Towards a Politicized Anatomy of Fundamental Disagreement

ABSTRACT

Fundamental disagreement is at the core of many debates surrounding epistemic relativism. Proponents of epistemic relativism argue that certain disagreements are irresolvable because proponents base their views on fundamentally different epistemic principles and, thus, fundamentally different epistemic systems. Critics of epistemic relativism argue that this analysis is wrong since the particular epistemic principles in question are most of the time derived from or instances of the same, more basic, epistemic principle. With regard to the individuation of epistemic systems, there is, thus, an impasse within the epistemic relativism literature. It is the aim of this article to employ the recently developed notion of ‘situated judgments’ as well as the concepts of ‘world-traveling’ and ‘epistemic friction’ to provide an epistemic agent-based, dynamic account of disagreeing and thereby also contribute to the question of how to individuate an epistemic system.

KEYWORDS:

• epistemic relativism
• disagreement
• epistemic system
• situated judgments
• feminist epistemology

1. Introduction

Epistemic relativism is one of the household problems within epistemology. It is a major question whether beliefs can be true or justified in an absolute way or whether justification or truth is always relative to a particular set of standards. In the case of epistemic relativism, these different standards are usually subsumed as ‘epistemic systems,’ more or less coherent sets of epistemic principles that govern the acquisition of justified true belief.

One major motivation of relativism is the fact that within many domains of life, we sometimes encounter disagreements that seem irresolvable. It just so happens that we disagree with our peers about Nicki Minage, rhubarb, libertarianism, and vaccines. Most of us will have encountered a situation where our best arguments for or against either of the above have not convinced our interlocutors. For some such situations, societies have developed repertoires for dealing with such disagreements. ‘De gustibus non disputandum est’ helps settle disputes about the (fine) arts or the rhubarb cake on the table. Even scales can help to dissolve disagreement about taste: Think of numerical scales for rating wine. In a way, wine critics providing such a rating contextualize their own experience: ‘To me, the smell is a three.’ Another critic uttering: ‘To me, the smell is a two.’ does not contradict the first utterance. One might just go with the critic whose experience has more often matched one’s own. Sometimes, there are even biological reasons for not continuing an argument about taste: Whether cilantro tastes like soap or not is caused by a genetic mutation – you cannot blame someone for their poor cilantro experiences.¹

This is why such disagreements are often called ‘faultless’ – no one is making a mistake (see Kölbel 2016; MacFarlane 2014; Wright, 2006). Kinzel & Kusch list four more characteristics employed to describe the judgments involved in such disagreements: they are not governed by rules, no evidence can be cited in their support, they are not corrigible, and they are atomistic – they are independent of one another (2018, 44f). This is why Kinzel and Kusch coin these disagreements ‘brute.’

There are, however, disagreements of a different kind where we are not as willing to accept that certain judgments are so heterogenous amongst our peers. When we debate the safety of vaccines, feminisms, the age of the earth, or whether modus ponens is a correct logical operation, we think there should be one right answer to these questions. Nevertheless, disagreements regarding such issues arise frequently. Kinzel and Kusch coin such disagreements as ‘fundamental’ disagreements – they arise because the proponents of an argument base their judgments on different (conflicting) epistemic principles (Boghossian 2007; Hales 2014; Pritchard 2009). Such disagreements are thus caused by different systems of belief – often coined epistemic systems (ES) in the ER literature. ES are hence sets of (more or less) coherent epistemic principles. Fundamental disagreements are thus caused by different kinds of judgments than brute disagreements: they are usually rule-governed, evidence can be cited in their support, they are corrigible from within the respective ES but cannot be challenged from outside the respective ES, and, finally, they are holistic – different judgments should be consistent (2018, 48f): Principles governing one judgment in a knowledge matter should not lie in conflict with principles employed in the next judgment about knowledge. Such judgments produce a genuine contradiction and are faultless regarding epistemic warrant (even though proponents might not grant that to their interlocutors). They are also sustainable – one need not lower one’s confidence just because one encounters a different opinion (47).

Defenders of ER will motivate ER through that particular theory of disagreement – given the nature of these judgments and the disagreement they cause, it is impossible to argue that one of these systems can be judged as superior in a system-independent way. Critics of ER will, however, argue that the disagreement is rendered in the wrong way – it is not the case that the judgments are based on ‘fundamentally different’ epistemic principles. The principles concerned are only instances of or derived from more basic principles, which both interlocutors accept (Boghossian 2007; Seidel 2014). The disagreement is thus not fundamental, and it is not the case that different ES are involved. Hence, the case for ER vanishes.

