Knowledge, Dexterity, and Attention

Contemporary cognitive science clearly tells us that attention is modulated for speech and action. While these forms of goal-directed attention are very well researched in psychology, they have not been sufficiently studied by epistemologists. In this book, Abrol Fairweather and Carlos Montemayor develop and defend a theory of epistemic achievements that requires the manifestation of cognitive agency. They examine empirical work on the psychology of attention and assertion, and use it to ground a normative theory of epistemic achievements and virtues. The resulting study is the first sustained, naturalized virtue epistemology, and will be of interest to readers in epistemology, cognitive science, and beyond.

• Readers in both psychology and philosophy will benefit from an original and interdisciplinary explanation of the psychology of epistemic motivation
• Offers a historical assessment of previous attempts at providing a motivation-based approach to epistemic achievements within a reliabilist framework, contributing to key debates on the relation between ability, motivation, and credit
• Presents new ideas on the psychology of curiosity and its relation to linguistic motivations, particularly assertion