Tag: Biola University

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The 2015 Annual CCT Conference

By Jim Spiegel

Last week I attended the conference of the Biola Center for Christian Thought, which is the annual capstone event at the CCT.  This year’s research theme was “Intellectual Virtue and Civil Discourse,” and the conference featured a number of noteworthy scholars who have done significant work in areas related to the theme.  Among them were Robert Audi (University of Notre Dame),

Robert Audi and Storm Bailey
Robert Audi and Storm Bailey

Jason Baehr (Loyola Marymount University), Elaine Howard Ecklund (Rice University), George Marsden (University of Notre Dame, retired), Robert Roberts (Baylor University), Richard Mouw (Fuller Theological Seminary, retired), and Martin Marty (University of Chicago, retired).  In addition to the presentations by these plenary speakers, there were many other excellent presentations at breakout sessions.

Thanks to the John Templeton Foundation, I was honored to be a CCT research fellow during the Fall semester this past academic year.  My research project regards the virtue of open-mindedness, and I was able to make significant progress on what I hope will culminate in a monograph on the subject.  My presentation at the CCT conference, entitled “Open-

George Marsden
George Marsden

mindedness and Disagreement,” explored the connection between two topics that are germane to this year’s theme.  With regard to the issue of disagreement, the question is whether, or to what extent, confidence in your belief about an issue should be tempered by the fact that some epistemic peers disagree with you.  And, depending upon your view regarding the epistemic implications of peer disagreement, what does it mean to remain open-minded about the issue?  My session was well-attended, and I received helpful feedback, which I am looking forward to implementing in my paper as I revise it and eventually submit it for publication.

The most enjoyable thing about the conference was catching up with some of the scholars I’ve gotten to know through the CCT and other contexts, as well as becoming acquainted with a number of other scholars whom I’d never met before.  Some of these I had only admired from afar, such as the eminent

Martin Marty and me
Martin Marty and me

epistemologist Robert Audi and religious scholar Martin Marty, who might be the greatest living scholar in the English speaking world—author of more than 80 books, winner of numerous scholarly awards, member of two U.S. Presidential Commissions, and holder of 80 (yes, eighty) honorary doctorates.  Somehow I ended up sitting next to Marty at the evening banquet at the CCT conference, and I was struck by the warm humor and genuine humility of the man.  What an inspiration.

In fact, the word “inspiring” well captures my entire experience at the Biola Center for Christian Thought this year.  The CCT directors—Thomas Crisp, Steve Porter, and Gregg Ten Elshof—as well as staff members Evan Rosa and Laura Pelser, are all wonderful folks who know how to create a dynamic community atmosphere for rich scholarly research and dialogue.  The Center is currently accepting proposals for the 2016-17 research theme: “Humility: Moral, Religious, and Intellectual.”  If you do work related to this topic and would like an opportunity to dig a lot deeper, then consider submitting a proposal.  I guarantee that the experience would be a highlight of your academic career!

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Three Great Books on Intellectual Virtue

By Jim Spiegel

This semester I have the honor of working as a Templeton Fellow at the Biola University Center for Christian Thought.  Each year the CCT focuses on a different topic, and the theme this year is intellectual virtue and civil discourse.  My research topic, which fits naturally within this theme, is one that I’ve been working on the last few years—open-mindedness.  What does it mean to be open-minded?  Why is it a virtue?  When is it not virtuous to be open-minded?  And is it possible to be simultaneously open-minded and religiously devout?  For some of my thoughts about these questions, look here.

In the course of my research, I’ve read some really good stuff on intellectual virtue.  So I thought I’d provide a brief introduction to, at least in my assessment, three of the best books on the topic.

9780521578264Linda Zagzebski, Virtues of the Mind (Cambridge, 1996) — This book is considered by many to be a contemporary classic in the field of virtue epistemology, and for good reason.  Zagzebski not only develops a plausible theory of intellectual virtue, but also offers rich discussions of related and sub-issues along the way, including practical wisdom, understanding, and a critical assessment of Alvin Plantinga’s epistemology.  She conceives knowledge as “cognitive contact with reality arising out of acts of intellectual virtue.”  Although her account overreaches at times, it is nonetheless insightful at nearly every turn.  And, as is the case with all landmark works of philosophy, even her mistakes are instructive.

 

 

9780199283675_140Robert Roberts and Jay Wood, Intellectual Virtues (Oxford, 2007) — Rather than defending a particular theory of virtue epistemology, Roberts and Wood offer what they call a “regulative epistemology” which aims instead to “generate guidance for epistemic practice.”  For those who are more interested in the practical implications and applications of virtue epistemology, this is a book to check out, which is chock full of insights about the moral life.  After clarifying a number of key concepts, including just what a virtue is, they explore the meaning and practical dimensions of a number of particular intellectual virtues, including intellectual courage, intellectual humility, intellectual autonomy, intellectual generosity, and practical wisdom.

 

9780199604074_140Jason Baehr, The Inquiring Mind (Oxford, 2011) — In a work that is a bit more theoretical and advanced than the previous two works, Baehr (who is also a CCT fellow this semester) develops and defends what he calls a “personal worth” conception of intellectual virtue.  Along the way he argues for the relevance of considerations of intellectual virtue, whatever one’s view, whether one holds to a reliabilist or evidentialist epistemological theory.  After making his cases for these theoretical points, he explores in-depth two important intellectual virtues:  intellectual courage and open-mindedness.  Baehr’s discussion of the latter of these is especially interesting to me, of course.

These are rigorous, enriching texts which provide theoretical and practical insights—improving our understanding regarding both the nature of knowledge and how we ought to live.  In word, they make us wiser.  Philosophy doesn’t get any richer than this.