Kinzel and Kusch, however, recently argued that theoretical renderings of fundamental disagreement provided by friends and foes of epistemic relativism are highly idealized. They are so idealized that they fail to capture the goings-on of real-world disagreements and are, hence, not a good way to judge the validity of ER as a philosophical position. They argue that the judgments involved have been conceptualized wrongly, and thus they develop a different account of judgments, called ‘situated judgments’ (2018). In this article, I will assess whether ‘situated judgments’ help address the concerns of critics of ER. I will argue that situated judgments enlighten theories of disagreement since they do not only focus on epistemic principles but also the epistemic agents involved. I will, however, argue that this focus on epistemic agents needs to be pushed further. In so doing, I will introduce two concepts developed within feminist political philosophy, namely ‘epistemic friction’ (Medina 2012) and ‘world-traveling’ (Lugones 1987) to incorporate what I call the respective ‘epistemic positionality’ of interlocutors involved. I will demonstrate how such an expanded, epistemic agent-based account of situated judgments helps address arguments advanced by critics of ER about fundamental disagreements.

I will develop my argument in four consecutive steps. In section 2, I will briefly review and classify three arguments provided by critics of ER, who aim to demonstrate that there are no fundamentally different epistemic principles and hence no fundamentally different ES. I will particularly focus on Markus Seidel’s Epistemic Relativism – A constructive critique and Paul Boghossian’s Fear of Knowledge. In section 3, I will introduce Kinzel and Kusch’s ‘situated judgments’ and discuss how this concept helps to address two criticisms advanced by Seidel and Boghossian. In section 4, I develop my main argument and argue that ‘situated judgments’ need to be extended to incorporate the epistemic positionality of epistemic agents, a concept that I will also develop in this section. I will argue that in order to capture epistemic positionality, the concept of ‘epistemic friction’ (Medina, 2011) and ‘world traveling’ (Lugones 1987) come in helpful. I will demonstrate how this extended version of ‘situated judgments’ provides new arguments against the criticisms of Seidel and Boghossian. In section 5, I will conclude.

2. On Fundamental Disagreements and Fundamental Differences

Amongst the critics of ER, Seidel (2014) and Boghossian (2007) have provided the most in-depth examinations of the epistemic principles in play causing fundamental disagreement. To argue against the idea that there are fundamentally different epistemic principles and thus fundamentally different ES, they propose two criteria:

(Instance) If an epistemic system contains an epistemic norm N’ and a different epistemic system contains a different epistemic norm N” and both N’ and N” are just instances of a more general epistemic norm N contained in both epistemic systems, then the epistemic systems containing N’ and N” are not – at least, not because of this fact – fundamentally different epistemic systems. (Seidel 2014, 167)

(Derive) If an epistemic system contains an epistemic norm N’ and a different epistemic system contains a different epistemic norm N” and the users of both epistemic systems are epistemically justified in believing N’ and N” or their outputs by the application of a fundamental epistemic norm N contained in both epistemic systems, then the epistemic systems containing N’ and N” are not – at least, not because of this fact – fundamentally different epistemic systems. (Seidel 2014, 170)²

Let me illustrate through one of the most famous examples of different ES in the ER literature: the disagreement between Galileo and Cardinal Bellarmine. In both Boghossian’s and Seidel’s rendering, Galileo and Bellarmine disagreed about the truth of the heliocentric worldview. This disagreement, however, also involved disagreement about epistemic principles: what are good ways to legitimate claims about the heavens? What is a good source regarding these matters? To substantiate his argument, Boghossian coins two (purportedly) fundamentally different epistemic principles, (Revelation) and (Science), which give rise to the disagreement:

(Revelation) For certain propositions p, including propositions about the heavens, believing p is prima facie justified if p is the revealed word of God as claimed by the Bible. (Boghossian 2007, 69)

(Science) For certain propositions p, including propositions about the heavens, believing p is prima facie justified if p is included in the best physics books available. (ibd)

While these principles might seem quite distinct, Boghossian and Seidel opine that (Derive) and (Instance) apply. On the one hand, (Science) and (Revelation) rely on the same more basic epistemic principles, such as principles about the reliability of visual perception and principles about the validity of logic deduction and thus are cases of (Derive). Furthermore, (Instance) also applies since (Science) and (Revelation) are instances of a more general principle about the reliability of books (Seidel 2014, 177).

