knowledge is virtue essay

Virtue is Knowledge: The Moral Foundations of Socratic Political Philosophy

Justin zaremby , new york, new york. [email protected].

In Plato’s dialogues, Socrates and his interlocutors wrestle with the idea that virtue is knowledge. The claim is deeply compelling. If virtue is knowledge, virtue is teachable and vice is a form of ignorance. Moreover, if virtue is knowledge, then the court-sanctioned death of the thoughtful, knowledge-seeking Socrates condemns the Athenians as ignorant and immoral. The martyrdom of Socrates presents in a convenient and vivid way the idea that a man who knows that he is about to commit a wrong act would not commit that act. Socrates died because of his vision of a world in which knowledge compels a good man to act in good ways and where wrong is a corruption of an otherwise healthy soul. At the same time, however, the dialogues also suggest that virtue cannot be taught and that, in fact, vice results as much from out-of-control passions as from a lack of knowledge. The concept of virtue as knowledge is wrapped up in a series of paradoxes which continue to tantalize Plato scholars.

In Virtue is Knowledge: The Moral Foundations of Socratic Political Philosophy , Lorraine Smith Pangle explores Plato’s various formulations of the claim that virtue is knowledge. In the process, she offers close readings of the primary dialogues in which Plato presents the claim: Apology , Gorgias , Protagoras , Meno , and Laws . Pangle does not attempt to reconcile the tensions that her close readings reveal. Instead, her goal is to show how a careful examination of concepts of virtue and moral responsibility in the dialogues provides a vital starting point for understanding the Socratic method and Plato’s ideas, and that only by accepting the ambiguities involved in the text can the dialogues be properly understood. “Somehow,” she explains, “virtue is indeed all about grasping clearly what is good and why it is good, and somehow this grasp, when truly solid, is efficacious. Somehow the unjust soul truly is unhealthy in a way that no one could wish to be and that calls for more compassion than for vengeance. Grappling with the claim that virtue is knowledge, then, is a first step towards clarity, inasmuch as it reveals the diverse and contradictory opinions that we thoughtlessly hold” (2).

Pangle explains that Plato scholarship generally varies between accepting the ambiguities and paradoxes in Socrates’ words without trying to resolve them, and attempting to find coherence and thus trying to explain away ambiguity. The former approach presents a Socrates who is simply incoherent or naïve. The latter tends to oversimplify Plato’s arguments or explains away contradictions by dismissing certain arguments as representative of the “early” or “late” Plato. Pangle rightly seeks to avoid both extremes and instead relishes paradox. Instead of trying to dismiss contradiction, Pangle attempts to understand how contradiction helps reveal the difficulty inherent in Socratic thinking and drives forward the drama of the dialogues. Statements of moral philosophy in the dialogues, for Pangle, are not mere propositions. They instead gradually reveal distinct political personalities who explore complicated questions in the vivid settings of the dialogues. According to Pangle, Plato’s moral theory can only be discerned by understanding that “in writing each dialogue Plato was admirably attuned to the complex causes of human action and the power of irrational passions and that he brings these factors to life in the dramas before us” (4). Pangle’s goal is just as much to explore the process of Socratic thought as its content.

Although Pangle walks through a different dialogue in each chapter, she uses her introduction to summarize Plato’s various arguments for the claim that virtue is knowledge. Broadly speaking, she categorizes these arguments under two headings: arguments for the supreme goodness of virtue, and arguments for the power of knowledge. Under the first heading, Pangle suggests that virtue and knowledge are connected because both are fundamentally good. She then presents three variations on this theme: a utilitarian view under which virtue is productive of an individual’s happiness, a eudaemonist view under which virtue is choiceworthy because it is the fundamental basis of happiness, and a heroic view under which virtue may not always provide happiness but is inherently noble and choiceworthy. On all of these variations, a rational man would always choose virtuous action over vice. The second heading presents knowledge as a component part of virtue such that knowledge is necessary but not sufficient, sufficient but not necessary, or both necessary and sufficient to virtue. Ultimately, Pangle reads Plato as suggesting that virtue is equivalent to wisdom itself and forms a fundamental part of a person’s character. Pangle explores these variations throughout the book.

Pangle focuses her analysis on how and why Plato chooses to explore the claim that virtue is knowledge in a particular dialogue. It is difficult to summarize the content of her analysis, however, given that the book proceeds as a series of close readings. Indeed, each chapter of the book is best appreciated after rereading the relevant dialogue, with the characters and debates of that dialogue fresh in one’s mind. Approached this way, the book reads almost like a series of lectures filled with insights but without a central thesis that flows consistently from chapter to chapter.

In her analysis of Apology , she asks why Socrates chooses to explore the claim that virtue is knowledge as part of his defense against the charge of corrupting the youth. Plato uses the dialogue to introduce the argument that no rational individual would choose vice over virtue and to suggest that education, rather than punishment, is the appropriate response to wrong action. The dialogue is not coherent in terms of exploring these ideas but instead reveals a Socrates willing to offer a wide swath of arguments to tantalize (and potentially enrage) his audience. Pangle carefully presents Socrates’ claims in the context of the trial, focusing on Socrates’ seemingly deft, and occasionally inept, attempts at compelling rhetoric. The Socrates of Apology demonstrates a “radical if naïve high-mindedness” (31) which hints at the sort of questioning that Socrates expects of his interlocutors in other dialogues. Yet, while other dialogues reveal those interlocutors struggling with Socrates’ questions, for Pangle the Socrates of Apology fails to show any such struggle. Instead, he reveals without compunction “a fragmented view of himself” as a moral man who demonstrates the sort of moral contradictions found among the members of his audience (40). He provides a flawed example of introspection and merely suggests the relationship between virtue and knowledge without reconciling contradictions in his argument. Readers are left to other dialogues to see such contradictions worked out by Socrates’ interlocutors.

In her reading of Gorgias , Pangle focuses on the ways in which Socrates develops the central themes of Apology – the rationality of leading a virtuous life (specifically a just life) and the irrationality of retributive punishment. She navigates through Socrates’ discussions with Polus and Gorgias, suggesting that, while the text is useful for further exploring Socrates’ deft use of rhetoric, the dialogue ultimately lacks a strong enough interlocutor to fully engage with the search for virtue. Where Apology and Gorgias offer a series of contradictions, with little successful resolution, Meno and Protagoras “prove more interested in and thoughtful about the nature of true virtue” (80).

Pangle turns to the Meno and Protagoras to present a basic tension: while Meno indicates that virtue is not knowledge since virtue cannot be clearly taught, the dialogue also suggests that virtue must be knowledge in order for it to be coherent and not irrational. Pangle nicely reminds the readers that this dialogue does not merely focus on questions about the nature of knowledge, but also presents Socrates attacking the teachings of the city of Athens through his interrogation of Anytus, the son of a popular Athenian leader. Pangle presents Meno as having both political and philosophical implications. Virtue cannot simply be knowledge because it cannot simply be taught. Instead, virtue must overcome strong civic passions which “resist the truth when we begin to glimpse it, resist our following it when we think we have accepted it, and resist our sorting out the confusions and contradictions that keep us ambivalent and that our lapses ought to spur us to think through” (130). Socrates continues to reveal that tension in Protagoras , where, in the face of a stronger interlocutor than Meno, Socrates continues to explore the tensions between political virtue and ethical virtue and how to engage with both concepts. In the final chapter of her book, Pangle turns to a dialogue which lacks Socrates, the Laws , to continue to explore these concepts in a city made real in words. Her analysis reveals how the Athenian Stranger, who dominates the dialogue, demonstrates the necessity of virtue’s being both unified and coherent.

Pangle’s book has a number of attractive features. Read alongside the dialogues, it provides compelling analysis of the texts and a frank presentation of the paradoxes of Socratic questioning. She successfully demonstrates the joy of close reading, both through her careful study of rhetoric and through focusing on the political aspects of the dialogues. She is as concerned with the words of Socrates’ interlocutors and with the context in which the imagined dialogues take place as with the political motivations driving the denizens of Athens. Pangle never suggests an answer to the various paradoxes relating to virtue and knowledge, and because of that the book sometimes meanders. This is not to criticize her readings but only to suggest that readers looking for resolution will not find it here. Still, readers looking to revisit five key dialogues with careful reading will find Pangle’s book worth the effort.

Socrates’ Epistemology: Knowledge as Virtue

Table of Contents

Have you ever wondered what the ancient philosopher epistemology .">Socrates might have to say about our modern pursuit of knowledge? His ideas still resonate today, especially his unique perspective on epistemology – the study of knowledge itself. Socrates believed that understanding the world around us and our place within it is tied to an inner wisdom we can all access. Let’s explore the depths of Socrates’ epistemology and how it connects knowledge to the very essence of virtue .

The essence of Socrates’ epistemology

Socrates, unlike the sophists of his time, believed in the existence of absolute truth . He was convinced that through persistent questioning and logical reasoning , one could peel away the layers of ignorance and reach the core of knowledge. His method, known today as the critical thinking and illuminate ideas.">Socratic Method , involves a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presumptions.

Innate knowledge and the process of recollection

In Socrates’ view, every soul possesses knowledge from birth, and learning is merely a process of recollection. This idea is illustrated in Plato’s dialogue, the “ Meno ,” where Socrates demonstrates that a slave boy can solve geometric problems without having been taught. He does this by simply asking questions, leading the boy to recall knowledge that was already within him. This demonstrates Socrates’ belief in the pre-existence of the soul and its immortal nature.

Inductive reasoning and universal definitions

Socrates was a master of inductive reasoning . He often started discussions with specific observations and moved towards more general conclusions. His goal was to arrive at universal definitions, which are definitions that hold true in all cases. For example, instead of discussing what acts are considered brave, he would strive to define ‘bravery’ in its essence. This approach was revolutionary, as it sought to move beyond the relative and subjective, aiming for the objective and unchanging.

The role of virtue in knowledge

Virtue as a form of knowledge: Socrates famously stated that “virtue is knowledge.” He believed that if someone knows what is good, they will naturally do what is good. Therefore, for Socrates, ethical knowledge is not just theoretical but is closely linked to moral action. In this light, ignorance is the root of all evil – it’s not that people choose to do bad, they simply don’t truly understand what is good.

The pursuit of the good life : To Socrates, the highest aim of human life is to seek the good, which equates to seeking knowledge. This pursuit wasn’t just about accumulating information but about nurturing the soul. By striving for knowledge, one was also striving for a virtuous and meaningful life.

Practical applications of Socratic epistemology

Socratic epistemology isn’t just a historical curiosity; it’s a way of thinking that can be applied in our daily lives. In education, the Socratic Method encourages critical thinking and self-discovery. It’s also relevant in ethical decision-making, where it can help us question our assumptions and strive for a deeper understanding of our moral beliefs.

In the classroom and beyond

Education as the art of questioning: The Socratic Method remains a powerful educational tool. By encouraging students to ask questions and think critically, educators can help them tap into their innate knowledge and develop a deeper understanding of the subject matter.

Self-examination and personal growth : Socrates’ assertion that “an unexamined life is not worth living” challenges us to continuously reflect on our actions and beliefs. This introspection can lead to personal growth and a greater sense of purpose.

Socrates’ epistemology is a testament to the power of questioning and the belief in an accessible inner wisdom. His approach to knowledge as inherently tied to virtue offers a compelling perspective that goes beyond the mere accumulation of facts, suggesting a way of living that is as relevant now as it was over two millennia ago.

What do you think? How do you see the Socratic Method playing a role in today’s society? Can the pursuit of knowledge still lead us to a more virtuous life?

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Ancient & Medieval

1 Definition, Scope and Importance of Philosophy

• Definition of Philosophy
• Philosophy and Philosophizing
• Philosophy and Wisdom
• Scope of Philosophy
• Importance of Philosophy

2 Disciplines within Philosophy and their Complementarity

• Metaphysics or Philosophy of Being
• Epistemology or Philosophy of Knowledge
• Ethics or Moral Philosophy
• Philosophical Anthropology or Philosophy of Human
• Aesthetics or Philosophy of Art
• Philosophy of Religion
• Philosophy of Mind
• Philosophy of Science
• Complementarity

3 Methods in Philosophy

• Western Methods
• Indian Methods

4 Notional Clarifications

• Agnosticism
• A Priori and A Posteriori
• Deconstruction
• Existentialism
• Hermeneutics

5 Overview of Western Philosophies

• Ancient Western Philosophy
• Medieval Western Philosophy
• Modern Western Philosophy
• Contemporary Western Philosophy

6 Greek Philosophy (Ionian and Pythagorean Philosophers)

• Anaximander

7 Eleatic and Atomistic Philosophers

• Zeno of Elea
• Democritus & Leucippus

8 The Sophists

• The Lesser Sophists
• Socratic Problem
• Socratic Method
• Epistemology
• Socratic Ethics
• Socratic Schools
• Theory of Knowledge
• Philosophy of Human
• Philosophy of God
• Philosophy of Morals and Politics
• The Nature of Love
• Philosophy of Art

11 Aristotle

• Aristotle’s Philosophy: Logic
• Philosophy of the World
• First Philosophy
• Art and Literature

12 Hellenism

• Epicureanism

13 Neoplatonism

• The Life and Writings of Plotinus
• The Philosophy of Plotinus
• Neoplatonism after Plotinus

14 Early Medieval Philosophers

• Marcianus Aristides
• Flavius Justinus (Justin)
• Athenagoras
• Theophilus of Antioch
• Minucius Felix
• Clement of Alexandria
• End of the Early Medieval Philosophy

15 Augustine

• Portrait of the Philosopher
• Augustinian Conversion
• Augustine: A Personal Thinker
• Relation between Faith and Reason
• Philosophy of History
• Life and Works
• Faith and Reason
• Philosophy of Knowledge
• The Problem of Evil
• Moral Philosophy

17 Dun Scotus and William of Ockham

• John Duns Scotus
• William of Ockham

18 Jewish and Islamic Philosophers

• Individual Islamic Philosophers
• Jewish Philosophers

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Summary and Analysis of Meno by Plato

What Is Virtue and Can It Be Taught?

