Dominik Jarczewski

This reply to Aleksandra Vučković clarifies two aspects of my earlier critique of Pre-emptionism and develops a positive alternative account of epistemic authority. It argues that evidentialist approaches may adequately capture epistemic permissions but fail to explain the positive obligations we may bear toward epistemically superior agents. Drawing on systems theory, it proposes understanding epistemic authority within a broader epistemic ecology structured by multiple social epistemic goods, including reputation, trust, and epistemic character. On this view, norms governing our responses to expert testimony emerge not only from individual knowledge acquisition, but also from the collective maintenance of healthy epistemic environments.

Chase Wrenn’s The True and the Good defends Strong Virtue Theory on which the apparent value of truth derives from the moral value of truthfulness. On this view, we ought to care about true beliefs not because truth itself is valuable, but because valuing truth manifests a socially beneficial virtue. This paper challenges Wrenn’s Strong Virtue Theory on two fronts. First, it shows that grounding the value of truthfulness on personal or social flourishing cannot avoid an appeal to the value of truth itself. Second, it argues that Wrenn’s appeal to ‘state-given’ reasons and ‘striving play’ analogies faces a motivational and critical deficit, especially in non-ideal epistemic environments shaped by prejudice and polarisation. It then develops an alternative account. Drawing on Sosa-inspired concept of belief as a goal-oriented attempt, it argues that truth has non-instrumental, constitutive epistemic value: it is essential to the aim of belief itself. This preserves a deflationary concept of truth while securing a robust basis for its constitutive epistemic value.

The paper argues for nuancing the understanding of epistemic goods and evaluations by analysing the role of mentors in epistemic communities, with a particular focus on Socrates. While traditional epistemic evaluations emphasise the production of knowledge, some epistemic agents contribute to the epistemic well-being of their communities in ways that do not directly yield these standard goods. For example, the primary role of Socrates was not as a knowledge producer, but as a mentor who guided and educated others. To capture the epistemic significance of such figures, I propose a distinction between product-like and agent-centred epistemic goods. I provide nuance to our understanding of epistemic value by linking it to the epistemic well-being of a community and different ways to improve it.

This paper develops a normative account of our epistemic duties towards experts and expertise, advancing two complementary models of such duties. In an optimisation model, disregarding expertise constitutes a violation of the general norms of epistemic efficiency. In a reputational model, the manner in which expert testimony is accepted or disregarded has tangible effects on the epistemic social environment, thereby generating context-sensitive commitments. In many cases, disrespect for expertise undermines the collective calibration of epistemic trust. This account explains why disrespect for expertise constitutes a distinctive epistemic fault while avoiding the excesses of assurance-based and pre-emption theories. It also addresses the problem of predatory experts, showing how norms of epistemic reputation can justify the suspension of trust in cases of abuse without collapsing into general scepticism about expertise.

The paper develops a neo-Aristotelian account of fanaticism, along with the corresponding virtue of wholeheartedness (virtuous zeal) and the opposite vice of negligence. Departing from recent approaches advanced by Cassam and Battaly, it contends that the viciousness of fanaticism does not reside in its content (one can be a vicious fanatic even in the service of a just cause), nor in its consequences (contingently good outcomes do not convert a vice into a virtue). Rather, it argues that the wrongness of fanaticism is rooted in its excessive form. In contrast to Katsafanas’s account, which emphasises the destructive psychology of fanatics, the present approach is psychologically thinner, but morally more robust, focusing on the viciousness of excess. This approach helps to clarify the internal logic of fanatical ‘morality.’ The paper also offers an alternative explanation for more mundane cases of ‘fanaticism,’ suggesting that such instances are better understood in terms of hyperbolic language.