Seidel adds, however, a third problem: If there were cases of epistemic principles in conflict where neither (Instance) nor (Derive) applies, if there is no common ground, how can we then be sure that these principles are even epistemic? If we suppose that such fundamentally different principles are epistemic, even if there seems to be no common ground, we must have presupposed that those being governed by this principle have roughly the same criteria for what epistemic principles are. Such presuppositions are, however, hard to justify: ‘There is a relationship of mutual dependency between the assumed extent of difference between epistemic systems and the possibility of users of these systems justifiably claiming that the others are using such a system epistemically’ (Seidel 2014, 181). Thus, we arrive at the question of what counts as epistemic and if any notion of what ‘epistemic’ is to us should be used when describing practices foreign to us. I thus coin a third problem for the possibility of fundamentally different ES:

(Anthropology): If an epistemic system contains an epistemic principle P’ and a different epistemic system contains a different epistemic principle P’’ and there is no more fundamental epistemic principle P contained in both epistemic systems, that P’ and P’’ are derived from or instances of, then it is impossible to know whether both P’ and P’’ are, in fact, epistemic principles and the systems containing P’ and P” are not – at least, not because of this fact – fundamentally different epistemic systems.

To demonstrate, thus, that a particular disagreement is, in fact, ‘fundamental’ – caused by fundamentally different epistemic principles – the relativist would have to demonstrate that 1) there is no ‘common ground’ in terms of more basic epistemic principles the principles in question are instances of or derived from and that 2) there is nevertheless good reason to believe that both principles are epistemic principles.

Such a requirement presents quite the task for the epistemic relativist. One way of addressing this problem is by arguing that (Derive) and (Instance) are too strict. The existence of ‘common ground’ does not preempt the possibility of fundamental difference. Pritchard argues that there is always a ‘rational way of engaging with the other party by looking to common ground (common beliefs, common hinges)’ (2021, 11). But does common ground really resolve deep disagreements? I am not convinced. Let us examine another famous example: the disagreement of the creationist and the secular scientist about the age of the earth: One uses (Revelation) to motivate their belief about the age of the earth, and the other uses a version of (Science) – just exchange ‘physics book’ for, ‘geology book.’ Again we could argue, following Seidel, that both principles are just instances of a more general principle about the reliability of books.

But would it resolve anything if the two interlocutors realized that they both believe in the reliability of books in general? Pritchard seems to think that this is the case since, after identifying common ground, one can try to change wider sets of beliefs (2021, 11). I agree with Seidel (2014) and Siegel (2011) that ‘common grounds’ are sometimes not specific enough and too indiscriminative to help adjudicate a particular disagreement. Is it likely that the creationist and the secular scientist realizing that they both generally accept ‘books’ as reliable sources will help them settle their debate? I do not think so. One reason why this is the case is that often epistemic principles are not ‘just’ epistemic. For instance, ‘Revelation’ does not just propose the Bible as a good source but also implicitly assumes something about the relation between the Bible and the Word of God, the existence of God, and so on. Also (Science) might contain some metaphysical commitments about regularity, for instance, how theoretical entities relate to the world. It might thus be a problem to focus on the epistemic content of epistemic principles alone. In the next section, I shall explore that thought by briefly reviewing Kinzel and Kusch’s argument that fundamental disagreements have been presented in a too idealized fashion.

3. De-Idealizing Disagreements, Situating Judgments

Kinzel and Kusch (2018) argue that most theoretical renderings in the philosophical literature on fundamental disagreements are highly idealized in at least three ways: They fall subject to Wittgensteinian Idealization – arguments are developed based on a very limited diet of examples; Aristotelian idealization – relevant context is often stripped away; and Galilean idealization – features of the target phenomenon are distorted.

One example of Galilean idealization the authors mention is that disagreement is often presented as a ‘state’ – Person A accepts a certain epistemic principle, and Person B rejects it (e.g. (Revelation)). No attention is paid to disagreeing as an activity: an extended series of events, a debate, a dynamic process (2018, 51). One example of Aristotelian idealization is, as discussed in the previous section, that sole attention is paid to the (purely) epistemic aspects of the dispute and local causes influencing disagreements, such as politics, social status, credibility networks, metaphysical considerations, methodological preferences, etc. are never considered as important factors within these disagreements (2018, 54). Idealizations come thus at a high cost – and with too few benefits: Even though philosophers use these highly idealized cases, they cannot agree on the issue at stake. Furthermore, it is unclear (and never discussed) how these scenarios could be de-idealized to learn something about actual disagreements (2018, 52).

