Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Duration: 2020 - 2022

Code: IN[19]_HMS_FIF_0081

Principal Investigator

Fernando Broncano-Berrocal (ferbroncano@gmail.com)

All researchers

Prinicipal investigator

Fernando Broncano-Berrocal (University of Barcelona)

Other researchers

Matt Jope (Postdoctoral Fellow)

Summary

(Leonardo Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators 2019. Awarded by the Fundación BBVA)

A public controversy is a public disagreement in which the beliefs of large parts of society become polarized over a controversial issue, often in ways that arouse strong feelings and conflicts of all kinds. What epistemic norms govern public controversy, i.e. when are we rationally required to change our opinions? Or in plain terms: Should we change our minds in the face of public controversy? Recent research in social epistemology has produced relevant insights on the epistemic norms that govern disagreement, but the debate, so far, has almost exclusively revolved around idealized disagreements between individuals with the same information and capacities. Given how different these disagreements are from the sort of intricate disagreement a public controversy is, the principles that have been proposed can hardly shed light on the epistemic norms that govern long-standing disputes in the public arena. The project aims to fill this gap by developing a ground-breaking approach to the epistemology of disagreement from which the epistemic norms and principles that govern disagreement, in general, and public controversy, in particular, will be derived. The resulting framework will be also used to investigate epistemically inappropriate ways to deliberate in public controversies, including phenomena such as group polarization.