New paper by Adam Carter and Duncan Pritchard to a appear in M. Alfano & A. Fairweather’s volume on Epistemic Situationism (OUP).

Epistemic Situationism, Epistemic Dependence and the Epistemology of Education

Abstract. It is argued that the situationist challenge to virtue epistemology fails to establish what it claims to establish, at least so long as the latter proposal is understood correctly. We begin by making the case for such a challenge, which we grant is prima facie strong, at least insofar as one’s focus is the kind of rationally grounded knowledge typically possessed by mature humans. It is argued, however, that the extent of situational influence on cognitive performance that epistemic situationists can credibly lay claim to is in fact consistent with the most plausible rendering of virtue epistemology. This is a modest virtue epistemology which is motivated, in contrast to a robust virtue epistemology, by appeal to the phenomenon of epistemic dependence. It is argued that once one appreciates the epistemic dependence of knowledge, then one realises that there is no essential tension between bona fide rationally grounded knowledge, by virtue-theoretic lights, and the influence of situational factors on the acquisition of such knowledge. It is granted, however, that epistemic situationism demonstrates that much of our rationally grounded knowledge involves less by way of cognitive achievement than we often suppose, and hence that the epistemic situationist can lay claim to a mitigated version of their main thesis. Furthermore, it is explained that this has ramifications for the extent of understanding-why a subject possesses. We conclude by putting these points to work in the epistemology of education, where we demonstrate that situational factors can in fact be exploited in order to develop, in pedagogical settings, cognitive ability and thereby enable students to exhibit higher levels of cognitive achievement.

To access the full paper click here.