology
- Foucault, Michel
- Free Will
- Frege, Gottlob
- Gadamer, Hans-Georg
- Generics
- Geometry, Epistemology of
- God and Possible Worlds
- God, Arguments for the Existence of
- God, The Existence and Attributes of
- Grice, Paul
- Habermas, Jürgen
- Hart, H. L. A.
- Heaven and Hell
- Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: Aesthetics
- Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: Metaphysics
- Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: Philosophy of History
- Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: Philosophy of Politics
- Heidegger, Martin: Early Works
- Hermeneutics
- Higher Education, Philosophy of
- History, Philosophy of
- Hobbes, Thomas
- Horkheimer, Max
- Human Rights
- Hume, David: Aesthetics
- Hume, David: Moral and Political Philosophy
- Husserl, Edmund
- Idealizations in Science
- Identity in Physics
- Images
- Imagination
- Imagination and Belief
- Immanuel Kant: Political and Legal Philosophy
- Impossible Worlds
- Incommensurability in Science
- Indian Philosophy
- Indispensability of Mathematics
- Inductive Reasoning
- Infinitism
- Instruments in Science
- Intellectual Humility
- Intentionality, Collective
- Intuitions
- James, William
- Japanese Philosophy
- Kant and the Laws of Nature
- Kant, Immanuel: Aesthetics and Teleology
- Kant, Immanuel: Ethics
- Kant, Immanuel: Theoretical Philosophy
- Kierkegaard, Søren
- Knowledge
- Knowledge-first Epistemology
- Knowledge-How
- Kristeva, Julia
- Kuhn, Thomas S.
- Lacan, Jacques
- Lakatos, Imre
- Langer, Susanne
- Language of Thought
- Language, Philosophy of
- Latin American Philosophy
- Laws of Nature
- Legal Epistemology
- Legal Philosophy
- Legal Positivism
- Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm
- Levinas, Emmanuel
- Lewis, C. I.
- Liberty
- Literature, Philosophy of
- Locke, John
- Locke, John: Identity, Persons, and Personal Identity
- Logic
- Lottery and Preface Paradoxes, The
- Lucretius
- Machiavelli, Niccolò
- Martin Heidegger: Later Works
- Martin Heidegger: Middle Works
- Marx, Karl
- Material Constitution
- Mathematical Explanation
- Mathematical Pluralism
- Mathematical Structuralism
- Mathematics, Ontology of
- Mathematics, Philosophy of
- Mathematics, Visual Thinking in
- McDowell, John
- McTaggart, John
- Meaning of Life, The
- Mechanisms in Science
- Medically Assisted Dying
- Medicine, Contemporary Philosophy of
- Medieval Logic
- Medieval Philosophy
- Memory
- Mental Causation
- Mereology
- Merleau-Ponty, Maurice
- Meta-epistemological Skepticism
- Metaepistemology
- Metaethics
- Metametaphysics
- Metaphilosophy
- Metaphor
- Metaphysical Grounding
- Metaphysics, Contemporary
- Metaphysics, Feminist
- Midgley, Mary
- Mill, John Stuart
- Mind, Metaphysics of
- Modal Epistemology
- Modality
- Models and Theories in Science
- Modularity
- Montesquieu
- Moore, G. E.
- Moral Contractualism
- Moral Naturalism and Nonnaturalism
- Moral Responsibility
- Multiculturalism
- Murdoch, Iris
- Music, Analytic Philosophy of
- Nationalism
- Natural Kinds
- Naturalism in the Philosophy of Mathematics
- Naïve Realism
- Neo-Confucianism
- Neuroscience, Philosophy of
- Nietzsche, Friedrich
- Nonexistent Objects
- Normative Ethics
- Normative Foundations, Philosophy of Law:
- Normativity and Social Explanation
- Objectivity
- Occasionalism
- Olfaction
- Ontological Dependence
- Ontology of Art
- Ordinary Objects
- Other Minds
- Pacifism
- Pain
- Panpsychism
- Paradoxes
- Particularism in Ethics
- Pascal, Blaise
- Paternalism
- Patriotism
- Peirce, Charles Sanders
- Perception, Cognition, Action
- Perception, The Problem of
- Perfectionism
- Persistence
- Personal Identity
- Phenomenal Concepts
- Phenomenal Conservatism
- Phenomenology
- Philosophy for Children
- Photography, Analytic Philosophy of
- Physicalism
- Physicalism and Metaphysical Naturalism
- Physics, Experiments in
- Plato
- Plotinus
- Political Epistemology
- Political Obligation
- Political Philosophy
- Popper, Karl
- Pornography and Objectification, Analytic Approaches to
- Practical Knowledge
- Practical Moral Skepticism
- Practical Reason
- Pragmatics
- Pragmatism
- Probabilistic Representations of Belief
- Probability, Interpretations of
- Problem of Divine Hiddenness, The
- Problem of Evil, The
- Propositions
- Psychology, Philosophy of
- Punishment
- Pyrrhonism
- Qualia
- Quietism
- Quine, W. V. O.
- Race
- Racist Jokes
- Rationalism
- Rationality
- Rawls, John: Moral and Political Philosophy
- Realism and Anti-Realism
- Realism, Pictorial
- Realization
- Reasons in Epistemology
- Reductionism in Biology
- Reference, Theory of
- Reid, Thomas
- Relativism
- Reliabilism
- Religion, Philosophy of
- Religious Belief, Epistemology of
- Religious Experience
- Religious Pluralism
- Ricoeur, Paul
- Rights
- Risk, Philosophy of
- Rorty, Richard
- Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
- Rule-Following
- Russell, Bertrand
- Ryle, Gilbert
- Sartre, Jean-Paul
- Schopenhauer, Arthur
- Science and Religion
- Science, Theoretical Virtues in
- Scientific Explanation
- Scientific Progress
- Scientific Realism
- Scientific Representation
- Scientific Revolutions
- Scotus, Duns
- Self-Knowledge
- Sellars, Wilfrid
- Semantic Externalism
- Semantic Minimalism
- Semiotics
- Seneca
- Senses, The
- Sensitivity Principle in Epistemology
- Shepherd, Mary
- Singular Thought
- Situated Cognition
- Situationism and Virtue Theory
- Skepticism, Contemporary
- Skepticism, History of
- Slurs, Pejoratives, and Hate Speech
- Smith, Adam: Moral and Political Philosophy
- Social Aspects of Scientific Knowledge
- Social Epistemology
- Social Identity
- Sounds and Auditory Perception
- Space and Time
- Speech Acts
- Spinoza, Baruch
- Stebbing, Susan
- Strawson, P. F.
- Structural Realism
- Suicide
- Supererogation
- Supervenience
- Tarski, Alfred
- Technology, Philosophy of
- Testimony, Epistemology of
- Theoretical Terms in Science
- Thomas Aquinas' Philosophy of Religion
- Thought Experiments
- Time and Tense
- Time Travel
- Toleration
- Torture
- Transcendental Arguments
- Tropes
- Trust
- Truth
- Truth and the Aim of Belief
- Truthmaking
- Turing Test
- Two-Dimensional Semantics
- Understanding
- Uniqueness and Permissiveness in Epistemology
- Utilitarianism
- Vagueness
- Value of Knowledge
- Vienna Circle
- Virtue Epistemology
- Virtue Ethics
- Virtues, Epistemic
- Virtues, Intellectual
- Voluntarism, Doxastic
- War
- Weakness of Will
- Weil, Simone
- Well-Being
- William of Ockham
- Williams, Bernard
- Wisdom
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig: Early Works
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig: Later Works
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig: Middle Works
- Wollstonecraft, Mary