Wisdom, Intellectual Virtue, and Epistemology

Abstract

This paper argues that a wise person is an intellectually virtuous person. The intellectual virtue requirement is explained as a necessary condition for wisdom, intuitively the highest epistemic good. This provides an answer to Duncan Pritchard’s question as to the significance of the intellectual virtues for the epistemological project. In other words, the requirement explains why the intellectual virtues are central to the concerns of epistemology. The paper starts by providing an overview of intellectual virtue. An overview of recent analytic philosophical literature on wisdom is set out. This discussion leads to the claim that the wise person understands how to live well. The claim that intellectual virtues are required for understanding how to live well is then examined. The case is made that understanding how to live well in a modally robust way requires possession of the intellectual virtues.