In a situation of peer disagreement, peers are usually assumed to share the same evidence. However they might not share the same evidence for the epistemic system used to process the evidence. This synchronic complication of the peer disagreement debate suggested by Goldman (In Feldman R, Warfield T (eds) (2010) Disagreement. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 187–215) is elaborated diachronically by use of a simulation. The Hegselmann–Krause model is extended to multiple epistemic systems and used (...) to investigate the role of consensus and difference splitting in peer disagreement. I find that the very possibility of multiple epistemic systems downgrades the epistemic value of consensus and makes difference splitting a suboptimal strategy. (shrink)

I 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.

Two compelling principles, the Reasonable Range Principle and the Preservation of Irrelevant Evidence Principle, are necessary conditions that any response to peer disagreements ought to abide by. The Reasonable Range Principle maintains that a resolution to a peer disagreement should not fall outside the range of views expressed by the peers in their dispute, whereas the Preservation of Irrelevant Evidence Principle maintains that a resolution strategy should be able to preserve unanimous judgments of evidential irrelevance among the (...) peers. No standard Bayesian resolution strategy satisfies the PIE Principle, however, and we give a loss aversion argument in support of PIE and against Bayes. The theory of imprecise probability allows one to satisfy both principles, and we introduce the notion of a set-based credal judgment to frame and address a range of subtle issues that arise in peer disagreements. (shrink)

Abstract. This paper argues that the “Argument from Moral Peer Disagreement” fails to make a case for widespread moral skepticism. The main reason for this is that the argument rests on a too strong assumption about the normative significance of peer disagreement (and higher-order evidence more generally). In order to demonstrate this, I distinguish two competing ways in which one might explain higher-order defeat. According to what I call the “Objective Defeat Explanation” it is the mere (...) possession of higher-order evidence that explains defeat. I argue that this type of explanation is problematic and that it at best collapses into another explanation I call the “Subjective Defeat Explanation”. According to this explanation, it is coming to believe that one’s belief fails to be rational that explains defeat. Then I go on to argue that the Subjective Defeat Explanation is able to provide a straightforward explanation of higher-order defeat but that it entails that peer disagreement (and higher-order evidence more generally) only contingently gives rise to defeat, and importantly, that the condition it is contingent upon is very often not satisfied when it comes to moral peer disagreement specifically. As a result, it appears that moral knowledge is seldom threatened by moral peer disagreement. (shrink)

This paper presents a new solution to the problem of peer disagreement that distinguishes two principles of rational belief, here called probability and autonomy. When we discover that we disagree with peers, there is one sense in which we rationally ought to suspend belief, and another in which we rationally ought to retain our original belief. In the first sense, we aim to believe what is most probably true according to our total evidence, including testimony from peers and (...) authorities. In the second, we aim to base our beliefs only on objective evidence and argumentation, even if that lowers the probability of their being true. The first principle of rational belief tends to serve the short-term epistemic interests of individuals, while the second tends to serve the long-term epistemic interests of both individuals and groups. The best way to reconcile these principles in cases of peer disagreement is to associate them with two corresponding species of belief, here called perception and opinion. (shrink)

It has been claimed that epistemic peers, upon discovering that they disagree on some issue, should give up their opposing views and ‘split the difference’. The present paper challenges this claim by showing, with the help of computer simulations, that what the rational response to the discovery of peer disagreement is—whether it is sticking to one’s belief or splitting the difference—depends on factors that are contingent and highly context-sensitive.Keywords: Peer disagreement; Computer simulations; Opinion dynamics; Hegselmann–Krause model; (...) Social epistemology. (shrink)

This chapter addresses an ambiguity in some of the literature on rational peer disagreement about the use of the term 'rational'. In the literature 'rational' is used to describe a variety of normative statuses related to reasons, justification, and reasoning. This chapter focuses most closely on the upshot of peer disagreement for what is rationally required of parties to a peer disagreement. This follows recent work in theoretical reason which treats rationality as a system (...) of requirements among an agent's mental states. It is argued that peer disagreement has either no, or a very limited, affect on what rationality requires of an agent in a given circumstance. This is in part because of difficulties generated by a novel example of evidence of evidence of p being evidence against p. This example calls into question the mechanisms whereby peer disagreement might affect what is rationally required of an agent. The chapter also reevaluates the importance of actual peer disagreement against the backdrop of prior expectations about whether disagreement is believed to be likely, arguing that peer disagreement is most likely to change what is rationally required of an agent when it is believed to be unlikely. (shrink)

The question of the morality of abortion has long been the subject of intense, sometimes acrimonious debate. Even people within the same religious or philosophical tradition often disagree on the issue. For example, there are Christians who are “pro- choice” and there are Christians who are “pro-life.” Both sides marshal biblical, theological, and philosophical arguments in support of their positions. The substance of the abortion debate seems to reduce to one tricky question: when does personhood begin? Christian experts in various (...) fields, such as theology, biblical studies, ethics, and philosophy, have protracted disagreements over this question. In this article we will apply insights from the current literature on epistemic peer disagreement to the abortion issue. We will assume that there is only one correct answer to the abortion question. However, after making a crucial distinction between rationality as understood by internalists versus externalists, we will argue that there is more than one rational answer to the abortion question, since there is more than one rational way to weight evidence. We will conclude that, in a case of disagreement between two Christians who are epistemic peers with regards to the morality of abortion, both parties can be rational in adhering to their respective positions, but that this does not entail or even support ethical relativism. (shrink)

In this paper, we will discuss Peter van Inwagen’s contribution to the epistemological debate about revealed peer disagreement. Roughly, this debate focuses on situations in which at least two participants disagree on a certain proposition based on the same evidence. This leads to the problem of how one should react rationally when peer disagreement is revealed. Van Inwagen, as we will show, discusses four possible reactions, all of which he rejects as unsatisfying. Our proposal will be (...) to point to hidden assumptions in van Inwagen’s reasoning and ask whether he is willing to reject at least one of these to get rid of the problem. In short, our thesis amounts to the following: Of the two epistemological claims, which we call “Weak” and “Full-blown Fallibilism”, van Inwagen cannot simultaneously accept the first and reject the latter, while this is what he seems to suggest. Revealing this potential dilemma for van Inwagen’s position will lead to a more detailed discussion of how “rationality”, “truth”, “evidence” and “justification” interrelate and how a closer look at their relation might help solving the puzzle of revealed peer disagreement. (shrink)

The central question of the peer disagreement debate is: what should you believe about the disputed proposition if you have good reason to believe that an epistemic peer disagrees with you? This article shows that this question is ambiguous between evidential support (or propositional justification) and well-groundedness (or doxastic justification). The discussion focuses on conciliatory views, according to which peer disagreements require you to significantly revise your view or to suspend judgment. The article argues that for (...) a wide range of conceptions of evidential support, conciliatory views are false if they are understood entirely in terms of evidential support. Alternative conceptions of evidential support face some serious difficulties. These arguments speak against conciliationism, but the article then goes on to defend a conciliatory view about well-grounded belief: when you believe p, and you have good reason to believe that your epistemic peer disagrees with you, you are not justified in believing p because that belief is no longer well grounded. This picture of the epistemology of peer disagreement offers a reconciliation of some of the main competing views in the literature: conciliationism is true when we look at well-grounded belief, but a nonconciliatory view like Thomas Kelly's “total evidence view” is correct when we look at peer disagreement exclusively in terms of evidential support. (shrink)

It has often been recommended that the differing probability distributions of a group of experts should be reconciled in such a way as to preserve each instance of independence common to all of their distributions. When probability pooling is subject to a universal domain condition, along with state-wise aggregation, there are severe limitations on implementing this recommendation. In particular, when the individuals are epistemic peers whose probability assessments are to be accorded equal weight, universal preservation of independence is, with a (...) few exceptions, impossible. Under more reasonable restrictions on pooling, however, there is a natural method of preserving the independence of any fixed finite family of countable partitions, and hence of any fixed finite family of discrete random variables. (shrink)

We offer a critical survey of the most discussed accounts of epistemic peer disagreement that are found in the recent literature. We also sketch an alternative approach in line with a pluralist understanding of epistemic rationality.

A popular view in mainstream social epistemology maintains that, in the face of a revealed peer disagreement over p, neither party should remain just as confident vis‐a‐vis p as she initially was. This ‘conciliatory’ insight has been defended with regard to individual epistemic peers. However, to the extent that (non‐summativist) groups are candidates for group knowledge and beliefs, we should expect groups (no less than individuals) to be in the market for disagreements. The aim here will be to (...) carve out and explore an extension of the conciliatory insight from individual peer disagreement to group peer disagreement; in doing so, I'll raise and address three key problems that face any plausible defence of such a constraint. (shrink)

The problem of multi-peer disagreement concerns the reasonable response to a situation in which you believe P1 … Pn and disagree with a group of ‘epistemic peers’ of yours, who believe ∼P1 … ∼Pn, respectively. However, the problem of multi-peer disagreement is a variant on the preface paradox; because of this the problem poses no challenge to the so-called ‘steadfast view’ in the epistemology of disagreement, on which it is sometimes reasonable to believe P in (...) the face of peer disagreement about P. After some terminology is defined (§1), Peter van Inwagen's challenge to the steadfast view will be presented (§2). The preface paradox will then be presented and diagnosed (§3), and it will be argued that van Inwagen's challenge relies on the same principle that generates the preface paradox (§4). The reasonable response to multi-peer disagreement will be discussed (§5), and an objection addressed (§6). (shrink)

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, and a factual constraint. (shrink)

The current debate about peer disagreement has so far mainly focused on the question of whether peer disagreements provide genuine counterevidence to which we should respond by revising our credences. By contrast, comparatively little attention has been devoted to the question by which process, if any, such revision should be brought about. The standard assumption is that we update our credences by conditionalizing on the evidence that peer disagreements provide. In this paper, we argue that non-dogmatist (...) views have good reasons to reject conditionalization. Instead, peer disagreements should be understood to call for a revision of our prior conditional probabilities: rather than merely adding to our original evidence, they pose a challenge to the thought that we have properly assessed the probative force of our original evidence. (shrink)

When you discover that an epistemic peer disagrees with you about some matter, does rationality require you to alter your views? Concessivists answer in the affirmative, but their view faces a problem in special cases. As others have noted, if concessivism itself is what’s under dispute, then concessivism seems to undermine itself. But there are other unexplored special cases too. This article identifies three such special cases, and argues that concessivists in fact face no special problem.

I argue that, in an important range of cases, judging that one disagrees with an epistemic peer requires attributing, either to one's peer or to oneself, a failure of rationality. There are limits, however, to how much irrationality one can coherently attribute, either to oneself or to another. I argue that these limitations on the coherent attribution of rational error put constraints on permissible responses to peer disagreement. In particular, they provide reason to respond to one-off (...) disagreements with a single peer by maintaining one's beliefs, and they provide reason to moderate one's beliefs when faced with repeated disagreement, or disagreement with multiple peers. Finally, I argue that, though peer disagreement is rare, the occasions on which it does occur tend to be especially important, and the kind of response supported here is correspondingly important. In particular, how leading researchers spend their time and effort depends, in part, on how they respond to peer disagreement. And only a response of the kind supported here strikes the right balance between allowing individual researchers to freely pursue what seems to them to be worthwhile projects, and requiring that they pursue those research projects that the community of experts as a whole believes to be likely to yield significant results. (shrink)

