Epistemology: Becoming Intellectually Virtuous

The study of epistemology can aid us as we work to achieve a vital, healthy cognitive life, one preoccupied with pursuing intellectual virtue. It can help to illuminate our intellectual duties and train us in the mental virtues. Providing an account of the stewardship of the mind requires that we think about three related epistemological matters: the logical structure of our knowledge, the requirement for justified belief, and how both bear on beliefs of central concern to Christians. Undertaking to make ourselves intellectually fit for the world in which we were created to live, believes Jay Wood, quite naturally leads us to ask whether there is an ideal structure for ordering our thought life, what rules or habits dispose us to flourish cognitively, and whether our religious and other beliefs reflect these cognitive ideals.