Stefano Bianchetti / Corbis Historical / Getty Images

• Major Philosophers
• Philosophical Theories & Ideas
• Ph.D., Philosophy, The University of Texas at Austin
• M.A., Philosophy, McGill University
• B.A., Philosophy, University of Sheffield

Although fairly short, Plato 's dialog Meno is generally regarded as one of his most important and influential works. In a few pages, it ranges over several fundamental philosophical questions , such as:

• What is virtue?
• Can it be taught or is it innate?
• Do we know some things a priori (independent of experience)?
• What is the difference between really knowing something and merely holding a correct belief about it?

The dialog also has some dramatic significance. We see Socrates reduce Meno, who begins by confidently assuming that he knows what virtue is, to a state of confusion–an unpleasant experience presumably common among those who engaged Socrates in debate. We also see Anytus, who will one day be one of the prosecutors responsible for Socrates' trial and execution, warn Socrates that he should be careful what he says, especially about his fellow Athenians.

The  Meno  can be divided into four main parts:

• The unsuccessful search for a definition of virtue
• Socrates' proof that some of our knowledge is innate
• A discussion of whether virtue can be taught
• A discussion of why there are no teachers of virtue

Part One: The Search for a Definition of Virtue

The dialog opens with Meno asking Socrates a seemingly straightforward question: Can virtue be taught? Socrates, typically for him, says he doesn't know since he doesn't know what virtue is, and he hasn't met anyone who does. Meno is astonished at this reply and accepts Socrates' invitation to define the term.

The Greek word usually translated as "virtue" is arete, although it might also be translated as "excellence." The concept is closely linked to the idea of something fulfilling its purpose or function. Thus, the arete of a sword would be those qualities that make it a good weapon, for instance: sharpness, strength, balance. The arete of a horse would be qualities such as speed, stamina, and obedience.

Meno's first definition : Virtue is relative to the sort of person in question. For example, the virtue of a woman is to be good at managing a household and to be submissive to her husband. The virtue of a soldier is to be skilled at fighting and brave in battle.

Socrates' response : Given the meaning of arete,  Meno's answer is quite understandable. But Socrates rejects it. He argues that when Meno points to several things as instances of virtue, there must be something they all have in common, which is why they are all called virtues. A good definition of a concept should identify this common core or essence.

Meno's second definition : Virtue is the ability to rule men. This may strike a modern reader as rather odd, but the thinking behind it is probably something like this: Virtue is what makes possible the fulfillment of one's purpose. For men, the ultimate purpose is happiness; happiness consists of lots of pleasure; pleasure is the satisfaction of desire; and the key to satisfying one's desires is to wield power—in other words, to rule over men. This sort of reasoning would have been associated with the sophists .

Socrates' response : The ability to rule men is only good if the rule is just. But justice is only one of the virtues. So Meno has defined the general concept of virtue by identifying it with one specific kind of virtue. Socrates then clarifies what he wants with an analogy. The concept of 'shape' can't be defined by describing squares, circles or triangles. 'Shape' is what all these figures share. A general definition would be something like this: shape is that which is bounded by color.

Meno's third definition : Virtue is the desire to have and the ability to acquire fine and beautiful things.

Socrates' response : Everyone desires what they think is good (an idea one encounters in many of Plato's dialogues). So if people differ in virtue, as they do, this must be because they differ in their ability to acquire the fine things they consider good. But acquiring these things–satisfying one's desires–can be done in a good way or a bad way. Meno concedes that this ability is only a virtue if it is exercised in a good way–in other words, virtuously. So once again, Meno has built into his definition the very notion he's trying to define.

Part Two: Is Some of Our Knowledge Innate?

Meno declares himself utterly confused: 

O Socrates, I used to be told, before I knew you, that you were always doubting yourself and making others doubt; and now you are casting your spells over me, and I am simply getting bewitched and enchanted, and am at my wits' end. And if I may venture to make a jest upon you, you seem to me both in your appearance and in your power over others to be very like the flat torpedo fish, who torpifies those who come near him and touch him, as you have now torpified me, I think. For my soul and my tongue are really torpid, and I do not know how to answer you.

Meno's description of how he feels gives us some idea of the effect Socrates must have had on many people. The Greek term for the situation he finds himself in is aporia , which is often translated as "impasse" but also denotes perplexity. He then presents Socrates with a famous paradox.

Meno's paradox : Either we know something or we don't. If we know it, we don't need to inquire any further. But if we don't know it if we can't inquire since we don't know what we're looking for and won't recognize it if we found it.

Socrates dismisses Meno's paradox as a "debater's trick," but he nevertheless responds to the challenge, and his response is both surprising and sophisticated. He appeals to the testimony of priests and priestesses who say that the soul is immortal, entering and leaving one body after another, that in the process it acquires a comprehensive knowledge of all there is to know, and that what we call " learning " is actually just a process of recollecting what we already know. This is a doctrine that Plato may have learned from the Pythagoreans .

The enslaved boy demonstration:  Meno asks Socrates if he can prove that "all learning is recollection." Socrates responds by calling over an enslaved boy , who he establishes has had no mathematical training, and setting him a geometry problem. Drawing a square in the dirt, Socrates asks the boy how to double the area of the square. The boy's first guess is that one should double the length of the square's sides. Socrates shows that this is incorrect. The boy tries again, this time suggesting that one increase the length of the sides by 50%. He is shown that this is also wrong. The boy then declares himself to be at a loss. Socrates points out that the boy's situation now is similar to that of Meno. They both believed they knew something; they now realize their belief was mistaken; but this new awareness of their own ignorance , this feeling of perplexity, is, in fact, an improvement.

Socrates then proceeds to guide the boy to the right answer: you double the area of a square by using its diagonal as the basis for the larger square. He claims at the end to have demonstrated that the boy in some sense already had this knowledge within himself: all that was needed was someone to stir it up and make recollection easier. 

Many readers will be skeptical of this claim. Socrates certainly seems to ask the boy leading questions. But many philosophers have found something impressive about the passage. Most don't consider it a proof of the theory of reincarnation, and even Socrates concedes that this theory is highly speculative. But many have seen it as a convincing proof that human beings have some a priori knowledge (information that is self-evident). The boy may not be able to reach the correct conclusion unaided, but he is able to recognize the truth of the conclusion and the validity of the steps that lead him to it. He isn't simply repeating something he has been taught.

Socrates doesn't insist that his claims about reincarnation are certain. But he does argue that the demonstration supports his fervent belief that we will live better lives if we believe that knowledge is worth pursuing as opposed to lazily assuming that there is no point in trying.

Part Three: Can Virtue Be Taught?

Meno asks Socrates to return to their original question: Can virtue be taught? Socrates reluctantly agrees and constructs the following argument:

• Virtue is something beneficial; it's a good thing to have
• All good things are only good if they are accompanied by knowledge or wisdom (for example, courage is good in a wise person, but in a fool, it is mere recklessness)
• Therefore virtue is a kind of knowledge
• Therefore virtue can be taught

The argument is not especially convincing. The fact that all good things, in order to be beneficial, must be accompanied by wisdom doesn't really show that this wisdom is the same thing as virtue. The idea that virtue is a kind of knowledge, however, does seem to have been a central tenet of Plato's moral philosophy. Ultimately, the knowledge in question is the knowledge of what truly is in one's best long-term interests. Anyone who knows this will be virtuous since they know that living a good life is the surest path to happiness. And anyone who fails to be virtuous reveals that they don't understand this. Hence the flip side of "virtue is knowledge" is "all wrongdoing is ignorance," a claim that Plato spells out and seeks to justify in dialogues such as the Gorgias.  

Part Four: Why Are There No Teachers of Virtue?

Meno is content to conclude that virtue can be taught, but Socrates, to Meno's surprise, turns on his own argument and starts criticizing it. His objection is simple. If virtue could be taught there would be teachers of virtue. But there aren't any. Therefore it can't be teachable after all.

There follows an exchange with Anytus, who has joined the conversation, that is charged with dramatic irony. In response to Socrates' wondering, rather tongue-in-cheek query whether sophists might not be teachers of virtue, Anytus contemptuously dismisses the sophists as people who, far from teaching virtue, corrupt those who listen to them. Asked who could teach virtue, Anytus suggests that "any Athenian gentleman" should be able to do this by passing on what they have learned from preceding generations. Socrates is unconvinced. He points out that great Athenians like Pericles, Themistocles, and Aristides were all good men, and they managed to teach their sons specific skills like horse riding, or music. But they didn't teach their sons to be as virtuous as themselves, which they surely would have done if they had been able to.

Anytus leaves, ominously warning Socrates that he is too ready to speak ill of people and that he should take care in expressing such views. After he leaves Socrates confronts the paradox that he now finds himself with: on the one hand, virtue is teachable since it is a kind of knowledge; on the other hand, there are no teachers of virtue. He resolves it by distinguishing between real knowledge and correct opinion. 

Most of the time in practical life, we get by perfectly well if we simply have correct beliefs about something. For example, if you want to grow tomatoes and you correctly believe that planting them on the south side of the garden will produce a good crop, then if you do this you'll get the outcome you're aiming at. But to really be able to teach someone how to grow tomatoes, you need more than a bit of practical experience and a few rules of thumb; you need a genuine knowledge of horticulture, which includes an understanding of soils, climate, hydration, germination, and so on. The good men who fail to teach their sons virtue are like practical gardeners without theoretical knowledge. They do well enough themselves most of the time, but their opinions are not always reliable, and they aren't equipped to teach others.

How do these good men acquire virtue? Socrates suggests it is a gift from the gods, similar to the gift of poetic inspiration enjoyed by those who are able to write poetry but are unable to explain how they do it.

The Significance of the  Meno

The  Meno  offers a fine illustration of Socrates' argumentative methods and his search for definitions of moral concepts. Like many of Plato's early dialogues, it ends rather inconclusively. Virtue hasn't been defined. It has been identified with a kind of knowledge or wisdom, but exactly what this knowledge consists in hasn't been specified. It seems it can be taught, at least in principle, but there are no teachers of virtue since no one has an adequate theoretical understanding of its essential nature. Socrates implicitly includes himself among those who cannot teach virtue since he candidly admits at the outset that he doesn't know how to define it. 

Framed by all this uncertainty, however, is the episode with the enslaved boy where Socrates asserts the doctrine of reincarnation and demonstrates the existence of innate knowledge. Here he seems more confident about the truth of his claims. It is likely that these ideas about reincarnation and inborn knowledge represent the views of Plato rather than Socrates. They figure again in other dialogues, notably the Phaedo . This passage is one of the most celebrated in the history of philosophy and is the starting point for many subsequent debates about the nature and the possibility of a priori knowledge.

An Ominous Subtext

While the content of Meno is a classic in its form and metaphysical function, it also has an underlying and ominous subtext. Plato wrote Meno about 385 BCE, placing the events about 402 BCE, when Socrates was 67 years old, and about three years before he was executed for corrupting Athenian youth. Meno was a young man who was described in historical records as treacherous, eager for wealth and supremely self-confident. In the dialogue, Meno believes he is virtuous because he has given several discourses about it in the past: and Socrates proves that he can't know whether he's virtuous or not because he doesn't know what virtue is.

Anytus was the main prosecutor in the court case that led to Socrates's death. In Meno , Anytus threatens Socrates, "I think that you are too ready to speak evil of men: and, if you will take my advice, I would recommend you to be careful." Anytus is missing the point, but nevertheless, Socrates is, in fact, shoving this particular Athenian youth off his self-confident pedestal, which would definitely be construed in Anytus's eyes as a corrupting influence.

Resources and Further Reading

• Bluck, R. S. " Plato's 'Meno' ." Phronesis 6.2 (1961): 94–101. Print.
• Hoerber, Robert G. " Plato's 'Meno'. " Phronesis 5.2 (1960): 78–102. Print.
• Klein, Jacob. "A Commentary on Plato's Meno." Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989.
• Kraut, Richard. " Plato ." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University 2017. Web.
• Plato. Meno . Translated by Benjamin Jowett, Dover, 2019.
• Silverman, Allan. " Plato's Middle Period Metaphysics and Epistemology ." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University 2014. Web.
• Tejera, V. " History and Rhetoric in Plato's 'Meno,' or on the Difficulties of Communicating Human Excellence ." Philosophy & Rhetoric 11.1 (1978): 19–42. Print.
• The Slave Boy Experiment in Plato's 'Meno'
• Understanding Socratic Ignorance
• Socratic Wisdom
• Analysis of Plato's 'Crito'
• An Introduction to Virtue Ethics
• Summary and Analysis of Plato's 'Euthyphro'
• What Does It Mean to Live the Good Life?
• 30 Quotes by Aristotle
• An Introduction to Plato and His Philosophical Ideas
• Plato's 'Apology'
• The 5 Great Schools of Ancient Greek Philosophy
• Plato and Aristotle on Women: Selected Quotes
• What Is the 'Ladder of Love' in Plato's 'Symposium'?
• Understand the Philosophical Theories of Nominalism and Realism
• The Allegory of the Cave From the Republic of Plato
• What Was Plato's Famous Academy?

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Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology

Robert C. Roberts and W. Jay Wood, Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology , Oxford University Press, 2007, 329pp., $74.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780199283675.

Reviewed by Jason Baehr, Loyola Marymount University

Intellectual Virtues is a major contribution to the literature in "character-based" virtue epistemology. [1] It is the first book-length monograph on the topic to appear since the publication of Linda Zagzebski's groundbreaking work Virtues of the Mind over a decade ago. And in some ways, it is even more innovative than Zagzebski's book. The focus of the latter is a virtue-based analysis of knowledge, which Zagzebski argues has the resources for overcoming the Gettier problem, rebutting the skeptic, reconciling internalism and externalism, and more. As such, it is largely an attempt to engage and "solve" the problems of traditional or mainstream epistemology by appeal to the concept of intellectual virtue. Roberts and Wood have no such interest. While mainstream analytic epistemology is their starting point, and while its concepts and key players loom in the background throughout the book, they are interested in understanding the intellectual virtues and their role in the intellectual life considered in their own right -- independent of whatever bearing reflection on these traits may (or may not) have on more traditional epistemological pursuits. Thus their book departs even further than Zagzebski's from the status quo in epistemology.

Another important and highly distinctive feature of the book is alluded to in the subtitle. Drawing on some of Nicholas Wolterstorff's work (1996) on John Locke's epistemology, Roberts and Wood describe their methodology in the book as "regulative epistemology." They contrast this approach with "analytic epistemology," which "aims to produce theories of knowledge, rationality, warrant, justification, and so forth, and proceeds by attempting to define these terms" (20). Analytic epistemology, they say, is occupied with "concept regimentation" executed in a "monistic, reductive, hierarchical, or derivational style" (23). They argue that this method has generated numerous intractable debates and spawned theories that are "confusing and pedantic" (26). Regulative epistemology, by contrast, the ostensible forebears of which include Descartes and Locke, "tries to generate guidance for epistemic practice." It is "a response to perceived [perennial] deficiencies in people's conduct, and thus is strongly practical and social, rather than just an interesting challenge for philosophy professors and smart students. This kind of epistemology aims to change the (social) world" (21). A distinctive epistemological method indeed!

The primary medium of the sort of regulative epistemology that interests the authors is descriptive characterizations of "the habits of mind of the epistemically rational person" (22). [2] Accordingly, seven of the book's twelve chapters (Chs. 6-12) are comprised of detailed analyses of individual virtues (e.g. love of knowledge, firmness, humility, autonomy, etc.). But these chapters do not aim at specifying necessary and sufficient conditions for the traits in question. Nor are they driven primarily by any paradoxes or other logical problems that arise with attempts to understand these traits. Instead they aim at conceptual illumination and clarification; and they tend to highlight the richer, more concrete, and sometimes incidental features of excellent intellectual character. Roberts and Wood liken their approach to that of a cartographer:

Maps are pictures that are typically meant as guides to something or other. The present book means to represent the intellectual life in some of its conceptual messiness, and by virtue of this "realism" to function as a guide. We are particularly attentive to the character traits of the excellent epistemic agent. Our 'map' is pitched in that special way, and it is toward the virtues that it is especially designed to guide … Just as the cartographer can draw a map that highlights the railway system of a country, so in this book we want to map the intellectual virtues, without any pretension that they are the key or the foundation or the wellspring of everything intellectual. (27)

This approach may seem likely to strike many analytic epistemologists as off-putting or misguided, given their penchant for puzzles and paradoxes, conceptual derivations, formalized definitions, necessary and sufficient conditions, counterexamples, and the like. But two points are worth noting in response. First, the authors' "messier" and more particularistic characterizations seem entirely appropriate given their regulative aim. Attempts to formulate necessary and sufficient conditions for a philosophical concept can quickly become mired in technicalities and qualifications necessary for dealing with outlying cases, proposed counterexamples, and so forth (contemporary theories of epistemic justification are a case in point). Such formulations, while perhaps managing to capture the logical "essence" of the analysandum, often obfuscate some of its more familiar and concrete features -- including, perhaps, some of the features that might lead one to be interested in offering an analysis of the concept in the first place. As a result, these formulations are unlikely to function as a very good practical guide to the corresponding domain of cognitive excellence. (It does not follow, however, that the "formal definition" approach is philosophically problematic or defective -- see below.) Second, while the authors distinguish their approach from an "analytic" one, it is still analytic in a broad sense; and indeed, the book is likely to be of considerable interest to any analytic philosopher interested in better understanding the intellectual virtues and their role in a good intellectual life. The authors engage and draw a good deal from the epistemological and ethical literature in the analytic tradition. And the book contains many "conceptual proposals -- proposals about how epistemic and epistemic-moral concepts are related to one another, how virtues interact with and depend on one another, the varieties of intellectual goods and how they are connected with one another and with various virtues, the relations that virtues bear to human faculties and various epistemic practices" (26). Finally, the authors' profiles of individual virtues "constitute something like 'definitions'; at any rate, we aim, by way of our discussions, to make the concepts more definite in our minds" (ibid.). So for all that is distinctive about the book vis-à-vis analytic epistemology, it is still of a piece with this tradition.

The book is divided into two parts and twelve chapters. Part I (Chs. 1-5) situates the authors' subject matter within the landscape of contemporary epistemology (Ch. 1) and introduces several concepts crucial to the discussion in subsequent chapters. Chapter 2 enumerates various epistemic "goods" and the relations among them. Special attention is given to the goods of justification or "warrant," understanding, and acquaintance. Chapter 3 offers a rough sketch of what, in general, counts as an intellectual virtue. It focuses especially on the volitional and motivational elements of intellectual virtue. Chapter 4 examines the nature of cognitive faculties (e.g. vision, memory, introspection) and how excellences of intellectual character contribute to the proper functioning of these faculties. Drawing on some well-known work of Alasdair MacIntyre (1981), Chapter 5 introduces the notion of "intellectual practices" (e.g. observation, hypothesis testing, critical discussion, teaching, and reading) and of goods "internal" and "external" to such practices.

While largely aimed at setting up the discussion in Part II of the book, these chapters contain much that is interesting in its own right. Some highlights include: a discussion of the nature of understanding and its relation to propositional knowledge (42-50); an argument against a certain motivational requirement for intellectual virtue (71-80); and some very lively and engaging examples of how the intellectual virtues contribute to cognitive success (see, e.g., the extended discussion of Jane Goodall on pp. 143-48).

Roberts and Wood describe Part II (Chs. 6-12) of the book as "the heart of [their] study" (28). It consists of detailed analyses of the following traits: love of knowledge (Ch. 6); firmness (Ch. 7); courage and caution (Ch. 8); humility (Ch. 9); autonomy (Ch. 10); generosity (Ch. 11); and practical wisdom (Ch. 12). (As the names here suggest, the authors eschew a principled distinction between intellectual and moral virtues [60]. They prefer to talk instead of, say, generosity or humility per se . Their focus is the "intellectual virtues" in the sense that they are concerned with the ways in which the traits in question bear upon the acquisition and transmission of epistemic goods.)

The discussion in these chapters bears a close similarity to Aristotle's discussion of various moral virtues in Books III and IV of the Nicomachean Ethics . For each of the traits in question, the authors address the following sorts of questions: What are some of the distinguishing psychological ingredients of this virtue? What is it to manifest these ingredients in the right way, right amount, right time, and so forth? How is this virtue distinct from other, closely related virtues? Which intellectual vices correspond to this virtue? And how do they correspond? What are some of the systematic ways in which this virtue contributes to cognitive flourishing? Which epistemic goods does it deliver and how does it do so? Like Aristotle's treatment of moral virtues, the discussion in these chapters is engaging and intellectually satisfying. The chapters contain many subtle insights, illuminating reflections, and rich illustrations. Especially penetrating are the authors' intermittent discussions of the ways in which intellectual virtues and vices (perhaps especially the vices ) pervade and shape life in the academy (see, e.g., the discussion of intellectual cowardice in academic departments on pp. 222-23). Other highlights include a discussion of various dimensions of epistemic value (155-64) and a rare account of practical wisdom and how it contributes to intellectual flourishing (Ch. 12). While at times the reader may find herself wishing that the authors would "go deeper" with respect to a particular issue or point, these chapters by and large have their intended effect: they serve to "build up" (30) or edify the reader by inspiring an interest in and admiration for the virtues in question.

In the space that remains, I will draw attention to three additional parts of the book, both with an eye to conveying more about its content and to offering some criticisms. My first point concerns one of the ways the authors attempt to motivate their preferred approach to epistemology. As indicated above, this strategy involves raising objections to more mainstream approaches. One such objection is that the standard epistemological concept of knowledge is an "abstraction" from knowledge itself (42; 55). It is not easy to pinpoint the complaint here; however, it seems to be that the pursuit of a formal definition of knowledge -- i.e. a specification of its necessary and sufficient conditions -- breeds narrow, abstract, and technical characterizations of the target concept. These characterizations, the objection goes, neglect various significant features or aspects of knowledge, and in doing so fail to reflect its richness.

As indicated earlier, I think Roberts and Wood are largely right about this. Thus I regard their more material and particularistic characterization of knowledge (Ch. 2) as a welcome addition to the literature. However, it is not clear why their argument really counts against the more standard approach to analyzing knowledge. Indeed, the authors appear to neglect a compelling and venerable motivation for this approach, treating it instead as a kind of aberration of late 20th century epistemology. Presumably what drives the attempt to specify the necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge is a desire to get clear about the fundamental nature or essence of knowledge -- to specify what all instances of knowledge have in common that make them instances of knowledge. Surely this is a respectable intellectual motivation. It is, at any rate, an obviously and deeply Socratic one. Such analyses may tend toward abstraction and technicality, but to the extent that they are successful (and "success" here need not be understood in an all-or-nothing way), the payoff is significant. Moreover, their abstract character is (at least to some extent) to be expected: they are, after all, formal analyses, aimed at capturing in a precise way the very essence of knowledge. As this concern suggests, I am not inclined to think that Roberts and Wood score too many points against mainstream approaches to epistemology. I think a more plausible motivation for their view is simply its own internal theoretical richness and fecundity. [3]

A second worry concerns the authors' treatment of a "love of knowledge" as a discrete intellectual virtue. The authors' position here, as well as its implications for an account of the structure of an intellectual virtue, strikes me as awkward and problematic. On a more standard view (Zagzebski 1996; Montmarquet 2000), something like a love of truth or knowledge is a component of an intellectual virtue -- not a virtue unto itself. Incidentally, Roberts and Wood say a considerable amount that favors this alternative model and at times even seem to embrace it. For instance, they regularly point out that a given trait of character counts as an intellectual virtue only where it is supported by a love of knowledge (219; 239-41; 250; 265; 284). And they describe a love of knowledge as standing in an "encompassing and fundamental relation to the other virtues" (284) and as a "presupposition or necessary background of all the other virtues" (305). But given this systematic and fundamental supporting relation between a love of knowledge and other intellectual virtues, why not think of the former an element of any intellectual virtue, rather than as a separate or discrete virtue? This suggestion is reinforced by the fact that the intentional object of a love of knowledge stands in something like a means-end relation to the (immediate) intentional objects of other virtues. The immediate aim of intellectual courage, for instance, is to persist in a belief or intellectual pursuit despite a perceived threat to one's well-being; and the immediate focus of intellectual generosity is the liberal giving of one's cognitive resources. But intuitively, an intellectually virtuous person persists in the face of a perceived threat or gives of her cognitive resources out of a love of knowledge or some related epistemic good; she pursues these immediate ends as a way of achieving such goods (goods which, as illustrated by the case of generosity, need not be "her own"). This is suggestive of a more standard two-tier analysis of the structure of an intellectual virtue endorsed by Zagzebski (1996) and others, according to which an intellectual virtue is (in part) a disposition to pursue certain immediate intellectual ends or goals for the sake of ends like truth, knowledge, or understanding. But again, on this model, a love of knowledge is part of any intellectual virtue; it is not a virtue in its own right. While the question of whether to understand a love of knowledge as a discrete virtue or as an element of any intellectual virtue may, at first glance, seem relatively insignificant, at stake is an understanding of the fundamental structure of an intellectual virtue.

