Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-hgkh8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T17:01:07.956Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Evidentialism, Higher-Order Evidence, and Disagreement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2012

Abstract

Evidentialism is the thesis that a person is justified in believing a proposition iff the person's evidence on balance supports that proposition. In discussing epistemological issues associated with disagreements among epistemic peers, some philosophers have endorsed principles that seem to run contrary to evidentialism, specifying how one should revise one's beliefs in light of disagreement. In this paper, I examine the connection between evidentialism and these principles. I argue that the puzzles about disagreement provide no reason to abandon evidentialism and that there are no true general principles about justified responses to disagreement other than the general evidentialist principle. I then argue that the puzzles about disagreement are primarily puzzles about the evidential impact of higher-order evidence–evidence about the significance or existence of ordinary, or first-order, evidence. I conclude by arguing that such higher-order evidence can often have a profound effect on the justification of first-order beliefs.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Christensen, David. 2007. “Epistemology of Disagreement: The Good News.” Philosophical Review 116: 187217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conee, Earl and Richard, Feldman. 2004. Evidentialism: Essays in Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elga, Adam. 2007. “Reflection and Disagreement.” Noûs 41: 487502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldman, Richard. 2006. “Epistemological Puzzles about Disagreement.” In Hetherington, S. (ed.), Epistemology Futures, pp. 216–36. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Feldman, Richard. 2007. “Reasonable Religious Disagreements.” In Antony, L. (ed.), Philosophers Without Gods, pp. 194214. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldman, Richard. In preparation. “Evidence of Evidence is Evidence.”Google Scholar
Kelly, Thomas. Forthcoming. “Peer Disagreement and Higher-Order Evidence.” In Feldman, R. and Warfield, T. (eds.), Disagreement. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Matheson, Jonathan. 2009. “Conciliatory Views of Disagreement and Higher Order Evidence.” Episteme, A Journal of Social Epistemology 6(3): 269–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sosa, Ernest. Forthcoming. “The Epistemology of Disagreement.” In Armchair Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
van, Inwagen Peter. 1996. “It is Wrong, Always, Everywhere, and for Anyone, to Believe Anything, Upon Insufficient Evidence.” In Jordan, J. and Howard-Snyder, D. (eds.), Faith, Freedom, and Rationality, pp. 137–54. Lanham, MD.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar