Disagreement, relativism and doxastic revision

Carter, J. A. (2014) Disagreement, relativism and doxastic revision. Erkenntnis, 79(S1), pp. 155-172. (doi: 10.1007/s10670-013-9450-7)

Abstract

I investigate the implication of the truth-relativist’s alleged ‘faultless disagreements’ for issues in the epistemology of disagreement. A conclusion I draw is that the type of disagreement the truth-relativist claims (as a key advantage over the contextualist) to preserve fails in principle to be epistemically significant in the way we should expect disagreements to be in social-epistemic practice. In particular, the fact of faultless disagreement fails to ever play the epistemically significant role of making doxastic revision (at least sometimes) rationally required for either party in a (faultless) disagreement. That the truth-relativists’ disagreements over centred content fail to play this epistemically significant role that disagreements characteristically play in social epistemology should leave us sceptical that disagreement is what the truth-relativist has actually preserved.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Carter, Professor J Adam
• Authors: Carter, J. A.
• Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General)
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Humanities > Philosophy
• Journal Name: Erkenntnis
• Publisher: Springer
• ISSN: 0165-0106
• ISSN (Online): 1572-8420
• Published Online: 02 March 2013
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media
• First Published: First published in Erkenntnis 79(S1): 155-172
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy