Practical Disagreements: Criteria of Relevance and Peerhood

Disagreements on practical matters – e.g., where what is contested is how to do something – are widespread in our everyday lives; however, such disagreements have received little philosophical attention in comparison with representational disagreements, viz., about what is true. Consequently, there is little consensus on who – in practical disagreements – peers are, and what superficial practical disagreement is. This work addresses these issues in a unified and organised way and defends a dispositional approach to practical disagreement. The first chapter focuses on what is involved in facing a disagreement, whereas the second one explains why practical knowledge should be distinguished from knowledge-that. The third chapter contains an analysis of three kinds of superficial propositional disagreements (namely, disagreements with experts, sceptical disagreements, and merely verbal disputes), and in the fourth chapter, I will put forward a similar taxonomy for superficial practical disagreements. Finally, the fifth chapter takes into consideration traditional peerhood criteria and suggests an alternative that better fits the anti-intellectualistic view of knowledge