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Deep Disagreement and the Problem of the Criterion

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Abstract

My objective in this paper is to compare two philosophical problems, the problem of the criterion and the problem of deep disagreement, and note a core similarity which explains why many proposed solutions to these problems seem to fail along similar lines. From this observation, I propose a kind of skeptical solution to the problem of deep disagreement, and this skeptical program has consequences for the problem as it manifests in political epistemology and metaphilosophy.

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Notes

  1. See Hankinson (1995), Cling (1997 and forthcoming), and Thorsrud (2009) for accounts of the problem of the criterion as an instance of the regress problem of justification. The connection between the problem of the criterion and the five modes of Agrippa, then, is that the five modes can be applied to the question of what the proper criterion is.

  2. For accounts of the Pyrrhonist program as primarily dialectical, see Vazquez (2009), Lammenranta (2008, 2011), and Hazlett (2014). This is a question of how essentially dialectical the skeptical challenge is here, and how central the dialectical considerations are to the procedural epistemic version of the problem of the criterion. See Michael Williams (1999, 2003) for the case that the skeptical challenges arise from a misreading of dialectical norms. Michael Rescorla (2009) holds that Sextus is right about the dialectical norms, but is wrong about whether they provide an adequate model for epistemic structure. For a defense of Pyrrhonian dialectical norms as models for epistemic justification, see Aikin (2011 and 2014b).

  3. That the Agrippan five modes are relevant here is clear, since both depend on a similar backing requirement for the judgments at issue (see Sextus PH 1.164-177).

  4. Amico (1988, 1993) and Cling (forthcoming) have made it clear that the idiom of temporalizing epistemic procedure is a way of indexing epistemic priority.

  5. These considerations are surveyed as background principles for running most versions of the regress problem in epistemology. See Aikin (2011) and Cling (2009) for how these principles are supposed to be justified.

  6. The Dialecticality Requirement is recognized widely within the informal logic and argumentation theory literature as a default rule for arguments. See as exemplary: Johnson (2000), Pinto (2009), Tindale (1999), Walton (1989), and van Eemeren and Grootendorst (2004).

  7. Others who see the deep disagreement cases as temporary hold that there can be various non-argumentative means of persuasion used so that those on the other side can be brought around with: emotional appeal (Freeman 2005), non-doxastic showing (Davson-Galle 1992), educational programs (Turner and Wright 2005; Duran 2016), or polemical programs of confrontation (Kraus 2010).

  8. See Adler (2003), Talisse (2009) and Aikin (2014a) for versions of this thought that Moore’s Paradox provides support for evidentialism.

  9. See Aikin 2014b for a reply to Huemer on the idiot’s veto with moral reasons.

  10. The moral hazards of arguing in deep disagreements have been surveyed by Campolo (2005, 2013). The concern is that we develop bad argumentative habits in such circumstances. I agree with Campolo that there are great temptations, and in some ways, I believe that Barris’s endorsement of fallacies under these conditions is evidence that Campolo is right. However, the question is whether not arguing also has (perhaps greater) moral hazards.

  11. This requirement is a form of ought implies can for blaming, but in this case, it takes the form of ought implies can have reasons to. See McKiernan (2016) for a full-dress version of this reasons-accessibility requirement for blame.

  12. I have, admittedly, run past a variety of alternatives here, ranging from forms of infinitism as a response to the problem of the criterion (exemplified by the Hegelian line, as outlined in Aikin 2010) and forms of reflective equilibrium with respect to criteria and judgments (as exemplified by DePaul 1986 and; McCain and Rowley 2014). Both of these forms, on my reading, are more skeptical or management approaches to the problem of the criterion than solutions to the problem.

  13. Claudio Duran has posed a program of identifying just how deep disagreements are, with the hope of showing that some are only temporarily intractable (2016), and Teresita Matienzo has proposed a strategy of literary bridges between competing traditions in deep disagreements (2014). Godden and Brenner (2010) provide a model for these transitions as making a case for and using a set of (sometimes new) concepts.

  14. One consequence may be that a set of meta-argumentative commitments may arise from this observation, as noted by Finocchiaro (2013). Godden (2013) holds that such a program is likely to lead to “more of the same;” however, when these arguments are posed as internal strategies, there may be room for rapprochement.

  15. Rawls (1971, pp. 360-1 and 1997, p. 96) and Cohen (1997, p. 68).

  16. Rawls (1997, p. 96).

  17. This view is defended as an argumentative rule of public reason in Aikin and Talisse 2014.

  18. Thanks to John Casey, Andrew Cling, David Godden, Robert Talisse, the anonymous reviewers at Topoi, and the audience at Michigan State University for comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University, 111 Furman Hall, Nashville, TN, 37240, USA

    Scott F. Aikin

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Aikin, S.F. Deep Disagreement and the Problem of the Criterion. Topoi 40, 1017–1024 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-018-9568-y

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