A third concern has to do with the authors' claim that intellectual virtues are "indexed to world views" (318) or to moral or metaphysical "outlooks" (180). Call this the "relativity thesis," since the idea is that intellectual virtues are in some sense relative to moral and metaphysical traditions. On a weak reading of this thesis, the claim is simply that which traits are regarded as intellectual virtues can vary from one tradition to the next. This is uncontroversial. It is a function of the fact that beliefs about which traits are intellectual virtues depend in part upon prior beliefs about what is ultimately good or real. The authors point out, for instance, that a virtuous love of truth is not an indiscriminate love of any and every truth, but rather a love of "important" or "worthy" truths (157-60). But what counts as a worthy or important truth -- or what is thought to be true or views about the nature of truth itself -- is likely to vary from one metaphysical or moral tradition to another: "Truths that are of overriding importance for the Stoic may not even be truths in the Marxist's opinion; nor will the theist's most important, and thus organizing, truths be of much interest to Bertrand Russell" (180). The authors' own work is a good illustration of this point: their commitment to Christian theism shapes and informs their views about intellectual virtue throughout the book (see, e.g., their treatment of intellectual generosity on pp. 288-92 and intellectual humility on pp. 243-50).

But a stronger and more controversial interpretation of the relativity thesis is possible. And at times, Roberts and Wood seem tempted by it. This is the view that what counts as an intellectual virtue is tradition-relative, such that if (say) a given trait is regarded as an intellectual virtue within a certain tradition, then it is an intellectual virtue (at least for members of that tradition). The authors' (albeit limited) sympathy for this view is evident in their treatment of practical wisdom. They claim that in its application to the intellectual life, practical wisdom is "oriented on action and presupposes a love for genuine intellectual goods." They add that what counts as "genuine" here must be "relativized to outlook" and that "[w]ithin limits, [they] want to be able to attribute intellectual virtue to a person with a systematically distorted conception of the intellectual goods" (307; emphasis added). Implicit in this claim is the idea that a trait's status as a virtue might (largely) be a function of what the subscribers of a given tradition believe about the "intellectual goods" -- not the nature of the goods themselves or the truth of any beliefs about them. To use one of the authors' examples, it suggests that religious faith might be an intellectual virtue for the theists but not for thoroughgoing naturalists. This is markedly different from saying that theists, because of their metaphysical commitments, regard faith as a virtue while naturalists do not.

This stronger version of the relativity thesis is the equivalent of a kind of cultural relativism about morality. And like the latter, it has some pretty unpalatable consequences. Suppose, for instance, that one's metaphysical outlook were such that only trivial truths (or worse, only "immoral" truths or truths about especially wicked or heinous states of affairs) are worth knowing. Would we really want to describe a love of such knowledge as intellectually virtuous? Or suppose that one's view of truth or knowledge is such that one believes that things like crystal balls and tarot cards provide the most reliable access to it. Would we want to think of a disposition to seek the truth via these means as a genuine intellectual virtue? Presumably not.

In fairness to the authors, they do seem mainly to favor the weaker reading of the relativity thesis; and when they express sympathy for the stronger reading, they do so with some reservation (note the "within limits" qualification above). Nonetheless, it is unclear whether their view of intellectual virtue has the resources to support a qualified or "limited" acceptance of the stronger reading. It would have the resources if it included a certain "rationality constraint" on intellectual virtue (see Baehr 2007). In general terms, this is the view that a person's disposition to pursue a particular epistemic end E via a certain means or activity A is an intellectual virtue only if this person has good reason to believe that E is epistemically valuable and that A is a reliable means to E . By accepting this constraint, Roberts and Wood could handle the sorts of cases just noted, since presumably the person who pursues the truth via her crystal ball does not have good reason to think that this will get her to the truth, and since the person motivated by a love of trivial or immoral knowledge presumably does not have good reason to think that such knowledge really is worth pursuing. I suspect, however, that given their resistance to a "one-size-fits-all" analysis of the structure of intellectual virtue (79), the authors would resist this proposal, for doing so would require thinking of the relevant kind of rationality as a necessary feature of intellectual virtue. But without recourse to something like this requirement, it is unclear how they can avoid the slide into a radical relativism about intellectual virtue.  

The foregoing are relatively minor worries. Intellectual Virtues is undoubtedly a very rich, novel, and important contribution to the literature in character-based virtue epistemology; it is, in fact, the most important contribution in the last decade. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in virtue epistemology and it is sure to enjoy this status for many years to come.

Baehr, Jason. 2007. "On the Reliability of Moral and Intellectual Virtues," Metaphilosophy 38, pp. 457-71.

-----. 2006. "Character, Reliability, and Virtue Epistemology," The Philosophical Quarterly 56, pp. 193-212.

MacIntyre, Alisdair. 1981. After Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame UP).

Montmarquet, James. 2000. "An 'Internalist' Conception of Intellectual Virtue," in Knowledge, Belief, and Character , ed. Guy Axtell (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield), pp. 135-48.

Wolterstorff, Nicholas. 1996. John Locke and the Ethics of Belief (Cambridge: Cambridge UP).

Zagzebski, Linda. 1996. Virtues of the Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge UP).

[1] A "character-based" or "responsibilist" approach to virtue epistemology differs from that of a "faculty-based" or "reliabilist" approach. The central difference is that the former thinks of intellectual virtues as character traits like fair-mindedness and intellectual courage, while the latter conceives of intellectual virtues as reliable cognitive faculties like vision, memory, and introspection. See Baehr 2006 for a further account of the distinction.

[2] With Wolterstorff, the authors distinguish between "rule-oriented" (e.g. Descartes) and "habit-oriented" (e.g. Locke) varieties of regulative epistemology. Their concern is with the latter.  

[3] The foregoing is not the only argument Roberts and Wood offer against the traditional approach. They also point to (a) the apparent intractability of the Gettier problem (9-20) and (b) the plurality of epistemic desiderata (35-42) as spelling trouble for the traditional project of defining knowledge. But these considerations, even if taken as fact, arguably do little to undermine the real thrust of traditional epistemology. For even if (in light of the intractability of Gettier considerations, say) epistemologists were to give up trying to specify necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge, other epistemic desiderata remain that are amenable to the traditional methodology and questions. This includes, but is not limited to, the concept of good epistemic reasons or evidence . This notion is not susceptible to Gettier worries; yet questions about the nature, sources, and limits of good reasons or evidence are easy to motivate.

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7 Aristotle on Knowing One’s Own Character: Why Self-Knowledge Matters for Virtue

• Published: March 2020
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The chapter addresses the question of the relationship between self-knowledge and virtue. It extracts an account of self-knowledge from Aristotle’s remarks about magnanimity and truthfulness in the Nicomachean Ethics , and explains how magnanimity in the form of self-knowledge acts as an ‘adornment of virtue’ by reinforcing our inclination to choose virtuous acts for their own sakes. Self-knowledge, it turns out, is confined to the virtuous: only the virtuous person knows her own decision for action, while the akratic becomes temporarily ignorant of her decision, in failing to attend to it and its affirming function. The vicious person, meanwhile, does not perceive or know the true quality of her actions or motives, being in error about their value. This chapter defends an account of Aristotelian self-knowledge as necessarily encompassing practical nous rather than simply theoretical nous.

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The Analysis of Knowledge

For any person, there are some things they know, and some things they don’t. What exactly is the difference? What does it take to know something? It’s not enough just to believe it—we don’t know the things we’re wrong about. Knowledge seems to be more like a way of getting at the truth. The analysis of knowledge concerns the attempt to articulate in what exactly this kind of “getting at the truth” consists.

More particularly, the project of analysing knowledge is to state conditions that are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for propositional knowledge, thoroughly answering the question, what does it take to know something? By “propositional knowledge”, we mean knowledge of a proposition—for example, if Susan knows that Alyssa is a musician, she has knowledge of the proposition that Alyssa is a musician. Propositional knowledge should be distinguished from knowledge of “acquaintance”, as obtains when Susan knows Alyssa. The relation between propositional knowledge and the knowledge at issue in other “knowledge” locutions in English, such as knowledge-where (“Susan knows where she is”) and especially knowledge-how (“Susan knows how to ride a bicycle”) is subject to some debate (see Stanley 2011 and his opponents discussed therein).

The propositional knowledge that is the analysandum of the analysis of knowledge literature is paradigmatically expressed in English by sentences of the form “ S knows that p ”, where “ S ” refers to the knowing subject, and “ p ” to the proposition that is known. A proposed analysis consists of a statement of the following form: S knows that p if and only if j , where j indicates the analysans: paradigmatically, a list of conditions that are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for S to have knowledge that p .

It is not enough merely to pick out the actual extension of knowledge. Even if, in actual fact, all cases of S knowing that p are cases of j , and all cases of the latter are cases of the former, j might fail as an analysis of knowledge. For example, it might be that there are possible cases of knowledge without j , or vice versa. A proper analysis of knowledge should at least be a necessary truth. Consequently, hypothetical thought experiments provide appropriate test cases for various analyses, as we shall see below.

Even a necessary biconditional linking knowledge to some state j would probably not be sufficient for an analysis of knowledge, although just what more is required is a matter of some controversy. According to some theorists, to analyze knowledge is literally to identify the components that make up knowledge—compare a chemist who analyzes a sample to learn its chemical composition. On this interpretation of the project of analyzing knowledge, the defender of a successful analysis of knowledge will be committed to something like the metaphysical claim that what it is for S to know p is for some list of conditions involving S and p to obtain. Other theorists think of the analysis of knowledge as distinctively conceptual —to analyse knowledge is to limn the structure of the concept of knowledge. On one version of this approach, the concept knowledge is literally composed of more basic concepts, linked together by something like Boolean operators. Consequently, an analysis is subject not only to extensional accuracy, but to facts about the cognitive representation of knowledge and other epistemic notions. In practice, many epistemologists engaging in the project of analyzing knowledge leave these metaphilosophical interpretive questions unresolved; attempted analyses, and counterexamples thereto, are often proposed without its being made explicit whether the claims are intended as metaphysical or conceptual ones. In many cases, this lack of specificity may be legitimate, since all parties tend to agree that an analysis of knowledge ought at least to be extensionally correct in all metaphysically possible worlds. As we shall see, many theories have been defended and, especially, refuted, on those terms.

The attempt to analyze knowledge has received a considerable amount of attention from epistemologists, particularly in the late 20 th Century, but no analysis has been widely accepted. Some contemporary epistemologists reject the assumption that knowledge is susceptible to analysis.

1.1 The Truth Condition

1.2 the belief condition, 1.3 the justification condition, 2. lightweight knowledge, 3. the gettier problem, 4. no false lemmas, 5.1 sensitivity, 5.3 relevant alternatives, 6.1 reliabilist theories of knowledge, 6.2 causal theories of knowledge, 7. is knowledge analyzable, 8. epistemic luck, 9. methodological options, 10.1 the “aaa” evaluations, 10.2 fake barn cases, 11. knowledge first, 12. pragmatic encroachment, 13. contextualism, other internet resources, related entries, 1. knowledge as justified true belief.

There are three components to the traditional (“tripartite”) analysis of knowledge. According to this analysis, justified, true belief is necessary and sufficient for knowledge.

• S believes that p ;
• S is justified in believing that p .

The tripartite analysis of knowledge is often abbreviated as the “JTB” analysis, for “justified true belief”.

Much of the twentieth-century literature on the analysis of knowledge took the JTB analysis as its starting-point. It became something of a convenient fiction to suppose that this analysis was widely accepted throughout much of the history of philosophy. In fact, however, the JTB analysis was first articulated in the twentieth century by its attackers. [ 1 ] Before turning to influential twentieth-century arguments against the JTB theory, let us briefly consider the three traditional components of knowledge in turn.

Most epistemologists have found it overwhelmingly plausible that what is false cannot be known. For example, Hillary Clinton did not win the 2016 US Presidential election. Consequently, nobody knows that Hillary Clinton won the election. One can only know things that are true.

Sometimes when people are very confident of something that turns out to be wrong, we use the word “knows” to describe their situation. Many people expected Clinton to win the election. Speaking loosely, one might even say that many people “knew” that Clinton would win the election—until she lost. Hazlett (2010) argues on the basis of data like this that “knows” is not a factive verb. [ 2 ] Hazlett’s diagnosis is deeply controversial; most epistemologists will treat sentences like “I knew that Clinton was going to win” as a kind of exaggeration—as not literally true.

Something’s truth does not require that anyone can know or prove that it is true. Not all truths are established truths. If you flip a coin and never check how it landed, it may be true that it landed heads, even if nobody has any way to tell. Truth is a metaphysical , as opposed to epistemological , notion: truth is a matter of how things are , not how they can be shown to be. So when we say that only true things can be known, we’re not (yet) saying anything about how anyone can access the truth. As we’ll see, the other conditions have important roles to play here. Knowledge is a kind of relationship with the truth—to know something is to have a certain kind of access to a fact. [ 3 ]

The belief condition is only slightly more controversial than the truth condition. The general idea behind the belief condition is that you can only know what you believe. Failing to believe something precludes knowing it. “Belief” in the context of the JTB theory means full belief, or outright belief. In a weak sense, one might “believe” something by virtue of being pretty confident that it’s probably true—in this weak sense, someone who considered Clinton the favourite to win the election, even while recognizing a nontrivial possibility of her losing, might be said to have “believed” that Clinton would win. Outright belief is stronger (see, e.g., Fantl & McGrath 2009: 141; Nagel 2010: 413–4; Williamson 2005: 108; or Gibbons 2013: 201.). To believe outright that p , it isn’t enough to have a pretty high confidence in p ; it is something closer to a commitment or a being sure. [ 4 ]

Although initially it might seem obvious that knowing that p requires believing that p , a few philosophers have argued that knowledge without belief is indeed possible. Suppose Walter comes home after work to find out that his house has burned down. He says: “I don’t believe it”. Critics of the belief condition might argue that Walter knows that his house has burned down (he sees that it has), but, as his words indicate, he does not believe it. The standard response is that Walter’s avowal of disbelief is not literally true; what Walter wishes to convey by saying “I don’t believe it” is not that he really does not believe that his house has burned down, but rather that he finds it hard to come to terms with what he sees. If he genuinely didn’t believe it, some of his subsequent actions, such as phoning his insurance company, would be rather mysterious.

A more serious counterexample has been suggested by Colin Radford (1966). Suppose Albert is quizzed on English history. One of the questions is: “When did Queen Elizabeth die?” Albert doesn’t think he knows, but answers the question correctly. Moreover, he gives correct answers to many other questions to which he didn’t think he knew the answer. Let us focus on Albert’s answer to the question about Elizabeth:

• (E) Elizabeth died in 1603.

Radford makes the following two claims about this example:

• Albert does not believe (E).
• Albert knows (E).

Radford’s intuitions about cases like these do not seem to be idiosyncratic; Myers-Schutz & Schwitzgebel (2013) find evidence suggesting that many ordinary speakers tend to react in the way Radford suggests. In support of (a), Radford emphasizes that Albert thinks he doesn’t know the answer to the question. He doesn’t trust his answer because he takes it to be a mere guess. In support of (b), Radford argues that Albert’s answer is not at all just a lucky guess. The fact that he answers most of the questions correctly indicates that he has actually learned, and never forgotten, such historical facts.

Since he takes (a) and (b) to be true, Radford holds that belief is not necessary for knowledge. But either of (a) and (b) might be resisted. One might deny (a), arguing that Albert does have a tacit belief that (E), even though it’s not one that he thinks amounts to knowledge. David Rose and Jonathan Schaffer (2013) take this route. Alternatively, one might deny (b), arguing that Albert’s correct answer is not an expression of knowledge, perhaps because, given his subjective position, he does not have justification for believing (E). The justification condition is the topic of the next section.

Why is condition (iii) necessary? Why not say that knowledge is true belief? The standard answer is that to identify knowledge with true belief would be implausible because a belief might be true even though it is formed improperly. Suppose that William flips a coin, and confidently believes—on no particular basis—that it will land tails. If by chance the coin does land tails, then William’s belief was true; but a lucky guess such as this one is no knowledge. For William to know, his belief must in some epistemic sense be proper or appropriate: it must be justified . [ 5 ]

Socrates articulates the need for something like a justification condition in Plato’s Theaetetus , when he points out that “true opinion” is in general insufficient for knowledge. For example, if a lawyer employs sophistry to induce a jury into a belief that happens to be true, this belief is insufficiently well-grounded to constitute knowledge.

1.3.1 Approaches to Justification

There is considerable disagreement among epistemologists concerning what the relevant sort of justification here consists in. Internalists about justification think that whether a belief is justified depends wholly on states in some sense internal to the subject. According to one common such sense of “internal”, only those features of a subject’s experience which are directly or introspectively available count as “internal”—call this “access internalism”. According to another, only intrinsic states of the subject are “internal”—call this “state internalism”. See Feldman & Conee 2001 for the distinction.

Conee and Feldman present an example of an internalist view. They have it that S ’s belief that p is justified if and only if believing that p is the attitude towards p that best fits S ’s evidence, where the latter is understood to depend only on S ’s internal mental states. Conee and Feldman call their view “evidentialism”, and characterize this as the thesis that justification is wholly a matter of the subject’s evidence. Given their (not unsubstantial) assumption that what evidence a subject has is an internal matter, evidentialism implies internalism. [ 6 ] Externalists about justification think that factors external to the subject can be relevant for justification; for example, process reliabilists think that justified beliefs are those which are formed by a cognitive process which tends to produce a high proportion of true beliefs relative to false ones. [ 7 ] We shall return to the question of how reliabilist approaches bear on the analysis of knowledge in §6.1 .

1.3.2 Kinds of Justification

It is worth noting that one might distinguish between two importantly different notions of justification, standardly referred to as “propositional justification” and “doxastic justification”. (Sometimes “ ex ante ” justification and “ ex post ” justification, respectively.) [ 8 ] Unlike that between internalist and externalist approaches to justification, the distinction between propositional and doxastic justification does not represent a conflict to be resolved; it is a distinction between two distinct properties that are called “justification”. Propositional justification concerns whether a subject has sufficient reason to believe a given proposition; [ 9 ] doxastic justification concerns whether a given belief is held appropriately. [ 10 ] One common way of relating the two is to suggest that propositional justification is the more fundamental, and that doxastic justification is a matter of a subject’s having a belief that is appropriately responsive to or based on their propositional justification.

The precise relation between propositional and doxastic justification is subject to controversy, but it is uncontroversial that the two notions can come apart. Suppose that Ingrid ignores a great deal of excellent evidence indicating that a given neighborhood is dangerous, but superstitiously comes to believe that the neighborhood is dangerous when she sees a black cat crossing the street. Since forming beliefs on the basis of superstition is not an epistemically appropriate way of forming beliefs, Ingrid’s belief is not doxastically justified; nevertheless, she does have good reason to believe as she does, so she does have propositional justification for the proposition that the neighborhood is dangerous.

Since knowledge is a particularly successful kind of belief, doxastic justification is a stronger candidate for being closely related to knowledge; the JTB theory is typically thought to invoke doxastic justification (but see Lowy 1978).

Some epistemologists have suggested that there may be multiple senses of the term “knowledge”, and that not all of them require all three elements of the tripartite theory of knowledge. For example, some have argued that there is, in addition to the sense of “knowledge” gestured at above, another, weak sense of “knowledge”, that requires only true belief (see for example Hawthorne 2002 and Goldman & Olsson 2009; the latter contains additional relevant references). This view is sometimes motivated by the thought that, when we consider whether someone knows that p , or wonder which of a group of people know that p , often, we are not at all interested in whether the relevant subjects have beliefs that are justified; we just want to know whether they have the true belief. For example, as Hawthorne (2002: 253–54) points out, one might ask how many students know that Vienna is the capital of Austria; the correct answer, one might think, just is the number of students who offer “Vienna” as the answer to the corresponding question, irrespective of whether their beliefs are justified. Similarly, if you are planning a surprise party for Eugene and ask whether he knows about it, “yes” may be an appropriate answer merely on the grounds that Eugene believes that you are planning a party.

One could allow that there is a lightweight sense of knowledge that requires only true belief; another option is to decline to accept the intuitive sentences as true at face value. A theorist might, for instance, deny that sentences like “Eugene knows that you are planning a party”, or “eighteen students know that Vienna is the capital of Austria” are literally true in the envisaged situations, explaining away their apparent felicity as loose talk or hyperbole.

Even among those epistemologists who think that there is a lightweight sense of “knows” that does not require justification, most typically admit that there is also a stronger sense which does, and that it is this stronger state that is the main target of epistemological theorizing about knowledge. In what follows, we will set aside the lightweight sense, if indeed there be one, and focus on the stronger one.

Few contemporary epistemologists accept the adequacy of the JTB analysis. Although most agree that each element of the tripartite theory is necessary for knowledge, they do not seem collectively to be sufficient . There seem to be cases of justified true belief that still fall short of knowledge. Here is one kind of example:

Imagine that we are seeking water on a hot day. We suddenly see water, or so we think. In fact, we are not seeing water but a mirage, but when we reach the spot, we are lucky and find water right there under a rock. Can we say that we had genuine knowledge of water? The answer seems to be negative, for we were just lucky. (quoted from Dreyfus 1997: 292)

This example comes from the Indian philosopher Dharmottara, c. 770 CE. The 14 th -century Italian philosopher Peter of Mantua presented a similar case:

Let it be assumed that Plato is next to you and you know him to be running, but you mistakenly believe that he is Socrates, so that you firmly believe that Socrates is running. However, let it be so that Socrates is in fact running in Rome; however, you do not know this. (from Peter of Mantua’s De scire et dubitare , given in Boh 1985: 95)

Cases like these, in which justified true belief seems in some important sense disconnected from the fact, were made famous in Edmund Gettier’s 1963 paper, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?”. Gettier presented two cases in which a true belief is inferred from a justified false belief. He observed that, intuitively, such beliefs cannot be knowledge; it is merely lucky that they are true.

In honour of his contribution to the literature, cases like these have come to be known as “Gettier cases”. Since they appear to refute the JTB analysis, many epistemologists have undertaken to repair it: how must the analysis of knowledge be modified to accommodate Gettier cases? This is what is commonly referred to as the “Gettier problem”.

Above, we noted that one role of the justification is to rule out lucky guesses as cases of knowledge. A lesson of the Gettier problem is that it appears that even true beliefs that are justified can nevertheless be epistemically lucky in a way inconsistent with knowledge.

Epistemologists who think that the JTB approach is basically on the right track must choose between two different strategies for solving the Gettier problem. The first is to strengthen the justification condition to rule out Gettier cases as cases of justified belief. This was attempted by Roderick Chisholm; [ 11 ] we will refer to this strategy again in §7 below. The other is to amend the JTB analysis with a suitable fourth condition, a condition that succeeds in preventing justified true belief from being “gettiered”. Thus amended, the JTB analysis becomes a JTB+ X account of knowledge, where the “ X ” stands for the needed fourth condition.

Let us consider an instance of this attempt to articulate a “degettiering” condition.

According to one suggestion, the following fourth condition would do the trick:

• S ’s belief that p is not inferred from any falsehood. [ 12 ]

In Gettier’s cases, the justified true belief is inferred from a justified false belief. So condition (iv) explains why it isn’t knowledge. However, this “no false lemmas” proposal is not successful in general. There are examples of Gettier cases that need involve no inference; therefore, there are possible cases of justified true belief without knowledge, even though condition (iv) is met. Suppose, for example, that James, who is relaxing on a bench in a park, observes an apparent dog in a nearby field. So he believes

• There is a dog in the field.

Suppose further that the putative dog is actually a robot dog so perfect that it could not be distinguished from an actual dog by vision alone. James does not know that such robot dogs exist; a Japanese toy manufacturer has only recently developed them, and what James sees is a prototype that is used for testing the public’s response. Given these assumptions, (d) is of course false. But suppose further that just a few feet away from the robot dog, there is a real dog, concealed from James’s view. Given this further assumption, James’s belief in (d) is true. And since this belief is based on ordinary perceptual processes, most epistemologists will agree that it is justified. But as in Gettier’s cases, James’s belief appears to be true only as a matter of luck, in a way inconsistent with knowledge. So once again, what we have before us is a justified true belief that isn’t knowledge. [ 13 ] Arguably, this belief is directly justified by a visual experience; it is not inferred from any falsehood. If so, then the JTB account, even if supplemented with (iv) , gives us the wrong result that James knows (d).

Another case illustrating that clause (iv) won’t do the job is the well-known Barn County case (Goldman 1976). Suppose there is a county in the Midwest with the following peculiar feature. The landscape next to the road leading through that county is peppered with barn-facades: structures that from the road look exactly like barns. Observation from any other viewpoint would immediately reveal these structures to be fakes: devices erected for the purpose of fooling unsuspecting motorists into believing in the presence of barns. Suppose Henry is driving along the road that leads through Barn County. Naturally, he will on numerous occasions form false beliefs in the presence of barns. Since Henry has no reason to suspect that he is the victim of organized deception, these beliefs are justified. Now suppose further that, on one of those occasions when he believes there is a barn over there, he happens to be looking at the one and only real barn in the county. This time, his belief is justified and true. But since its truth is the result of luck, it is exceedingly plausible to judge that Henry’s belief is not an instance of knowledge. Yet condition (iv) is met in this case. His belief is not the result of any inference from a falsehood. Once again, we see that (iv) does not succeed as a general solution to the Gettier problem.

5. Modal Conditions

Another candidate fourth condition on knowledge is sensitivity . Sensitivity, to a first approximation, is this counterfactual relation:

S ’s belief that p is sensitive if and only if, if p were false, S would not believe that p . [ 14 ]

A sensitivity condition on knowledge was defended by Robert Nozick (1981). Given a Lewisian (Lewis 1973) semantics for counterfactual conditionals, the sensitivity condition is equivalent to the requirement that, in the nearest possible worlds in which not- p , the subject does not believe that p .

One motivation for including a sensitivity condition in an analysis of knowledge is that there seems to be an intuitive sense in which knowledge requires not merely being correct, but tracking the truth in other possible circumstances. This approach seems to be a plausible diagnosis of what goes wrong in at least some Gettier cases. For example, in Dharmottara’s desert water case, your belief that there is water in a certain location appears to be insensitive to the fact of the water. For if there were no water there, you would have held the same belief on the same grounds— viz. , the mirage.

