Virtue epistemology

This term refers to any number of modern epistemological approaches which approach contemporary problems by means of the intellectual virtues, either conceived of as faculties or exemplary traits.

Intellectual virtue has been a subject of philosophy since the works of Plato and Aristotle, but lately philosophers in the analytic tradition have sought to solve problems of especial concern to modern epistemology, such as justification and reliabilism, by throwing attention on the knower as agent in a manner similar to virtue ethics.

Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski has proposed a particularly ambitious neo-Aristotelian model of virtue epistemology, emphasizing the role of phronesis as an archetectonic virtue unifying moral and intellectual virtues even more radically than Aristotle proposed.

Notable proponents of Virtue Epistemology

 * Guy Axtell
 * Abrol Fairweather
 * Alvin Goldman
 * John Greco
 * Alvin Plantinga
 * Ernest Sosa
 * Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski

Links on Virtue Epistemology
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy