Abstract
Choo and Pittard recently have presented new attractive incommensurability arguments for remaining steadfast in religious beliefs even when disagreeing with sophisticated disputants. This article responds to the latest iteration of this genre in the work of Choo, and does double duty evaluating more generally the merits of this genre, which is becoming increasingly more popular since originally championed by Alston. Both Choo and Alston argue that it is reasonable to stay steadfast in one’s religious beliefs when there are no commensurable ways of evaluating the disputant’s claims. This paper first describes four views about disagreement that inform Choo’s conclusion, one of which is the incommensurability argument similarly championed by Alston. Incommensurability arguments are attractive, but, when deployed in the most challenging disagreements, ultimately complacent.
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Notes
Kelly’s definition implies there can be non-peers that are evenly matched while one has greater familiarity and the other has greater intelligence. A reviewer made me aware of this.
While Choo doesn’t explicitly state (2), it is implicit in Choo’s text.
Kuhn (1996) famously uses this word to describe the deepest difference among the different interpretations of the sciences.
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Funding was funded by Huston Tillotson University (Grant 1).
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Author James Kraft declares that he has no conflict of interest.
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Kraft, J. Incommensurability and Wide-Ranging Arguments for Steadfastness in Religious Disagreements: Increasingly Popular, But Eventually Complacent. Topoi 40, 1149–1159 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-019-09658-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-019-09658-1