However, it is doubtful that a sensitivity condition can account for the phenomenon of Gettier cases in general. It does so only in cases in which, had the proposition in question been false, it would have been believed anyway. But, as Saul Kripke (2011: 167–68) has pointed out, not all Gettier cases are like this. Consider for instance the Barn County case mentioned above. Henry looks at a particular location where there happens to be a barn and believes there to be a barn there. The sensitivity condition rules out this belief as knowledge only if, were there no barn there, Henry would still have believed there was. But this counterfactual may be false, depending on how the Barn County case is set up. For instance, it is false if the particular location Henry is examining is not one that would have been suitable for the erecting of a barn façade. Relatedly, as Kripke has also indicated (2011: 186), if we suppose that barn facades are always green, but genuine barns are always red, Henry’s belief that he sees a red barn will be sensitive, even though his belief that he sees a barn will not. (We assume Henry is unaware that colour signifies anything relevant.) Since intuitively, the former belief looks to fall short of knowledge in just the same way as the latter, a sensitivity condition will only handle some of the intuitive problems deriving from Gettier cases.

Most epistemologists today reject sensitivity requirements on knowledge. The chief motivation against a sensitivity condition is that, given plausible assumptions, it leads to unacceptable implications called “abominable conjunctions”. [ 15 ] To see this, suppose first that skepticism about ordinary knowledge is false—ordinary subjects know at least many of the things we ordinarily take them to know. For example, George, who can see and use his hands perfectly well, knows that he has hands. This is of course perfectly consistent with a sensitivity condition on knowledge, since if George did not have hands—if they’d been recently chopped off, for instance—he would not believe that he had hands.

Now imagine a skeptical scenario in which George does not have hands. Suppose that George is the victim of a Cartesian demon, deceiving him into believing that he has hands. If George were in such a scenario, of course, he would falsely believe himself not to be in such a scenario. So given the sensitivity condition, George cannot know that he is not in such a scenario.

Although these two verdicts—the knowledge-attributing one about ordinary knowledge, and the knowledge-denying one about the skeptical scenario—are arguably each intuitive, it is intuitively problematic to hold them together. Their conjunction is, in DeRose’s term, abominable: “George knows that he has hands, but he doesn’t know that he’s not the handless victim of a Cartesian demon”. A sensitivity condition on knowledge, combined with the nonskeptical claim that there is ordinary knowledge, seems to imply such abominable conjunctions. [ 16 ]

Most contemporary epistemologists have taken considerations like these to be sufficient reason to reject sensitivity conditions. [ 17 ] However, see Ichikawa (2011a) for an interpretation and endorsement of the sensitivity condition according to which it may avoid commitment to abominable conjunctions.

Although few epistemologists today endorse a sensitivity condition on knowledge, the idea that knowledge requires a subject to stand in a particular modal relation to the proposition known remains a popular one. In his 1999 paper, “How to Defeat Opposition to Moore”, Ernest Sosa proposed that a safety condition ought to take the role that sensitivity was intended to play. Sosa characterized safety as the counterfactual contrapositive of sensitivity.

Sensitivity: If p were false, S would not believe that p .

Safety: If S were to believe that p , p would not be false. [ 18 ]

Although contraposition is valid for the material conditional \((A \supset B\) iff \(\mathord{\sim} B \supset \mathord{\sim}A)\), Sosa suggests that it is invalid for counterfactuals, which is why sensitivity and safety are not equivalent. An example of a safe belief that is not sensitive, according to Sosa, is the belief that a distant skeptical scenario does not obtain. If we stipulate that George, discussed above, has never been at risk of being the victim of a Cartesian demon—because, say, Cartesian demons do not exist in George’s world—then George’s belief that he is not such a victim is a safe one, even though we saw in the previous section that it could not be sensitive. Notice that although we stipulated that George is not at risk of deceit by Cartesian demons, we did not stipulate that George himself had any particular access to this fact. Unless he does, safety, like sensitivity, will be an externalist condition on knowledge in the “access” sense. It is also externalist in the “state” sense, since the truth of the relevant counterfactuals will depend on features outside the subject.

Characterizing safety in these counterfactual terms depends on substantive assumptions about the semantics of counterfactual conditionals. [ 19 ] If we were to accept, for instance, David Lewis’s or Robert Stalnaker’s treatment of counterfactuals, including a strong centering condition according to which the actual world is always uniquely closest, all true beliefs would count as safe according to the counterfactual analysis of safety. [ 20 ] Sosa intends the relevant counterfactuals to be making a stronger claim, requiring roughly that in all nearby worlds in which S believes that p , p is not false.

Rather than resting on a contentious treatment of counterfactuals, then, it may be most perspicuous to understand the safety condition more directly in these modal terms, as Sosa himself often does:

In all nearby worlds where S believes that p , p is not false.

Whether a JTB+safety analysis of knowledge could be successful is somewhat difficult to evaluate, given the vagueness of the stated “nearby” condition. The status of potential counterexamples will not always be straightforward to apply. For example, Juan Comesaña (2005) presents a case he takes to refute the requirement that knowledge be safe. In Comesaña’s example, the host of a Halloween party enlists Judy to direct guests to the party. Judy’s instructions are to give everyone the same directions, which are in fact accurate, but that if she sees Michael, the party will be moved to another location. (The host does not want Michael to find the party.) Suppose Michael never shows up. If a given guest does not, but very nearly does, decide to wear a very realistic Michael costume to the party, then his belief, based in Judy’s testimony, about the whereabouts of the party will be true, but could, Comesaña says, easily have been false. (Had he merely made a slightly different choice about his costume, he would have been deceived.) Comesaña describes the case as a counterexample to a safety condition on knowledge. However, it is open to a safety theorist to argue that the relevant skeptical scenario, though possible and in some sense nearby, is not near enough in the relevant respect to falsify the safety condition. Such a theorist would, if she wanted the safety condition to deliver clear verdicts, face the task of articulating just what the relevant notion of similarity amounts to (see also Bogardus 2014).

Not all further clarifications of a safety condition will be suitable for the use of the latter in an analysis of knowledge. In particular, if the respect of similarity that is relevant for safety is itself explicated in terms of knowledge, then an analysis of knowledge which made reference to safety would be in this respect circular. This, for instance, is how Timothy Williamson characterizes safety. He writes, in response to a challenge by Alvin Goldman:

In many cases, someone with no idea of what knowledge is would be unable to determine whether safety obtained. Although they could use the principle that safety entails truth to exclude some cases, those are not the interesting ones. Thus Goldman will be disappointed when he asks what the safety account predicts about various examples in which conflicting considerations pull in different directions. One may have to decide whether safety obtains by first deciding whether knowledge obtains, rather than vice versa. (Williamson 2009: 305)

Because safety is understood only in terms of knowledge, safety so understood cannot serve in an analysis of knowledge. Nor is it Williamson’s intent that it should do so; as we will see below, Williamson rejects the project of analyzing knowledge. This is of course consistent with claiming that safety is a necessary condition on knowledge in the straightforward sense that the latter entails the former.

A third approach to modal conditions on knowledge worthy of mention is the requirement that for a subject to know that p , she must rule out all “relevant alternatives” to p . Significant early proponents of this view include Stine 1976, Goldman 1976, and Dretske 1981. The idea behind this approach to knowledge is that for a subject to know that p , she must be able to “rule out” competing hypotheses to p —but that only some subset of all not- p possibilities are “relevant” for knowledge attributions. Consider for example, the differences between the several models that have been produced of Apple’s iPhone. To be able to know by sight that a particular phone is the 6S model, it is natural to suppose that one must be able to tell the difference between the iPhone 6S and the iPhone 7; the possibility that the phone in question is a newer model is a relevant alternative. But perhaps there are other possibilities in which the belief that there is an iPhone 6S is false that do not need to be ruled out—perhaps, for instance, the possibility that the phone is not an iPhone, but a Chinese knock-off, needn’t be considered. Likewise for the possibility that there is no phone at all, the phone-like appearances being the product of a Cartesian demon’s machinations. Notice that in these cases and many of the others that motivate the relevant-alternatives approach to knowledge, there is an intuitive sense in which the relevant alternatives tend to be more similar to actuality than irrelevant ones. As such, the relevant alternatives theory and safety-theoretic approaches are very similar, both in verdict and in spirit. As in the case of a safety theorist, the relevant alternatives theorist faces a challenge in attempting to articulate what determines which possibilities are relevant in a given situation. [ 21 ]

6. Doing Without Justification?

As we have seen, one motivation for including a justification condition in an analysis of knowledge was to prevent lucky guesses from counting as knowledge. However, the Gettier problem shows that including a justification condition does not rule out all epistemically problematic instances of luck. Consequently, some epistemologists have suggested that positing a justification condition on knowledge was a false move; perhaps it is some other condition that ought to be included along with truth and belief as components of knowledge. This kind of strategy was advanced by a number of authors from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, although there has been relatively little discussion of it since. [ 22 ] Kornblith 2008 provides a notable exception.

One candidate property for such a state is reliability . Part of what is problematic about lucky guesses is precisely that they are so lucky: such guesses are formed in a way such that it is unlikely that they should turn out true. According to a certain form of knowledge reliabilism, it is unreliability, not lack of justification, which prevents such beliefs from amounting to knowledge. Reliabilist theories of knowledge incorporate this idea into a reliability condition on knowledge. [ 23 ] Here is an example of such a view:

Simple K-Reliabilism:

S knows that p iff

• S ’s belief that p was produced by a reliable cognitive process.

Simple K-Reliabilism replaces the justification clause in the traditional tripartite theory with a reliability clause. As we have seen, reliabilists about justification think that justification for a belief consists in a genesis in a reliable cognitive process. Given this view, Simple K-Reliabilism and the JTB theory are equivalent. However, the present proposal is silent on justification. Goldman 1979 is the seminal defense of reliabilism about justification; reliabilism is extended to knowledge in Goldman 1986. See Goldman 2011 for a survey of reliabilism in general.

In the following passage, Fred Dretske articulates how an approach like K-reliabilism might be motivated:

Those who think knowledge requires something other than , or at least more than , reliably produced true belief, something (usually) in the way of justification for the belief that one’s reliably produced beliefs are being reliably produced, have, it seems to me, an obligation to say what benefits this justification is supposed to confer…. Who needs it, and why? If an animal inherits a perfectly reliable belief-generating mechanism, and it also inherits a disposition, everything being equal, to act on the basis of the beliefs so generated, what additional benefits are conferred by a justification that the beliefs are being produced in some reliable way? If there are no additional benefits, what good is this justification? Why should we insist that no one can have knowledge without it? (Dretske 1989: 95)

According to Dretske, reliable cognitive processes convey information, and thus endow not only humans, but (nonhuman) animals as well, with knowledge. He writes:

I wanted a characterization that would at least allow for the possibility that animals (a frog, rat, ape, or my dog) could know things without my having to suppose them capable of the more sophisticated intellectual operations involved in traditional analyses of knowledge. (Dretske 1985: 177)

It does seem odd to think of frogs, rats, or dogs as having justified or unjustified beliefs. Yet attributing knowledge to animals is certainly in accord with our ordinary practice of using the word “knowledge”. So if, with Dretske, we want an account of knowledge that includes animals among the knowing subjects, we might want to abandon the traditional JTB account in favor of something like K-reliabilism.

Another move in a similar spirit to K-Reliabilism replaces the justification clause in the JTB theory with a condition requiring a causal connection between the belief and the fact believed; [ 24 ] this is the approach of Goldman (1967, 1976). [ 25 ] Goldman’s own causal theory is a sophisticated one; we will not engage with its details here. See Goldman’s papers. Instead, consider a simplified causal theory of knowledge, which illustrates the main motivation behind causal theories.

Simple Causal Theory of Knowledge:

• S ’s belief that p is caused by the fact that p .

Do approaches like Simple K-Reliabilism or the Simple Causal Theory fare any better than the JTB theory with respect to Gettier cases? Although some proponents have suggested they do—see e.g., Dretske 1985: 179; Plantinga 1993: 48—many of the standard counterexamples to the JTB theory appear to refute these views as well. Consider again the case of the barn facades. Henry sees a real barn, and that’s why he believes there is a barn nearby. This belief is formed by perceptual processes, which are by-and-large reliable: only rarely do they lead him into false beliefs. So it looks like the case meets the conditions of Simple K-Reliabilism just as much as it does those of the JTB theory. It is also a counterexample to the causal theory, since the real barn Henry perceives is causally responsible for his belief. There is reason to doubt, therefore, that shifting from justification to a condition like reliability will escape the Gettier problem. [ 26 ] Gettier cases seem to pose as much of a problem for K-reliabilism and causal theories as for the JTB account. Neither theory, unless amended with a clever “degettiering” clause, succeeds in stating sufficient conditions for knowledge. [ 27 ]

Gettier’s paper launched a flurry of philosophical activity by epistemologists attempting to revise the JTB theory, usually by adding one or more conditions, to close the gap between knowledge and justified true belief. We have seen already how several of these attempts failed. When intuitive counterexamples were proposed to each theory, epistemologists often responded by amending their theories, complicating the existing conditions or adding new ones. Much of this dialectic is chronicled thoroughly by Shope 1983, to which the interested reader is directed.

After some decades of such iterations, some epistemologists began to doubt that progress was being made. In her 1994 paper, “The Inescapability of Gettier Problems”, Linda Zagzebski suggested that no analysis sufficiently similar to the JTB analysis could ever avoid the problems highlighted by Gettier’s cases. More precisely, Zagzebski argued, any analysans of the form JTB+ X , where X is a condition or list of conditions logically independent from justification, truth, and belief, would be susceptible to Gettier-style counterexamples. She offered what was in effect a recipe for constructing Gettier cases:

• (1) Start with an example of a case where a subject has a justified false belief that also meets condition X .
• (2) Modify the case so that the belief is true merely by luck.

