Philosophy
The Epistemology of Disagreement Among Epistemic Peers
Quick fact
When an epistemic peer disagrees with you, the epistemologist Richard Feldman argues that rationality requires you to suspend judgment or significantly reduce confidence—yet many philosophers defend the opposite view, saying you can stick to your guns.
Why this is interesting
You and a friend are both smart, well-read, and have seen the same evidence—yet you reach opposite conclusions. Can you both be rational? What should you do?
Read the full explanation
Understanding The Epistemology of Disagreement Among Epistemic Peers
Imagine two equally skilled detectives, both with the same evidence, arrive at different conclusions about a case. This is a case of epistemic peer disagreement: two people with equal cognitive abilities, access to the same evidence, and equal intellectual virtues come to conflicting beliefs. The puzzle is that if both are truly 'epistemic peers', then each is just as likely to be right as the other. So how can you be confident in your belief when your peer, who is just as likely to be correct, disagrees? This seems to undermine your justification. The two main responses are conciliationism and steadfastness. Conciliationism holds that you should significantly reduce your confidenceor even suspend judgment when you discover a peer disagrees. Steadfastness holds that you can be justified in maintaining your original belief, because you have the evidence and the peer's disagreement is just one piece of evidence, not a defeater. The debate is not just academic; it applies to politics, science, and everyday life.
A deeper explanation
The core mechanism of this problem is the 'independence principle': when assessing the epistemic significance of a disagreement, you should evaluate the other person's opinion independently of your own reasoning that led to the belief. This principle is used by conciliationists to argue that if a peer disagrees, you have a reason to doubt your own view, because their being a peer means the disagreement is symmetric. Steadfastness denies this principle, arguing that you can use your own reasoning to dismiss the peer's view if you have good reasons to think they are mistaken, even if they are a peer. The total evidence view attempts to resolve this by saying that the disagreement itself is part of your total evidence. This problem is crucial because it challenges the idea that rationality is purely individual; it shows that our social context—the fact that others disagree—can affect the rationality of our beliefs. It also connects to broader questions about intellectual humility, group rationality, and the reliability of our cognitive faculties.