Kinzel and Kusch argue that accounts of disagreement produced within the sociology of scientific knowledge are usually less idealized and thus adequately highlight the many factors that play a role in disagreements. Taking Shapin and Schaffer’s (1985) account of the disagreement between Hobbes and Boyle, they name metaphysical questions, questions about engineering, credibility issues, questions about epistemology, notions about the aims of science, questions about politics, and what the central issue within the debate actually is as important factors at play in the disagreement (2018, 54). Boyle and Hobbes were flexibly navigating these issues, reorganized their priorities and connected respective factors with respect to these priorities in different ways.

Kinzel and Kusch emphasize that the epistemic principles in play were ‘mere formulations or incomplete expressions’ (56) prior to either proponent interpreting them – ‘They acquired determinate content only when Boyle and Hobbes interpreted them in specific judgments in specific situations of contestations for specific situations of application’ (ibd.). If one examines ‘realistic’ – that is, less idealized – cases, it is impossible to separate epistemic problems from problems in other realms – ‘it is therefore impossible to pick out specific epistemic rules as governing the decision-making of individual or collective actors’ (56). Thus, they argue that such ‘situated judgments’ are at the core of fundamental disagreements. And these judgments are not ‘purely’ epistemic or explainable by reference to epistemic principles exclusively.

Situated judgments are not rule-governed. Rule formulations are incomplete if not embedded in or interpreted by situated judgments. ‘Situated judgments fix the content of the rules, not rules the content of situated judgments.’ Situated judgments are evidential, but what counts as evidence and how to interpret evidence depends again on further situated judgments. Situated judgments are also corrigible – but only through further situated judgments. Closure of the disagreement is possible, yet always contingent and provisional. Finally, situated judgments are ‘radically holistic’ (59) in that they always and only exist within a network of reasons.³

Bringing back the notion of situated judgments to fundamental disagreements, it becomes clear that thinking of them as ‘rule-governed’ is likely insufficient. While proponents might point to certain rules or principles (epistemic principles, in our case), it is not the case that the meaning of these principles is pre-fixed or can determine the outcome of the disagreement. It is necessary to look at the other factors and commitments proponents mobilize and connect with these judgments to understand the particularities of the disagreement and in what ways it is fundamental.

In summary, Kinzel & Kusch’s elaboration illuminates how to imagine confrontations between representatives of different ES. At the same time, their work on idealization raises an important problem for the individuation of ES. So far, both friends and foes of ER somewhat agreed on the idea that in order for two ES to be considered fundamentally different, at least one epistemic principle needs to be fundamentally different. However, Kinzel and Kusch’s rendering calls the focus on epistemic principles alone into question: situated judgments determine the content of epistemic principles, not epistemic principles the content of situated judgments. In what follows, I will show how their less idealized account helps address both (Instance) and (Derive).

We can characterize Kinzel & Kusch’s position as collectivist and finitist (e.g. Kusch 2020). On the one hand, they argue that particular judgments are not predetermined by certain abstract rules – there is no abstract way a certain epistemic principle can determine all its interpretations. How an epistemic agent will act in a particular situation when making a judgment will be determined by several important variables listed above and also by prior instances of making similar judgments – in short, it is a finite number of exemplars plus the local and concrete determinants of a particular situation that inspire the epistemic activities. This aspect characterizes the finitism of their position. The collectivist aspect of their position stems from their emphasis on the social aspects of disagreements: the community of knowers also counts when making situated judgments. It is a community decision whether a particular potential disagreement receives the status of a fundamental disagreement. Also, it will be a community decision whether closure can be reached and what closure looks like (two enter, one leaves? pluralism? peaceful coexistence?)

This collectivist and finitist account of epistemic principles causes serious problems for the criterion for fundamentally different ES – that at least one epistemic principle needs to be fundamentally different. If it is up to the community of knowers to decide whether a particular potential disagreement receives the status of a fundamental disagreement, at least two results of that idea would be problematic for our criterion: I call them (FUN-DIFF-NO-DISAGREEMENT) and (NO-FUN-DIFF-BUT-DISAGREEMENT)

(FUN-DIFF-NO-DISAGREEMENT) first. What if two epistemic principles – if spelled out in the abstract by the analyst studying a particular situation – are judged fundamentally different but are not recognized by the involved parties as fundamentally different – potentially because they do not cause any particular problems in practice. Being recognized as a fundamental disagreement is thus also somewhat of a social status that needs to be awarded and does not exist independent of a situated judgment. There is also another option. A particular encounter and ensuing disagreement could have resolved in closure – but closure of a kind where both parties accept a kind of Changian pluralism (2012) – sometimes certain ideas do not go together – but it is nevertheless good that both (co)exist. It is possible to ‘live with’ contradictions⁴ or cultivate tolerant or interactive (epistemic) pluralism. In such a situation, can we speak of two different ES?