One explanation of rational peer disagreement is that agents find themselves in an epistemically permissive situation. In fact, some authors have suggested that, while evidence could be impermissive at the intrapersonal level, it is permissive at the interpersonal level. In this paper, I challenge such a claim. I will argue that, at least in cases of rational disagreement under full disclosure, there cannot be more interpersonal epistemically permissive situations than there are intrapersonal epistemically permissive situations. In other (...) words, with respect to cases of disagreement under full disclosure, I will argue that there is a necessary connection between interpersonal permissiveness and its intrapersonal counterpart. Specifically, I claim that a plausible principle of correct argumentation supports such a bridge. (shrink)

According to conciliatory views about peer disagreement, both peers must accord their disagreeing peer some weight, and move towards him. Non‐conciliatory views allow one peer, the one who responded correctly to the evidence, to remain steadfast. In this paper, I consider the suggestion that it may be rational for both disagreeing peers to hold steadfastly to their opinion. To this end, I contend with arguments adduced against the permissiveness the supposition involves, and identify some ways in (...) which different responses for different agents to the evidence might be reasonable. (shrink)

The authors argue in favor of the “nonconciliation” (or “steadfast”) position concerning the problem of peer disagreement. Throughout the paper they place heavy emphasis on matters of phenomenology—on how things seem epistemically with respect to the net import of one’s available evidence vis-à-vis the disputed claim p, and on how such phenomenology is affected by the awareness that an interlocutor whom one initially regards as an epistemic peer disagrees with oneself about p. Central to the argument is (...) a nested goal/sub-goal hierarchy that the authors claim is inherent to the structure of epistemically responsible belief-formation: pursuing true beliefs by pursuing beliefs that are objectively likely given one’s total available evidence; pursuing this sub-goal by pursuing beliefs that are likely true (given that evidence) relative to one’s own deep epistemic sensibility; and pursuing this sub-sub-goal by forming beliefs in accordance with one’s own all-in, ultima facie, epistemic seemings. (shrink)

Legal experts—lawyers, judges, and academics—typically resist changing their beliefs about what the law is or requires when they encounter disagreement from those committed to different jurisprudential or interpretive theories. William Baude and Ryan Doerfler are among the most prominent proponents of this view, holding it because fundamental differences in methodological commitments severs epistemic peerhood. This dominant approach to disagreement, and Baude and Doerfler’s rationale, are both wrong. The latter is committed to an overly stringent account of epistemic peerhood (...) that dogmatically excludes opponents. The former violates the conjunction of three plausible epistemic principles: Complete Evidence, considering all epistemically permissible evidence; Independence, in which only dispute-independent evidence is epistemically permissible; and Peer Support, which involves epistemically permissible evidence. Instead, I argue for jurisprudential humility—we ought to be more willing to admit we do not know what the law is or requires, and take seriously conflicting views. (shrink)

When we first meet Kim Wexler in Better Call Saul we see someone who appears to offer a moral counterbalance to Jimmy McGill. She encourages him to stay within the boundaries of the law, and to stop committing trademark infringement to spite Howard from HHM, for example. With each season we get to know Kim better and gradually we see that Kim’s real objections to Jimmy’s lies and scams are often more practical than moral. However, there are a number of (...) occasions across the seasons of the show where there does seem to be a real conflict between Kim and Jimmy’s moral beliefs. Deep and seemingly irresolvable disagreement with others about moral matters is something we all experience in our lives. It may be a paradigmatic disagreement over whether abortion is morally permissible, or a disagreement over whether it’s always wrong to lie to a client. Cases of moral disagreement are especially troubling when the person who disagrees with us is someone who we take to be just as informed about the issue, smart, and open-minded. Are we justified in maintaining the same confidence in our belief after learning of our disagreement with someone just as capable of reasoning about the matter and just as informed? Should we suspend judgment about what the right view is? The same questions arise when the disagreement concerns nonmoral beliefs, such as whether some action poses too much risk to one’s career. In this chapter I will take a look at different answers to these questions through an examination of some disagreements between Kim and Jimmy and how they respond to them in the short term and in the long term. Some of the disagreements are primarily moral disagreements. Others are not clearly moral, but instead primarily about risks and career decisions. As we will see, whether we are justified in maintaining the same confidence in our belief upon discovering the disagreement may depend on the type of disagreement. (shrink)

