Systematic Epistemic Rights Violations in the Media: A Brexit Case Study. 2018. Social Epistemology, 32:2, 88-102.
Abstract: In this paper, I outline the nature of epistemic rights and epistemic rights violations (Sections I-III) and demonstrate the widespread perpetration of such violations in pre-Brexit media coverage (Section IV). This provides a case study for the investigation of epistemic rights violations across national and international media; a topic of central concern for contemporary epistemology (Section V).
Educating for Curiosity. 2018. In: (eds. Inan, Ilhan, Watson, Lani, Whitcomb, Dennis, and Yigit, Safiye) The Moral Psychology of Curiosity. Rowman and Littlefield.
Abstract: My aim, in this chapter, is to present a characterisation of the intellectual virtue of curiosity that offers some insight into educating for the virtue, and provides theoretically grounded motivations for doing so. I begin by outlining a characterisation of curiosity as an intellectual virtue. I then examine three key features of this characterisation relevant to the task of educating for curiosity as an intellectual virtue. Finally, I present, what I take to be two of the most compelling reasons to educate for the intellectual virtue of curiosity.
Curiosity and Inquisitiveness. 2018. In: (ed.) Battaly, H. The Routledge Handbook of Virtue Epistemology. London: Routledge.
Abstract: This paper offers characterisations of the intellectual virtues of curiosity and inquisitiveness and discusses the distinction between them. I argue that curiosity and inquisitiveness should not be regarded as synonymous. Specifically, virtuous inquisitiveness emerges as a restricted form of virtuous curiosity: it is virtuous curiosity manifested as good questioning. This has implications, within applied virtue epistemology, for the ways in which we educate for these closely related, but distinct intellectual virtues.
Educating for Good Questioning: A Tool for Intellectual Virtues Education. (forthcoming). Acta Analytica.
Abstract: In this paper, I present a central line of argument in support of educating for good questioning, namely, that it plays an important role in the formation of an individual’s intellectual character and can thereby serve as a valuable pedagogical tool for intellectual character education. I argue that good questioning plays two important roles in the cultivation of intellectual character: good questioning 1) stimulates intellectually virtuous inquiry and 2) contributes to the development of several of the individual intellectual virtues. Insofar as the cultivation of intellectually virtuous character is a desirable educational objective, we should educate for good questioning.
Educating for Good Questioning as a Democratic Skill. (forthcoming). In: The Routledge Handbook of Social Epistemology. London: Routledge.
Abstract: In this paper I argue that we should rethink the dominant answer-oriented education model and educate for good questioning. I align the case in support of educating for good questioning with the democratic education movement, drawing additional support from the distinct but complementary argument for skills-based education. I present an account of the skill of good questioning and examine three distinct contributions that this skill makes to the successful functioning of democratic society, arguing that good questioning facilitates 1) understanding, 2) participation, and 3) decision-making. Good questioning is thereby conducive to both individual learning and societal cohesion and is a key component of intellectual character, without which learning is in danger of becoming passive and compliant. Good questioning serves the aims of democratic education and, correspondingly, of democracy itself. We should educate for good questioning in democratic society.
The Epistemology of Education. 2016. Philosophy Compass, 11(3): 146-159.
Abstract: The landscape of contemporary epistemology has significantly diversified in the past thirty years, shaped in large part by two complementary movements; virtue and social epistemology. This diversification provides an apt theoretical context for the epistemology of education. No longer concerned exclusively with the formal analysis of knowledge, epistemologists have turned their attention towards individuals as knowers, and the social contexts in which epistemic goods such as knowledge and understanding are acquired and exchanged. As such the concerns of epistemology have once again aligned with questions lying at the heart of the philosophy of education regarding the nature, aims and practice of education. Employing the conceptual tools and frameworks of the contemporary field, these questions are addressed by both epistemologists and education theorists in the emerging epistemology of education literature.
Why Should We Educate for Inquisitiveness. 2016. In: (ed.) Baehr, J. Intellectual Virtues and Education: Essays in Applied Virtue Epistemology. Routledge. 38-53.
Abstract: Inquisitiveness is a paradigm example of an intellectual virtue. Despite some extensive work on the characterisation of the intellectual virtues, however, (e.g. Roberts and Wood, 2007; Baehr 2011) no detailed treatment of the virtue of inquisitiveness has been forthcoming in the recent literature. This paper offers a characterisation of virtuous inquisitiveness considered within the framework of educating for intellectual virtue. It presents the case in support of educating for inquisitiveness arguing that it is a primary intellectual virtue to educate for.
What is Inquisitiveness. 2015. American Philosophical Quarterly, 52(3): 273-288.
Abstract: This paper offers an in-depth examination of the intellectual virtue of inquisitiveness. A characterisation of inquisitiveness is developed in Part I in which the inquisitive person is identified as one who is characteristically motivated to engage sincerely in good questioning. Part II examines the place of inquisitiveness among the virtues. Inquisitiveness is seen to bear a defining relationship to the process of inquiry as a fundamentally motivating intellectual virtue. On this basis, it is argued that inquisitiveness plays a distinctively valuable role in the intellectually virtuous life, placing it at the heart of autonomous virtue epistemology.