Friday, June 25, 2021

About epistemic virtues

Should You Believe Wikipedia? How to test assumptions –and the definition of truth and existence– in an era of misinformation? I read an interview with Professor Amy Bruckman from the Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Interactive Computing. (Wikipedia: The Most Reliable Source on the Internet?, S.C. Stuart for pcmag.com in June 2021). Here is my favourite passage:

“Virtue epistemology suggests that knowledge is a collaborative achievement, and we all can work to achieve knowledge (justified, true belief) by aspiring to epistemic virtues: “curiosity, intellectual autonomy, intellectual humility, attentiveness, intellectual carefulness, intellectual thoroughness, open-mindedness, intellectual courage and intellectual tenacity.” Being someone who is careful with knowledge is a lifelong quest, and trying to embody those virtues helps.”