Deep disagreement and hinge epistemology

Abstract

This paper explores the application of hinge epistemology to deep disagreement. Hinge epistemology holds that there is a class of commitments-hinge commitments-which play a fundamental role in the structure of belief and rational evaluation: they are the most basic general 'presuppositions' of our world views which make it possible for us to evaluate certain beliefs or doubts as rational. Deep disagreements seem to crucially involve disagreements over such fundamental commitments. In this paper, I consider pessimism about deep disagreement, the thesis that such disagreements are rationally irresolvable, and ask whether the Wittgensteinian account of deep disagreement-according to which such disagreements are disagreements over hinge commitments-provides adequate support for pessimism. I argue that the answer to this question depends on what hinge commitments are and what our epistemic relation to them is supposed to be. I argue for two core claims. First, that non-epistemic theories of hinge commitments provide adequate support for pessimism. Nevertheless, such theories have highly implausible consequences in the context of deep disagreement. Secondly, at least one epistemic theory of hinge commitments, the entitlement theory, permits optimism about such disagreements. As such, while hinge epistemology is mainly pessimistic about deep disagreement, it doesn't have to be.

Resolution of Deep Disagreement: Not Simply Consensus

“…Feldman rejects the idea that framework propositions present any unusual difficulty for rational argumentation. This point of view is shared by several other authors who have explored in detail the question of whether there is a way to interpret framework propositions such that they present a compelling obstacle to rational argument (Lynch 2010;Siegel 2013;Pritchard 2018;Ranalli 2018bRanalli , 2018aSiegel 2019). This has led to useful insights into Wittgensteinian hinge epistemology as well as the status of fundamental epistemic principles.…”

“…1 There has been con-1 For example, there are two different accounts of hinge epistemology: a nonepistemic theory according to which hinge commitments are outside the scope of rational evaluation, and an epistemic theory, according to which they are but have "warrant" or "entitlement" rather than justification in the standard sense. siderable discussion over whether an argument for pessimism about the rational resolvability of deep disagreement can succeed, given some way of filling in the details (Lynch 2010;Kappel 2012;Matheson 2018;Pritchard 2018;Ranalli 2018a;Siegel 2019).…”

“…A number of authors have concurred with Fogelin's pessimism about the scope of rational argumentation in resolving deep disagreements (Campolo 2005;Turner 2005;Godden 2010;Barris 2018). But there has been considerable resistance to Fogelin's argument from those who are more optimistic (Lugg 1986;Memedi 2007;Phillips 2008;Siegel 2013;Aikin 2018b;Ranalli 2018a). I will focus here on the widely cited optimistic reply given by Richard Feldman (Feldman 2005).…”

Deep Disagreements and Political Polarization

“…Broadening the characterization of deep disagreements in this way does introduce complications, since whether or not disagreements about normative moral principles can be treated in the same way as disagreements about normative epistemic principles depends partly on meta-ethics. For error-theoretical, relativist, or non-cognitivist views in meta-ethics, this is not the case because moral principles are not objectively true or false, or not even the sort of thing that can be true or false, or correct or incorrect.11 For simplicity's sake, I will assume that there are objective normative facts in both the moral and epistemic domain.12 Another difference with Lynch and Kappel is that both of them narrow the class of deep disagreements to those involving fundamental epistemic principles, which they understand as epistemic principles that can only be defended by epistemically 9 See Lynch (2010), Kappel (2012Kappel ( , 2018, Ranalli (2018a) for discussion and proposed answers. 10 It also differs from the Wittgensteinian theory of deep disagreements, according to which deep disagreements involve commitments to different hinge propositions.…”

Epistemic austerity: limits to entitlement

“…Many authors writing about deep disagreement argue that we remain rational even if we stick to our guns in the face of peer disagreement about our hinges. (Hazlett, 2014;Ranalli, 2020) This arguably means that our warrant is not changed by the disagreement and that deep disagreement does not defeat entitlement. I think this is the right result because not all deep disagreements are problematic or irresponsible.…”