What the rational thing to do in the face of disagreement by an epistemic peer is has been much discussed recently. Those who think that a peer’s disagreement is itself evidence against one’s belief, as many do, are committed to a special form of epistemic dependence. If such disagreement is really evidence, it seems reasonable to take it into account and to adjust one’s belief accordingly. But then it seems that the belief one ends up (...) with depends, in part, on what someone else believes, even if one does not know why that someone believes what he does. While the practical impossibility of finding actual cases of peer disagreement has been often noted, its conceptual possibility has gone unquestioned. Here we challenge this consensus and argue, first, that, strictly speaking, peer disagreement is impossible and, second, that cases of – all-too-common – near-peer disagreement present no special puzzle and require nothing more than adhering to standard principles of sensible epistemic conduct. In particular, we argue that in such cases there is no good reason to adopt the widely accepted principle that evidence of evidence is evidence. If so, even if one takes a near-peer’s disagreement as a reason for reexamining one’s belief, one is not epistemically dependent in the sense one would be if that disagreement were evidence concerning the matter in question. (shrink)

The evidence that we get from peer disagreement is especially problematic from a Bayesian point of view since the belief revision caused by a piece of such evidence cannot be modelled along the lines of Bayesian conditionalisation. This paper explains how exactly this problem arises, what features of peer disagreements are responsible for it, and what lessons should be drawn for both the analysis of peer disagreements and Bayesian conditionalisation as a model of evidence acquisition. In (...) particular, it is pointed out that the same characteristic of evidence from disagreement that explains the problems with Bayesian conditionalisation also suggests an interpretation of suspension of belief in terms of imprecise probabilities. (shrink)

Two kinds of considerations are thought to be relevant to the correct response to the discovery of a peer who disagrees with you about some question. The first is general principles pertaining to disagreement. According to the second kind of consideration, a theory about the correct response to peer disagreement must conform to our intuitions about test cases. In this paper, I argue against the assumption that imperfect conformity to our intuitions about test cases must count (...) against a theory about peer disagreement, offer a principled way of shrugging off a theory’s failure to deliver the intuitive verdict, and consider the main extant theories from the new methodological perspective. (shrink)

It has been widely discussed, in recent years, which is the rational doxastic reaction in the face of peer disagreement. But not much has been said about aninteresting instance of that debate: philosophical peer disagreement. That is precisely what I will be concerned with in this paper. First, I will offer a definition ofphilosophical peer that introduces the idea of an epistemic perspective. The proposed definition allows for a doublé distinction: between Strong and Weak Peers, (...) and between Strong and Weak Disagreements. Based on these distinctions, I will defend that different doxastic reactions are required depending on the type of disagreement at issue. On the one hand, in the face of Weak Disagreement, we should be conciliatory. Cases of Strong disagreement, in turn, shouldn’t motívate a doxastic revision. In order to argue for that, some refinements into the notion of Rational Uniqueness will be needed. (shrink)

Some philosophers working on the epistemology of disagreement claim that conciliationist responses to peer disagreement embody a kind of intellectual humility. Others contend that standing firm or “sticking to one’s guns” in the face of peer disagreement may stem from an admirable kind of courage or internal fortitude. In this paper, we report the results of two empirical studies that examine the relationship between conciliationist and steadfast responses to peer disagreement, on the one (...) hand, and virtues such as intellectual humility, courage, grit, and actively open-minded thinking, on the other. We observed positive correlations between measures of conciliationism, intellectual humility, and actively open-minded thinking but failed to find any reliable association between steadfastness, courage, and grit. Our studies reveal that there are at least two important intellectual virtues associated with conciliationist responses to peer disagreement (viz., intellectual humility and actively open-minded thinking) and two vices associated with steadfast responses (intellectual arrogance and myside bias). These findings shed new light on the overall epistemic goodness of the conciliationist perspective. -/- keywords: disagreement, conciliationism, steadfastness, intellectual humility, courage, actively open-minded thinking. (shrink)