(NO-FUND-DIFF-BUT-DISAGREEMENT) presents the opposite case. What if two epistemic agents arrive at distinct and conflicting situated judgments, even though, if analyzed, they exchange intuitions about what seems to be the same epistemic principle or at least two epistemic principles where (Derive) or (Instance) applies? Here, the finitist aspect of Kusch and Kinzel’s analysis is important. If situated judgments are determined by local causes and prior exposure to exemplars, there will be variation amongst epistemic agents regarding these situated judgments. But if there is variation regarding how different epistemic agents interpret certain rule formulations, some interpretations might be quite similar, but others might be quite different. Can extreme variability in interpretations of the same rule create fundamental disagreement? And should we then talk about two distinct ES (if the disagreement receives the social status of a fundamental disagreement)?

In conclusion, Kinzel & Kusch’s critique of idealization also matters for the problem of individuation of ES. When deciding what counts as a different ES, it might be necessary to consider aspects such as social institutions, metaphysics, political considerations, etc … and how they, together with intuitions about and interpretations of epistemic principles, generate disagreements. Thus, (Instance) and (Derive) are problems for ER that only work in the context of highly idealized renderings of disagreements. If disagreements are de-idealized, it is insufficient to focus on epistemic principles to determine whether two ES are fundamentally different.

In the remainder of this article, I aim to extend this perspective, particularly to another factor that should be considered when thinking about the process of disagreeing – the political aspect. By political aspect, I do not mean particular ideas about society and what role certain parts of life should play in the organization of society. What I mean is the political organization of an ES. I believe this is an aspect that has so far not been discussed within the epistemic relativism literature but rather in work on epistemic oppression (e.g. Dotson 2014). I will particularly show how an account that considers the effects of epistemic oppression on epistemic agents within an ES helps address (Anthropology).

4. An Epistemic Repertoire of Disagreeing

My main point regarding the political organization of ES is this: epistemic systems are likely oppressive. That means that certain processes disadvantage certain epistemic agents within an ES. In their work on three orders of epistemic oppression, Dotson exemplifies such processes, partly inspired by Miranda Fricker’s work on epistemic injustices (2007). For instance, certain prejudices within an ES cause that certain principles are not applied efficiently. Testimonial injustice is an example. Take, for instance, the following epistemic principles:

(Testimony): For certain propositions p, believing p is prima facie justified if an epistemic peer testifies to that proposition p.

While (Testimony) does not specify the gender of ‘epistemic peer,’ many instances of interpretations of this principle do not consider women ‘epistemic peers’ or believe them less. Thus, even though there is a (prima facie) well-functioning epistemic principle available, mainstream intuitions interpret it so that it cannot reach its full potential because trustworthy sources are systematically excluded. ES might also be oppressive because mainstream interpretations of meanings of certain key terms used within the hermeneutic repertoire of the ES might be insufficient to describe the experience of certain marginalized knowers – hermeneutical injustice is such an example (Fricker 2007). Lastly, the epistemic principles governing an ES will always be inadequate to question themselves – to call mainstream ways of acquiring knowledge into question (Dotson 2014).

The point I want to make is the following: within an ES, it might not always be the case that all epistemic agents have the same epistemic power – ‘the differing ranges of privilege and underprivilege that are co-extensive with one’s epistemic status with respect to knowledge possession, knowledge attribution, knowledge production, and/or knowledge creation’ (2018, 130f). Epistemic status, in turn, is the ‘positive or negative assessments of one’s epistemic position,’ (Dotson 2018, 131), e.g. claims to know some proposition p. Epistemic agents within an ES might thus have what I coin a different ‘epistemic positionality’ and this positionality, or so I will argue in this section, also influences the outcome of disagreements between proponents of different ES.

To illustrate how epistemic oppression is an important factor in situated judgments that occur during disagreements between ES, I shall use the feminist political epistemology literature. Importantly, within this literature, authors most of the time focus on instances of epistemic oppression within an ES and do not explicitly consider conflict between ES. I shall, hopefully, demonstrate that concepts developed to describe oppression and resistance within an ES are also helpfully illuminating when considering disagreement between ES.

