宇聯心理健康志業群

by Irene Chiang

[Abstract]
“Epistemology: Becoming Intellectually Virtuous,” written by W. Jay Wood, explores the complexity in the field of philosophy, and re-establishes some historic grounds with an epistemology highlighting intellectual virtue, as oppose to intellectual vice. In this book, the author uses scenarios from great literatures and daily life to explain patterns of intellectual virtue such as being truthful, teachable, inquisitive, and observant in contrast with intellectual vices such as willful ignorance, obtuseness and vicious curiosity. In additions, the author also discusses internalism, externalism and justification, and compares two major schools of epistemology: foundationalism and coherentism. This paper will summarize the main themes and provide personal reflections for each chapter.

BOOK REVIEW ON “EPISTEMOLOGY: BECOMING INTELLECTUALLY VIRTUOUS”

“Epistemology: Becoming Intellectually Virtuous,” written by W. Jay Wood, introduces epistemology with a comprehensive view on the essence of intellectual virtues, and examines contemporary views of foundationalism, epistemic justification and reliabilism. Furthermore, the author also suggests that a virtuous life with integration of Christian moral virtues and intellectual virtues enables us to lead brilliant existence.

MAJOR SECTIONS

The Nature of Epistemology

In this chapter, the author first explores the issue of virtue in epistemology by introducing the concerns and relevance of epistemology to the daily life. Although most people strive for intellectual excellence, the virsuous aspect of it has been less attended to. As regard to this phenomenon, Wood further explains that the pursuit of intellectual virtues is a life-long process, which requires a person to not only integrate every aspect of herself or himself, but also pay attention to the relationship between intellectual and moral development.

Regarding the issue of Christians and intellectual virtue, Wood states that based on Christian tradition, the action of forging “virtuous habits of moral and intellectual character is part of what is required for us to grow to the full stature of all” (Wood, 1998, p. 19), and it is God’s intention for human beings to behave according to such standard. Unlike physical growth, virtuous growth is not an automatic process, and it is possible that the wisdom of a person does not grow as she or he matures in ages. Moreover, if we neglect our morel lives, we will not be able to hold on to the virtues; intellectual growth must be accompanied by moral growth, and vice versa (Wood, 1998, p. 21). In pursuit of career achievement, Wood urges us to “think carefully about our moral and spiritual lives, which also benefit from our being intellectually virtuous.” (Wood, 1998, p. 32)

I personally agree Woods statements that we need to carefully examine the moral aspect of ourselves in the pursuit of intellectual excellence, and the necessity that we need to be cautious toward intellectual vices. The example Wood provides regarding pursuing career achievement is especially practical because many people merely focus on how to accomplish occupational excellence through whatever it takes, but pay little attention to whether there are elements of moral vices. Wood’s statement does remind us to re-examine every thought or action that we have.

Exploring the Intellectual Virtues

Woods describes popular ways that certain virtues are fundamental to our intellectual welfare in this chapter with introduction to four types of things people do with beliefs: (1) acquiring, maintaining, communicating, and applying (Wood, 1998, p. 34), and how they relate to intellectual virtues. He furthers explains that intellectual virtues are “abiding, reliable traits that allow us to orient our intellectual lives” and contribute to human flourishing (Wood, 1998, p. 47). On the contrary, epistemic vices are traits that bear “unfavorable on some aspect of one’s intellectual life” (Wood, 1998, p. 47). Moreover, Woods offers examples that emotions sometimes motivate intellectual activity.

Wood also distinguishes among intellectual abilities, intellectual skills, and intellectual virtues. Intellectual abilities are inborn, but intellectual skills must be cultivated. Intellectual virtues also require the process of cultivation, and they are foundementally related to human flourishing. Although achieving excellence in intellectual abilities and intellectual skills may be admirable, this does not necessarily contributed to human flourishing, because “they are not virtues” (Wood, 1998, p. 53). We should have a concern for human fullness, which from Christian point view means the union with God, and to accomplish maturity on intellectual virtue, that is, to integrate intellectual and moral virtues.

I think that Wood successfully explains the point that brilliance in intellectual abilities or intellectual skills is not the same as having intellectual virtues. In common views, a person is intelligent if she or he achieves high academic status, and this is especially true in societies that put special emphasis on academic performance. In Taiwan, for instance, it is not unusual that a person’s level of intelligence is determined on the basis of her or his academic performance and / or which degree(s) this person holds. Moral and intellectual virtues are frequently overlooked. Actually, we need virtues, not only capabilities, to make ourselves complete.

