Conciliationism is a view in the
epistemology
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowle ...
of
disagreement
Disagreement may refer to:
* Argument
* Disagreement (epistemology)
* Dissent
* Objection (argument)
In argumentation theory, argumentation, an objection is a reason argument, arguing against a premise, argument, or conclusion of law, conclusio ...
according to which one should revise one's opinions closer to one's epistemic peers in the face of epistemic disagreement. Nathan Ballantyne and E.J. Coffman define the view as follows:
: ''Conciliationism'': In a revealed peer disagreement over P, each thinker should give at least some weight to her peer’s attitude. That is, each thinker’s confidence should change to some extent: neither thinker is justified in staying ''exactly as confident as she initially was'' regarding whether P.
Philosopher
David Christensen has been a prominent defender of this view.
Others have argued in its favor as well.
Some have discussed the implications of this view for religious belief.
A standard objection is that conciliationism is self-undermining because most philosophers do not accept it.
A number of responses have been offered.
A second objection is that if a person encounters multiple people who disagree, and applies conciliationism serially, the procedure violates
commutativity
In mathematics, a binary operation is commutative if changing the order of the operands does not change the result. It is a fundamental property of many binary operations, and many mathematical proofs depend on it. Perhaps most familiar as a p ...
. The order that the person encounters the other people affects her resultant doxastic state.
References
Epistemological theories
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