ABSTRACT
A direct approach holds that if our interest is in the individuation of epistemic vices then authors should focus on those vices themselves rather than on our concepts of them. A similar point has been made by Hilary Kornblith in response to the suggestion that knowledge is best studied by analysing the concept of knowledge: ‘the subject matter of epistemology is knowledge itself, not our concept of knowledge’. An explicit theoretical defence of vice pluralism has been provided by Heather Battaly. Epistemic vices systematically obstruct the gaining, keeping or sharing of knowledge. The personal attributes that do that are a mixed bag. They include character traits like closed-mindedness, attitudes like prejudice and arrogance and modes of thinking such as wishful thinking. The necessary conditions for closed-mindedness that interest Battaly are conceptually necessary, and disputes about such conditions are notoriously difficult to resolve.
