Counterfactual Philosophers

Ballantyne, Nathan

doi:10.1111/phpr.12068

Cited by 23 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 20 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…There is no presumption that credence-conciliation would require any significant alteration to either one's beliefs or their justifications for them. Ballantyne (2013) gives an example of confidenceadjustment without content-adjustment. The empirical research on how much people overestimate their own skills and competency may even support the more radical claim that disagreement (at least with one's epistemic equals) should make a person weakly confident that they themselves are wrong (Wiland 2016).…”

Section: Levelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Justificationism: A Casuistic Epistemology of Political Disagreement

Carlson¹

2020

Trames. Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The conciliationist and steadfast approaches have dominated the conversation in the epistemology of disagreement. In this paper, drawing on Jennifer Lackey's justificationist approach and the casuistry paradigm in medical ethics, I will develop a more contextual epistemology of political disagreement. On this account, a given political disagreement's scope, domain, genealogy, and consequence can be helpful for determining whether we should respond to that disagreement at the level of our confidence, beliefs, or with policy. Though some may argue that responding with policy is a practical consideration instead of an epistemic matter, I argue that even policy responses to disagreements have an epistemic dimension to them that we should not ignore.

show abstract

Section: Levelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Justificationism: A Casuistic Epistemology of Political Disagreement

Carlson¹

2020

Trames. Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Instead, the idea here is that it could very well be how philosophers are distributed along a reliability spectrum; such a distribution among the reliability spectrum is a live epistemic possibility (cf. Ballantyne, ; Licon, ). We are prima facie simply in no epistemic position to make such a call.…”

Section: The Placement Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modest meta‐philosophical skepticism

Licon

2019

Ratio

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Intractable disagreement among philosophers is ubiquitous. An implication of such disagreement is that many philosophers hold false philosophical beliefs (i.e. at most only one party to a dispute can be right). Suppose that we distribute philosophers along a spectrum arranged from philosophers with mostly true philosophical beliefs on one end (high‐reliability), to those with mostly false philosophical beliefs on the other (low‐reliability), and everyone else somewhere in‐between (call this is the reliability spectrum). It is hard to see how philosophers could accurately locate themselves on the reliability spectrum; they are prima facie as well positioned as their peers with respect to philosophical matters (call this the placement problem). In this paper, I argue that the reliability spectrum and placement problem lend support to modest meta‐philosophical skepticism: we have a pro tanto (but not an all‐things‐considered) reason to withhold ascent to philosophical claims.

show abstract

“…This would allow Erika to have the view that p, since p seemed correct to her before considering certain higher-order 31 There are other higher-order routes to agnosticism in philosophy that make no essential reference to actual disagreement. Ballantyne (2014) pursues one such route, which appeals to the merely could-have-been disagreement of "counterfactual philosophers" (people who likely would have disagreed with your philosophical views, had they chosen to pursue philosophy). Frances (2016) discusses a different route, which involves being aware of one's past philosophical failings.…”

Section: Inclination Insulated From What?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Philosophy Without Belief

Barnett

2017

Mind

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Should we believe our controversial philosophical views? Recently, several authors have argued from broadly conciliationist premises that we should not. If they are right, we philosophers face a dilemma: If we believe our views, we are irrational. If we do not, we are not sincere in holding them. This paper offers a way out, proposing an attitude we can rationally take toward our views that can support sincerity of the appropriate sort. We should arrive at our views via a certain sort of 'insulated' reasoning-that is, reasoning that involves setting aside certain higher-order worries, such as those provided by disagreement-when we investigate philosophical questions. Here is what seems to be a fact about our discipline: Some of us really believe the controversial philosophical views we advocate. 1 Some of us really believe that it can sometimes be rational to have inconsistent beliefs, that seemingly vague predicates must have precise application conditions, or that a person would survive if each of her brain cells were replaced with an artificial functional duplicate. Here is another fact about our discipline: There is widespread disagreement among philosophers surrounding these issues. 2 Given certain assumptions about the nature of these philosophical disagreements, and given certain assumptions about the epistemic import of disagreement more generally, one might come to doubt that our controversial philosophical beliefs are rational-insofar as we have them. Indeed, numerous authors have developed arguments along these lines. 3 The details of their arguments need not concern us, but it will be useful to examine briefly one argument in outline, which will serve as a representative simplification of what they have said: Conciliationism: A person is rationally required to withhold belief in the face of disagreement-given that certain conditions are met. 4 Applicability: Many disagreements in philosophy meet these conditions. No Rational Belief: Philosophers aren't rational to believe many of their controversial views. in any way diminished? As we will see, there is some cause for concern. 7

show abstract

Counterfactual Philosophers

Cited by 23 publications

References 20 publications

Political Justificationism: A Casuistic Epistemology of Political Disagreement

Political Justificationism: A Casuistic Epistemology of Political Disagreement

Modest meta‐philosophical skepticism

Philosophy Without Belief

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About