Problems with Publishing Philosophical Claims We Don't Believe

Abstract

Plakias has recently argued that there is nothing wrong with publishing defences of philosophical claims which we don't believe and also nothing wrong with concealing our lack of belief, because an author's lack of belief is irrelevant to the merit of a published work. Fleisher has refined this account by limiting the permissibility of publishing without belief to what he calls ‘advocacy role cases’. I argue that such lack of belief is irrelevant only if it is the result of an inexplicable incredulity or the result of a metaphilosophical or epistemic stance that is unrelated to the specific claim. However, in many real-life cases, including Fleisher's advocacy role cases, our doubts regarding the claims we defend arise from reasons that have something to do with the insufficiency of the philosophical evidence supporting the claim, and publishing an unconditional defence of a claim without revealing our doubts is impermissible as it involves withholding philosophically relevant reasons. Plakias has also argued that discouraging philosophers from publishing claims they don't believe would be unfair to junior philosophers with unsettled views. I propose that we should change our academic practices that pressure philosophers to publish articles that pretend to be defences of settled views.

The Belief Norm of Academic Publishing

“…That is, when one wishes to start debates and influence others by publishing research articles, the quality of that debate is likely to be better under a norm that grounds publication in belief and the search for truth. Similarly, when one launches a new area of research, this is more likely to lead to productive scholarly activity in the long run when sustained by a norm with a constitutive connection to truth (for extended discussion of several ways this might improve research in philosophy, see Sarıhan 2022). If this is true, then it suggests that advocacy role claims will fulfill their function of promoting productive debate and disagreement even better under a belief norm.…”

Publishing, Belief, and Self-Trust

“…2 The discussion thus far has focused on whether PWB indicates shortcomings in the author; other arguments focus on the ways PWB might shortchange readers. Fleisher (2020) and Sarıhan (2022) argue that PWB is criticizable insofar as it either withholds or misrepresents evidence to readers. After all, Sarıhan notes, there must be a reason why authors don't believe their arguments.…”

“…Either this reason has bearing on the evidence for (or against) the argument, or it's trivial. In the former case, the author is effectively withholding philosophical evidence, and this crosses a line: “PWB is impermissible when it involves withholding substantive reasons for disbelief” (Sarıhan 2022: 2).…”

“…This raises interesting questions about what we expect from other philosophers, and what we're entitled to expect. As a descriptive matter, I doubt many of us would be shocked to learn that our peers were working under “a mixture of time constraints and careerist motivations” (Sarıhan 2022). One argument for BNP is that it reins these other influences in.…”

“…In an earlier paper (Plakias 2019), I defend a view called, ‘publishing without belief’ (PWB), according to which there is no norm requiring that authors believe what they publish. Responses have ranged from outright denial of this view and advocacy of a belief norm for publication (Buckwalter Forthcoming), to modifying my original claim and allowing for some cases of PWB but not others (Fleisher 2020; Sarıhan 2022).…”