Unassertable Disagreements A problem for - about faultless disagreement wordcounting: 1050

15th April 2005

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Several proposal in the literature have revived in recent years the doctrine of relativism trying to make sense of the notion of relative truth and applying this notion to solve different philosophical problems (see Kolbel (2002), Kölbel (2003), McFarlane (2005), Egan (Egan), McFarlane (2003), Egan et al. (2004), Richard (2004)).

In this paper I argue that McFarlane’s formulation of truth-relativism faces a problem if applied to solve the problem of faultless disagreement. I will show that the conceptual framework provided by McFarlane to introduce the doctrine of truth-relativism is vulnerable to a modified version of an argument given by Roy Sorensen against the tenability of faultless disagreement in the case of .

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In a comment to a a paper on Crispin Wright’s on epistemicism, Roy Sorensen has offered an argument against the idea that there can be faultless disagreement in borderline cases (Sorensen (1994)). In a nutshell, Sorensen’s argument is the following - I call it the Neutrality Argument.

Suppose one hundred grains of sand are a borderline case for the application of “heap” - call

1 “borderline ” the expressed by statements made of similar compound ex- pressions. Once we realize that the proposition expressed by the statement “One hundred grains of sand make a heap” is a borderline proposition, we realise that we have the same inclination to believe p or its .

Since we cannot thus assign different subjective probabilities to these two propositions, we become neutral on the issue, we retract our and we stop contending. Faultless disagreement in the borderline area is thus rationally reproachable, the only stable attitude is the one of neutrality towards a borderline proposition.

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Let’s now go back to truth-relativism. In order to provide a definition of the truth-relativist’s position, John McFarlane has introduced the notions of of use of a sentence expressing a certain proposition p, and of context of assessment of a sentence expressing the proposition that p (McFarlane (2005)).

According to McFarlane, the characteristic idea of truth-relativism is not that the truth of a proposi- tion can be relative to some parameter of some kind other than the standard contextual parameters; rather, truth-relativism is the idea that the same proposition expressed at some context of use can be correctly assessed at two different contexts as having opposite truth values.

Following some ideas of Robert Brandom, McFarlane connects truth to the practice of the assertion through the following principles that characterizes commitments to the truth (I will report only two of the three principle stated by McFarlane):

(W) In asserting that p at the context C1, one commits oneself to withdrawing the assertion in

any future context C2, if p is shown to be untrue relative to context of use C1 and context of

assessment C2.

(R) In asserting that p at C1, one commits oneself to accepting the responsibility (at any future

context C2) if on the basis of this assertion someone else takes p to be true (relative to context

of use C1 and context of assessment C2) and it proves to be untrue (relative to C1 and C2).

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Let’s now go back to Sorensen’s Neutrality Argument and let’s ask whether the truth-relativist can avoid the problem that someone, perhaps the truth-relativist herself, realizes that faultless disagreement holds for some proposition: a proposition, expressed by an assertion ar the context of use C1, has different truth-value in two different assessment contexts - C1 and C2. Let’s label

C3 the context of use where the truth-relativist makes this claim. From a context of assessment C2, the proposition p used at C1 is false, whereas it is true when the context of assessment is the same of the context of use - i.e. C1.

How can be two assertions be neutral in this perspective? In other words, how can the truth- relativist express from a relativistic point of view that the dispute is neutral - i.e. that is a dispute without fault on the part of any of the parties involved? She can claim that from the context of assessment C1, p used at C1 is true and that from the context of assessment C2 p, used at C1, is not true. Thus, there is a context of assessment C4, the one in which the truth-relativist makes her own claim, where the proposition expressed by the sentence used at C4 “from the context of assessment

C1, p is true and from the context of assessment C2 o not-p is true” is true.

Now suppose that the truth-relativist that at C1 the proposition p is true and that the proposition expressed by “from the context of assessment C1, p used at C1 is true and from the context of assessment C2 o not-p is true” is true. It is irrational to continue to believe that in C1 the proposition p is true after she concedes - i.e.she believes that is true that - that there is some other context of assessment in which of not-p is true. In fact, according to (W) in asserting p in C1 the truth-relativist is committed to to withdrawing the assertion in any future context, if p is shown to be untrue relative to the context of assessment C2. The truth-relativist must then be silent about p.

Moreover (R) entails that the truth-relativist is committed to accepting the responsibility (at any future context) if on the basis of the assertion that p at C1 someone else takes p to be true (relative to context of use C1 and context of assessment C2) and it proves to be untrue (relative to C1 and C2). Thus, there cannot be faultless disagreement not only for the relativist but, from the perspective of the relativist, for anyone else since he would be otherwise reputed responsible for this.

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The conclusion is thus that the truth-relativist cannot but be agnostic about such propositions and thus, avoiding to disagree with anyone else, she cannot but demur from claiming that faultless

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References

Egan, A. Epistemic modals, relativism, and assertion. paper available online at http://www.geocities.com/eganamit/might.rtf.

Egan, A., J. Hawthorne, and B. Weatherson (2004). Epistemic Modals in Context. In G. Preyer and G. Peter (Eds.), Contextualism in Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kolbel, M. (2002). Truth Without Objectivity. Routledge.

Kölbel, M. (2003). Faultless disagreement. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 54(1), 53–73.

McFarlane, J. (2003). Future Contingents and Relative Truth. The Philosophical Quarterly 53, 321–336.

McFarlane, J. (2005). Making Sense of Relative Truth. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society.

Richard, M. (2004). Contextualism and relativism. Philosophical Studies 119, 215–242.

Sorensen, R. (1994). The Epistemic Conception of Vagueness - Comments on Wright. The Southern Journal of Philosophy 33 Supplement, 161–170.

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