Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T03:19:05.487Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

ARROGANCE, TRUTH AND PUBLIC DISCOURSE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2018

Michael Patrick Lynch
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Democracies, Dewey and others have argued, are ideally spaces of reasons – they allow for an exchange of reasons both practical and epistemic by those willing to engage in that discourse. That requires that citizens have convictions they believe in, but it also requires that they be willing to listen to each other. This paper examines how a particular psychological attitude, “epistemic arrogance,” can undermine the achievement of these goals. The paper presents an analysis of this attitude and then examines four arguments for how its adoption – especially by the powerful – undermines the ideal of democracy as a space of reasons.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 15 , Special Issue 3: 2017 Episteme Conference , September 2018 , pp. 283 - 296
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anderson, E. 2006. ‘The Epistemology of Democracy.’ Episteme, 3: 8–22.Google Scholar
Battaly, H. 2018 a. ‘Closed-mindedness and Dogmatism.’ Episteme, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Battaly, H. 2018 b. ‘Can Closed-mindedness be an Intellectual Vice?' Philosophy, forthcomingGoogle Scholar
Bohman, J. and Rehg, W. 1997. Deliberative Democracy: Essays on Reason and Politics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Christen, M., Alfano, M. and Robinson, B. 2014. ‘The Semantic Neighborhood of Intellectual Humility.’ In Herzig, A. and Lorini, E. (eds), Proceedings of the European Conference on Social Intelligence, 40–9.Google Scholar
Church, I. M. 2016. ‘The Doxastic Account of Intellectual Humility.’ Logos and Episteme, 7: 413–33.Google Scholar
Cohen, L. J. 1989. ‘Belief and Acceptance.’ Mind, 98: 367–89.Google Scholar
Darwall, S. L. 2006. The Second-person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, and Accountability. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Darwall, S. L. 2013. Honor, History, and Relationship: Essays in Second-Personal Ethics II. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dewey, J. 1981. ‘Creative Democracy: The Task before Us.’ In Boydston, J. A. (ed.), The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925–1953, vol. 14: 1939–1941, Essays, pp. 224–30. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Dewey, J. 2012. Democracy and Education. New York, NY: Start Publishing LLC.Google Scholar
Dillon, R. S. 2003. Kant on Arrogance and Self-Respect.’ In Calhoun, C. (ed.), Setting the Moral Compass: Essays by Women Philosophers, pp. 191–216. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dillon, R. S. 2015. ‘Self-Respect and Humility in Kant and Hill.’ In Timmons, M. and Johnson, R. N. (eds), Reason, Value, and Respect: Kantian Themes from the Philosophy of Thomas E. Hill, Jr., p. 42. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dotson, K. 2011. ‘Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing.’ Hypatia, 26: 236–57.Google Scholar
Fricker, M. 2007. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hazlett, A. 2012. ‘Higher-Order Epistemic Attitudes and Intellectual Humility.’ Episteme, 9: 205–23.Google Scholar
Kidd, I. J. 2016. ‘Intellectual Humility, Confidence, and Argumentation.’ Topoi, 35: 395–402.Google Scholar
Lynch, M. 2004. True to Life: Why Truth Matters. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lynch, M. 2012. In Praise of Reason. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lynch, M. 2018. ‘Academic Freedom and the Politics of Truth.’ In Lackey, J. (ed.), The Philosophy of Academic Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Medina, J. 2012. The Epistemology of Resistance: Gender and Racial Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, and the Social Imagination. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Priest, M. Forthcoming. ‘Intellectual Humility as an Interpersonal Virtu.’ Ergo.Google Scholar
Rawls, J. 2009. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Riggs, W. 2010. ‘Open-mindedness.’ Metaphilosophy, 41: 172–88.Google Scholar
Saul, J. 2013. ‘Implicit Bias, Stereotype Threat, and Women in Philosophy.’ In Jenkins, F. and Hutchinson, K. (eds), Women in Philosophy: What Needs to Change, pp. 39–60. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Spiegel, J. S. 2012. ‘Open-mindedness and Intellectual Humility.’ School Field, 10: 27–38.Google Scholar
Tanesini, A. 2016. ‘‘Calm Down, Dear’: Intellectual Arrogance, Silencing and Ignorance.’ Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, 90: 71–92.Google Scholar
Tanesini, A. 2018. ‘Intellectual Humility as Attitude.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 96: 399–420.Google Scholar
Tollefsen, D. P. 2017. ‘Epistemic Reactive Attitudes.’ American Philosophical Quarterly, 54: 353–66.Google Scholar
Whitcomb, D., Battaly, H., Baehr, J. and Howard-Snyder, D. 2017. ‘Intellectual Humility: Owning Our Limitations.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 94: 509–39.Google Scholar