within an epistemological framework and explored. This flexibility and connection between internal and external makes virtue epistemology more accessible. Prominent criticism One criticism of virtue epistemology has focused upon its characterization of human cognition as grounded in stable character dispositions (e.g. the disposition to use reliable faculties, or one's excellent character traits construed as dispositions). As discussed by a parallel criticism leveled at virtue ethics, virtue theories, whether moral or epistemic, typically consider character traits as stable across time, and efficacious as explanatory reasons for persons behaving and thinking as they do. However, this supposition has been challenged by the "situationist critique" in psychology, which argues that human epistemic character changes depending on context, even when that change is epistemically irrelevant. Thus, irrelevant differences in a situation can prompt a drastic change in cognitive behavior. Reliabilists might characterize this as effecting a drop in reliable functioning, whereas responsibilists would see these variations as negating one's excellent cognitive character. It is therefore argued that virtue theorists should either amend their conception of human psychology to accommodate this or explain how the results of situationist psychological research do not contradict their theory. References Selected bibliography Aquino, Frederick D. Communities of Informed Judgment: Newman's Illative Sense and Accounts of Rationality. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2004. Axtell, Guy, ed. Knowledge, Belief, and Character: Readings in Contemporary Virtue. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. _. "Epistemic Luck in Light of the Virtues." In Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility, ed. *Abrol Fairweather and Linda Zagzebski, 158-77. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Blackburn, Simon. "Reason, Virtue, and Knowledge." In Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility, ed. Abrol Fairweather and Linda Zagzebski, 15-29. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Bonjour, Laurence, and Ernest Sosa. Epistemic Justification: Internalism vs. Externalism, Foundations vs. Virtues. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003. Brady, Michael and Duncan Pritchard. "Moral and Epistemic Virtues." In Moral and Epistemic Virtues, ed. Michael Brady and Duncan Pritchard, 1-12. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2003. Dalmiya, Vrinda. "Why Should a Knower Care?" Hypatia 17, no. 1 (2002): 34-52. Fairweather, Abrol. "Epistemic Motivation." In Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility, ed. Abrol Fairweather and Linda Zagzebski, 63-81. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Goldman, Alvin I. "The Unity of the Epistemic Virtues." In Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility, ed. Abrol Fairweather and Linda Zagzebski, 30-48. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Hibbs,