Epistemic Sensibility: Third Dimension of Virtue Epistemology

The author tries to argue how epistemic sensibility as virtue sensibility can complement virtue epistemology. Many philosophers interrelated virtue reliabilism (e.g., Brogaard, 2006) and virtue responsibilism (e.g., Code, 1987) to virtue epistemology as two dimensions with many diverging and a few converging characters. The possible new dimension of virtue epistemology, epistemic sensibility, has been completely ignored in the literature. The overlapping relationship among virtue reliabilism, virtue responsibilism, and virtue sensibilism can form a common ground for virtue epistemology. I outlined some essences of epistemic sensibility- pervasive attitude in society, gate keeping contextualism, identification of new items, unreflective consciousness, judgment of moral beliefs, epistemic reliability and trustworthiness, and pedagogical and cognitive disequilibrium. Virtue sensibilism may complement other two dimensions in a meaningful way to the study of virtue epistemology in terms of ontology, epistemology, methodology, axiology, and metaphysics. The act of bridging and debridging of these three dimensions helps us to develop a broader understanding of virtue epistemology.