Rational Disagreement after Full Disclosure
Abstract
The question I consider is this: The Question: Can two people–who are, and realize they are, intellectually virtuous to about the same degree–both be rational in continuing knowingly to disagree after full disclosure (by each to the other of all the relevant evidence they can think of) while at the same time thinking that the other may well be rational too? I distinguish two kinds of rationality–internal and external–and argue in section 1 that, whichever kind we have in mind, the answer to The Question is ‘yes’ (though that positive answer is less wholehearted in the case of external rationality). Then, in section 2, I briefly make some more general remarks about when discovering a disagreement provides a defeater and when it doesn't. In the final section, I consider an important objection to the answer given in section 1 to The Question.
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When confronted with a disagreement among epistemic peers, it is more rational for each party to rely on their intuitive judgment or self-trust regarding the truth of their proposition than to accord equal evidential weight to the rival view.
“On either account, when confronted with a disagreement among epistemic peers, it is more rational for each party to rely on their intuitive judgment or self-trust regarding the truth of their proposition than to accord equal evidential weight to the rival view.”
From Conciliationism as Epistemic Concession in Religious Peer Disagreement (2025) · cites this paper as [6]
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Conciliationism as Epistemic Concession in Religious Peer Disagreement
Aslantatar, N. (2025) · İlahiyat Tetkikleri Dergisi · doi:10.29288/ilted.1657637 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
- Authors
- Bergmann, M.
- Corresponding author
- Bergmann, Michael
- ORCID
- Bergmann, Michael
- Venue
- Episteme
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2009-10
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 336-353
- ISSN
- 1742-3600 (ISSN-L)
- 1750-0117
- OpenAlex
- W2102143125
- Cited by
- 91
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 2 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 22 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 27 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 17.74
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Episteme (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Philosophical Ethics and Theory
- Keywords
- rational disagreement, full disclosure, epistemic rationality, intellectual virtues, epistemic defeat, epistemic justification, peer disagreement
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