The epistemic benefits of religious disagreement

Dormandy, Katherine

doi:10.1017/s0034412518000847

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…This may include implicit but problematic background assumptions that believers rely on, unnecessarily culturally laden interpretations of key doctrines, infelicities of logic or coherence (within doctrine or with other truths) (cf. Dormandy 2020a; Idem 2020b). They are also in a special position to notice epistemically pharisaic behaviour, being targeted by it.…”

Section: Epistemic Phariseeism and Divine-help Epistemologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Epistemic phariseeism

Dormandy

2022

Rel. Stud.

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A prominent view in religious epistemology, which I call divine-help epistemology, says that people of faith are epistemically gifted by God, whereas non-believers are subject to the noetic effects of a fallen world. This view aims to show how religious beliefs for people of faith can be epistemically justified. But I argue that it makes such people prone to a cluster of epistemic vices that I call epistemic phariseeism. Divine-help epistemology is especially apt to promote these vices because its normativity is not just epistemic, but also religious and moral. I suggest an alternative epistemological view that is better suited to religious faith.

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Section: Epistemic Phariseeism and Divine-help Epistemologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Epistemic phariseeism

Dormandy

2022

Rel. Stud.

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“…On the contrary: the epistemic airtime should be more evenly apportioned among those equally deserving of being heard. There are moral reasons for this, but also epistemic ones: a variety of knowledgeable perspectives is likely to be more epistemically enriching than one (Longino 2002;De Cruz and De Smedt 2013;Dormandy 2019) A second circumstance in which the speaker-expectation claim can be voided arises when the hearer has a right not to know what the speaker testifies. The following case of epistemic exploitation brings this out.…”

Section: Fulfillment Of Trust For Knowledge Imposition Of Trust For mentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploitative Epistemic Trust

Dormandy¹

2019

Trust in Epistemology

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Where there is trust, there is also vulnerability, and vulnerability can be exploited. Epistemic trust is no exception. This chapter maps the phenomenon of the exploitation of epistemic trust. I start with a discussion of how trust in general can be exploited; a key observation is that trust incurs vulnerabilities not just for the party doing the trusting, but also for the trustee (after all, trust can be burdensome), so either party can exploit the other. I apply these considerations to epistemic trust, specifically in testimonial relationships. There, we standardly think of a hearer trusting a speaker. But we miss an important aspect of this relationship unless we consider too that the speaker standardly trusts the hearer. Given this mutual trust, and given that both trustees and trusters can exploit each other, we have four possibilities for exploitation in epistemic-trust relationships: a speaker exploiting a hearer (a) by accepting his trust or (b) by imposing her trust on him, and a hearer exploiting a speaker (c) by accepting her trust or (d) by imposing his trust on her. One result is that you do not need to betray someone to exploit him-you can exploit him just as easily by doing what he trusts you for.

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“…xxviii In contemporary literature, there is debate about whether the benefits of disagreement are continuous across all domains of knowledgerelative to subject fields and kinds of beliefs. For instance, see (Vavova 2014, Lougheed 2018, Dormandy 2020).…”

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Wang Yangming on 'Unquestioning Obedience' and Epistemic Superiority

Ooi¹

2023

pew

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Within various contexts, such as politics and parenting, Confucianism has been criticized on the basis that it endorses 'unquestioning obedience' to authority. In recent years, several philosophers have argued against this view by appealing to textual evidence from Classical Confucian philosophers. This article examines Wang Yangming's views on this subject, arguing that Wang teaches that criticism of those who stand in a socially superior role relation is not only permitted, but encouraged. From this, the implications that Wang's analysis has for contemporary discussions of disagreement between epistemic superiors and inferiors and epistemic peerhood are considered. It will be argued that Wang's position is much closer to the total evidence view than the preemptive view. Relatedly, it is suggested that Wang provides a novel proposal about how to recognize or disregard epistemic 'superiors', especially in the context of moral knowledge.

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The epistemic benefits of religious disagreement

Cited by 9 publications

References 27 publications

Epistemic phariseeism

Epistemic phariseeism

Exploitative Epistemic Trust

Wang Yangming on 'Unquestioning Obedience' and Epistemic Superiority

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