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Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (born 1946) is an American
philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
. She is the Emerita George Lynn Cross Research Professor, as well as Emerita Kingfisher College Chair of the Philosophy of Religion and Ethics, at the
University of Oklahoma , mottoeng = "For the benefit of the Citizen and the State" , type = Public research university , established = , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.7billion (2021) , pr ...
. She writes in the areas of
epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epi ...
,
philosophy of religion Philosophy of religion is "the philosophical examination of the central themes and concepts involved in religious traditions". Philosophical discussions on such topics date from ancient times, and appear in the earliest known texts concerning p ...
, and
virtue theory Virtue ethics (also aretaic ethics, from Greek ἀρετή arete_(moral_virtue).html"_;"title="'arete_(moral_virtue)">aretḗ''_is_an_approach_to_ethics_that_treats_the_concept_of_virtue.html" ;"title="arete_(moral_virtue)">aretḗ''.html" ;" ...
.


Education and career

Zagzebski received her
Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...
degree from
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...
, her
Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...
degree from
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...
, and her
Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
degree from
University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the Californ ...
in 1979 with a dissertation on "Natural Kinds" under the supervision of
Tyler Burge Tyler Burge (; born 1946) is an American philosopher who is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at UCLA. Burge has made contributions to many areas of philosophy, including the philosophy of mind, philosophy of logic, epistemology, philoso ...
.https://www.ou.edu/cas/philosophy/people/faculty/linda-zagzebski/_jcr_content/contentpar/download/file.res/vita2021.pdf She taught at
Loyola Marymount University Loyola Marymount University (LMU) is a private Jesuit and Marymount research university in Los Angeles, California. It is located on the west side of the city near Playa Vista. LMU is the parent school to Loyola Law School, which is located ...
from 1979 to 1999, before joining the
University of Oklahoma , mottoeng = "For the benefit of the Citizen and the State" , type = Public research university , established = , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.7billion (2021) , pr ...
. She delivered the Wilde Lectures in Natural Religion at
Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
in the spring of 2010 on epistemic authority. She is (2015–2016) president of the
American Philosophical Association The American Philosophical Association (APA) is the main professional organization for philosophers in the United States. Founded in 1900, its mission is to promote the exchange of ideas among philosophers, to encourage creative and scholarl ...
Central Division, and gave the
Gifford Lectures The Gifford Lectures () are an annual series of lectures which were established in 1887 by the will of Adam Gifford, Lord Gifford. Their purpose is to "promote and diffuse the study of natural theology in the widest sense of the term – in o ...
at the
University of St. Andrews (Aien aristeuein) , motto_lang = grc , mottoeng = Ever to ExcelorEver to be the Best , established = , type = Public research university Ancient university , endowment ...
in the fall of 2015 on the topic of exemplarist virtue theory. She is past president of the
American Catholic Philosophical Association The American Catholic Philosophical Association (ACPA) is an organization of Catholic philosophers established in 1926 to promote the advancement of philosophy as an intellectual discipline consonant with Catholic tradition. Among the means used t ...
(1997–1998), and past president of the Society of Christian Philosophers (2004–2007). In 2022, she was elected a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts & Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
.


Philosophical work

Her research in recent years has consisted of topics such as the intersection of
ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concer ...
and
epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epi ...
,
religious epistemology Religious epistemology as a broad label covers any approach to epistemological questions from a religious perspective, or attempts to understand the epistemological issues that come from religious belief. The questions which epistemologists may as ...
, religious ethics, virtue theory, and the varieties of
fatalism Fatalism is a family of related philosophical doctrines that stress the subjugation of all events or actions to fate or destiny, and is commonly associated with the consequent attitude of resignation in the face of future events which are t ...
. She delivered the Wilde Lectures in Natural Religion at
Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
in the spring of 2010 on epistemic authority. She is (2015–2016) president of the
American Philosophical Association The American Philosophical Association (APA) is the main professional organization for philosophers in the United States. Founded in 1900, its mission is to promote the exchange of ideas among philosophers, to encourage creative and scholarl ...
Central Division, and gave the
Gifford Lectures The Gifford Lectures () are an annual series of lectures which were established in 1887 by the will of Adam Gifford, Lord Gifford. Their purpose is to "promote and diffuse the study of natural theology in the widest sense of the term – in o ...
at the
University of St. Andrews (Aien aristeuein) , motto_lang = grc , mottoeng = Ever to ExcelorEver to be the Best , established = , type = Public research university Ancient university , endowment ...
in the fall of 2015 on the topic of exemplarist virtue theory. She is past president of the
American Catholic Philosophical Association The American Catholic Philosophical Association (ACPA) is an organization of Catholic philosophers established in 1926 to promote the advancement of philosophy as an intellectual discipline consonant with Catholic tradition. Among the means used t ...
(1997–1998), and past president of the Society of Christian Philosophers (2004–2007).


