What Should We Do in the Face of Epistemic Peer Disagreement?

2019 ◽  
pp. 167-210
Author(s):  
Andrea Robitzsch
Keyword(s):  
Peer Disagreement ◽  
Epistemic Peer ◽  
The Face

scholarly journals The Epistemic Value of Deep Disagreements

2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirk Lougheed
Keyword(s):  
Argumentation Theory ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Peer Disagreement ◽  
Epistemology Of Disagreement ◽  
Epistemic Peer ◽  
Deep Disagreement ◽  
The Face ◽  
Deep Disagreements

In the epistemology of disagreement literature an underdeveloped argument defending the claim that an agent need not conciliate when she becomes aware of epistemic peer disagreement is based on the idea that there are epistemic benefits to be gained from disagreement. Such benefits are unobtainable if an agent conciliates in the face of peer disagreement. I argue that there are good reasons to embrace this line of argument at least in inquiry-related contexts. In argumentation theory a deep disagreement occurs when there is a disagreement between fundamental frameworks. According to Robert J. Fogelin disagreements between fundamental frameworks are not susceptible to rational resolution. Instead of evaluating this claim I argue that deep disagreements can lead to epistemic benefits, at least when inquiry is in view. Whether rational resolution is possible in cases of deep disagreements, their existence turns out to be epistemically beneficial. I conclude by examining whether this line of argument can be taken beyond research-related contexts.Dans la littérature sur l'épistémologie du désaccord, un argument sous-développé pour une approche non conciliatoire se fonde sur l'idée qu'il y a des bénéfices épistémiques à tirer du désaccord. De tels bénéfices sont impossibles à obtenir si un agent se concilie face au désaccord avec ses pairs, du moins dans les contextes liés à la recherche. Dans la théorie de l'argumentation, un désaccord profond se produit lorsqu'il y a un désaccord entre des propositions cadres. Je soutiens que des désaccords profonds peuvent mener à des avantages épistémiques, du moins dans le contexte de la recherche. Que la résolution rationnelle soit ou non possible en cas de désaccord profond, leur existence s'avère être bénéfique sur le plan épistémologique.

Religious Disagreement, Religious Experience, and the Evil God Hypothesis

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirk Lougheed
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Religious Believer ◽  
Religious Experiences ◽  
Peer Disagreement ◽  
Epistemic Peer ◽  
Religious Disagreement

Conciliationism is the view that says when an agent who believes P becomes aware of an epistemic peer who believes not-P, that she encounters a (partial) defeater for her belief that P. Strong versions of conciliationism pose a sceptical threat to many, if not most, religious beliefs since religion is rife with peer disagreement. Elsewhere (Removed) I argue that one way for a religious believer to avoid sceptical challenges posed by strong conciliationism is by appealing to the evidential import of religious experience. Not only can religious experience be used to establish a relevant evidential asymmetry between disagreeing parties, but reliable reports of such experiences also start to put pressure on the religious sceptic to conciliate toward her religious opponent. Recently, however, Asha Lancaster-Thomas poses a highly innovative challenge to the evidential import of religious experience. Namely, she argues that an evil God is just as likely to explain negative religious experiences as a good God is able to explain positive religious experiences. In light of this, religious believers need to explain why a good God exists instead of an evil God. I respond to Lancaster-Thomas by suggesting that, at least within the context of religious experience, (i) that the evil God hypothesis is only a challenge to certain versions of theism; and (ii) that the existence of an evil God and good God are compossible.

Disagreement, Deep Time, and Progress in Philosophy

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 285-313
Author(s):  
Kirk Lougheed
Keyword(s):  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Peer Disagreement ◽  
Epistemology Of Disagreement ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
Philosophical Beliefs ◽  
Epistemic Peer ◽  
Contingent Fact ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sceptical Conclusion

The epistemology of disagreement examines the question of how an agent ought to respond to awareness of epistemic peer disagreement about one of her beliefs. The literature on this topic, ironically enough, represents widespread disagreement about how we should respond to disagreement. I argue for the sceptical conclusion that the existence of widespread disagreement throughout the history of philosophy, and right up until the present day indicates that philosophers are highly unreliable at arriving at the truth. If truth convergence indicates progress in a field, then there is little progress in philosophy. This sceptical conclusion, however, need not make us give up philosophizing: That we should currently be sceptical of our philosophical beliefs is a contingent fact. We are an intellectually immature species and given the existence of the deep future we have some reason to think that there will be truth-convergence in philosophy in the future.

PEER DISAGREEMENT AND THE DUNNING-KRUGER EFFECT

Episteme ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 481-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Wiland
Keyword(s):  
Equal Weight ◽  
Peer Disagreement ◽  
Equal Weight View ◽  
Epistemic Peer

ABSTRACTI argue that recent evidence about our self-serving biases has radical implications for the epistemology of peer disagreement. I conclude that much of the time when you are disagreeing with someone you regard as your epistemic peer, you should not merely move halfway to her judgment, as The Equal Weight View has it. That is not conciliatory enough. Surprisingly often, you should be at least weakly confident that you are wrong, and that your disputant is right.

scholarly journals The Argument from Variation against Using One’s Own Intuitions as Evidence

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-110
Author(s):  
Esther Goh ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Good Evidence ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Philosophical Theory ◽  
Peer Disagreement ◽  
Skeptical Argument ◽  
First Variation ◽  
Epistemic Peer

