Intellectual virtue and its role in epistemology

An overview is presented of what I take to be (some main aspects of) the role of the intellectual virtues within the epistemological enterprise. Traditionally, the theory of knowledge has been thought to be central to the epistemological project, but since, as I explain, the intellectual virtues aren’t required for knowledge, this might suggest that they have only a marginal role to play in epistemological debates. I argue against this suggestion by showing how the intellectual virtues are in fact crucial to several core (and inter-related) epistemological topics, including the nature of inquiry, epistemic axiology and our understanding of ignorance. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.