Some philosophers working on the epistemology of disagreement claim that conciliationist responses to peer disagreement embody a kind of intellectual humility. Others contend that standing firm or ‘sticking to one's guns’ in the face of peer disagreement may stem from an admirable kind of courage or internal fortitude. In this paper, we report the results of two empirical studies that examine the relationship between conciliationist and steadfast responses to peer disagreement, on the one (...) hand, and virtues such as intellectual humility, courage, grit, and actively open-minded thinking, on the other. We observed positive correlations between measures of conciliationism, intellectual humility, and actively open-minded thinking but failed to find any reliable association between steadfastness, courage, and grit. Our studies reveal that there are at least two important intellectual virtues associated with conciliationist responses to peer disagreement (viz., intellectual humility and actively open-minded thinking) and two vices associated with steadfast responses (intellectual arrogance and myside bias). These findings shed new light on the overall epistemic goodness of the conciliationist perspective. (shrink)

ABSTRACTMiranda Fricker has characterized epistemic injustice as “a kind of injustice in which someone is wronged specifically in her capacity as a knower” (2007, Epistemic injustice: Power & the e...

In this paper I offer an argument for a view about the epistemology of peer disagreement, which I call the “Rational Symmetry View”. I argue that this view follows from a natural conception of the epistemology of testimony, together with a basic entitlement to trust our own faculties for belief formation. I then discuss some objections to this view, focusing on its relationship to other well-known views in the literature. The upshot of this discussion is that, if the (...) Rational Symmetry View is correct, much of the action in the epistemology of disagreement relates—not to how one should treat those one regards as an “epistemic peer” in the sense popular in that literature—but rather to who one should treat as such. (shrink)

I present a counterexample to Kirk-Giannini’s Dilemmatic Theory of gaslighting.

In this paper, we first classify different types of second opinions and evaluate the ethical and epistemological implications of providing those in a clinical context. Second, we discuss the issue of how artificial intelligent could replace the human cognitive labour of providing such second opinion and find that several AI reach the levels of accuracy and efficiency needed to clarify their use an urgent ethical issue. Third, we outline the normative conditions of how AI may be used as second opinion (...) in clinical processes, weighing the benefits of its efficiency against concerns of responsibility attribution. Fourth, we provide a ‘rule of disagreement’ that fulfils these conditions while retaining some of the benefits of expanding the use of AI-based decision support systems in clinical contexts. This is because the rule of disagreement proposes to use AI as much as possible, but retain the ability to use human second opinions to resolve disagreements between AI and physician-in-charge. Fifth, we discuss some counterarguments. (shrink)

Peter Singer famously argues that speciesism, like racism and sexism, is based on a preju-dice. As Singer argues, since we reject racism and sexism, we must also reject speciesism. Since Singer articulated this line of reasoning, it has become a widespread argument against speciesism. Shelly Kagan has recently critiqued this argument, claiming that one can endorse speciesism with-out doing so on the basis of a prejudice. In this paper, I defend Kagan’s conclusion (that one can endorse speciesism without being prejudiced). (...) However, many philosophers have found Kagan’s argument deeply unsatisfactory; so, I advance an alternative argument, different from Kagan’s, in support of his conclusion. My argument runs as follows: I argue that, if there is epistemic peer dis-agreement about a view, then the parties to this disagreement cannot reasonably label each other as prejudiced in their beliefs about this view. Then, I argue that there is epistemic peer disagreement about the truth of speciesism, from which it follows that the parties to this disagreement cannot rea-sonably label each other as prejudiced. Thus, one can affirm speciesism without being prejudiced. If I am correct that one can affirm speciesism without being prejudiced, then Singer’s argument (that if one rejects racism, one must reject speciesism) is unsound. (shrink)

