Virtue Epistemology And Epistemic Value Problem

Epistemology is an important field in the study of contemporary western philosophy,and the corresponding questions and results are cutting-edge.The contemporary began with Gettier Problem which contradicted the definition of “knowledge is justified true belief”theoretically,thereby shook the viewpoint of “justification,truth and belief are the necessary and sufficient condition of knowledge.”of traditional epistemology in 60 s.Take the question of”What is knowledge?”as a breakthrough point,the different scholars study knowledge in different ways,thus there have emerged variety of theories like internalism and externalism,basicism and conherenism.But the comparatively standard answer to the problem of knowledge's nature has not been solved.As another crucial part of knowledge,also for helping to solve the problem of nature further,the problem of value is presented upon the stage of epistemology,and it lead to a turning from nature-driven epistemology to value-driven epistemology.”Why knowledge is more valuable than true belief?”that is a philosophy problem which goes back to ancient Greek.Around the question,scholars seek for the answer based on their theories.And virtue epistemology is a daring vanguard in this field.Jonathan L.Kvanvig start the importance of value problem,and the other scholars also pay attention to it.Then a virtue-responsibilist Linda Zagzebski put forward “swamping problem”which is called “the contemporary value conundrum” for attacking external reliabilist,and it advance the internalization of value,and she also advocates to replace the epistemic pattern of”machine-product” by certain epistemic pattern which is human-specific.Duncan Pritchard bases on “swamping problem”to structured his”swamping argument”,and he points out that all epistemic theories which is based on”knowledge=true belief+X”would suffer swamping problem.On the other hand,he put forward epistemicachievement theory and the concept of final value,and he advocates that understanding is more valuable than knowledge,and even would have final value.The virtue-responsililist Ernest Sosa considers that knowledge is equivalent to action,and he put forward the “AAA”behavior normalization to assess and divide beliefs.He divides knowledge into animal knowledge,reflective knowledge and “knowing full well”,and “knowing full well” has the best epistemic value.At the same time he considers that knowledge has instrumental and practical value.In conclusion,there is a link between the turning to value of contemporary epistemology and the study of virtue epistemology,and virtue epistemology is advantaged in solving value problem.This paper will take the value problem as a breakthrough point in order to set forth precisely some virtue epistemology scholars' solutions of value problem,and try to reveal the diversity of interpretation about knowledge's value through these solutions.