Abstract

The recent literature on the epistemology of disagreement focuses on the rational response question: how are you rationally required to respond to a doxastic disagreement with someone, especially with someone you take to be your epistemic peer? A doxastic disagreement with someone also confronts you with a slightly different question. This question, call it the epistemic trust question, is: how much should you trust our own epistemic faculties relative to the epistemic faculties of others? Answering the epistemic trust question is important for the epistemology of disagreement because it sheds light on the rational response question. My main aim in this paper is to argue—against recent attempts to show otherwise—that epistemic self-trust does not provide a reason for remaining steadfast in doxastic disagreements with others.

Highlights

  • How much weight should you give to the beliefs of others, especially to the beliefs of those who disagree with you? It may often be tempting to ignore the beliefs of others and remain steadfast in response to disagreements

  • My aim in this paper is to argue against the Asymmetry View and to undermine the support for steadfastness that it provides

  • Epistemic self-trust is often justified on non-epistemic grounds, this justification only obtains as long as there are no epistemic reasons to believe that we may have trusted our epistemic faculties too much. Based on this understanding of epistemic self-trust, I will argue that doxastic disagreements with others, especially with epistemic peers, are one important source of epistemic reasons that should lead us to reconsider the epistemic trust we place in ourselves and, the beliefs we have formed by relying on our epistemic faculties

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Summary

Introduction

How much weight should you give to the beliefs of others, especially to the beliefs of those who disagree with you? It may often be tempting to ignore the beliefs of others and remain steadfast in response to disagreements. A number of recent contributions to the literature on the epistemology of disagreements have made use of some version of the Asymmetry View to explain why it is rational to retain confidence in your original belief when you face a doxastic disagreement with someone else. Epistemic self-trust is often justified on non-epistemic grounds, this justification only obtains as long as there are no epistemic reasons to believe that we may have trusted our epistemic faculties too much Based on this understanding of epistemic self-trust, I will argue that doxastic disagreements with others, especially with epistemic peers, are one important source of epistemic reasons that should lead us to reconsider the epistemic trust we place in ourselves and, the beliefs we have formed by relying on our epistemic faculties

The Epistemic Asymmetry View and Steadfastness
Against the Epistemic Asymmetry View
The Non-Epistemic Asymmetry View and Steadfastness
The Practical View of Epistemic Self-Trust and the Rationality of Self-Doubt
Findings
Concluding Remarks
Full Text
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