Let me illustrate the difference between disagreement within and between an ES with an example. It is important to have a rough understanding of the difference since this problem goes right back to the question of how to individuate ES. Take standpoint theory as an example. Proponents of standpoint theory argue that epistemic agents who are socio-politically oppressed have particular experiences and, through these experiences and critically (and often, collectively) reflecting on these can turn them into a ‘standpoint’ – they have reached an epistemically privileged perspective from which the nature of a relevant social situation becomes visible. Standpoint theorists often try to defend their position against the accusation that their position is relativist and, therefore, cannot launch critique against oppressors (Crasnow 2014). If every position is ‘just’ one’s standpoint, how could one condemn certain perspectives and practices?

But even if one could adopt a relativist position regarding standpoints, it is not ER about ES. Rather, it concerns the dynamics of epistemic (and social and political) oppression within one ES, within one unlevel knowing field. So, it is a nested case – it is about the creation of shared perspectives on the ES within the ES – it is a case of social gatherings within larger social gatherings. There are discussions about relativism to be had – relativism about standpoints/perspectives within an ES. The point is, though, that standpoints are not ES, but standpoints are caused by ES (and oppression through ES). Standpoints are caused by political and epistemic oppression happening within an ES. Standpoints are corrective forces within an ES. They question oppressive epistemic principles, but those having acquired standpoint are nevertheless bound by the mainstream, oppressive epistemic principles. Let me stress this point since it is the main way I differentiate disagreement within and between ES. The lives of those who resist epistemic principles from within are still determined by these principles. For instance, standpoint feminists opposing certain harmful interpretations of epistemic principles are still affected by these harmful interpretations – they cannot get out – they need to change it from within.

But the situation is different in cases of encounters between ES. In such cases, the burden of epistemic principles is lifted since their generality is confined (one discovers they do not apply beyond one’s ES), and they might not be helpful in the respective encounter. Disagreement between epistemic agents of different ES does not necessarily trigger either party to aim for change in their epistemic principles – they are sustainable. Whereas the weight of epistemic principles is lifted in the case of disagreement between ES, they are pressing in the case of resistance within ES. In one case, competence in the norms is essential; in the other, competence is not sacred.

As argued before, cases of epistemic oppression are likely not cases of a clash of two ES but power dynamics and resistance within an ES. So while we cannot speak of disagreement between ES (at least not by my definition), these cases are a good model for such disagreement because there might be structural symmetry between the higher- and lower-order social structures. Some concepts formulated in one context might help illuminate the other.

One such concept is Jose Medina’s ‘epistemic friction’ (2012). Friction is a force that occurs when two things come into contact. In the case of epistemic friction, two perspectives come into contact. This is jarring – it can be challenging to be confronted with alternative values and beliefs. But it is also productive – learning something about both perspectives is possible. Encountering epistemic friction, according to Medina, shapes one’s epistemic character. Whereas those that are socially oppressed will display character traits such as epistemic humility and open-mindedness and are thus likely to notice friction, engage with friction, and have experience at achieving equilibrium – ‘the interplay of [different perspectives], without some forces overpowering others, without some cognitive influences becoming unchecked and unbalanced’ (Medina 2012, 50), the socially privileged tend to display epistemic arrogance and closed-mindedness and are thus less likely to notice friction, less likely to engage with friction and have difficulty achieving equilibrium (summarized in Ashton 2019).

Being oppressed within an ES might thus also school skills when experiencing friction between two ES. Epistemic humility will hone one’s skills to sustainably engage in the process of disagreeing. Skills that achieve equilibrium will also help deal with disagreement between representatives of two ES. Oppression might not be the only means of schooling such skills. Other examples could, for instance, be receiving a particular education that rests on interacting with people or groups of people that seem to live under radically different conditions: I am, for instance, thinking of receiving training in anthropology, ethnography, or sociology. Another way of cultivating these skills could be developed through allyship.

Another concept related to the experience of epistemic friction and the cultivation of virtues such as epistemic humility is ‘world-traveling’ (Lugones 1987): ‘the outsider has necessarily acquired flexibility in shifting from the mainstream construction of life where she is constructed as an outsider to other constructions of life where she is more or less at home’ (Lugones 1987, 3). While ‘world-traveling’ is forced – the marginalized have to world-travel to participate in mainstream life, it has a lot of positive aspects. World-traveling is playful and cultivates several skills – to world-travel successfully, one also needs to cultivate affective aspects that enable it. However, racism has obscured and devalued the complex skills involved in it. World traveling might thus be a devalued epistemic resource.

