Quassim Cassam in conversation with Grant Bartley on 'Vices of the Mind: From the Intellectual to the Political'

What are 'vices of the mind'? Why are they important? Quassim Cassam introduces the idea of epistemic vices, character traits that get in the way of knowledge, such as closed-mindedness, intellectual arrogance, wishful thinking, and prejudice. Using examples from politics to illustrate the vices at work, he considers whether we are responsible for such failings, and what we can do about them. Key events such as the 2003 Iraq War and the 2016 Brexit vote, and notable figures including Donald Trump are analysed in detail to illustrate what epistemic vice looks like in the modern world.

Quassim Cassam is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick. He was previously Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge, and has also taught at Oxford and UCL. He is the author of Self and World (OUP 1997), The Possibility of Knowledge (OUP 2007), Berkeley's Puzzle: What Does Experience Teach Us? with John Campbell (OUP 2014), Self-Knowledge for Humans (OUP 2014), and Conspiracy Theories (Polity Press 2019).

Grant Bartley is a Philosophy Now Editor. He has degrees in philosophy from King’s College London and the University of Kent at Canterbury.

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