ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on two conceptions of skill that are the most relevant to virtue epistemology. First, we have skills as abilities. Abilities are dispositions that allow a person to succeed reliably in achieving a particular aim. The aim of an ability make it distinct from other abilities, marked linguistically by saying it is an ability to do a particular thing. The ability conception of skill focuses on the output of a person's dispositions without being committed to those dispositions having a specific underlying structure. Second, we have skills as techne, which is translated from the Greek as art, craft, or skill. Reliabilist intellectual virtues are closely related to abilities. Abilities are reliable processes, but their reliability need not be further justified. Techne, on the other hand, doesn't stop the regress of reason-giving. In contrast to virtue reliabilism, virtue responsibilism focuses on the analogies and connections between the moral and intellectual virtues.
