Rate My Professor Fernando Alvear

Fernando Alvear, originally from Santiago, Chile, earned his BA and MA in Philosophy from Universidad Alberto Hurtado before joining the PhD program in Philosophy at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He completed his doctorate in May 2024 with a dissertation titled "Virtue Reliabilism and Favorable Epistemic Environments," supervised by Kenneth Boyce. During his graduate studies, Alvear was awarded the 2020 Scott T. Davey Memorial Prize for Excellence in MA Research for his paper "Robust Virtue Epistemology and the Anti-Individualist Challenge." This work examines virtue epistemologies' incorporation of social epistemology insights, focusing on John Greco's reliabilist account of knowledge as success from ability, its application to testimonial knowledge, and responses to anti-individualist critiques.

Alvear's research centers on epistemology, particularly social epistemology and virtue epistemology, alongside interests in moral psychology, pragmatics, and philosophy of technology. He co-authored "Deformative Experience: Explaining the Effects of Adversity on Moral Evaluation" with Philip Robbins, published in Social Cognition (2023, vol. 41, no. 5, pp. 415–446), which investigates how childhood adversity influences judgments of moral responsibility. He delivered the talk "Fake Barns, Deepfakes, and the Epistemic Environment" at the University of Missouri in April 2024. Alvear taught several undergraduate philosophy courses at the University of Missouri, including Logic and Critical Thinking, Ethics, Biomedical Ethics, The Meaning of Life, and Philosophy of Religion, emphasizing the development of students' intellectual character. He has served as faculty at the Missouri Scholars Academy since 2023, teaching philosophy courses such as "What's the Argument? Philosophy and the Art of Critical Thinking." Alvear is listed in the University of Missouri academic catalog under Philosophy with a Doctor of Philosophy from the institution.