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Abstract
We sometimes disagree not only about facts, but also about how best
to acquire evidence or justified belief within the domain of facts that
we disagree about. And sometimes we have no dispute-independent
ways of settling what are the best ways of acquiring evidence in
these domains. Following Michael Lynch, I will call this deep
disagreement. In the paper, I outline various forms of deep
disagreement, following but also in certain respects revising and
expanding Lynchs exposition in (Lynch 2010) and (Lynch 2012). As,
is well known that for the externalist about knowledge and epistemic
justification, deep disagreements may be nothing more than an
unfortunate failure of communication. Yet, even granting this, Lynch
argues that deep disagreement points to a sort of practical problem. I
agree. In my paper I propose a revised account of the sort of practical
problem that deep disagreement may pose. In short, my claim will be
that that deep disagreement may be a problem because of the role
that shared factual beliefs may have in common decision-making. I
then discuss and assess various reactions to the problem of deep
disagreement, including the one proposed by Lynch. I argue that
none of the solutions discussed in the paper are satisfactory.
#
An earlier version of this material was presented at the
European Epistemology Network conference in Modena and Bologna,
June 28-30, 2012, and at a workshop on Deference, Testimony and
Diversity, November 22 and 23, 2012, at the University of
Copenhagen. I would like to thank those present a both occasions for
comments and suggestions.
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1. Deep Disagreement
We sometimes disagree not only about facts, but also about how best
to acquire evidence or justified belief within the domain of facts that
we disagree about. And sometimes we have no dispute-independent
ways of settling what are the best ways of acquiring evidence in
these domains. Following Michael Lynch, I will call this deep
disagreement. Surely, deep disagreements are deeply disturbing.
However, as is well known, for the externalist about knowledge and
epistemic justification, a deep disagreement may be nothing more
than an unfortunate failure of communication, see eg. (Alston 1986)
(Alston 1993) (Bergmann 2006). Yet, Lynch argues that deep
disagreement points to a sort of practical problem. In my discussion,
I will follow this lead, though slightly revising Lynch account of
deep disagreement and the sort of practical problem that deep
disagreement may pose. I then discuss and assess various reactions
to deep disagreement, including the one that has been proposed by
Lynch.
Let me start by presenting and in certain ways revising the
account of deep disagreement proposed by Lynch. Adapting his
framework, let's say an epistemic principle is a 'normative principle
to the effect that some source or way of forming beliefs has some
valuable epistemic status' {Lynch, 2010 #1343@264}. In the next
sentence Lynch adds: ' So we might say that an epistemic principle is
one that says that some doxastic practice or method is reliable'
(Lynch 2010, 264).1
Actually, it seems rather controversial to claim that epistemic
principles merely say that some method is reliable. Epistemic
principles typically do more than merely asserting that some
doxastic practice or method is reliable. Epistemic principles may say
that we ought to use a certain method or practice when inquiring
certain questions, which adds to the claim that this method is in fact
1
Throughout the paper, I will talk interchangeably about
methods and doxastic practices, and I take these labels simply to
refer to, roughly, ways of forming or sustaining beliefs.
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reliable. And epistemic principles may say that beliefs are accorded a
certain epistemic status such as being known or epistemically justified
to some degree when acquired by certain methods.
For the purpose of the ensuing discussion, we can ignore
these further elements of epistemic principles. So, let us assume that
epistemic principles single out some method or doxastic practice,
and says that it is a proper source of belief or evidence, or roughly
equivalently, a source that confers some positive or desirable
epistemic status, such as epistemic justification or knowledge.
Clearly, doxastic practices and methods can be assessed for
their reliability, their tendency to produce true and avoid false
beliefs. Of course, for some method to be assigned a definite level of
reliability, we need to fix the circumstances under which is used, and
the domain of facts or propositions that it is applied to. Visual
perception is quite reliable for questions such as the colour of
medium sized physical objects, but only under suitable conditions.
Without relativizing to domain and circumstances, a process such as
visual perception cannot be assigned any level of reliability. As is
well know, the proper assignment of domain and circumstances, and
similar questions about the individuation of methods, raise thorny
questions discussed under the heading of the generality problem
(Conee and Feldman 1998) (Feldman and Conee 2002) (Kappel 2006).
In this paper, I will set aside these questions, and simply take proper
individuation and relativisations to domain and circumstances for
read when speaking about the reliability of doxastic practices.
Granted this, it is a squarely factual matter whether some
doxastic practice is reliable to a certain degree or not. Consequently,
in so far as an epistemic principle makes a claim about the level
reliability of a particular doxastic practice, it makes a squarely factual
claim. So, let us assume that epistemic principles make factual claims
about the degree of reliability, and let us simply say that an epistemic
principle is true or false, depending on whether the method
endorsed in the principle is in fact reliable to a high enough degree
or not (henceforth, for expositional simplicity, I will skip the
qualifications about degrees of reliability). Consequently, most
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for one agent but need not be so for another. I also use 'epistemic
reason' as a non-success term. One can have or give epistemic
reasons, yet they are bad reasons, or unsuccessful reasons, reasons
that do not, and should not persuade a rational individual.
