Disagreement, evidence, and agnosticism

Abstract

In this paper, I respond to recent attempts by philosophers to deny the existence of something that is both real and significant: reasonable disagreements between epistemic peers. In their arguments against the possibility of such disagreements, skeptical philosophers typically invoke one or more of the following: indifference reasoning, equal weight principles, and uniqueness theses. I take up each of these in turn, finding ample reason to resist them. The arguments for indifference reasoning and equal weight principles tend to overlook the possibility of a certain kind of agnostic credal state which I call deep agnosticism, the possibility of which derails the arguments. The arguments for uniqueness theses tend to invoke a flawed understanding of the evidential support relation. When these problems and misunderstandings are brought into the light and corrected, the threat to reasonable disagreement vanishes.