The Excellent Mind: Intellectual Virtues for Everyday Life

In The Excellent Mind: Intellectual Virtues for Everyday Life, philosopher Nathan King provides an introduction to the intellectual virtues. The book is well-organized and thorough, and it is marked by King's characteristic clarity of writing. The Excellent Mind is a welcome text on the intellectual virtues, which are under-represented in the virtue theory literature. This book would be an asset in the philosophy classroom. Moreover, with topics such as echo chambers (206), intellectual gluttony (a vice of excess with respect to curiosity (42)), and fair-mindedness (230), this book is a timely, important resource beyond the academy and in the public square. In what follows, I outline the basic structure and arguments of the book, flagging significant passages and the questions they raise. The Excellent Mind is divided into three sections: In Part I, King describes what the intellectual virtues are and motivates their importance. grow in intellectual virtues. Part I. King begins by explaining why intellectual virtues matter and virtues as being rooted in a desire not to "produce a bunch of intelleccess of learning (x). King describes education as a formative, rather than