Imperfect Cognitions

Today's post is by Alessandra Tanesini (University of Cardiff) and it is a presentation of Tanesini's latest book, The Mismeasure of the Self: A Study in Vice Epistemology (Oxford University Press 2021). The book is dedicated to the study of eight epistemic vices: four vices of superiority and four of inferiority. The vices of superiority are characteristic of people who feel superior, entitled, and have an inflated opinion of themselves. Those of inferiority are typical of individuals who feel inferior, undeserving and are full of self-doubt.  The book focuses on superbia, arrogance, vanity and narcissism as examples of vices of superiority, and on servility, self-abasement, timidity and fatalism as illustrations of those of inferiority. Each of these vices is shown to be rooted in faulty self-evaluations. People who suffer from these vices do not have the measure of their own strengths and limitations. Because their self-assessments are motivated by needs that are at varianc...

This post is by Ian James Kidd, Heather Battaly, and Quassim Cassam. They present their new book, Vice Epistemology , which was published by Routledge five days ago. Ian Kidd Study of the human epistemic failings has been a staple theme of philosophy since antiquity. Ancient Greek, Indian, and Chinese philosophers were all concerned with ignorance, stupidity, and prejudiced and biased ways of thinking – ones opposed to such high-fidelity philosophical goods as wisdom, certain knowledge, or rationality. Attempted amelioration of those epistemic failings has been an aim of ethics, logic, and the more overtly ‘therapeutic’ forms of philosophical practice, too. Obviously, our world remains populated by human beings with very many epistemic failings, a glum fact reiterated by contemporary research in empirical psychology, philosophy of mind and epistemology. Such work offers a whole range of conceptual tools for the study of those failings and one of the newest is that of an epistemic ...

The Epistemic Vices Conference , held in Durham in September 2015, put epistemic vices in the spotlight, with a series of talks on both what makes something an epistemic vice and the nature of specific epistemic vices. On day one Heather Battaly argued that virtues and vices are traits that express who someone is as a person, even if the person is not responsible for the possession or exercise of the traits. She argued that this view—personalism—is better equipped than existing forms of virtue epistemology to tackle some examples where people display intellectual vice, e.g. where a person is prejudiced due to their upbringing in a racist society. Quassim Cassam argued that intellectual vices are traits that impede effective and responsible inquiry. He described how intellectual vices perform a significant role in explaining poor epistemic conduct. Responding to the situationist challenge, he claimed that virtues are often local rather than global traits. I highlighted a fa...