In this paper we propose and analyze a game-theoretic model of the epistemology of peer disagreement. In this model, the peers' rationality is evaluated in terms of their probability of ending the disagreement with a true belief. We find that different strategies---in particular, one based on the Steadfast View and one based on the Conciliatory View---are rational depending on the truth-sensitivity of the individuals involved in the disagreement. Interestingly, the Steadfast and the Conciliatory Views can even (...) be rational simultaneously in some circumstances. We tentatively provide some reasons to favor the Conciliatory View in such cases. We argue that the game-theoretic perspective is a fruitful one in this debate, and this fruitfulness has not been exhausted by the present paper. (shrink)

While it seems hard to deny the epistemic significance of a disagreement with our acknowledged epistemic peers, there are certain disagreements, such as philosophical disagreements, which appear to be permissibly sustainable. These two claims, each independently plausible, are jointly puzzling. This paper argues for a solution to this puzzle. The main tenets of the solution are two. First, the peers ought to engage in a deliberative activity of discovering more about their epistemic position vis-à-vis the issue at stake. Secondly, (...) the peers are permitted to do so while entertaining a sui generis doxastic attitude of hypothesis. (shrink)

I present a puzzle regarding the norms of disagreement and inquiry. The puzzle mainly concerns a special type of peer disagreement that I call “mild disagreement”, in which the parties to the disagreement believe a proposition but with different degrees of confidence. The puzzle is best formulated as an inconsistent triad: (NJ1) The state of mild disagreement provides the involved parties with no epistemic reason to drop their belief regarding the disputed judgment. (NJ2) The (...) state of mild disagreement provides a practical reason for the involved parties to launch an inquiry into the disputed judgment. (NJ3) If the state of disagreement provides a reason to launch an inquiry into the disputed judgment, the involved parties have a reason to drop their belief regarding the disputed judgment. After discussing some possible responses to the puzzle, I offer my own solution, which involves introducing a new take on how to understand inquiry. This new take on the nature of inquiry can provide us with an alternative to the influential account recently defended by Jane Friedman. (shrink)

The main issue in the epistemology of peer disagreement is whether known disagreement among those who are in symmetrical epistemic positions undermines the rationality of their maintaining their respective views. Douven and Kelp have argued convincingly that this problem is best understood as being about how to respond to peer disagreement repeatedly over time, and that this diachronic issue can be best approached through computer simulation. However, Douven and Kelp’s favored simulation framework cannot naturally handle (...) Christensen’s famous Mental Math example. As a remedy, I introduce an alternative simulation framework, Laputa, inspired by Alvin Goldman’s seminal work on veritistic social epistemology. I show that Christensen’s conciliatory response, reasonably reconstructed and supplemented, gives rise to an increase in epistemic value only if the peers continue to recheck their mental math; else the peers might as well be steadfast. On a meta-level, the study illustrates the power of Goldman’s approach when combined with simulation techniques for handling the computational issues involved. (shrink)

In Religious Experience and the Knowledge of God, Harold Netland offers a helpful, balanced approach to the epistemology of religious experience. The value of Netland’s volume notwithstanding, I offer a critique of Netland’s claims regarding the identification of epistemic peers, the epistemic implications of religious peer disagreement, and the viability of the demand for additional evidence as a response to instances of peer disagreement.

