An analytical investigation of the concept and nature of the intellectual virtues with focus on Zagzebskys views

controlled Intellectual virtues are stable traits of human ego, achievement of the knowledge of world, intellectual habits and attitudes., Virtue epistemologists believe that the epistemic status of a belief is dependent upon certain characteristics of the agent (intellectual virtues), and it is only through the application of intellectual virtues that truth is achieved in the epistemic process. However there is no consensus among virtue epistemologists regarding the general nature of the intellectual virtues. While some scholars such as Sosa consider these Virtues to be a kind of innater competence and cognitive talents, , other scholars such as Zagzebsky view intellectual virtues as intellectual character traits and a subset of moral virtues. Using an analytical approach this study set out to investigate the nature of intellectual virtues from both perspectives. While epistemic reliablism consider intellectual virtues as a kind of innate skill or cognitive faculty enabling individual to be epistemologically efficient, analyses suggest that so far as the concept of praise is deemed necessary in the epistemic analysis of the agents, and so far as the achievement and expansion of avirtue is considered out of control of the epistemic agent, it would be a better option to reject the understanding of intellectual virtues as skilles and innate cognitive faculties, and accept that the character- based approach provide a batter account of the nature of intellectual virtues by considering motive and reliability as two essential criteria for the presence of these virtues, that are admirable charater traits sufficiently by the agent.