Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-m8qmq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T21:33:10.552Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reasonable Disagreement and Rational Group Inquiry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2012

Marc Moffett
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

According to one widely held view, a belief is fully justified only if it holds up against the strongest available counterarguments, and we can be appropriately confident that it does hold up only if there is free and open critical discussion of those beliefs between us and our epistemic peers. In this paper I argue that this common picture of ideal rational group inquiry interacts with epistemic problems concerning reasonable disagreement in a way that makes those problems particularly difficult to resolve. By focusing on this idealized context, we get a clearer picture of the epistemic principles at issue. In the end, I argue that the best way to resolve the resulting epistemic conflicts is by appeal to the underdetermination of theory by evidence together with a principle of epistemic conservatism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Episteme , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , October 2007 , pp. 352 - 367
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Christensen, David. 2007. “Epistemology of Disagreement: The Good News.” Philosophical Review 116: 187–217.Google Scholar
Cohen, L. Jonathan. 1992. An Essay on Belief and Acceptance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Elga, Adam. 2007. “Reflection and Disagreement.” Noûs 41(3): 478–502.Google Scholar
Feldman, Richard. 2006. “Epistemological Puzzles about Disagreement.” In Hetherington, S. (ed.), Epistemology Futures, pp. 216–36. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Foley, Richard. 1983. “Epistemic Conservatism.” Philosophical Studies 43: 165–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, Alvin. 1986. Epistemology and Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Goldman, Alvin. 1987. “Foundations of Social Epistemics.” Synthese 73: 109–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harman, Gilbert. 1986. Change in View. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kelly, Thomas. Forthcoming. “Peer Disagreement and Higher-order Evidence.” In Feldman, R. & Warfield, T. (eds.), Disagreement. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, David. 1996. “Elusive Knowledge.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74: 549–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mill, John Stuart. 1859/1956. On Liberty. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.Google Scholar
Moffett, Marc A. 2007. “Conservatism, Stability and the Metaphysics of Belief.” Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. O. 1951. “Two Dogmas of Empiricism.” Philosophical Review 60: 20–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sklar, Lawrence. 1975. “Methodological Conservatism.” Philosophical Review 84: 374–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Bernard. 1981. Moral Luck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar