Contingency Anxiety and the Epistemology of Disagreement

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 97 (4):590-611 (2016)
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Abstract

Upon discovering that certain beliefs we hold are contingent on arbitrary features of our background, we often feel uneasy. I defend the proposal that if such cases ofcontingency anxietyinvolve defeaters, this is because of the epistemic significance of disagreement. I note two hurdles to our accepting thisDisagreement Hypothesis. Firstly, some cases of contingency anxiety apparently involve no disagreement. Secondly, the proposal may seem to make our awareness of the influence of arbitrary background factors irrelevant in determining whether to revise our beliefs. I show that each of these problems can be successfully accommodated by theDisagreement Hypothesis.

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reprint Mogensen, Andreas L. (2017) "Contingency Anxiety and the Epistemology of Disagreement". Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98(1):n/a-n/a

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Andreas Mogensen
Oxford University

References found in this work

Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Philosophy 56 (217):431-433.
Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Critica 17 (49):69-71.
Epistemology of disagreement: The good news.David Christensen - 2007 - Philosophical Review 116 (2):187-217.
A Darwinian dilemma for realist theories of value.Sharon Street - 2006 - Philosophical Studies 127 (1):109-166.

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