Epistemology

Zagzebski is a pioneer in the field of virtue epistemology. In ''Virtues of the Mind'' (1996), she sets out to solve certain problems in modern epistemology by developing an Aristotelian version of
virtue theory Virtue ethics (also aretaic ethics, from Greek ἀρετή arete_(moral_virtue).html"_;"title="'arete_(moral_virtue)">aretḗ''_is_an_approach_to_ethics_that_treats_the_concept_of_virtue.html" ;"title="arete_(moral_virtue)">aretḗ''.html" ;" ...
, and in the course of this project she lays out a general analysis of virtue. In ''Divine Motivation Theory'' (2004) she deals extensively with problems in the relationship between reason, faith, and ethics. She has done work on questions of epistemic value including the "espresso machine" thought experiment (a predecessor to the swamping problem) as a counter to
reliabilism Reliabilism, a category of theories in the philosophical discipline of epistemology, has been advanced as a theory both of justification and of knowledge. Process reliabilism has been used as an argument against philosophical skepticism, such as th ...
. In her book, ''Epistemic Authority: A Theory of Trust, Authority, and Autonomy in Belief'' (2012), she defends a strong sense of epistemic authority including authority in moral and religious beliefs, and argues that belief on authority is a requirement of intellectual autonomy. This book arose out of her 2010 Wilde lectures at Oxford. In the paper titled ''The Inescapability of Gettier Problems'', Zagzebski argued that any modification of the last condition given in the Plato's definition of knowledge as justified true belief (JTB) unavoidably shall be reconducted to the unsolved case of the Gettier problem. This result is also true and valuable for any additional condition applied to the JTB. In 1996, Zagzebski defined knowledge as a "state of true belief arising out of acts of intellectual virtue", where the word 'true' can be omitted. According to the Aristotelian
virtue theory Virtue ethics (also aretaic ethics, from Greek ἀρετή arete_(moral_virtue).html"_;"title="'arete_(moral_virtue)">aretḗ''_is_an_approach_to_ethics_that_treats_the_concept_of_virtue.html" ;"title="arete_(moral_virtue)">aretḗ''.html" ;" ...
, she defined virtue as a "deep and enduring acquired excellence of a person, involving a characteristic motivation to produce a certain desired end and reliable success in bringing about that end." Denying
innatism Innatism is a philosophical and epistemological doctrine that the mind is born with ideas, knowledge, and beliefs. Therefore, the mind is not a ''tabula rasa'' (blank slate) at birth, which contrasts with the views of early empiricists such as ...
, she believes virtue is disposition plus ability and the universal human capability of achieving a good life and happiness. Moral and intellectual virtues can't be separated and, more particularly, knowledge is obtained from practicing intellectual virtues like responsibility, fairness, and courage. True belief -in the forms of propositional knowledge and of cognitive contact with reality- are gained by a right disposition of the intellect to desire truth, and a good practice which sews the intellectual virtues on the personhood, like a new habit of the body. People who are rightly motivated to know the truth are also capable to develop specific skills, build up and assess the reliability of personal and well-formed procedures, rather than doing the same for good belief-forming processes shared between peers.


Selected works

* * * ''Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility''. Edited with Fairweather, Abrol. New York: Oxford University Press. 2001. . * ''Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology''. Edited with DePaul, Michael. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 2003. . . * * * * *


See also

*
American philosophy American philosophy is the activity, corpus, and tradition of philosophers affiliated with the United States. The '' Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' notes that while it lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can never ...
*
List of American philosophers This is a list of American philosophers; of philosophers who are either from, or spent many productive years of their lives in the United States. {, border="0" style="margin:auto;" class="toccolours" , - ! {{MediaWiki:Toc , - , style="text-al ...


References


Footnotes


Works cited

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Further reading

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zagzebski, Linda 1946 births 20th-century American philosophers 20th-century Roman Catholics 21st-century American philosophers 21st-century Roman Catholics American Roman Catholic religious writers American women philosophers Analytic philosophers Catholic philosophers Epistemologists Living people Loyola Marymount University faculty Moral philosophers Philosophers of religion Presidents of the Society of Christian Philosophers Stanford University alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni University of California, Los Angeles alumni University of Oklahoma faculty Virtue ethicists 20th-century American women 21st-century American women