Disagreement in Philosophy. Semantic and Epistemological Foundations

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Elke Brendel; Professor Dr. Thomas Grundmann
• Subject Area: Theoretical Philosophy
• Term: from 2015 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 283100111

Disagreement is a driving force of progress in the sciences. It indicates mistakes and facilitates their correction. If disagreement does not dissolve over time, it puts rational pressure on all sides to weaken or suspend judgment. When indissoluble disagreement is ubiquitous within a particular discipline, it threatens the epistemic integrity of that discipline. Prima facie, philosophy seems to be a paradigm case of this threat. In order to evaluate this assessment, the present project starts with addressing the semantics and epistemology of disagreement. Both foci belong to the hot topics of the current international debates in philosophy. So far they have been mostly discussed in isolation from each other. In contrast, the present project will address the interplay of the semantics and epistemology of disagreement. It will use the results of this investigation to analyze paradigm cases of philosophical disagreement. In the semantic part (part A), we will explore different kinds of disagreement and examine which of them imply that only one side can be correct. One core theme of this part of the project will be the task of identifying and modeling pseudo-disagreement such that both parties talk past each other. Given this background, we will scrutinize on the current debate about faultless disagreement. Moreover, we will explore whether and how disagreement is compatible with and can be modeled within the framework of contextualist or relativist semantics. In the epistemological part (part B), we will explore whether and if so under what general conditions a substantial disagreement requires to suspend judgment of all parties. On the one hand, the relevant conditions regard the logic of defeat. On the other hand, they concern the issue of whether the same evidence can justify conflicting judgments. In the application part (part C), we will explore how pervasive substantial disagreement is in philosophy and how we should rationally react to it. We will use general considerations and two case studies about disagreement in current epistemology to make progress on this point. Taking this route, we will try to give at least a partial answer to the main question whether the epistemic integrity of philosophy is threatened by the ubiquity of indissoluble philosophical disagreement.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants