I am interested in what virtuous thinking is. Following ancient tradition (particularly Aristotle and Socrates), I take this question to be part of the bigger question of what a good human life is. Hence, it is just as much an ethical as an epistemological question in my work.
Therefore, my work tends to ask questions that make the notion of thinking ‘messier’:
whether we also have to be trained in how we feel about things in order to think well,1,2 what role such things as courage and doubt play in good thinking,3,4 how our way of paying attention influences this,5,6 and how we do these things well collectively (as opposed to only individually).7
An underlying theme in these works is how we should deal with the fact that these are inherently open-ended tasks. That is, both good thinking and leading a good human life more generally can only be done in an ongoing way. Therefore, the virtues of open-mindedness and flexibility reappear often as topics.8,9,10
Ultimately, I want to understand what role specifically philosophical thinking plays in the good human life.11,12 Philosophy seems to be the kind of thinking that is specifically geared toward dealing with inherently open-ended questions: how to deal with ethical, transcendental, and existential issues, among others. (i.e., we won’t ever be done with this!)
(1) Emotion, Cognition, and the Virtue of Flexibility
(2) “Aristotelian Virtue and the Freudian Challenge to Second Nature”
(3) “Epistemic Courage and Open-Mindedness” (under review), ask me for the draft
(4) “Motivated Inquiry” (under review), ask me for the draft
(5) “The Virtue of Open-Mindedness as a Virtue of Attention”
(6) “Virtuous Collective Attention”
(7) “Virtuous Collective Attention”
(8) “The Virtue of Open-Mindedness as a Virtue of Attention”
(9) Emotion, Cognition, and the Virtue of Flexibility
(10) “Epistemic Courage and Open-Mindedness” (under review), ask me for the draft
(11) “Can Philosophy be an Academic Discipline?”
(12) “Purely Cognitive Benefits as an Aim of Research?”