Some Reluctant Skepticism about Rational Insight
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Abstract
There is much to admire in John Pittard’s recent book on the epistemology of disagreement. But here we develop one concern about the role that rational insight plays in his project. Pittard develops and defends a view on which a party to peer disagreement can show substantial partiality to his own view, so long as he enjoys even moderate rational insight into the truth of his view or the cogency of his reasoning for his view. Pittard argues that this may happen in ordinary cases of religious disagreement—cases in which it’s a live skeptical possibility that one is misdescribing his insight, or not having insight at all—and therefore one need not be strongly conciliatory even in the face of peer disagreement. Yet Pittard agrees that one should be strongly conciliatory in cases of disagreement involving, e.g., visual perception and dim rational insight, since the sort of fallible, corrigible evidence involved in such cases may be counterbalanced by symmetrical evidence on the part of one’s disagreeing peer. We worry that there’s an inconsistency here. If it’s unreasonable to show partiality to one’s visual experience (or dim rational insight) in cases like “Horse Race” and “Restaurant Check,” it’s likewise unreasonable to show partiality in religious disagreements to one’s moderate rational insight, fallible and corrigible as it is.
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Bogardus, Tomas. 2009. “A Vindication of the Equal-Weight View,” Episteme 6: 324–335.
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Bogardus, Tomas. 2012. “What Certainty Teaches,” Philosophical Psychology 25 (2): 227–243.
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Bogardus, Tomas. 2013. “Disagreeing with the Religious Skeptic,” International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 74: 5–17.
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Chalmers, David. 1996. The Conscious Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.
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Christensen, David. 2007. “Epistemology of Disagreement: The Good News,” Philosophical Review 116: 187–217.
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Christensen, David. 2011. “Disagreement, Question-begging, and Epistemic Self-Criticism,” Philosopher’s Imprint 11 (6): 1–22.
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Elga, Adam. 2007. “Reflection and Disagreement,” Noûs 41: 478–502.
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Pittard, John. 2019. Disagreement, Deference, and Religious Commitment. New York: Oxford University Press.
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Some Reluctant Skepticism about Rational Insight
In: International Journal for the Study of SkepticismSearch for other papers by Tomas Bogardus in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Search for other papers by Michael Burton in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
There is much to admire in John Pittard’s recent book on the epistemology of disagreement. But here we develop one concern about the role that rational insight plays in his project. Pittard develops and defends a view on which a party to peer disagreement can show substantial partiality to his own view, so long as he enjoys even moderate rational insight into the truth of his view or the cogency of his reasoning for his view. Pittard argues that this may happen in ordinary cases of religious disagreement—cases in which it’s a live skeptical possibility that one is misdescribing his insight, or not having insight at all—and therefore one need not be strongly conciliatory even in the face of peer disagreement. Yet Pittard agrees that one should be strongly conciliatory in cases of disagreement involving, e.g., visual perception and dim rational insight, since the sort of fallible, corrigible evidence involved in such cases may be counterbalanced by symmetrical evidence on the part of one’s disagreeing peer. We worry that there’s an inconsistency here. If it’s unreasonable to show partiality to one’s visual experience (or dim rational insight) in cases like “Horse Race” and “Restaurant Check,” it’s likewise unreasonable to show partiality in religious disagreements to one’s moderate rational insight, fallible and corrigible as it is.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 490 | 239 | 54 |
| Full Text Views | 156 | 2 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 96 | 7 | 0 |