Kinds of Disagreements

Since I expect a deep disagreement as to whether p will happen, and I expected it before it happened, a (symbolic) disagreement does not put me under pressure to reconcile on the proposed goal. Do I need to change my mind about the sincerity or competence of the challenger? There are, of course, disputes where there is a split in the party and in relation to which such a reaction is justified (think of “Pizzagate” or claims that the Sandy Hook massacre was a “false flag” operation; both theories are almost exclusively on the right). The best explanation for this kind of partisan dissent may, in fact, call into question sincerity or competence. Many of those who defend these views are trolls, or what Pritchard (2018) calls “dialectical posers,” and don`t really contradict us. Those who are sincere are often under the sway of a toxic ideology that distorts their ability to process evidence. These cases are considered more extreme cases than deep disagreements, because the lie of the claims should be obvious to everyone, regardless of their ideology; Therefore, the best explanation for such disagreements calls into question the sincerity or competence of the parties to the dispute. Epistemologists distinguish two types of disagreements. One of them is that of disagreements over the facts. For example, a disagreement over whether the earth is spherical or flat. The second type of disagreement concerns a proposed course of action, for example, whether to travel to Italy or Greece. [2] Before moving on to our third type of case, let me understand the assertion that typology provides resources for understanding more disorderly cases. Obviously, ordinary and extreme disagreements are the end of a continuum, because the difficulty of the problems is continuous. It follows that the degree of surprise in a legal dispute is itself continuous.

It is therefore to be expected that cases will be halfway between ordinary and extreme disagreements. In ordinary disagreements, because disagreement is only somewhat surprising, it is better to restore the coherence of our beliefs by reducing our confidence in the statement over which we are in conflict. In the case of extreme disagreements, our confidence in this proposal is far too high to be easily undermined, but we are less confident that our challenger is a peer, and we had better restore consistency by reducing our trust in the peerage. In more chaotic cases, we may be faced with a choice: we could restore consistency either by reducing our confidence in the goal or peerage, or by making adjustments in both cases.10 The unwavering view was also motivated by our denial of equal weighting. If your colleague`s opinion on (P) doesn`t matter as much as your own opinion, then you may not need doxist arbitration. While most find it implausible that their own opinion can count more simply because it is their own, a related and more plausible defense comes from the call for self-confidence. Enoch (2010), Foley (2001), Pasnau (2015), Schafer (2015), Wedgwood (2007; 2010) and Zagzebski (2012) have all used self-confidence to respond to peer disagreements. Foley emphasizes the essential and indelible role of personal thought first. In case of disagreement, Foley asserts, “I have the right to make the conflict what I can by using the skills, procedures, and opinions I trust, even if those skills, procedures, and opinions are precisely those questioned by others” (2001, 79).

Similarly, Wedgwood argues that it is rational to have some kind of egocentric bias – a basic confidence in one`s abilities and mental states. For this reason, although peer disagreements have a kind of symmetry from the point of view of the third person, none of the parties occupy this perspective. On the contrary, each disagreeing party has a first-person perspective from which it is rational to favor oneself. Self-confidence is fundamental and the confidence you have to put into your own abilities and conditions simply cannot be given to another. Surprise carries information: it gives us a reason to update our causal model of the world. In light of it, we should reduce our confidence in the contested belief or in our belief that the challenger is a peer. The fact that we expect deep disagreements suggests that this disagreement is predictable given our causal model. Given other assumptions (such as uniqueness – the view that the evidence permits a single doxastic position), this in turn means that we do not view our parties to the dispute as likely colleagues, that is, agents who are as likely to draw conclusions on these issues as we are.14 Although these facts show that deep disagreements do not have the epistemic significance of ordinary and extreme disagreements, they always seem disturbing. The other side has (in many cases anyway) the markers of peerage: intelligence, education, thoughtfulness and so on, and access to the same evidence as us. Doesn`t the fact that we come to contradictory conclusions push us to reconcile with regard to our starting points? We compare disagreements over faith with disagreements about taste. We focus on disagreements when there is a fact, or at least when participants reasonably believe that such a fact exists. In ordinary disagreements (such as Restaurant Check), A and B disagree on whether p and the disagreement are unexpected, but not shocking.

If A and B disagree in this type of case, the disagreement is evidence of an error of reasoning: that is, the most likely explanation for the occurrence of the disagreement is that one or both agents made a mistake. Another question concerns the question of which differences of opinion are of epistemic importance. Although actual disagreements between peers are rare or non-existent (see below), only one possible disagreement between peers is everywhere. For any faith you have, it is possible that an epistemic peer of you disagrees. Since we are fallible epistemic agents, a possible disagreement between peers is inevitable. One of the challenges is to distinguish the epistemic meaning of actual disagreement between peers from the meaning of a simple possible disagreement between peers. Kelly (2005) took up this challenge for the first time. After all, it is contingent and fragile whether this possible deviant peer actually exists, so it may be “real world chauvinism” to care. (This term comes from Carey 2011.) One very plausible explanation for why we agree on so much cites the cognitive abilities we share, combined with our shared state of evidence, and these facts strongly suggest that we are peers in an important sense. Such considerations could reasonably motivate us to reject peerage probability ratios in favor of accounts that include peers as well as those who have access to relevant evidence and who are equally intelligent, conscientious, attentive, etc. The nature and extent of disagreements are both contingent issues, so since skepticism about disagreement is based on these factors, the skeptical consequences of disagreements are also contingent.

At one point, the shape of the Earth was quite controversial. Although there is now no general agreement that the Earth is approximately spherical, the conditions for recognizing the controversy in this matter are no longer met. Similarly, even issues of current major controversy may at some point not meet the conditions for recognition of the controversy. Thus, the skeptical threat of disagreement can come and go. That is, the record of the endurance of various philosophical disagreements strongly suggests that they will not go anywhere in the foreseeable future. It is at this point that my report on the epistemic meaning of deep disagreements differs most from Vavova`s. She also believes that partisan political disagreements are to be expected. For them, partisan political disagreement is expected because the questions are so difficult: given the complexity of these issues, we should have little confidence in our answers, and therefore we should not be surprised when disputes arise. For them, these disputes put us under pressure to mediate, not because the parties to the dispute are not peers, but because our confidence in our response should already be low. The reasons for the low level of trust and the expectation of disagreement are one and the same thing – the question is difficult.17 The view expressed here is not bound by the assertion that these disputes are difficult.

Deep disagreements – persistent deep disagreements – are beasts of a fundamentally different kind. They are not evidence of error, neither in our reasoning nor in the identification of peers. Rather, they highlight differences in the principles or worldviews from which we argue. Surprise is the mark of ordinary and extreme disagreements, and surprise indicates the need to update our causal model of the world. But the deep disagreements are not surprising; at least they don`t owe their importance to surprise. (Of course, sometimes we learn a new disagreement that turns out to be profound, and that`s surprising.