Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry Into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge - Paperback

by Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Author)

Almost all theories of knowledge and justified belief employ moral concepts and forms of argument borrowed from moral theories, but none of them pay attention to the current renaissance in virtue ethics. This remarkable book is the first attempt to establish a theory of knowledge based on the model of virtue theory in ethics. The book develops the concept of an intellectual virtue, and then shows how the concept can be used to give an account of the major concepts in epistemology, including the concept of knowledge.

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'This is a very impressive development of an epistemological theory that is modeled on a virtue oriented ethical theory. there have been several presentations of virtue-based eptistlemologies lately, but none of them matches the present work in systematic development, scope, and power. It will move this approach to epistemology onto center stage, and it will become the focus for discussions of virtue epistemology.' --William P. Alston, Syracuse University