Abstract
Virtue epistemology (VE) suggests that S knows just in case S’s true belief is creditable to S’s competence. While Lackey’s (2007, 2009) objection from testimonial knowledge had raised concerns that VE is too strong, some virtue epistemologists (Sosa 2007, Pritchard 2012) adopted a weaker condition requiring only partial credit on agent’s part. This paper, however, argues that in addition to the creditable relation, the agent’s competence manifestation could be partial too—in the sense that only part of his/her whole competence regarding the cognitive task is manifested. Interesting consequences follow as we explore this new way of dissecting cognitive agency—in particular, difficult cases for VE arise when one’s cognitive competence is partly apt and partly Gettiered.
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Notes
Sosa (2007) coined the terms ‘accuracy’ and ‘adroitness’ for acquiring true beliefs and displaying competence respectively. Thus, together with ‘aptness’ Sosa’s view suggests that knowledge bears a AAA structure.
Lackey (2007), p. 352.
Sosa (2007) seemed to agree with this partial credit rendering as he described testimony as manifestations of a ‘complex social competence’ rather than competences rest entirely within agents; also, Pritchard (2012) holds a ‘weak ability condition’ that requires one’s cognitive agency to be a salient, but not necessarily overarching, explanation to one’s cognitive success. Note that Pritchard however considers PARTIAL CREDIT as necessary, but not sufficient, condition for knowledge.
Lackey (2009), p. 38.
Lackey (2009), p. 40.
It’s noteworthy that although Nolan did not manifest his other senses when seeing a sheep, he might manifest them in recognising a sheep. To this effect, the relevant abilities in concern are certainly dependent on the specific description of the cognitive task at hand.
Even with such elucidation in place, it is important to note that the idea of HOLISTIC COMPETENCE rarely manifests itself in actual human cognitive performances. With straightforward cases such as visually perceiving a barn, multiple cognitive skills and mental processes under the visual perception umbrella would be considered relevant, but an instance of visual perception where all of these skills were manifested may be difficult to imagine even in the most ideal cases. To this end, HOLISTIC COMPETENCE may be considered a theoretical possibility to contrast with PARTIAL COMPETENCE, serving the purpose of elucidating the latter which is of major concern in this paper. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for the discussion in this and for urging me to elaborate on the relevance of cognitive skills.
For what it’s worth, the analogous archery case would be one when the skilful archer shoots in a dark environment, or has a broken wrist etc., but still makes the shot in virtue of what’s left in his skills.
I believe the previous discussion on relevance of cognitive skills fits well with our dynamic reliance on various competence suggested here. Like reliability, relevance of cognitive skills comes in degrees. Flavour perception, in virtue of being a more reliable skill in differentiating beverages, may be considered a more relevant skill in the said task compared to visual perception—while the archery skill of Nosal, for example, would be irrelevant as an unreliable skill in beverage identification.
I am thankful for an anonymous reviewer for inviting me to consider a less contrived case in presenting the partial competence problem.
Unlike the term ‘epistemic vice’ commonly discussed in the literature, by ‘vicious faculties’ I only mean ones that constitute inapt beliefs—i.e. faculties that skilfully formed true beliefs, but the truths had nothing to do with the skills displayed.
Greco (2012), 16–17.
Pritchard (2012) suggested that the two cases create a dilemma because the former demands VE to weaken its condition while the latter calls for strengthening it. He argued that no virtue theoretic condition could satisfy both demands at the same time.
See Pritchard (2012) for the relevant competence displayed in receiving a testimony.
This is my own preferred ranking with respect to personal recognition anyway. The argument put forth here would stand regardless of the specific rankings of significance.
An example of inapt testimony could be that a trickster disguised as Halfling’s trusted subordinate and make random assertions prior to her entering the room—those random assertions turn out to include the target proposition (which the trickster has no intention to testify).
Note that V^A^T (bona fide instance of knowledge) and ~ V^ ~ A^ ~ T (typical intervening Gettier case) are not considered here as INTERROGATION only concerns instances of partial competence manifestations.
That is, the situation that one aptly sees and hears Jesse but receives a misguiding testimony.
VE proponents might argue that insofar as the weighing of components faculties is feasible, such knowledge ascription pattern shouldn’t come as a surprise. However, the point here is not that such pattern is problematic per se; rather it seems to be at odds with Sosa’s particular theoretical framework. At least, Sosa’s view does not seem to have the resources to explain why (holding fixed the seat and shape) situations V^A^ ~ T and ~ V^A^T are knowledge yielding while ~ V^A^ ~ T is not.
This does not mean that there is nothing in VE’s arsenal to address paradigm cases of defeaters in Gettier literature. For an example of specific VE rendering’s engagement with the epistemic defeat literature, see Pritchard (2018).
I am thankful to an anonymous reviewer for bringing up the potential implications concerning epistemic defeat for INTERROGATION.
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Lau, T.T.F. Holistic Competence and its Partial Manifestations. Philosophia 51, 2589–2602 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-023-00696-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-023-00696-z