On the rationality of belief-invariance in light of peer disagreement (2011).

Content Provider	CiteSeerX
Author	Lam, Barry
Abstract	In matters of opinion, some domains admit of expertise, indeed some of us inhabit the role of expert. Other domains we believe admit of no experts; in terms of qualification to judge, everyone is as good as everyone else. In all such matters, disagreement can be persistent and widespread. How should we manage our opinions once we come to know about such disagreement? Descartes asked himself such a question in the beginning of the Discourse on Method, and his answer was decidedly skeptical.1 Wherever Descartes could not find any reason for the superiority of his belief-forming methods over a disagreeing peer’s, he advocated the suspension of belief. We have seen a recent revival of this Cartesian idea by the name of “the Equal Weight View ” in the epistemology of disagreement. According to this view, when you and a peer mutually believe that you are as reliable as the other, and you both learn that you disagree about whether P, everything else being equal and perhaps within some limits, both of you ought to meet halfway in your beliefs about whether P.2 The Equal Weight view, if true, can be used as a premise in an argument for skepticism about knowledge.3 We fail to know
File Format	PDF
Publisher Date	2011-01-01
Access Restriction	Open
Subject Keyword	Peer Disagreement Equal Weight View Wherever Descartes Belief-forming Method Recent Revival Cartesian Idea
Content Type	Text