We can now restate the notion of basicness of epistemic
principles and doxastic practices with the help of the notion of an
epistemic reason. A basic epistemic epistemic principle is a principle
such that the best epistemic reason we can present in favour of the
truth of the principle at some point assume the epistemic principle in
question.2 A basic doxastic practice can be defined similarly.
So, there is a correlation between basicness and what is
known as epistemic circularity. An epistemic principle is basic just
when the best epistemic reasons for it are epistemically circular. Let's
briefly expand on that notion also. An epistemic reason for some
target proposition P is epistemically circular just when the epistemic
status of one or more premises constituting that epistemic reason
depends in certain ways on the truth of the very target proposition P.
Suppose that I want to argue that visual perception is reliable
in ordinary circumstances. I then use a track record argument
consisting of a set premises observation that my visual perception
did supply me with a correct visual belief on various occasions, and
a premise stating some form of inductive generalisation from those
premises. Consider now whether I am justified in accepting each of
the former premises. Presumably, I am epistemically justified in
accepting each of these premises. But evidently, my epistemic
justification may depend certain ways on my attitude to the target
proposition: suppose that I cannot become justified in the empirical
premises without at some point relying on visual perception. When
this holds, there will be dependencies between the target-proposition
(visual perception is reliable) in my argument and my epistemic
justification for the premises in that argument. Suppose that I quite
sincerely question or deny the truth of the target proposition - for
2
I leave the notion of betterness of epistemic reasons
undefined.
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some reason I don't accept the idea that visual perception is reliable;
even if I somehow managed to believe the premises of track-record
argument, I would, on most views, be deprived of epistemic
justification of the observational premises of my track-record
argument because of a defeater. On other views the following
dependence holds: if I fail to know (in advance) or be epistemically
justified (in advance) that visual perception is reliable, I would not be
epistemically justified in my visual beliefs. Yet other views require
that even if I do not really know that visual perception is reliable
(prior to advancing my track-record argument) I should at least be
entitled to this assumption (Wright 2004). Otherwise my use of this
premise in the background of my reasoning in my track-record
argument is not legitimate.
This is not the place to dwell into the details of the nature of
epistemic circularity. The important thing to note is that because of
the dependencies involved, we should suspect to see the following
features of epistemically circular epistemic reasons. Suppose that S is
presented with an epistemically circular epistemic reason for P. If S
questions or denies the truth of P, then S should not consider herself
justified in one or more of the premises constituting the epistemic
reason. This is a consequence of the dependence relation that defines
epistemic circularity. When S questions or denies P, she questions or
denies one of the conditions in her being epistemically justified in the
epistemic reason for P that she is presented with. She should not
consider herself justified in accepting that premises. So, this
epistemically circular argument for P will not constitute a good
reason for her to think that P is true.
For much the same reason we should expect that epistemically
circular arguments are not rationally dialectically effective. If S is
offered an epistemically circular epistemic reason for P, and if S
initially questions or doubts P, then S should not consider herself
justified in accepting one or more of the premises of the epistemically
circular reason for P. Consequently, S should not consider herself
having possessing a good reason for changing her views on P.
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3
Note about earlier definition: no dispute-independent way of
settling the matter. I mean this to be a consequence of the more
fundamental definition given in terms of epistemic reasons.
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Maybe it is puzzling how can this be. But to see that it is a live
possibility, consider Lynch's own case of Abel and Cain.
'Cain and Abel, lets imagine, are having coffee and arguing
about the age of the Earth. Abel asserts with great confidence
that the earth is a mere 7,000 years old. Cain, amazed, points
out that Abels claim is not justified by the evidence of the
fossil record, the best explanation of which is that the Earth is
far older. Inference to the best explanation from the fossil and
historical record can work sometimes Abel concedes, but the
best method for knowing about the distant past is to consult
the Holy Book; it overrides any other competing evidence.
Cain scoffs and rejects the book as an unreliable source for
knowing about the distant past; the only reliable method, he
insists, is to employ a combination of abduction and induction
from the fossil and historical record.' (Lynch 2010, 264).
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4
Lynch details the notion of a deep disagreement in a slightly
different way (Lynch 2010, 265). According to Lynch, an epistemic
disagreement is mutual 'when both sides to the dispute deny a
principle that the other asserts'. A mutual epistemic disagreement is
deep when the following holds: (1) the parties to the disagreement
share common epistemic goals, (2) the principles they disagree about
concern the same subject-matter, and (3) there is no further epistemic
principle, accepted by both parties, that could settle the
disagreement, and finally (4) 'when the epistemic principles in
question can be justified only means of an epistemically circular
argument.' There are certain minor differences between this way of
stating the issues and mine, but I believe that we can ignore them for
present purposes.
