Abstract

In this essay the author proposes that epistemology as a normative discipline finds its ground and direction in the virtue of epistemic responsibility of the epistemic agent. The life-narrative of the person provides the context for understanding of the value horizon of epistemology, but also for the evaluation of particular non-discursive epistemic abilities, such as phronesis and Newman’s illative sense. That proposal is illustrated and supported by the elements of the intellectual biography of John Henry Newman, and by his view on epistemology as expressed and applied in the writing of his Grammar of Assent.