Part 4: Global-scale Disagreement
Disagreement at a Global Scale
So far, we have mostly taken disagreements between two people as our research focus. However, as anticipated by our discussion on religious diversity, one can also look at disagreement from a global perspective: when it comes to a lot of opinions, there will be millions of people agreeing and millions of people disagreeing. Billions, if we take into consideration the whole of human history. We should also keep in mind that this includes not only laypeople, but also experts: in our terminology, this global disagreement includes epistemic superiors, inferiors, peers, and unknows. The problem is further aggravated by the fact that there is disagreement about disagreement itself, as we have seen in the previous parts of this series. The question then is: what is the most rational reaction to these facts?
Skepticism, Relativism, and Pluralism
Some believe that the only rational response to this picture is skepticism: none of our beliefs amount to knowledge, or at least we should seriously doubt they do. Relativism also seems a valuable option when the universal diversity of beliefs is taken seriously: all beliefs are justified only relatively to a subject, or a group. While these perspectives might seem appealing, we should keep in mind that if one thinks of disagreement as universal and insurmountable, then it also includes skepticism and relativism itself; after all, there are also smart people who disagree with skeptics and relativists. This is why researchers nowadays mostly think of these positions as local, meaning that most contemporary relativists and skeptics think of their claims as referring only to specific areas of research, or as being right only under specific conditions.
Pluralists seem to take the core uneasiness with this global-scale disagreement shared by skeptics and relativists and give it a positive spin. Pluralism argues that different people, or groups, can have mutually exclusive, but equally justified beliefs; or perhaps that people can access knowledge in different, but equally valuable ways. Admittedly, sometimes the line between pluralism and relativism can be somewhat blurry. For example, in a scenario in which different traditions hold different beliefs, is claiming that knowledge is irremediably tradition-relative that different from claiming that these traditions have different and equally justified beliefs? Some even consider the distinction between the two to be based more on attitudes and temperaments, rather than on a strong theoretical basis. What makes the pairing of relativism and pluralism so tempting is, I believe, the fact that while there might be important theoretical distinctions, they start from the same premise: the rejection of, or at least suspicion towards, the idea that there exists one universally accepted (or acceptable) set of justified beliefs, or ways of acquiring knowledge. This is the one implication of global-scale disagreement that relativists, pluralists and skeptics appear to agree on.
Universalism
This culture-oriented, or subject-oriented splitting of (capital K) Knowledge does not sit well with some philosophers. “Universalists” argue that disagreement does not corrode the status of Knowledge, or that global disagreement is not a sufficient reason for dropping the idea of a universal set of justified beliefs. What reasons do they have to believe so? Indeed, a defender of the Steadfast View could defend such a stance by simply digging their heels in on their position (see Part 2). However, let us assume, for the sake of the argument, that the universality of disagreement presents itself as an overwhelming fact, even for the most hardcore defender of the Steadfast View. What options are left to defend a universalist conception of Knowledge?
Two positions seem to me particularly worth mentioning. The first option is to consider Knowledge as the end goal of the collective human intellectual endeavor. This would make disagreement an inevitable part of the process, or, in some cases, even proof of the fact that we are all moving toward a universal Knowledge. One could even argue that, if everyone were perfectly rational, Knowledge and collective agreement would have already been achieved. Then, the only reason one would see disagreement as evidence against it is because they focus on individual, limited disputes, rather than on the collective intellectual process as a whole.
A second, and often forgotten route is the so-called “elenctic argument.” The argument is particularly interesting in the context of disagreement because it aims at proving that disagreement itself is proof of the existence of universally justified beliefs. The idea, in broad terms, is that for us to disagree at all, there must be some beliefs we all consider to be justified, whether we admit it or not. Aristotle, who was the first to formalize this argument, argued for example that any attempt at disagreement must imply that things cannot be identical to their opposites, because, if this was the case, then all words would lose meaning. Therefore, the mere fact that one can communicate and disagree in a meaningful way, implies at least two universal beliefs: A=A and A≠non-A.
Karl Otto-Apel, a lesser-known German philosopher, similarly argued that the mere fact that one disagrees implies that they (consciously or subconsciously) believe that their beliefs can be agreed on, or at least that agreement is, in principle, possible. If the disagreers didn’t believe so, Apel argued, they wouldn’t be disagreeing in the first place.
Paradoxically enough, there is disagreement on the validity of the elenctic argument as well. There is also disagreement on the validity of the Aristotelian principle that a thing is not identical to its opposite; which, until the 20th century, was commonly considered unquestionable by philosophers in the West. What should we then do when disagreement expands so much that it takes over the outcomes of the arguments that rely on the existence of disagreement itself? The debate is still open.
Conclusion
You also may be interested in: How to Argue With People
References
Apel, K.-O. (1994). Karl-Otto Apel: Towards a transcendental semiotics. Humanities Press International.
Baghramian, M., & Adam, C. J. (2015). Relativism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Stanford.edu. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/
Christensen, D. A., & Lackey, J. (2013). The Epistemology of Disagreement. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199698370.001.0001
Coliva, A., & Pedersen, N. J. L. L. (2017). Epistemic pluralism. Palgrave Macmillan.
Frances, B., & Matheson, J. (2018). Disagreement (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Stanford.edu. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/disagreement/
Galvan, S. (1995). A formalization of elenctic argumentation. Erkenntnis, 43(1), 111–126. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf01131842
Machuca, D. E. (2013). Disagreement and skepticism. Routledge.
Matheson, J. (2015). The Epistemic Significance of Disagreement. Springer.
Tersman, F. (2021). Moral Disagreement (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Stanford.edu. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/disagreement-moral/
Alberto Cavallarin completed a Bachelor Degree in Philosophy at Ca’ Foscari University (Venice, Italy) and a Research Master Degree in Philosophy at Utrecht University (Netherlands). He graduated with a thesis on the metaphysical and epistemological status of mystical experiences; i.e., whether the word “truth” applies to such states. His current interests include (religious) disagreement and non-ordinary experiences.
Email: alberto.cavallarin@hotmail.com
Instagram: @alberto_cavallarin
