Creativity as an Epistemic Virtue

This chapter asks what epistemic creativity is and under what conditions epistemic creativity is a virtue or, perhaps more accurately, when, where and why epistemic creativity constitutes an epistemic virtue. Key questions include: i) what goal(s) does epistemic creativity aim at?; ii) how so?; iii) under what conditions is epistemic creativity a reliabilist virtue?; iv) under what conditions if any does epistemic creativity constitute a responsibilist virtue?; and v) what objections are there to our answers? A thought common to many reliabilists and responsibilists is that the goal is to acquire – reliably – truths or knowledge (Sosa 2008: 225; Zagzebski 1996: 176–181). Hence, epistemic creativity might be thought to involve a reliable ability to discover new (novelty condition) truths or knowledge (value condition). However, it is argued that this thought is misguided for several reasons. It is argued that epistemic creativity aims at generating new, worthwhile ways of inquiring about or conceiving of the object of inquiry. Furthermore, to be an epistemic virtue, epistemic creativity must be a broadly reliable, dispositional ability directed toward such ends. It is then argued that, contra reliabilism, the virtue of epistemic creativity requires the constitutive motivational component of curiosity. However, contra responsibilism, the ultimate motivation need not be to pursue knowledge for its own sake. Epistemically creative people are motivated by curiosity to seek out and take on inquiries that engage their epistemic agency in ways that tend to generate something new and epistemically valuable. What this amounts to is cashed out in some detail before considering several objections to such an account.