Zagzebski suggests that the resultant case will always represent an intuitive lack of knowledge. So any non-redundant addition to the JTB theory will leave the Gettier problem unsolved. [ 28 ] We may illustrate the application of the recipe using one of Zagzebski’s own examples, refuting Alvin Plantinga’s (1996) attempt to solve the Gettier problem by appending to the JTB analysis a condition requiring that the subject’s faculties be working properly in an appropriate environment.

In step one of Zagzebski’s procedure, we imagine a case in which a subject’s faculties are working properly in an appropriate environment, but the ensuing belief, though justified, is false. Zagzebski invites us to imagine that Mary has very good eyesight—good enough for her cognitive faculties typically to yield knowledge that her husband is sitting in the living room. Such faculties, even when working properly in suitable environments, however, are not infallible—if they were, the condition would not be independent from truth—so we can imagine a case in which they go wrong. Perhaps this is an unusual instance in which Mary’s husband’s brother, who looks a lot like the husband, is in the living room, and Mary concludes, on the basis of the proper function of her visual capacity, that her husband is in the living room. This belief, since false, is certainly not knowledge.

In step two, we imagine Mary’s misidentification of the occupant of the living room as before, but add to the case that the husband is, by luck, also in the living room. Now Mary’s belief is true, but intuitively, it is no more an instance of knowledge than the false belief in the first step was.

Since the recipe is a general one, it appears to be applicable to any condition one might add to the JTB theory, so long as it does not itself entail truth. The argument generalizes against all “non-redundant” JTB+ X analyses.

One potential response to Zagzebski’s argument, and the failure of the Gettier project more generally, would be to conclude that knowledge is unanalyzable. Although it would represent a significant departure from much analytic epistemology of the late twentieth century, it is not clear that this is ultimately a particularly radical suggestion. Few concepts of interest have proved susceptible to traditional analysis (Fodor 1998). One prominent approach to knowledge in this vein is discussed in §11 below.

Another possible line is the one mentioned in §2 —to strengthen the justification condition to rule out Gettier cases as justified. In order for this strategy to prevent Zagzebski’s recipe from working, one would need to posit a justification condition that precludes the possibility of step one above—the only obvious way to do this is for justification to entail truth. If it does, then it will of course be impossible to start with a case that has justified false belief. This kind of approach is not at all mainstream, but it does have its defenders—see e.g., Sturgeon 1993 and Merricks 1995. Sutton 2007 and Littlejohn 2012 defend factive approaches to justification on other grounds.

A third avenue of response would be to consider potential analyses of knowledge that are not of the nonredundant form JTB+ X . Indeed, we have already seen some such attempts, albeit unsuccessful ones. For instance, the causal theory of knowledge includes a clause requiring that the belief that p be caused by the fact that p . This condition entails both belief and truth, and so is not susceptible to Zagzebski’s recipe. (As we’ve seen, it falls to Gettier-style cases on other grounds.) One family of strategies along these lines would build into an analysis of knowledge a prohibition on epistemic luck directly; let us consider this sort of move in more detail.

If the problem illustrated by Gettier cases is that JTB and JTB+ analyses are compatible with a degree of epistemic luck that is inconsistent with knowledge, a natural idea is to amend one’s analysis of knowledge by including an explicit “anti-luck” condition. Zagzebski herself outlines this option in her 1994 (p. 72). Unger 1968 gives an early analysis of this kind. For example:

• S ’s belief is not true merely by luck.

The first thing to note about this analysis is that it is “redundant” in the sense described in the previous section; the fourth condition entails the first two. [ 29 ] So its surface form notwithstanding, it actually represents a significant departure from the JTB+ analyses. Rather than composing knowledge from various independent components, this analysis demands instead that the epistemic states are related to one another in substantive ways.

The anti-luck condition, like the safety condition of the previous section, is vague as stated. For one thing, whether a belief is true by luck comes in degrees—just how much luck does it take to be inconsistent with knowledge? Furthermore, it seems, independently of questions about degrees of luck, we must distinguish between different kinds of luck. Not all epistemic luck is incompatible with having knowledge. Suppose someone enters a raffle and wins an encyclopedia, then reads various of its entries, correcting many of their previous misapprehensions. There is a straightforward sense in which the resultant beliefs are true only by luck—for our subject was very lucky to have won that raffle—but this is not the sort of luck, intuitively, that interferes with the possession of knowledge. [ 30 ] Furthermore, there is a sense in which our ordinary perceptual beliefs are true by luck, since it is possible for us to have been the victim of a Cartesian demon and so we are, in some sense, lucky not to be. But unless we are to capitulate to radical skepticism, it seems that this sort of luck, too, ought to be considered compatible with knowledge. [ 31 ]

Like the safety condition, then, a luck condition ends up being difficult to apply in some cases. We might try to clarify the luck condition as involving a distinctive notion of epistemic luck—but unless we were able to explicate that notion—in effect, to distinguish between the two kinds of luck mentioned above—without recourse to knowledge, it is not clear that the ensuing analysis of knowledge could be both informative and noncircular.

As our discussion so far makes clear, one standard way of evaluating attempted analyses of knowledge has given a central role to testing it against intuitions against cases. In the late twentieth century, the perceived lack of progress towards an acceptable analysis—including the considerations attributed to Zagzebski in §7 above—led some epistemologists to pursue other methodological strategies. (No doubt, a wider philosophical trend away from “conceptual analysis” more broadly also contributed to this change.) Some of the more recent attempts to analyse knowledge have been motivated in part by broader considerations about the role of knowledge, or of discourse about knowledge.

One important view of this sort is that defended by Edward Craig (1990). Craig’s entry-point into the analysis of knowledge was not intuitions about cases, but rather a focus on the role that the concept of knowledge plays for humans. In particular, Craig suggested that the point of using the category of knowledge was for people to flag reliable informants—to help people know whom to trust in matters epistemic. Craig defends an account of knowledge that is designed to fill this role, even though it is susceptible to intuitive counterexamples. The plausibility of such accounts, with a less intuitive extension but with a different kind of theoretical justification, is a matter of controversy.

Another view worth mentioning in this context is that of Hilary Kornblith (2002), which has it that knowledge is a natural kind, to be analysed the same way other scientific kinds are. Intuition has a role to play in identifying paradigms, but generalizing from there is an empirical, scientific matter, and intuitive counterexamples are to be expected.

The “knowledge first” stance is also connected to these methodological issues. See §11 below.

10. Virtue-Theoretic Approaches

The virtue-theoretic approach to knowledge is in some respects similar to the safety and anti-luck approaches. Indeed, Ernest Sosa, one of the most prominent authors of the virtue-theoretic approach, developed it from his previous work on safety. The virtue approach treats knowledge as a particularly successful or valuable form of belief, and explicates what it is to be knowledge in such terms. Like the anti-luck theory, a virtue-theoretic theory leaves behind the JTB+ project of identifying knowledge with a truth-functional combination of independent epistemic properties; knowledge, according to this approach, requires a certain non-logical relationship between belief and truth.

Sosa has often (e.g., Sosa 2007: ch. 2) made use of an analogy of a skilled archer shooting at a target; we may find it instructive as well. Here are two ways in which an archer’s shot might be evaluated:

• Was the shot successful? Did it hit its target?
• Did the shot’s execution manifest the archer’s skill? Was it produced in a way that makes it likely to succeed?

The kind of success at issue in (1), Sosa calls accuracy . The kind of skill discussed in (2), Sosa calls adroitness . A shot is adroit if it is produced skillfully. Adroit shots needn’t be accurate, as not all skilled shots succeed. And accurate shots needn’t be adroit, as some unskilled shots are lucky.

In addition to accuracy and adroitness, Sosa suggests that there is another respect in which a shot may be evaluated, relating the two. This, Sosa calls aptness .

• Did the shot’s success manifest the archer’s skill?

A shot is apt if it is accurate because adroit. Aptness entails, but requires more than, the conjunction of accuracy and adroitness, for a shot might be both successful and skillful without being apt. For example, if a skillful shot is diverted by an unexpected gust of wind, then redirected towards the target by a second lucky gust, its ultimate accuracy does not manifest the skill, but rather reflects the lucky coincidence of the wind.

Sosa suggests that this “AAA” model of evaluation is applicable quite generally for the evaluation of any action or object with a characteristic aim. In particular, it is applicable to belief with respect to its aim at truth:

• A belief is accurate if and only if it is true.
• A belief is adroit if and only if it is produced skillfully. [ 32 ]
• A belief is apt if and only if it is true in a way manifesting, or attributable to, the believer’s skill.

Sosa identifies knowledge with apt belief, so understood. [ 33 ] Knowledge entails both truth (accuracy) and justification (adroitness), on this view, but they are not merely independent components out of which knowledge is truth-functionally composed. It requires that the skill explain the success. This is in some respects similar to the anti-luck condition we have examined above, in that it legislates that the relation between justification and truth be no mere coincidence. However, insofar as Sosa’s “AAA” model is generally applicable in a way going beyond epistemology, there are perhaps better prospects for understanding the relevant notion of aptness in a way independent of understanding knowledge itself than we found for the notion of epistemic luck.

Understanding knowledge as apt belief accommodates Gettier’s traditional counterexamples to the JTB theory rather straightforwardly. When Smith believes that either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona, the accuracy of his belief is not attributable to his inferential skills (which the case does not call into question). Rather, unlucky circumstances (the misleading evidence about Jones’s car) have interfered with his skillful cognitive performance, just as the first diverting gust of wind interfered with the archer’s shot. Compensating for the unlucky interference, a lucky circumstance (Brown’s coincidental presence in Barcelona) renders the belief true after all, similar to the way in which the second gust of wind returns the archer’s arrow back onto the proper path towards the target.

Fake barn cases, by contrast, may be less easily accommodated by Sosa’s AAA approach. When Henry looks at the only real barn in a countryside full of barn facades, he uses a generally reliable perceptual faculty for recognizing barns, and he goes right in this instance. Suppose we say the accuracy of Henry’s belief manifests his competence as a perceiver. If so, we would have to judge that his belief is apt and therefore qualifies as an instance of knowledge. That would be a problematic outcome because the intuition the case is meant to elicit is that Henry does not have knowledge. There are three ways in which an advocate of the AAA approach might respond to this difficulty.

First, AAA advocates might argue that, although Henry has a general competence to recognize barns, he is deprived of this ability in his current environment, precisely because he is in fake barn county. According to a second, subtly different strategy, Henry retains barn-recognition competence, his current location notwithstanding, but, due to the ubiquity of fake barns, his competence does not manifest itself in his belief, since its truth is attributable more to luck than to his skill in recognizing barns. [ 34 ] Third, Sosa’s own response to the problem is to bite the bullet. Judging Henry’s belief to be apt, Sosa accepts the outcome that Henry knows there is a barn before him. He attempts to explain away the counterintuitiveness of this result by emphasizing the lack of a further epistemically valuable state, which he calls “reflective knowledge” (see Sosa 2007: 31–32).

Not every concept is analyzable into more fundamental terms. This is clear both upon reflection on examples—what analysis could be offered of hydrogen , animal , or John F. Kennedy ?—and on grounds of infinite regress. Why should we think that knowledge has an analysis? In recent work, especially his 2000 book Knowledge and Its Limits , Timothy Williamson has argued that the project of analyzing knowledge was a mistake. His reason is not that he thinks that knowledge is an uninteresting state, or that the notion of knowledge is somehow fundamentally confused. On the contrary, Williamson thinks that knowledge is among the most fundamental psychological and epistemological states there are. As such, it is a mistake to analyze knowledge in terms of other, more fundamental epistemic notions, because knowledge itself is, in at least many cases, more fundamental. As Williamson puts it, we should put “knowledge first”. Knowledge might figure into some analyses, but it will do so in the analysans, not in the analysandum. [ 35 ]

There is no very straightforward argument for this conclusion; its case consists largely in the attempted demonstration of the theoretical success of the knowledge first stance. Weighing these benefits against those of more traditional approaches to knowledge is beyond the scope of this article. [ 36 ]

Although Williamson denies that knowledge is susceptible to analysis in the sense at issue in this article, he does think that there are interesting and informative ways to characterize knowledge. For example, Williamson accepts these claims:

• Knowledge is the most general factive mental state.
• S knows that p if and only if S ’s total evidence includes the proposition that p .

Williamson is also careful to emphasize that the rejection of the project of analyzing knowledge in no way suggests that there are not interesting and informative necessary or sufficient conditions on knowledge. The traditional ideas that knowledge entails truth, belief, and justification are all consistent with the knowledge first project. And Williamson (2000: 126) is explicit in endorsement of a safety requirement on knowledge—just not one that serves as part of an analysis.

One point worth recognizing, then, is that one need not engage in the ambitious project of attempting to analyze knowledge in order to have contact with a number of interesting questions about which factors are and are not relevant for whether a subject has knowledge. In the next section, we consider an important contemporary debate about whether pragmatic factors are relevant for knowledge.

Traditional approaches to knowledge have it that knowledge has to do with factors like truth and justification. Whether knowledge requires safety, sensitivity, reliability, or independence from certain kinds of luck has proven controversial. But something that all of these potential conditions on knowledge seem to have in common is that they have some sort of intimate connection with the truth of the relevant belief. Although it is admittedly difficult to make the relevant connection precise, there is an intuitive sense in which every factor we’ve examined as a candidate for being relevant to knowledge has something to do with truth of the would-be knowledgeable beliefs.

