PHI 313 HW 2

Due: [2017-09-27 Wed 11:00]

1 Instructions

Please name each homework map you create as follows: “hwK-mapN, where K is the homework number and N is the map number within that homework. For example, you should name your first map below ”hw2-map1“
This week you will be filling in and adding to map skeletons we provide. To use a skeleton:
1. Follow the link to the skeleton.
2. Near the top of the screen, select “Open with MindMup 2.0”.
3. Once you have opened the file in MindMup, make a copy of it (File menu > Make a copy) that will be stored in your Google Drive (this is the file you will edit and submit).
4. Now you can work on the map.
5. To go back to your work after a break, simply find the file in your Drive. You may need to right-click the file and then select “Open with” > “MindMup 2.0”.
For now you can create your maps anywhere in your google drive. We will contact you by email in a few days with detailed instructions on how to submit your homework.

2 Tasks

Open: Thomas Kelly. The epistemic significance of disagreement
Read section 1 (the introduction). No mapping required.
Read p. 14 “Suppose that two epistemic peers—let’s call them ‘you’ and ‘I’…” – p. 16 “…relevant difference that divides us on this particular occasion”. (It may give some helpful context to look at the definition of epistemic peer given on p. 10.)

Note on notation for specifying segments of text to read
I sometimes give references of the form Starting-page-number “Start of text…” - ending-page-number “…text ends here.” This allows me to target your reading extremely precisely.
Map this passage, starting from this skeleton. When filling in the blanks here and henceforth, please leave the numbers in parentheses intact, and leave a few underscore characters on either side of what you fill in, so that we can easily pick out your contribution.
Read p. 16 “Of course, there is still…” - 17 “…than would otherwise be the case.” This passage introduces an important qualification to Kelly’s view. In one or two sentences, how is Kelly’s view here different than the following view?—

Stubborn View
Each party in a shared-evidence peer disagreement should keep their original view.

You will submit your answer by pasting into a text box of the hw submission form.
Read p. 18 “Consider the circumstances in which we…” - 19 “..with respect to the case for such skepticism.”
Map this passage, starting from this skeleton. Note that this requires to create your own submaps in two places. The submaps might contain more than one node.
Open: David Christensen. Epistemology of disagreement: the good news
Map (from scratch) p. 193 “Suppose that the five of us go out to…” - 194 “…disagreement of an epistemic peer provides reason for belief revision.” (No skeleton map provided.) Hints: a. This is a pretty simple map. b. Use “Disagreement of an epistemic peer often provides reason for belief revision” as the contention (top box) of the map. c. This is a map form you will often encounter. You can think of Christensen’s argument as giving some verdicts about example cases and implicitly claiming that those cases are representative of many cases.
Final words: peer disagreement is a fascinating issue. I hope you are interested in it and puzzled by it. If so, I encourage you to read more of the above papers—they are both great. (Doing so is optional.)