An Extended Look at Some Intellectual Virtues

Wood begins this chapter with a discussion on studiousness and vicious curiosity. He explains that we should monitor our intentions for pursuing knowledge, how we employ and for what purpose we use such knowledge, and evaluate the relative importance of the truth we obtain. In additions, we should be aware of how we employ our mental powers to avoid serving on harmful or evil purposes (Wood, 1998, p. 55). Next, Wood mentions intellectual honesty and dishonesty. He utilizes many examples to explain that intellectual honesty does not simply mean telling the truth; we have to be honest people to think and behave honestly, and live “obediently with God’s intentions.” (Wood, 1998, p. 66)

Wood further explains issues on wisdom and folly. A person should use knowledge meaningfully, and possess a measure of wisdom to be good and virtuous. On the contrary, if a person thinks and acts in ways that may cause frustrations on her or his own flourishing, this person is in the state of folly (Wood, 1998, p.71). Wood also discusses several epistemic traditions in this section. He believes that there is a general theme of applying knowledge meaningfully, and such meaningful use of knowledge is essential because it is directly related to a person’s intellectual virtues.

I have realized, from reading this chapter, that intentions and wisdom are equally important for becoming intellectual virtuous. In additions, we have to constantly examine whether our thoughts and behaviors are honest, because we have to be honest persons before we can pursue intellectual honesty in a respectful way. Next, we should not “put the good things into the wrong use.” For example, if a person uses her or his intelligence on criminal behaviors, she or he is definitely not being wise; what this person does is fully.

Foundationalism

In this chapter, Wood begins with the introduction of Foundationalism. From the foundationalist point of view, a belief is justified epistemically only if it is based on a basic belief, or justified by a basic belief or beliefs. The hallmark of foundationalism is “to affirm that the ideal logical ordering of our cognitive lives begins with foundationally basic beliefs” (Wood, 1998, p.83), but as Wood explains, the strong foundationalism program of Descartes and others has later suffered tremendous attacked.

Woods provides description on the basic principle of foundationalism: basic or immediate beliefs and nonbasic or mediate beliefs that we believe, as well as a certain kind of connection between our epistemological starting points, basic beliefs, and things that are based on them. Such connection is referred to as the “basing relation” (Wood, 1998, p. 84). The restrictions of strong foundationalism are: (1) a basic belief is self-evidently true; (2) a basic belief is incorrigible; (3) a basic belief is evident to the senses (Wood, 1998, pp. 85-86). Moreover, Wood discusses modest foundationalism. While also seeking to base knowledge claims on basic beliefs, modest foundationalism expands the meaning and seeks probabilities instead of certainty. Wood believes that an exploration on the role of passions, interests, intellectual virtues and vices are essential to understand the disagreement on foundationalism (Wood, 1998, p. 104).

This chapter sheds a new light on my personal understanding toward Descartes’ foundationalist theory. When I studied Philosophy in college, it was my first time to study this subject in a foreign language. I did my best to understand the lecture and the text, with little time to compare and contrast or to ponder on the weaknesses of different theories. We did not spend a lot of time on Descartes, either, so I merely gained a basic comprehension on his “I think, therefore I am” approach without really thinking deeply on the weakness within. This chapter provides a more complete picture on Descartes’ foundationalist point of view.

Epistemic Justification

In this part, Wood examines the issue of epistemic justification, generally thought to be crucial for obtaining knowledge (Wood, 1998, p. 106), and discusses two of the three major theories for justification used in the contemporary world: evidentialism and coherentism. According to evidentialism, which is embedded within the theory of foundationalism, every belief we hold must be supported by reasons that are grounded in basic beliefs. Because of the strong influence from foundationalism, epistemologists of evidentialism have presumed that “the justification of a belief must be provided by another belief” (Wood, 1998, p. 109).

Next, Wood discusses coherentism, a theory that has become a major alternative since the declination of classical foundationalism. The core idea of coherentism is that we are justified in believing a claim as long as it coheres with the rest of what we believe (Wood, 1998, p. 114). Wood thinks that although there is something intuitively correct and prephilosophically natural about theories of coherentism, it still has weaknesses that prevent itself from being the sole method to epistemic justification. Both evidentialism and coherentism require the element of personal beliefs, and leave out those beliefs that we can accept immediately without undergoing internal evaluation based on what we believe.

From reading this chapter, one can see clearly that both evidentialism and coherentism put strong emphasis on what we know as basic belief. However, what if there is doubt on such basic belief? Furthermore, evidentialism and coherentism overlook the aspect that there are beliefs that we can accept right away without judging them according to our basic belief – spiritual or religious beliefs. With limitations on definitions, these two theories still are unable to provide a holistic view on epistemic justification due to their subjectivity.

Reliabilism

In this chapter, Wood introduces the third major theory for justification used in the contemporary world: reliabilism. Instead of relying on a subjective perspective, reliabilists believe that “justification depends on whether I acquire the belief in a way that makes it highly likely that I have gained the truth” (Wood, 1998, p. 128). Reliabilism provides a process of justification that is more objective, and the deficiency on philosophical training does not prevent a person’s cognitive faculties from functioning reliably (Wood, 1998, p. 132). In additions, reliabilism allows us “to explain the nature of justification by appealing to concrete empirical processes and states of affairs” (Wood, 1998, p. 133). However, there are objections toward reliabilism because it may easily fall into generalization.

Wood continues to explore reliabilism by offering a description on the internalism vs. externalism debate. Internalists insist that the grounds of our justified beliefs rely on something that we have introspective access to (Wood, 1998, p. 138), while externalists claim that justification is something that happens to us, and we do not gain justification by reasoning correctly on a belief (Wood, 1998, p. 141). Wood later suggests the re-integration of key insights from both internalism and externalism. Moreover, Woods introduces self-knowledge and the ability “to embark on personal management strategies to rectify the shortcomings that are revealed through introspection” (Wood, 1998, p. 148) as critical to virtue epistemology.

As argued by Wood, there is a way to reunite our introspective process and events we experience personally to achieve epistemic justification. I agree with such approach because it integrates the strengths from both methods, providing a more comprehensive approach on pursuing the goal of becoming intellectually virtuous.

Epistemology & Religious Belief

After discussing different approaches toward justification of epistemology, Wood applies his discussion on epistemology to religious belief. Here, Wood summarizes several crucial points of internalism and externalism and how they relate to justification of theism. Wood further explores how our perception contributes to the cultivation of intellectual and moral virtues. He provides an argument derived from Plato and Aristotle that “our cognitive powers cannot function as they ought if they are not appropriately connected with emotions and concerns that have been trained to virtue” (Wood, 1998, p. 159).

Next, Wood discusses the issue of reformed epistemology. He states that it is common for reformed epistemologists to assert that the way we approach religious belief is through the simulation of our cognitive abilities by certain types of experience instead of by argument or inferential reasoning (Wood, 1998, p. 164), and such statement caused huge criticism. According to Plantinga, there are conditions to be satisfy prior to human beliefs can be said to have warrant: (1) a belief has warrant insofar as it is without malfunction; (2) human cognitive faculties should function in an environment proper for them as well (Wood, 1998, p. 172). Wood continues the discussion by mentioning Mary, Martha and Miriam as examples of explaining the dialectic regarding the aforementioned points of view.

It appears to me that our cognition would function properly only if our thoughts, feelings and emotions are virtuously correct, and our surroundings play a fundamental role as well. I recall my previous reflections that we should be honest to think and behave honestly. Here, it seems to me that we need to have virtuous emotions and thoughts before we can have our cognitive abilities functioned “in the right way.” Nature and nurture are equally important attributes of righteous cognitive functioning.

The Role of Emotions & Virtues in Proper Cognitive Functioning

In the final chapter of this book, Wood explores the concept that both emotions and virtues constitute a part of human cognitive equipment. He argues Descartes’ statement that a suitably functioning mind is one that has been “liberated from all cares and happily agitated by no passions” (Wood, 1998, p. 175). In his point of view, Wood considers a properly functioning mind is one that has been properly “trained to care about the right things” (Wood, 1998, p. 175).

Wood considers that both emotions and moral virtues constitute human beings’ thinking apparatus, and offers explanations on how emotions assist good thinking. He further states that emotions are also crucial on aspects of scientific inquiry, and provides testimonies form several scientists to illustrate that “their capacity to love, respect and be fascinated or surprised by their subject” affect not only their perceptive powers, but also how they choose and appraise data, and their determination to see a certain research program through (Wood, 1998, p. 189).

Finally, Wood reviews his argument that we must flourish emotionally and morally in addition to flourishing intellectually. Next, based on biblical teaching, “we are not alone in our efforts to cultivate life-characterizing concerns and the virtuous emotions and behavior that stem from them” (Wood, 1998, p. 196). God is there to help us in our quest of becoming emotional, intellectual and moral virtuous. God gives us wisdom.

I appreciate the author’s view that emotional aspect should not be left out in the course of rational thinking. When discussing issues about reasoning or scientific quests, it is not uncommon for people to overlook the fact that emotional well-being truly has an impact on positive attitudes toward perception and research. For me, this book is not only an introduction to epistemology, but it also offers moral and intellectual insights that can be integrated into our thinking and daily life.

[References]
Wood, W. J. (1998). Epistemology: Becoming intellectually virtuous. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.