John Greco

This paper argues that knowledge is an instance of a more general and familiar normative kind—that of success through ability (or success through excellence, or success through virtue). This thesis is developed in the context of three themes prominent in the recent literature: that knowledge attributions are somehow context sensitive; that knowledge is intimately related to practical reasoning; and that one purpose of the concept of knowledge is to flag good sources of information. Wedding these themes to the proposed account helps to explain a wide range of standard Gettier problems. It also helps to explain barn façade cases, which require a different kind of treatment.

Section 1 articulates a genus-species claim: that knowledge is a kind of success from ability. Equivalently: In cases of knowledge, S’s success in believing the truth is attributable to S’s ability. That idea is then applied to questions about the nature and value of knowledge. Section 2 asks what it would take to turn the genus-species claim into a proper theory of knowledge; that is, into informative, necessary and sufficient conditions. That question is raised in the context of an important line of objection against even the genus-species claim; namely, that there is no way to understand the attribution relation so that it does all the work that it is supposed to do. Section 3 reviews several extant proposals for understanding the attribution relation, and argues that none of them are adequate for answering the objection. Section 4 proposes a different way of understanding the relation, and shows how the resulting view does resolve the objection. Section 5 completes the new account by proposing a way to understand intellectual abilities. Section 6 briefly addresses Barn Façade cases and lottery propositions. Section 7 briefly addresses a question about the scope of knowledge; in particular, it shows how the new view allows a neo-Moorean response to skepticism.

Recent literature in epistemology has focused on the following argument for skepticism (SA): I know that I have two hands only if I know that I am not a handless brain in a vat. But I don't know I am not a handless brain in a vat. Therefore, I don't know that I have two hands. Part I of this article reviews two responses to skepticism that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s: sensitivity theories and attributor contextualism. Part II considers the more recent ‘neo-Moorean’ response to skepticism and its development in ‘safety’ theories of knowledge. Part III argues that the skeptical argument set out in SA is not of central importance. Specifically, SA is parasitic on skeptical reasoning that is more powerful and more fundamental than that displayed by SA itself. Finally, Part IV reviews a Pyrrhonian argument for skepticism that is not well captured by SA, and considers a promising strategy for responding to it.

The second major thesis of the book follows closely on the first: that the analysis of skeptical arguments is philosophically useful and important, and should therefore have a central role in the methodology of philosophy, and especially in the methodology of epistemology. A close analysis of skeptical arguments highlights our pre-theoretically plausible, but ultimately mistaken, assumptions about the nature of knowledge and evidence. Skeptical arguments are powerful just because their assumptions are so plausible pre-theoretically. But the arguments show us where those assumptions lead, and thereby force us to rethink those assumptions. On this view, skeptical arguments constitute theoretical problems rather than practical problems. There is no “practical” or “existential” problem of skepticism. Rather, skeptical arguments show us that we need to rethink our assumptions about knowledge and evidence, and replace them with something better.

In ”Virtues in Epistemology,” John Greco presents and evaluates two main notions of intellectual virtue. The first concerns Ernest Sosa's development of this concept as a disposition to grasp truth and avoid falsehood. Greco contrasts this with moral models of intellectual virtue that include a motivational component in their definition, namely a desire for truth. Instead, Greco argues that a minimalist reliabilist account of intellectual virtue “in which the virtues are conceived as reliable cognitive abilities or powers,” can be illuminating in an account of knowledge. He sets out to support this on the grounds that his approach to intellectual virtue can adequately address three major problems on the theory of knowledge: Humean skepticism, the Gettier problem, and the problem of showing that knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief.

In section one the deontological (or responsibilist) conception of justification is discussed and explained. In section two, arguments are put forward in order to derive the most plausible version of perspectival internalism, or the position that epistemic justification is a function of factors internal to the believer's cognitive perspective. The two most common considerations put forward in favor of perspectival internalism are discussed. These are the responsibilist conception of justification, and the intuition that two believers with like beliefs and experiences are equally justified in their like beliefs. In section three it is argued that perspectival internalism is false, and that in fact the position is not supported by a responsibilist conception of justification. Section four explicates two other forms of internalism, which are rejected for reasons similar to those presented against perspectival internalism. In section five, an internalist theory of justification is defended which is supported by a responsibilist conception of justification. Roughly stated, the position is that justified belief is belief which arises from the use of correct rules of reasoning. The idea of correctness is explicated, and the position is distinguished from others which are similar to it.

In this paper I will take it for granted that Zagzebski's position articulates a broadly Catholic perspective, and that Plantinga's position accurately represents a broadly Calvinist one. But I will argue that so construed, the Catholic and the Calvinist are much closer than Zagzebski implies: both views are person-based in an important sense of that term; both are internalist on Zagzebski's usage and externalist on the standard usage; and Plantinga's position is consistent with the social elements that Zagzebski stresses in her view. In the second part of the paper I will identify what I think is the real issue between Zagzebski and Plantinga. Namely, Zagzebski thinks that knowledge requires epistemic responsibility, in the sense that instances of knowledge must be appropriately praiseworthy. Plantinga thinks that no such condition is required for knowledge or warranted belief. I will argue that on this issue Zagzebski is right, and that her virtue approach gives us resources for seeing why. Finally, I will look at the consequences for religious knowledge. Here I will argue that the consequences are minimal. Even if knowledge requires responsibility, Plantinga can still make a good case that religious belief is properly basic. And even if religious belief is properly basic, natural theology can still have an important role in the justification of religious belief.

When we affirm that someone knows something, we are making a value judgment of sorts - we are claiming that there is something superior about that person's opinion, or their evidence, or perhaps about them. A central task of the theory of knowledge is to investigate the sort of evaluation at issue. This is the first book to make 'epistemic normativity,' or the normative dimension of knowledge and knowledge ascriptions, its central focus. John Greco argues that knowledge is a kind of achievement, as opposed to mere lucky success. This locates knowledge within a broader, familiar normative domain. By reflecting on our thinking and practices in this domain, it is argued, we gain insight into what knowledge is and what kind of value it has for us.

An adequate account of testimonial knowledge in general explains how religious knowledge can be grounded in testimony, and even in the context of conflicting testimonial traditions. Three emerging trends in epistemology help to make that case. The first is to make a distinction between two projects of epistemology: “the project of explanation” and “the project of vindication.” The second is to emphasize a distinction between knowledge and understanding. The third is to ask what role the concept of knowledge plays in our conceptual-linguistic economy. Each of these trends, it is argued, helps us to make progress in the epistemology of testimony, and by application in the epistemology of religious belief.

This paper addresses two worries that might be raised about contextualism in epistemology and that carry over to its moral analogues: that contextualism robs epistemology (and moral theory) of a proper subject-matter, and that contextualism robs knowledge claims (and moral claims) of their objectivity. Two theses are defended: (1) that these worries are appropriately directed at interestdependent theories in general rather than at contextualism in particular, and (2) that the two worries are over-stated in any case. Finally, the paper offers some considerations in favour of attributor contextualism over 'subject-sensitive invariantism', both in epistemology and in moral theory. But here we note an interesting result: the very considerations that support contextualism as a semantic thesis, threaten to rob that position of its anti-sceptical force.