Is It Rational to Reject Expert Consensus?

International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 10 (3-4):325-345 (2020)
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Abstract

Philosophers defend, and often believe, controversial philosophical claims. Since they aren’t clueless, they are usually aware that their views are controversial—on some occasions, the views are definitely in the minority amongst the relevant specialist-experts. In addition, most philosophers are aware that they are not God’s gift to philosophy, since they admit their ability to track truth in philosophy is not extraordinary compared to that of other philosophers. In this paper I argue that in many real-life cases, such beliefs in controversial claims are irrational. This means that most philosophers have irrational philosophical beliefs.

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References found in this work

Epistemology of disagreement: The good news.David Christensen - 2007 - Philosophical Review 116 (2):187-217.
Reflection and disagreement.Adam Elga - 2007 - Noûs 41 (3):478–502.
Epistemic Trespassing.Nathan Ballantyne - 2019 - Mind 128 (510):367-395.
Epistemological puzzles about disagreement.Richard Feldman - 2006 - In Stephen Hetherington (ed.), Epistemology Futures. Oxford University Press. pp. 216-236.

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