Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Disagreement, Significance, and Revision

30 March 2016  |  15:00  |  Seminari de Filosofia UB

Abstract

The aim of this talk is to defend a new approach to the problem of epistemic peer disagreement. The key claims that are argued for are two. First, the discovery of a disagreement with an epistemic peer is epistemically significant. The first part of the talk outlines a new account of such a significance. Secondly, instead of requiring peers to update their respective degrees of belief towards the proposition at issue, the discovery of disagreement requires them to perform a qualitative rather than a quantitative revision. Peers should entertain the proposition in a different cognitive mode, which will be dubbed the hypothesis mode. The second part of the talk contrasts attitudes held the hypothesis mode with more familiar attitudes, such as belief and suspended judgment.