Blackwell Reference Online

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When Aristotle said that it is human nature to desire to know, he set down one of the most important constraints on the field of epistemology. I propose that if we can figure out why knowledge is desirable we shall not only go some distance towards understanding what it is, but we shall also discover some surprising things. One thing we shall discover is that a number of well-known theories of knowledge cannot explain what makes knowledge better than true belief. I call this “the value problem”. Second, we shall discover that the common view that epistemic good is independent of moral good is largely an illusion. Not only are the epistemic goods intimately connected with other things we value, but also intellectual virtues are strongly tied to moral virtues. A mechanistic model of human belief acquisition is problematic because there is no truth-directed channel in the human mind that operates independently of those features of the human psyche that are evaluated morally – human emotions, choices, acts, and traits. A third thing we shall discover is that knowing is only one of the valuable epistemic relations we desire to have with the world. Valuable states such as understanding and wisdom have been neglected in the modern period, but were given much more attention in most of ancient and medieval philosophy. These are among the considerations that have led to what Wayne Riggs calls ... log in or subscribe to read full text