This paper explores the debate surrounding epistemic authority, questioning whether experts’ opinions bind us and if there is a duty to believe based on their testimony. Zagzebski’s classical theory, inspired by Joseph Raz’s Pre-emption Thesis, suggests replacing existing evidence with an authority’s testimony, a position that has faced criticism. The aim of the paper is to bring order to the ongoing debate surrounding the normative force of epistemic authority and assess the implications of rejecting the Pre-emption Thesis. In particular, it questions how to think about possible positive epistemic duties towards epistemic superiors, without breaking standard evidential norms and in view of practical risks of abusive authority.

I propose a novel account of epistemic reputation as the social standing of agents, groups, and institutions based on their epistemic profiles within a community. Using a functionalist approach, I argue that epistemic reputation is pervasive in our societies because it facilitates navigation within social epistemic networks. Consequently, it holds significant importance as second-order evidence in testimonial belief-formation. This proposal integrates reputation research, which has traditionally been relegated to the periphery of social epistemology, into the core of epistemology of testimony. As a result, we gain a deeper understanding of the burden and epistemic responsibility associated with epistemic injustice. This approach promises also to illuminate the concept of humility for experts in a new light.

One common criticism of virtue epistemology is its perceived individualism. This paper aims to present a robustly social account of virtue epistemology, framed within the context of the epistemic social environment. To achieve this, it draws on key insights from feminist epistemology and vice epistemology, particularly the work of Johnson, Grasswick, and Kidd. It argues that we can socialize epistemic virtues by broadening our focus from individual epistemic goods to the wider variety of goods that improve our epistemic social environment. In that way, it makes place for reproductive epistemic goals, which have been largely neglected in existing literature. Moreover, it offers a new perspective on the ongoing debate concerning the relationship between epistemology and intellectual ethics.

This paper proposes a function-first approach to understanding theoretical wisdom. Instead of analyzing an abstract concept, it focuses on specific epistemic agents—wise people—and examine their roles within society. While experts provide knowledge and understanding in specific domains, wise persons provide guidance, that is help novices be better epistemic agents and offer a broader picture of reality in the face of science atomization and epistemic flooding. Building on these insights, the paper explores how to combine the notion of theoretical wisdom so reconstructed with intuitions from epistemology of expertise and virtue epistemology. This approach leads to a unitarian, socially relevant concept of theoretical wisdom.

In recent years, virtue epistemology has been criticized for its individualism. Correspondingly, some attempts have been made to make it more social. However, there is some confusion about what it means for virtue epistemology to be individualistic, and how it should be socialized in the face of this. The current paper proposes a systematic answer to these questions. We distinguish elements of theories of virtue that might give rise to different forms of individualism: “subject individualism,” “faculty/trait individualism,” and “value individualism.” Then we show what specific challenges these elements might pose for virtue reliabilism and responsibilism. We focus on two challenges: the epistemic value of other-regarding intellectual virtues, and the problem of “epistemic outsourcing.” In both cases, we identify and evaluate possible strategies for socializing these elements of virtue epistemology.

The classical Virtue Epistemology, one of the most interesting contributions of late 20th century American philosophy, proposed to analyze knowledge and epistemic evaluation in general in terms of intellectual virtues. In this approach, these virtues were understood as faculties or personal traits that contribute to the production of knowledge and other epistemic goods. However, the value of some plausible candidates for intellectual virtues, which can be called “generous virtues,” cannot be explained in those terms. This paper proposes a novel account of the general value of intellectual virtues that includes other‑regarding ones. To that end, it considers three strategies of socialization of Virtue Epistemology, and proposes original solution: Epistemic Social Environmentalism.

The paper aims to make sense of the reproach to adherents of conspiracy theories (and other bad beliefs) that they should not exempt themselves too easily from knowing better. I propose that a significant factor contributing to this exemption might be their epistemic laziness. To define this vice, I consider its normative context. I argue that epistemic laziness can be addressed without adopting a normative contextualist if it is integrated into the Aristotelian triad of virtue and two opposing vices: epistemic: diligence, laziness, and overzealousness. I emphasize the need for a comprehensive analysis that includes both motivational and phronetic dimensions. For that reason, epistemic laziness cannot be reduced to akrasia alone. On the other hand, epistemic diligence demands an intrinsic motivation of love for knowledge, coupled with proper engagement and refraining from further inquiry. This expanded account offers some novel approaches to addressing epistemic laziness and combating conspiracy theories.

