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Alessandra Tanesini, Vices of the Mind, by Quassim Cassam, Mind, Volume 129, Issue 515, July 2020, Pages 959–964, https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzz044
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Extract
The publication of Cassam’s Vices of the Mind is a landmark in the study of epistemic vices. This is the first monograph exclusively dedicated to the topic; it is likely to set the agenda for the field for many years to come. This slim volume exhibits many virtues. It carefully lays out a clear and distinctive account of the heterogeneous nature of intellectual vices. It explores thorny issues concerning responsibility for vice and the possibility of self-improvement. It demonstrates the social and political importance of studying these topics by prefacing each chapter with the discussion of a political episode where the closed-mindedness, gullibility, arrogance, and prejudice of some main actors resulted in disastrous consequences for the actors themselves and other parties to the unfolding events. These episodes include: the havoc caused by the arrogance and dogmatism of American politicians prior to the invasion of Iraq; the closed-mindedness which prevented Israeli intelligence analysists from heeding warnings and thus led to Israel's unpreparedness at the start of the six day war; and the financial and reputational damage caused by the gullibility of a journalist who believed he had acquired Hitler’s war diaries.