A world can be several things. On the one hand, a world could be an actual society in its dominant culture’s description and way of constructing life, together with how relationships of production, gender, race, etc. are constructed. But worlds can also be a society in a non-dominant construction (Lugones 1987, 10). Some people are continuously parts of different worlds. For example, Lugones argues that she is continuously part of a world that constructs her as stereotypically Latin and a world that constructs her as Latin (simpliciter). Assuming such different worlds simultaneously is true to experience, even if ontologically problematic (11).

One can be at ease with a world. Yet being at ease too much (not experiencing any epistemic friction) prevents one from world traveling. Ways of being at ease include being a fluent speaker, being happy with dominant norms, being humanly bonded, and having a shared history with foreign people (e.g. shared pop-culture memories) (12). Importantly, there are degrees of feeling at ease in one or all these types for individual agents.

Living in more than one world can be ambiguous or schizophrenic: ‘one then sees any particular “world” with these double edges and sees absurdity in them and so inhabits oneself differently’ (13). Lugones argues that she, therefore, plays with the stereotypical intenseness of Latinx as an ambiguous being, a two-imaged self:

I can see that gringos see me as stereotypically intense because I am, as a Latin-American, constructed that way but I may or may not intentionally animate the stereotype or the real thing knowing that you may not see it in anything other than in the stereotypical construction. (Lugones 1987, 13f)

And as a consequence, it is possible to draw an ironic picture of those dominant because they become visible in that double edge, double construction, and plurality: ‘So we know truths that only the fool can speak and only the trickster can play out without harm’ (1987, 14). Those adept in world-traveling acquire a certain playfulness when interacting with different worlds and those at home in them. Lugones contrasts two types of playfulness: agonistic play and loving play. She argues, basing her argument on Gadamer (1975) and Huizinga (1937) 2009), that Western play is often associated with agonism: the point of playing is for someone to follow certain rules to win and for someone to lose. Agonistic players, those who are at home in dominant worlds, will often fail to world-travel since they have not learned the right kind of playfulness – but they will be able to conquer a world.

Lugones introduces the following distinction: agonistic play presupposes an activity that is play. A playful attitude, however, turns an activity into play (1987, 16). This is characteristic of loving play – the counterpart to agonistic play: The activity has no rules, but it is intentional, and those engaging in it understand what they are doing (together). Playfulness gives meaning to the activity. There is an uncertainty to that playfulness, but openness to surprise is required: ‘This is a particular metaphysical attitude that does not expect the world to be neatly packaged, ruly. Rules may fail to explain what we are doing’ (Lugones 1987, 16).

It is not the case, however, that rules need to be absent. Rules might exist, but they are not sacred. There is no worry about competence, and there is no being wedded to a particular way of doing things. While playing, one is not stuck in any particular world; one is there creatively (16): ‘Playfulness is, in part, an openness to being a fool, which is a combination of not worrying about competence, not being self-important, not taking norms as sacred and finding ambiguity and double edges a source of wisdom and delight’ (Lugones 1987, 17).

Translating the idea of world-traveling and playfulness to disagreement between proponents of different ES, one could say that someone very close to the center of their ES, given their epistemic status, their ease with their world, and the absence of epistemic friction encountered, will have limited skills for engaging with different perspectives, they will not be able to partake in such encounters successfully. To encounter, one needs an epistemic repertoire – the totality of aligned epistemic skills – that can deal with epistemic friction and can enable playful engagement. Such an epistemic repertoire, again, might not exclusively be cultivated by those epistemically oppressed, but there might be other ways of cultivating such skills (such as being trained in the symmetrical approaches of anthropology or ethnography, acquiring a relativist stance, etc. …). But, such a skill set is automatically de-centering: cultivating such skills has the effect of not taking what seems self-evident or universal for granted, and it coincides with cultivating increased distrust in institutions and principles.

Every epistemic agent partaking in a disagreement is thus also characterized by a particular epistemic positionality – their epistemic status, their epistemic power and the respective epistemic repertoire that results from epistemic status and epistemic power. Different epistemic agents will be differentially playful, will have varying degrees of epistemic humility, will be able to recognize and deal with epistemic friction differentially, and will be differently adept to world travel. These are, importantly, primarily individual skills, even though it might also be possible to argue that certain groups, for instance, have collectively cultivated ways of engaging with friction, etc.

In the remainder of this section, I shall proceed in two steps – first, I shall examine how considering (epistemic) power relations within an ES adds to the theory of disagreement that is built on situated judgments. Second, I shall discuss how this further developed notion of situated judgments helps address (Anthropology).

