How to resolve doxastic disagreement

Peter Brössel

Anna-Maria A. Eder

pp. 2359-2381

in: Frank Zenker, Carlo Proietti (eds), Social dynamics and collective rationality, Synthese 191 (11), 2014.

Abstract

How should an agent revise her epistemic state in the light of doxastic disagreement? The problems associated with answering this question arise under the assumption that an agent’s epistemic state is best represented by her degree of belief function alone. We argue that for modeling cases of doxastic disagreement an agent’s epistemic state is best represented by her confirmation commitments and the evidence available to her. Finally, we argue that given this position it is possible to provide an adequate answer to the question of how to rationally revise one’s epistemic state in the light of disagreement.