Publishing without (some) belief

Abstract

Philosophers have recently been interested in the appropriate attitude to have toward a controversial philosophical theory. There are a variety of reasons to doubt that belief is appropriate, as the high epistemic standards required for justified belief would seem to exclude too many philosophical theories as viable options. Relatedly, there are worries about assertions of philosophical claims, since assertion is also thought to be governed by substantive epistemic norms. In light of this, a variety of alternative attitudes have been proposed in order to characterize philosophical commitment and assertion. 1 Alexandra Plakias (2019) has helpfully expanded this discussion to the topic of philosophical publication. Plakias argues that it is permissible for philosophers to write and publish works (e.g., journal articles or books) that include claims they do not believe, a practice she calls publishing without belief (PWB). 2 Her thesis is carefully limited to philosophy, as opposed to publishing in other fields. Plakias' appeals to three helpful cases to provide a compelling argument that PWB is sometimes permissible. However, this raises further questions: just when is PWB permissible? Is it universally or even generally permissible? I argue that only claims of a certain kind are permissible to publish without belief. The picture I propose recognizes two roles for claims made in published works: what I will call the advocacy and evidential roles. Advocacy claims should often be published despite authors' lack of belief in them. Evidential role claims, however, require a higher epistemic standing, one that does include a belief requirement. On this theory, Plakias' cases are permissible examples of PWB because they involve advocacy role claims. I will offer another three cases illustrating that it is impermissible to publish evidential role claims without belief. The resulting account of the norms of publishing is applicable to research areas beyond just philosophy.

Would Disagreement Undermine Progress?

“…This is so regardless of whether all, some, or even any experts in normative ethics -including, perhaps, the authors themselves (cf. Plakias, 2019, Fleisher, 2020 -actually come to believe or accept expected rule utilitarianism. Indeed, we may imagine that the publication in questionbecause phrased slightly provocatively, perhaps -further reinforces the dogmatic acceptance of deontology by a large majority of normative ethicists.…”

“…Indeed, on some theories of progress mentioned below, false answers may contribute significantly to progress (see, e.g., footnote 19).6 The most notable exception is Cappelen (2017), which we discuss below. To be sure, there is a substantial literature about various epistemic implications of philosophical disagreement, such as whether it undermines knowledge, rational belief, assertability, or publishability of philosophical views(Goldberg, 2013a, Kelly, 2016, Barnett, 2019, Plakias, 2019, Fleisher, 2020. While we draw on this literature below, it will become clear that the epistemic implications of philosophical disagreements do not, without substantive further assumptions, imply anything about how much progress has been made in philosophy.…”

In Trust We Trust: Epistemic Vigilance and Responsibility

“…6 It’s surely the case that we need to trust others to different degrees in different fields, because the balance of claims that readers are able and expected to verify for themselves versus those that must be taken on trust varies from field to field. Fleisher ( 2020 ) helpfully distinguishes between two kinds of claims a philosopher might make in a paper (or, indeed, in a seminar or an interview): advocacy role and evidential role claims. Advocacy role claims are those for which arguments are offered, whereas evidential role claims are those asserted without argument.…”

Publishing, Belief, and Self-Trust

“…2 The discussion thus far has focused on whether PWB indicates shortcomings in the author; other arguments focus on the ways PWB might shortchange readers. Fleisher (2020) and Sarıhan (2022) argue that PWB is criticizable insofar as it either withholds or misrepresents evidence to readers. After all, Sarıhan notes, there must be a reason why authors don't believe their arguments.…”