Confidence, Evidence, and Disagreement

Vavova, Katia

doi:10.1007/s10670-013-9451-6

Cited by 16 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…?. 6 Feldman (2005); Gibbons (2006); Elga (2007Elga ( , 2013; White (2009b); Christensen (2010aChristensen ( ,b, 2016; Huemer (2011); Horowitz (2014); Pettigrew and Titelbaum (2014); Vavova (2014Vavova ( , 2016; Littlejohn (2015); Schoenfield (2015aSchoenfield ( ,b, 2016; Sliwa and Horowitz (2015); Worsnip (2015). 7 This claim presupposes only that-in such highly circumscribed cases-you should not completely ignore your peer's lack of confidence.…”

Section: A Disagreementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence: A Guide for the Uncertain

Dorst

2019

Philos Phenomenol Research

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Assume that it is your evidence that determines what opinions you should have. I argue that since you should take peer disagreement seriously, evidence must have two features. (1) It must sometimes warrant being modest: uncertain what your evidence warrants, and (thus) uncertain whether you're rational. (2) But it must always warrant being guided : disposed to treat your evidence as a guide. It is surprisingly difficult to vindicate these dual constraints. But diagnosing why this is so leads to a proposal-Trust-that is weak enough to allow modesty but strong enough to yield many guiding features. In fact, I argue that Trust is the Goldilocks principle-for it is necessary and sufficient to vindicate the claim that you should always prefer to use free evidence. Upshot: Trust lays the foundations for a theory of disagreement and, more generally, an epistemology that permits self-doubt-a modest epistemology.

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Section: A Disagreementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence: A Guide for the Uncertain

Dorst

2019

Philos Phenomenol Research

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“…We can make better sense of all this in a graded‐belief framework, but exploring that is beyond the scope of the paper. For a glimpse of the complications and how we might accommodate them in the context of a different, but related debate, see Vavova ().…”

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confidence: 99%

Irrelevant Influences

Vavova

2016

Philos Phenomenol Research

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We often hear such casual accusations: you just believe that because you are a liberal, a Christian, an American, a woman… When such charges are made they are meant to sting—not just emotionally, but epistemically. But should they? It can be disturbing to learn that one's beliefs reflect the influence of such irrelevant factors. The pervasiveness of such influence has led some to worry that we are not justified in many of our beliefs. That same pervasiveness has led others to doubt whether there is any worry here at all. I argue that evidence of irrelevant belief influence is sometimes, but not always, undermining. My proposal picks out ordinary, non‐skeptical cases in which we get evidence of error. It says that, in those cases, evidence of irrelevant influence is epistemically significant. It shows how respecting evidence of error is compatible with the epistemic lives we see ourselves living. We are fallible creatures, yes, but we are also capable and intelligent ones. We can recognize and correct for our own error so as to improve our imperfect, yet nevertheless robust, epistemic lives.

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“…As Vavova (2014b) forcefully argues, the pressure to conciliate is strongest when disagreement is most surprising. In fact, this is a specific case of a more general truth: we should become more or less confident in our beliefs in proportion to how surprising new evidence is.…”

Section: Partisan Peerhoodmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Surprising Truth About Disagreement

Levy

2020

Acta Anal

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Conciliationism—the thesis that when epistemic peers discover that they disagree about a proposition, both should reduce their confidence—faces a major objection: it seems to require us to significantly reduce our confidence in our central moral and political commitments. In this paper, I develop a typology of disagreement cases and a diagnosis of the source and force of the pressure to conciliate. Building on Vavova’s work, I argue that ordinary and extreme disagreements are surprising, and for this reason, they carry information about the likelihood of error. But deep disagreement is not surprising at all, and token deep disagreements do not put pressure on us to conciliate. However, a pattern of deep disagreements points to a different concern: not the problem of disagreement but the problem of irrelevant influences. Deep disagreement constitutes some pressure to examine the foundations from which we reason, rather than to conciliate on our central moral and political claims.

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Confidence, Evidence, and Disagreement

Cited by 16 publications

References 9 publications

Evidence: A Guide for the Uncertain

Evidence: A Guide for the Uncertain

Irrelevant Influences

The Surprising Truth About Disagreement

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