On the Rationality of Belief-Invariance in Light of Peer Disagreement

Lam, Barry

doi:10.1215/00318108-2010-028

Cited by 12 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“… This is compatible with, but does not require, thinking in terms of belief‐revision rules following Lam (). It also doesn't require construing peerhood in terms of ‘reliability’, measured in either of the formal ways that Lam () discusses. …”

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What is (Dis)Agreement?

Rowbottom

2016

Philos Phenomenol Research

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When do we agree? The answer might once have seemed simple and obvious; we agree that p when we each believe that p. But from a formal epistemological perspective, where degrees of belief are more fundamental than beliefs, this answer is unsatisfactory. On the one hand, there is reason to suppose that it is false; degrees of belief about p might differ when beliefs simpliciter on p do not. On the other hand, even if it is true, it is too vague; for what it is to believe simpliciter ought to be explained in terms of degrees of belief.This paper presents several possible notions of agreement, and corresponding notions of disagreement. It indicates how the findings are fruitful for the epistemology of disagreement, with special reference to the notion of epistemic peerhood. 2 Logical views can, but need not, involve degrees of belief. Fundamentally, they ground probabilities on logical relations between propositions. For more on this, see Rowbottom (2008) and Rowbottom (2015, pp. 24-26).WHAT IS (DIS)AGREEMENT? 223 Philosophy and Phenomenological ResearchThe reticence to use degrees of belief in broader contexts may also be partly explained by the ongoing controversy surrounding their nature. That is to say, there is a 'nature of degree of belief' debate that parallels the 'nature of belief' debate mentioned above. Are degrees of belief to be understood as mental representations, as dispositions to bet in particular ways, or as something else altogether? The lack of perceived progress in the debate is illustrated by the recent thesis of Eriksson and H ajek (2007), namely that 'degrees of belief' are basic and impervious to analysis.But let's take it as uncontroversial that epistemology has something to learn from formal epistemology (without presuming anything so rash as that the latter has any form of priority over the former, or that the converse is not true). And let us start with a rough and ready notion of a 'degree of belief' as a degree of confidence. A simple example captures the essence of the idea. I am more confident that I am writing a paper on agreement than I am that it will be published in a leading journal of philosophy. But I nevertheless believe each proposition to be true.Using degrees of confidence is sufficient to provide a coarse-grained map of the terrain, and indicate that much of the land is fertile. If this makes you feel uneasy, consider that informal epistemology normally proceeds without presuming an answer to, or even considering, 'What is belief?' This question is understood to fall within the philosophy of mind. Hence, it would be unwise to demand that the formal epistemologist begin with a complete answer to 'What is degree of belief?'So we have a plan. We will examine how we may construe agreement in terms of degrees of confidence. 3 But what is the point of the exercise? Intrinsic interest aside, understanding agreement is key to understanding disagreement. (Although, as we will see, disagreement should not be equated merely with the absence of agreement.) And the epistemology of d...

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What is (Dis)Agreement?

Rowbottom

2016

Philos Phenomenol Research

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“…Discussions of peerhood from an accuracy perspective include Elga (), White (), Enoch (), Kelly (), Lam () and Levinstein (ms.). When beliefs are thought of in a categorical way, accuracy comes down to truth.…”

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Conciliation, Uniqueness and Rational Toxicity¹

Christensen

2014

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Conciliationism holds that disagreement of apparent epistemic peers often substantially undermines rational confidence in our opinions. Uniqueness principles say that there is at most one maximally rational doxastic response to any given batch of total evidence. The two views are often thought to be tightly connected. This paper distinguishes two ways of motivating conciliationism, and two ways that conciliationism may be undermined by permissive accounts of rationality (those that deny uniqueness). It shows how conciliationism can flourish under certain strongly permissive accounts of rationality. This occurs when the motivation for conciliationism does not come (as is sometimes supposed) from taking disagreement as evidence of one's own rational failings. However, divorcing the motive for conciliating from worries about rationality does not remove a feature of conciliationism that some find troubling: that conciliationism can lead to cases of "rational toxicity," in which the most rational response to one's evidence involves violating some rational ideal.

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“…This sort of reliabilist conception of epistemic peerhood has been discussed by Christensen (2016) and Lam (2011) in the context of individual peer disagreement, and has been used by Easwaran et al (2016) to investigate how individuals should in general revise their credences upon learning the credences of other persons. Furthermore, philosophers who work within an aggregation framework often measure epistemic performance in reliabilist terms.…”

Section: Characterizing Group Peer Disagreementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Group disagreement: a belief aggregation perspective

Skipper

Steglich‐Petersen

2017

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Abstract. The debate on the epistemology of disagreement has so far focused almost exclusively on cases of disagreement between individual persons. Yet, many social epistemologists agree that at least certain kinds of groups are equally capable of having beliefs that are open to epistemic evaluation. If so, we should expect a comprehensive epistemology of disagreement to accommodate cases of disagreement between group agents, such as juries, governments, companies, and the like. However, this raises a number of fundamental questions concerning what it means for groups to be epistemic peers and to disagree with each other. In this paper, we explore what group peer disagreement amounts to given that we think of group belief in terms of List and Pettit's (2002; 2011) 'belief aggregation model'. We then discuss how the so-called 'equal weight view' of peer disagreement is best accommodated within this framework. The account that seems most promising to us says, roughly, that the parties to a group peer disagreement should adopt the belief that results from applying the most suitable belief aggregation function for the combined group on all members of the combined group. To motivate this view, we test it against various intuitive cases, derive some of its notable implications, and discuss how it relates to the equal weight view of individual peer disagreement.

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On the Rationality of Belief-Invariance in Light of Peer Disagreement

Cited by 12 publications

References 19 publications

What is (Dis)Agreement?

What is (Dis)Agreement?

Conciliation, Uniqueness and Rational Toxicity¹

Group disagreement: a belief aggregation perspective

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On the Rationality of Belief-Invariance in Light of Peer Disagreement

Cited by 12 publications

References 19 publications

What is (Dis)Agreement?

What is (Dis)Agreement?

Conciliation, Uniqueness and Rational Toxicity1

Group disagreement: a belief aggregation perspective

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Conciliation, Uniqueness and Rational Toxicity¹