Achieving Knowledge: A Virtue-Theoretic Account of Epistemic Normativity

When we affirm (or deny) that someone knows something, we are making a value judgment of sorts - we are claiming that there is something superior (or inferior) about that person's opinion, or their evidence, or perhaps about them. A central task of the theory of knowledge is to investigate the sort of evaluation at issue. This is the first book to make 'epistemic normativity,' or the normative dimension of knowledge and knowledge ascriptions, its central focus. John Greco argues that knowledge is a kind of achievement, as opposed to mere lucky success. This locates knowledge within a broader, familiar normative domain. By reflecting on our thinking and practices in this domain, it is argued, we gain insight into what knowledge is and what kind of value it has for us.

John Greco is the Leonard and Elizabeth Eslick chair in Philosophy at Saint Louis University. His previous publications include putting Skeptics in their place: The Nature of Skeptical Arguments and their Role in Philosophical Inquiry (Cambridge, 2000). He is also the editor of The Oxford Handbook of Skepticism (2008) and Sosa and his critics (2004), as well as co-editor of Rationality and the Good (2007) and The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology (1999).