In philosophical methodology, intuitions are used as evidence to support philosophical theories. In this paper, I evaluate the skeptical argument that variation in intuitions is good evidence that our intuitions are unreliable, and so we should be skeptical about our theories. I argue that the skeptical argument is false. First, variation only shows that at least one disputant is wrong in the dispute, but each disputant lacks reason to determine who is wrong. Second, even though variation in intuitions shows that at least one disputant has the wrong intuition in the thought experiment, it is not evidence of unreliability of any disputant’s intuition regarding the philosophical theory being tested. So, variation in intuitions is not good evidence that one’s own intuitions are unreliable. One reply from the literature in peer disagreement is that we should conciliate if we cannot determine who is wrong. I argue that these disagreements are instead unconfirmed peer disagreements (i.e., no good reason to take or dismiss disputants as an epistemic peer, inferior or superior). I argue that if you have a strong intuition about a case, then it is rational for you to remain steadfast. Thus, variation in intuitions does not call for skepticism.

scholarly journals Peer-Disagreement about Restaurant Bills and Abortion

2017 ◽  
Vol 94 (4) ◽  
pp. 577-604
Author(s):  
Martin Sticker
Keyword(s):  
Peer Disagreement ◽  
Epistemic Peer ◽  
Epistemic Constraint

The author defends Conciliationism as a response to peer-disagreement in ethics against a prominent objection: if in cases of peer-disagreement we have to move our credences towards those of our dissenting peers, then we have to adopt scepticism in fields where disagreement between peers abounds. For this objection, the case of ethics is particularly worrisome. The author argues that the objection from scepticism is based on a highly idealised notion of an epistemic peer. In cases of disagreement about ethical issues, it is often unknown to us what another person counts as her evidence, since one’s notions of what counts as evidence and what weight to attach to different forms of evidence are impacted by one’s global outlook. Being aware of what an agent considers as evidence requires familiarity with that agent’s global outlook. This introduces two constraints on epistemic peerhood in cases of disagreement about ethics: an epistemic constraint (I might not be sufficiently aware of what someone counts as evidence, and hence not consider that person a peer), and a factual constraint (we might disregard each other’s evidence, and hence not consider each other peers).

scholarly journals Desacuerdo entre pares epistémicos en el debate naturaleza-cultura

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 485-506
Author(s):  
Nahuel Pallitto
Keyword(s):  
Life Sciences ◽  
Peer Disagreement ◽  
Epistemology Of Disagreement ◽  
Epistemic Practices ◽  
Epistemic Peer ◽  
Epistemic Peers

Scientific disagreements constitute valuable resources for reflecting on epistemic peer disagreements. In this essay I engage in the debate whether epistemic peers who disagree should be conciliatory or steadfast by examining how scientists actually react in the so called nature-nurture debate. The main conclusion of the analysis is that, when taking into consideration concrete epistemic practices with peers responding to different epistemic perspectives, scientists have good reasons to be steadfast. At the same time, the theoretical conceptualizations of the epistemology of peer disagreement illuminates certain aspects of the nature-nurture debate, such as its long persistence. Therefore, this article contributes both to the debate over the epistemology of disagreement and to the understanding of a never-ending controversy in the life sciences.

Conflicting Higher and Lower Order Evidences in the Epistemology of Disagreement about Religion

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-89
Author(s):  
James Kraft
Keyword(s):  
Lower Order ◽  
Peer Disagreement ◽  
Epistemology Of Disagreement ◽  
Epistemic Peer

This paper concentrates on the issue of what happens to the confidence one has in the justification of one's belief when one discovers an epistemic peer with conflicting higher and/or lower order evidences. Certain symmetries surface during epistemic peer disagreement, which tend to make one less confident. The same happens in religious disagreements. Mostly externalist perspectives are considered. The epistemology of ordinary disagreements and that of religious ones behave similarly, such that principles used in the former can be seen to apply also in the latter.

Knowledge and belief

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Moss
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Inference ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Peer Disagreement ◽  
Perceptual Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Norm ◽  
Epistemic Peer ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Probabilistic Knowledge ◽  
Epistemic Peers ◽  
Imprecise Credences

This chapter uses probabilistic knowledge to defend compelling positions in contemporary epistemological debates. The chapter starts by developing a knowledge norm for probabilistic belief and applying this norm to debates about what you should believe when you find out that you disagree with an epistemic peer. By contrast with existing views of peer disagreement, the knowledge norm defended in this chapter can yield the intuitive verdict that disagreeing epistemic peers should adopt imprecise credences, thereby suspending judgment about probabilistic contents that they disagree about. Probabilistic knowledge is also used in this chapter to give a theory of knowledge by statistical inference, as well as to defend dogmatism about perceptual knowledge from a wide range of recent objections.

Between the Infinite and the Finite: God, Hegel and Disagreement

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 95
Author(s):  
Anthony Joseph Carroll
Keyword(s):  
Central Issue ◽  
Ontological Status ◽  
Peer Disagreement ◽  
Epistemic Peer ◽  
The World ◽  
Life Projects

In this article, I consider the importance of philosophy in the dialogue between religious believers and non-believers. I begin by arguing that a new epistemology of epistemic peer disagreement is required if the dialogue is to progress. Rather than viewing the differences between the positions as due to a deficit of understanding, I argue that differences result from the existential anchoring of such enquiries in life projects and the under-determination of interpretations by experience.  I then explore a central issue which is often implicit in these dialogues, namely the ontological status of God-world relations. Drawing on the reflections of Hegel on the infinite and the finite, I argue that his version of panentheism provides an insightful way to conceptualise God-world relations that avoids both dualistic and monistic approaches and helps to explicate a holistic ontology of transcendence from within the world of experience.

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