This paper examines the epistemic value of other-regarding epistemic virtues, challenging the common view that these virtues are primarily moral in nature. To this end, it proposes a new framework to explain the role of epistemic virtues: the Epistemic Social Environment (ESE). It is argued that the value of an epistemic virtue stems from its contribution to a healthy ESE. This approach enables a broader and unified theory of epistemic virtues, emphasising their role in the communal production of knowledge. Ultimately, the paper aims to reconcile virtue epistemology with insights from social epistemology, offering a comprehensive account of the epistemic value of sharing knowledge.

The paper argues that, although the role of responsibilist epistemic virtues is unclear in the framework of traditional knowledge-centred individualist and idealised epistemology, it can be properly understood if one considers other epistemic goods and activities, adopts insights from social epistemology, and acknowledges the non-ideality of our epistemic world. It proposes to explain the value of epistemic virtues in terms of their contribution to a healthy epistemic social environment. Specifically, it is argued that responsibilist virtues are essential (1) for respecting listeners who commit to testimonial justice; (2) for distinguished epistemic agents in their roles of teachers, guides, and exemplars; and (3) both to create and properly recognise these roles and epistemic positions within social networks. In that way, responsibilist virtue epistemology finds its place among the newly emerging topics of social epistemology.

In face of unethical incidents that threaten the world of science, a question of the necessity and a possible shape of intellectual ethics has been raised. The article argues that advantages of virtue epistemology make it more attractive than other models of intellectual ethics. To that purpose, it reviews alternative models for intellectual ethics, analyses and criticises deontological approach and demonstrates the virtues of the virtue approach. As problems with implementation of virtue ethics have been put against that approach, the article addresses the question of how to promote virtue intellectual ethics. It discusses four possible methods of formation in virtues: theoretical, success-oriented, social and based on emulating exemplars. It argues for the role of excellent exemplars whose emulation forms virtues in agent. The conclusions of the article should transform the way we think about intellectual ethics and promote it.

The article examines the relation between correspondence and convergence in Charles S. Peirce’s theory of truth. An analysis of the context in which the pragmatic concept of truth was introduced, as well as the logical structure of Peirce’s definition, support the claim that Peirce’s position should be understood as a reform of the classical concept of truth rather than its rejection. In particular, the question of the nominalist and realist interpretation of classical and non-classical accounts of truth is addressed, as well as a critique of the proposal to reconcile the actualist and counterfactual interpretation of the convergence condition for truth.

Le livre se propose d'étudier la philosophie de Clarence I. Lewis (1883-1964), auteur méconnu dans l'histoire de la pensée. Toutefois, à son époque, il était un des philosophes les plus populaires aux Etats-Unis. Plusieurs des idées de ses disciples célèbres (Quine, Goodman, Sellars) sont déjà présentes dans ses écrits. Lors de leur arrivée en Amérique, les néopositivistes ne rencontrèrent pas seulement en sa personne un avocat du pragmatisme, mais aussi un interlocuteur intéressé par leurs sujets et versé dans leur méthodologie logique. L'étude propose l'analyse détaillée de sa position épistémologique. La compréhension du donné dans le sens préépistémologique comme expérience immédiate (contre le mythe du donné), l'entente fonctionnaliste des a priori (nécessaires pragmatiquement, mais sans statut ontologique privilégié) et la conception de la connaissance comme activité (l'interprétation comme interaction, contre la théorie copiste), faillible, mais capable d'assurer la vérité nécessaire pour la vie pratique, constituent un sujet d'étude passionant aujourd'hui.