Introduction to the Epistemology of Disagreement

Abstract

Part of the recent explosion in the literature on the epistemology of disagreement has generally confined itself to the following problem: Suppose that after an agent comes to believe proposition P she finds out that there is an epistemic peer—someone of equal intelligence and ability—who has evaluated the same body of evidence and come to believe not-P. What should her reaction be upon discovering peer disagreement? Does the existence of peer disagreement constitute a (partial) defeater to her original belief that P? Or is she rationally permitted to maintain her belief that P even in the face of peer disagreement? In this chapter I outline the main arguments for conciliationism and non-conciliationism.