Abstract

A telic virtue-theoretic approach to gnoseology is developed. Two new concepts are introduced: the concept of default assumptions, and the concept of secure knowledge full well. A default assumption for a given domain of human performance is an assumption that agents in that domain can make with no negligence or recklessness as they perform in the domain. Knowledge full well is judgment or representation that attains success aptly, and whose aptness is also attained aptly. However, secure knowledge full well requires in addition that not easily might the thinker have lacked the pertinent SSS profiles that account for the aptness and full aptness of their success. The aim of the paper is to explain how those two new concepts help explain the pertinent epistemic data concerning varieties of knowledge and epistemically rational belief. These concepts enable a virtue epistemology that more fully attains that explanatory objective.