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we might end up with very different beliefs about the world that in
turn sustain very different epistemic principles. In part, this is why
deep disagreements are possible.
5
As Lynch briefly mentions, one might wonder if the
occurrence of deep disagreement constitute a reason to accept non-
factualism about epistemic principles. I agree with Lynch's
skepticism about this. Note in addition that given the way I have
framed the notion of an epistemic principle, the disputed part of an
epistemic principle might be just the factual part - whether some
belief forming method is in fact reliable or not. It would be extremely
surprising if this part of epistemic principles were to turn out to be
non-factual.
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reflect our moral and prudential values, but also on our factual
beliefs about a range of non-normative features of the world. Even if
we did agree about all value questions, we could still agree about
what to do simply because we disagree about the facts. Let's refer to
this as fact-dependent political disagreements, disagreement about
common policies, where the disagreement depends a disagreement
about some non-normative issue.
Surely fact-dependent political disagreements may depend on
deep disagreements. That is, they may depend on disagreements
about factual questions that trace back to disagreements about
epistemic principles, where these principles, in turn, are basic.
Remember that in symmetrical deep disagreements, both parties to
the disagreement regard the basic epistemic principle upon which
the opponents belief is based as flawed. And though each agent is
fully rational, and makes no mistake in reasoning, neither agent can
rationally persuade the other to change his or her mind regarding the
factual question that separates them.
How should we choose in such cases? Well, this is a large
question, but suppose now that we follow Rawls and many others in
accepting some version of what is known as the liberal principle of
legitimacy. Roughly, and subject to many refinements and questions
of scope and interpretation, this principles says that political power
is legitimate only when exercised in accordance with principles that
all reasonable citizens could accept, cf. (Rawls 1993, 137). We can
now see why fact-dependent policy choices, deep disagreements and
the liberal principle of legitimacy may conspire to make a thorny
practical problem. Fact-dependent political disagreements can
depend on symmetrical disagreements about basic epistemic
principles. In symmetrical disagreements about basic principles,
there will be no resolution of the factual disagreement in sight. Yet,
everyone involved might be fully rational, at least in the epistemic
sense. Assume that they are also reasonable. According to the liberal
principle of legitimacy, choices should be in accordance with
principles that all reasonable citizens could accept. But that might be
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6
I am not aware of direct references to the liberal principle of
legitimacy in Lynch's writings. But for the reasons mentioned, I
believe that a principle of this sort underlies the problem of deep
disagreement.
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7
This rough characterisation of conciliationism omits a number
of qualifications, but that need not detain us here.
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requires that they suspend beliefs about all the epistemic principles
in dispute. The result would be that according to conciliationism,
two individuals cannot both sustain a deep disagreement, be aware
of it, and remain in compliance with what rationality requires.
Again, space does not permit a discussion of this strategy, but
let me just note that it is not obvious that this is what defenders of
conciliationist views should say regarding deep disagreements. After
all, in cases of deep disagreement both parties to the dispute have
reasons not to regard the other as an epistemic peer. So it is not clear
that they would be rationally required to reduce confidence in their
own view. And each party to the deep disagreement would have
good epistemic reason to regard the social evidence provided by the
fact that there is a deep disagreement as not indicative of a mistake
or fault in their own reasoning. So, they should remain unmoved in
their confidence regarding their favoured epistemic principles, and
doing so is not a failure of rationality. See the similar discussion in
(Bergmann 2009).
Let us now turn to the solution to the problem of deep
disagreement that Lynch proposes. Lynch suggests what he calls the
Method Game. The basic idea is that we should choose privileged
epistemic principles behind a veil of ignorance, in close analogy to
Rawls choice of principles of justice in the original position.
Everything depends on the specification of the choice
situation. What Lynch has in mind a choice of epistemic principle on
the assumption that, first, players have no information about the
reliability of various candidate doxastic practices; they cannot
assume that any particular method is better than others: 'all methods
for forming beliefs are as reliable as others because none are reliable'
Second, players cannot assume any particular metaphysical picture
of the world. They cannot assume, for example, that naturalism or
some form of Christian theism is true. Third, players known that
they will inhabit the world in which the chosen methods are
privileged. Fourth, players do not know 'all the methods they will -
because of upbringing, education, religion and so forth - wish to
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employ themselves in' the world they are concerned about (Lynch
2010, 275).
In a good Rawlsian fashion, Lynch then looks what epistemic
principles (or methods or doxastic practices) it would be in our
rational self-interest to prefer. Note that according to Lynch, the
choice behind the veil of provide a practical reason for preferring
certain methods/epistemic principles over others: 'It gives practical,
self-interested, reason for adopting some standards over others'
(Lynch 2010, 276). And, according to Lynch: 'it would seem in our
self-interest to favour privileging those methods that, to the greatest
degree possible, were repeatable, adaptable, public, and widespread.'
(Lynch 2010, 275). Lynch specifies this very succinctly as follows:
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References
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