Axtell and Carter on Thick Evaluative Concepts in Epistemology

Guy Axtell and I have recently finished a draft of our paper "Just the Right Thickness," which discusses (among other things) recent work in epistemic virtues and epistemic value. Comments are of course warmly welcome! Below are a link to the paper and the abstract.


http://janusblog.squarespace.com/janusbloglibraryofpapersd/

Abstract. Do the central aims of epistemology, like those of moral philosophy, require that we designate some important place for those concepts located between the thin-normative and the non-normative? Put another way, does epistemology need ‘thick’ evaluative concepts? There is an inveterate tradition within which three particular dogmas would lead us to give this question a negative verdict. In this essay, we challenge these dogmas, and in doing so, align ourselves with what has come to be known as the “Value Turn” in epistemology, a movement characterized by the thought that epistemology is a normative domain of inquiry, and one in which central tasks are framed by considerations of epistemic value. From this perspective, we argue that the epistemological projects best suited to meet the requirements implied by the Value Turn will be those projects pursued by “second-wave” virtue epistemologists. These are projects that give thick evaluative concepts an indispensible place in epistemology, and in doing so, serve to expand epistemology in a way that brings into unison what epistemological tradition has left disconnected: that which stands central to epistemology’s focus, and that which is epistemically important.