Taking their notion of situated judgments, Kinzel and Kusch arrive at the following characterization of disagreements: they are sustainable – encounter of a different position does not force one to lower confidence in one’s own; they are holistically faultless – proponents have the rational resources to defend their claims appropriately against challenges from the other side, they are rationally resolvable – in a concrete situation closure can be reached, in theory; but they are contingent: their content and the content of closure is not the only possible outcome. Different constellations of arguments and situated judgments can lead to different outcomes (2018, 66).

Given the previous discussion of power relations within ES, this characterization has to be refined. For instance, the ‘sustainability’ of fundamental disagreements should be qualified. While Kinzel and Kusch are correct in that one will not be forced to lower one’s confidence in one’s own view, virtues cultivated encountering epistemic friction will nevertheless influence how one encounters a conflicting position and how one, as a result, conceives of the correctness of one’s own position. Also, skills cultivated during world traveling will influence whether and how contingent resolutions are reached and how resolution is characterized (pluralism, tolerance, etc.). These skills influence how one interacts with challenges from the other side, how well the other’s position and network of beliefs could be interpreted and thus, what kind of resolutions can be proposed.

If we view disagreements in the light of this modified rendering of disagreements – a rendering that emphasizes the skills in the epistemic repertoire of epistemic agents – it is also possible to address (Anthropology). Situated judgments suggest focusing less on the respective principles but more on interactions – the processes constituting the actual disagreement.

(Anthropology) argues that if it is possible to recognize fundamental differences in epistemic principles, it is impossible to know whether these principles are epistemic. If communication about knowledge matters is possible, then the two systems cannot be that different. If communication about knowledge matters is impossible, then how can proponents know that what they disagree about is, in fact, a knowledge matter for their opponents?

One answer to this question has already been foreshadowed by Kinzel and Kusch’s critique of idealization. It is not the case that those factors that come in relevant when disagreeing are purely epistemic. However, the concepts of epistemic friction and world traveling bring about a more individual aspect of the activity of disagreeing. No matter whether a particular opposite position is easily understandable, interpretable, or reconstructible, some epistemic agents will have cultivated skills that help them proceed in the exchange. They will use everything available in their epistemic repertoire to make the exchange work – no matter whether certain aspects of a position can be analyzed to be configured by a particular epistemic principle. It is epistemic humility cultivated through experiences of epistemic friction to recognize interlocutors as epistemic peers. Being recognized as an epistemic peer is thus also a social status, something that is conferred to someone in a particular situation. And interlocutors can be recognized as epistemic agents also if it is not possible to distill a particular epistemic principle that generates the disagreement.

Similarly, playfulness is an important aspect of such exchanges. Lugones emphasizes that playfulness helps one towards a relaxed attitude towards rules. Rules might exist in the background but do not configure or determine a particular activity. The activity comes before the rule. If one has a playful attitude, it is possible to be flexible, anticipate the unanticipatable, and be relaxed in the face of contradictory rules – or principles – since they are not central to the activity. And thus, again, if the respective rules turn out not to be that central in actual disagreements, (Anthropology) is not a problem since it is a mischaracterization of disagreements that a particular principle needs to be distilled and analyzed for its similarity or difference with other principles.

5. Conclusion

In this article, I aimed to provide a closer examination of fundamental disagreements, situated judgments within these disagreements, and the activities involved in the process of disagreeing. I argued that epistemic oppression within an ES has so far not been considered an important component of disagreements between ES. I tried to show how epistemic oppression within an ES will shape the processes of disagreeing by cultivating certain skill sets in those who are epistemically and politically oppressed within an ES. I particularly emphasized amongst this skill set, which I coined ‘epistemic repertoire,’ epistemic humility and playfulness as skills that enable and shape exchanges between representatives of different ES.

I argued that focusing on the activities of epistemic agents in the process of disagreeing helps draw a less idealized picture of fundamental disagreements and, at the same time, helps address problems formulated regarding the (im)possibility of the existence of systems that are radically different but epistemic at the same time. Epistemic agents are prior to abstract rules or principles and thus, these rules are not as central during disagreements as they seem to be in highly idealized renderings of disagreements.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2012.11398.pdf; accessed 22.08.2023, 10:21

2. Seidel uses the term „norm“and not ‘principle.’ For the sake of this argument, I shall treat these two terms as coextensive.

3. Note here that closure does not necessarily that both parties end up agreeing. This is one way of reaching closure. But closure of a disagreement can also be reached through agreeing to keep a plurality of theories, or answers to a particular question.

4. See, for instance, Douglas (1970) work on the different social controls that enable the tolerance of inconsistencies.