Contemporary epistemology devotes much attention to disagreements among epistemic peers, that is, disagreements in which subjects take themselves to be equals with respect to the evidence that bears on the matter at issue as well as general intellectual virtues. The crucial question is: what should you do when you disagree with an epistemic peer? The paper pursues three goals. First, it clarifies some as of yet unexplained details of the problem of peer disagreement. Second, it distinguishes between (...) Invariantist and Contextualist Treatments of the problem. Third, it provides an assessment of Contextualist Treatments. These are attractive because they seem to have the resources to capture the intuition that the rational response to peer disagreement varies across contexts. However, this paper argues that Contextualist Treatments don’t fare any better than their Invariantist rivals. (shrink)

How should you update your (degrees of) belief about a proposition when you find out that someone else — as reliable as you are in these matters — disagrees with you about its truth value? There are now several different answers to this question — the question of `peer disagreement' — in the literature, but none, I think, is plausible. Even more importantly, none of the answers in the literature places the peer-disagreement debate in its natural (...) place among the most general traditional concerns of normative epistemology. In this paper I try to do better. I start by emphasizing how we cannot and should not treat ourselves as `truthometers' — merely devices with a certain probability of tracking the truth. I argue that the truthometer view is the main motivation for the Equal Weight View in the context of peer disagreement. With this fact in mind, the discussion of peer disagreement becomes more complicated, sensitive to the justification of the relevant background degrees of belief (including the conditional ones), and to some of the most general points that arise in the context of discussions of scepticism. I argue that thus understood, peer disagreement is less special as an epistemic phenomenon than may be thought, and so that there is very little by way of positive theory that we can give about peer disagreement in general. (shrink)

Conciliatory views of peer disagreement hold that when an agent encounters peer disagreement she should conciliate by adjusting her doxastic attitude towards that of her peer. In this paper I distinguish different ways conciliation can be understood and argue that the way conciliationism is typically understood violates the principle of commutativity of evidence. Commutativity of evidence holds that the order in which evidence is acquired should not influence what it is reasonable to believe based on (...) that evidence. I argue that when an agent encounters more than one peer, and applies the process of conciliation serially, the order she encounters the peers influences the resulting credence. I argue this is a problem for conciliatory views of disagreement, and suggest some responses available to advocates of conciliation. (shrink)

The problem of disagreement is one of the most important issues that have been debated in epistemology in recent years, and in particular the peer disagreement. The main question of this problem is what kind of attitude we should rationally adopt when we realize that someone who is an epistemic peer to us does not think the same. There are four main responses to this question: conciliationism, steadfastness, total evidence view, and justificationist view. In this article, (...) first I will briefly examine these four views and deal with the points where they fail to satisfy. Later, I will argue that resolution of the disagreement should be case-based. And finally, I will present the evidence-based argument in peer disagreement which is my own response to this problem and explain it with sample cases. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper, I defend a new solution to the problem of peer disagreement, the question as to how you should respond when you learn that your ‘epistemic peer’ disagrees with you about some issue. I consider four test cases that together impugn every extant full-blown theory about peer disagreement. I present my own solution, show that it delivers the intuitive verdict in the test cases and address some objections.

In this paper, I argue that the two most common views of how to respond rationally to peer disagreement–the Total Evidence View (TEV) and the Equal Weight View (EWV)–are both inadequate for substantial reasons. TEV does not issue the correct intuitive verdicts about a number of hypothetical cases of peer disagreement. The same is true for EWV. In addition, EWV does not give any explanation of what is rationally required of agents on the basis of sufficiently (...) general epistemic principles. I will then argue that there is a genuine alternative to both views–the Preemption View (PV)–that fares substantially better in both respects. I will give an outline and a detailed defense of PV in the paper. (shrink)

Contributors to the recent disagreement debate have sought to provide a uniform response to cases in which epistemic peers disagree about the epistemic import of a shared body of evidence, no matter what kind of evidence they are disagreeing about. The varied cases addressed in the literature have included examples of disagreement about restaurant bills, court verdicts, weather forecasting, chess, morality, religious beliefs, and even disagreements about philosophical disagreements. The equal treatment of these varied cases has motivated the (...) search for a uniform response to peer disagreement wherever it is encountered. In this article I challenge this prevalent approach in the literature. I grant the notion of epistemic peer and accept that being a peer may amount to the same thing in different domains; nonetheless I contend that different domains appear to call for different responses to disagreement. I argue that the appropriate response to finding out about a disagreement with a peer is different in different domains. (shrink)