GRECO ON KNOWLEDGE VIRTUES, CONTEXTS, strongACHIEVEMENTSstrong.pdfVIP

1 GRECO ON KNOWLEDGE: VIRTUES, CONTEXTS, ACHIEVEMENTS DUNCAN PRITCHARD University of Edinburgh ABSTRACT. This paper critically discusses John Greco’s paper, ‘What’s Wrong With Contextualism?’, in which he outlines of a theory of knowledge which is virtue-theoretic while also being allied to a form of attributer contextualism about ‘knows’. 1. VIRTUE EPISTEMOLOGY AND CONTEXTUALISM John Greco is one of the foremost exponents of a view in the theory of knowledge known as virtue epistemology. In general, virtue epistemologists hold that at least a necessary condition for knowledge is that one attains a true belief via the stable and reliable cognitive traits that make up one’s cognitive character. What counts as a cognitive trait here and, relatedly, what counts as a ‘cognitive character ’will very much depend on the details of the view, though Greco is one of the more liberal interpreters of these notions.1 In effect, one can read Greco’s version of virtue epistemology as simply a refined type of reliabilism, what has been called an ‘agent ’ or ‘virtue ’ reliabilism. There is an important difference between the sort of virtue-theoretic proposal that Greco endorsed in his earlier work and the kind of proposal that he now defends. This difference is significant for our purposes since it is what leads Greco to ally his virtue epistemological proposal to a form of attributer contextualism.2 In order to get a sense of 1 In contrast, for example, to Linda Zagzebski who offers a very restrictive account of the cognitive abilities relevant to knowledge possession. See, for example, L. Za