In recent years, some epistemologists have argued that focus on such truth-relevant factors leaves something important out of our picture of knowledge. In particular, they have argued that distinctively pragmatic factors are relevant to whether a subject has knowledge. Call this thesis “pragmatic encroachment”: [ 37 ]

Pragmatic Encroachment:

A difference in pragmatic circumstances can constitute a difference in knowledge.

The constitution claim here is important; it is trivial that differences in pragmatic circumstances can cause differences in knowledge. For example, if the question of whether marijuana use is legal in Connecticut is more important to Sandra than it is to Daniel, Sandra is more likely to seek out evidence, and come to knowledge, than Daniel is. This uninteresting claim is not what is at issue. Pragmatic encroachment theorists think that the practical importance itself can make for a change in knowledge, without reliance on such downstream effects as a difference in evidence-gathering activity. Sandra and Daniel might in some sense be in the same epistemic position , where the only difference is that the question is more important to Sandra. This difference, according to pragmatic encroachment, might make it the case that Daniel knows, but Sandra does not. [ 38 ]

Pragmatic encroachment can be motivated by intuitions about cases. Jason Stanley’s 2005 book Knowledge and Practical Interests argues that it is the best explanation for pairs of cases like the following, where the contrasted cases are evidentially alike, but differ pragmatically:

Low Stakes . Hannah and her wife Sarah are driving home on a Friday afternoon. They plan to stop at the bank on the way home to deposit their paychecks. It is not important that they do so, as they have no impending bills. But as they drive past the bank, they notice that the lines inside are very long, as they often are on Friday afternoons. Realizing that it wasn’t very important that their paychecks are deposited right away, Hannah says, “I know the bank will be open tomorrow, since I was there just two weeks ago on Saturday morning. So we can deposit our paychecks tomorrow morning”.

High Stakes . Hannah and her wife Sarah are driving home on a Friday afternoon. They plan to stop at the bank on the way home to deposit their paychecks. Since they have an impending bill coming due, and very little in their account, it is very important that they deposit their paychecks by Saturday. Hannah notes that she was at the bank two weeks before on a Saturday morning, and it was open. But, as Sarah points out, banks do change their hours. Hannah says, “I guess you’re right. I don’t know that the bank will be open tomorrow”. (Stanley 2005: 3–4)

Stanley argues that the moral of cases like these is that in general, the more important the question of whether p , the harder it is to know that p . Other, more broadly theoretical, arguments for pragmatic encroachment have been offered as well. Fantl & McGrath (2009) argue that encroachment follows from fallibilism and plausible principles linking knowledge and action, while Weatherson 2012 argues that the best interpretation of decision theory requires encroachment.

Pragmatic encroachment is not an analysis of knowledge; it is merely the claim that pragmatic factors are relevant for determining whether a subject’s belief constitutes knowledge. Some, but not all, pragmatic encroachment theorists will endorse a necessary biconditional that might be interpreted as an analysis of knowledge. For example, a pragmatic encroachment theorist might claim that:

S knows that p if and only if no epistemic weakness vis-á-vis p prevents S from properly using p as a reason for action.

This connection between knowledge and action is similar to ones endorsed by Fantl & McGrath (2009), but it is stronger than anything they argue for.

Pragmatic encroachment on knowledge is deeply controversial. Patrick Rysiew (2001), Jessica Brown (2006), and Mikkel Gerken (forthcoming) have argued that traditional views about the nature of knowledge are sufficient to account for the data mentioned above. Michael Blome-Tillmann (2009a) argues that it has unacceptably counterintuitive results, like the truth of such claims as S knows that p , but if it were more important, she wouldn’t know , or S knew that p until the question became important . Stanley (2005) offers strategies for accepting such consequences. Other, more theoretical arguments against encroachment have also been advanced; see for example Ichikawa, Jarvis, and Rubin (2012), who argue that pragmatic encroachment is at odds with important tenets of belief-desire psychology.

One final topic standing in need of treatment is contextualism about knowledge attributions, according to which the word “knows” and its cognates are context-sensitive. The relationship between contextualism and the analysis of knowledge is not at all straightforward. Arguably, they have different subject matters (the former a word, and the latter a mental state). Nevertheless, the methodology of theorizing about knowledge may be helpfully informed by semantic considerations about the language in which such theorizing takes place. And if contextualism is correct, then a theorist of knowledge must attend carefully to the potential for ambiguity.

It is uncontroversial that many English words are context-sensitive. The most obvious cases are indexicals, such as “I”, “you”, “here”, and “now” (David Kaplan 1977 gives the standard view of indexicals).

The word “you” refers to a different person, depending on the conversational context in which it is uttered; in particular, it depends on the person one is addressing. Other context-sensitive terms are gradable adjectives like “tall”—how tall something must be to count as “tall” depends on the conversational context—and quantifiers like “everyone”—which people count as part of “everyone” depends on the conversational context. Contextualists about “knows” think that this verb belongs on the list of context-sensitive terms. A consequence of contextualism is that sentences containing “knows” may express distinct propositions, depending on the conversational contexts in which they’re uttered. This feature allows contextualists to offer an effective, though not uncontroversial, response to skepticism. For a more thorough overview of contextualism and its bearing on skepticism, see Rysiew 2011 or Ichikawa forthcoming-b.

Contextualists have modeled this context-sensitivity in various ways. Keith DeRose 2009 has suggested that there is a context-invariant notion of “strength of epistemic position”, and that how strong a position one must be in in order to satisfy “knows” varies from context to context; this is in effect to understand the semantics of knowledge attributions much as we understand that of gradable adjectives. (How much height one must have to satisfy “tall” also varies from context to context.) Cohen 1988 adopts a contextualist treatment of “relevant alternatives” theory, according to which, in skeptical contexts, but not ordinary ones, skeptical possibilities are relevant. This aspect is retained in the view of Lewis 1996, which characterizes a contextualist approach that is more similar to quantifiers and modals. Blome-Tillmann 2009b and Ichikawa forthcoming-a defend and develop the Lewisian view in different ways.

Contextualism and pragmatic encroachment represent different strategies for addressing some of the same “shifty” patterns of intuitive data. (In fact, contextualism was generally developed first; pragmatic encroachment theorists were motivated in part by the attempt to explain some of the patterns contextualists were interested in without contextualism’s semantic commitments.) Although this represents a sense in which they tend to be rival approaches, contextualism and pragmatic encroachment are by no means inconsistent. One could think that “knows” requires the satisfaction of different standards in different contexts, and also think that the subject’s practical situation is relevant for whether a given standard is satisfied.

Like pragmatic encroachment, contextualism is deeply controversial. Critics have argued that it posits an implausible kind of semantic error in ordinary speakers who do not recognize the putative context-sensitivity—see Schiffer 1996 and Greenough & Kindermann forthcoming—and that it is at odds with plausible theoretical principles involving knowledge—see Hawthorne 2003, Williamson 2005, and Worsnip forthcoming. In addition, some of the arguments that are used to undercut the data motivating pragmatic encroachment are also taken to undermine the case for contextualism; see again Rysiew 2001 and Brown 2006.

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Acknowledgments

For the 2012 revision, we are grateful to Kurt Sylvan for extremely detailed and constructive comments on multiple drafts of this entry. Thanks also to an anonymous referee for additional helpful suggestions. For the 2017 revision, thanks to Clayton Littlejohn, Jennifer Nagel, and Scott Sturgeon for helpful and constructive feedback and suggestions. Thanks to Ben Bayer, Kenneth Ehrenberg, and Mark Young for drawing our attention to errors in the previous version.

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The Philosophical Beliefs of Plato: an Insight into his Worldview

This essay is about the core beliefs of the philosopher Plato. It explores his Theory of Forms, which posits a higher realm of perfect, immutable ideas beyond the physical world. It discusses his views on knowledge, suggesting that learning is the recollection of truths already known to the soul. The essay also covers Plato’s concept of the immortal soul, divided into rational, spirited, and appetitive parts, and his vision of an ideal state governed by philosopher-kings. Additionally, it touches on his ethical views, where virtue is equated with knowledge, and his critical stance on art, which he saw as a mere imitation of reality.

How it works

Plato, a preeminent luminary in the annals of Western philosophy, harbored an exhaustive and intricate belief structure that persists in molding philosophical cogitation even in contemporary epochs. His cogitations were profoundly influenced by the tutelage of Socrates and the tutelage he imparted to Aristotle, thus constituting the bedrock of Western philosophical ruminations. At the heart of Plato’s philosophical corpus lies his Theory of Forms, his musings on the essence of the soul, and his utopian conception of a perfect commonwealth.

Plato’s Theory of Forms stands as perhaps his most renowned and labyrinthine doctrine. He postulated that beyond the corporeal realm perceptible by our senses, exists a celestial domain of impeccable and immutable Forms or Ideals. These Forms represent the veritable reality, while the material universe is merely a semblance or emulation of this celestial verity. For instance, all circular entities in the tangible realm are flawed replicas of the flawless Form of a circle. This conviction underscores Plato’s contention that knowledge acquired through sensory perception is unreliable, and authentic comprehension emanates from intellectual contemplation and reflection upon these abstract Forms.

Plato’s epistemology, or theory of knowledge, is intricately interwoven with his Theory of Forms. He espoused the notion that the human soul, ere its incarnation in a corporeal vessel, resides in the realm of Forms and possesses inherent cognition of them. Learning, therefore, entails not the acquisition of novel information but the recollection of truths inherently familiar to the soul. This notion finds vivid elucidation in his allegory of the cave, wherein he delineates captives ensnared within a murky cavern, restricted to discerning shadows upon the wall, erroneously perceiving them as actuality. The philosopher, according to Plato’s exposition, mirrors a captive who has been emancipated and attains the realization that the shadows are mere fallacies, and authentic wisdom stems from comprehending the Forms themselves.

Another pivotal tenet of Plato’s philosophical edifice is his conception of the soul. He posited that the soul is imperishable and endures prior to birth and subsequent to demise. In his discourse “Phaedo,” Plato expounds his conviction in the soul’s immortality, proffering several arguments to buttress this contention, including the cyclic argument, the recollection theory, and the affinity argument. He contended that the soul comprises three facets: the rational, the spirited, and the appetitive. The rational facet aspires to truth and sagacity, the spirited facet engenders fortitude and emotive responses, and the appetitive facet craves corporeal gratifications. A morally righteous individual, in Plato’s estimation, is one whose soul resonates in concordance, with the rational aspect presiding over the spirited and appetitive elements.

Plato’s political philosophy constitutes yet another salient facet of his cogitations. In “The Republic,” he delineates his blueprint for an idyllic commonwealth, governed by philosopher-sovereigns who possess discernment of the Forms and thereby can preside judiciously and equitably. He censures the democratic frameworks prevalent in his era, contending that the majority of individuals lack the wherewithal to make well-informed determinations regarding governance. Instead, he advocates for a meritocratic paradigm wherein rulers are designated predicated upon their intellectual acumen and ethical virtues. Plato also delves into the role of pedagogy in configuring the utopian polity, accentuating the necessity of a rigorous educational schema to nurture the rational faculties and virtues of prospective rulers.

In addition to his politico-philosophical and epistemological postulations, Plato’s perspectives on ethics constitute a cornerstone of his philosophical system. He posited that virtue embodies a manifestation of knowledge and that to apprehend the virtuous is to enact it. This intellectualist approach to ethics asserts that moral deficiencies emanate from ignorance, and consequently, the cultivation of erudition and sagacity assumes paramount importance in leading a virtuous existence. The quest for the virtuous life, according to Plato, is intrinsically intertwined with the cognizance of the Forms and the alignment of one’s soul with this celestial cognizance.

Plato’s convictions extend to his reflections on art and aesthetics. He garnered renown for his scathing critique of poetry and the fine arts, deeming them as mere emulations of the tangible realm, which in itself mirrors the realm of Forms. In “The Republic,” he contends that art has the propensity to divert individuals from veracity by appealing to emotions rather than reason. Nevertheless, he acknowledged the latent potential of art to edify and inspire when consonant with philosophical precepts.

In summation, Plato’s belief structure constitutes a profound and convoluted tapestry of ruminations that have indelibly influenced Western cogitation for aeons. His Theory of Forms, his postulations concerning the essence of the soul, his politico-philosophical musings, and his reflections on ethics and aesthetics collectively coalesce to furnish a holistic vision of verity, knowledge, and the virtuous existence. Through his dialogues and philosophical discourses, Plato impels us to transcend the superficial and delve into deeper truths, steering us towards a more profound comprehension of ourselves and the cosmos. His legacy endures, persistently inspiring and provoking contemplation in the eternal quest for enlightenment and veracity.

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PapersOwl.com. (2024). The Philosophical Beliefs of Plato: An Insight into His Worldview . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-philosophical-beliefs-of-plato-an-insight-into-his-worldview/ [Accessed: 4 Jun. 2024]

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PapersOwl.com. (2024). The Philosophical Beliefs of Plato: An Insight into His Worldview . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-philosophical-beliefs-of-plato-an-insight-into-his-worldview/ [Accessed: 4-Jun-2024]

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Virtue is Knowledge

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