Deep Disagreements. Philosophical and Legal Perspectives

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*Deep Disagreements. Philosophical and Legal Perspectives*
International Conference
Humboldt-Universitaet Berlin
June 11-12, 2015
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Many disagreements that are central to political, social, ideological or 
religious conflicts can neither be resolved through a compelling 
argument nor by gathering further information. If these disagreements do 
not arise from readily discernible misunderstandings and are yet of 
considerable importance and in need of regulation, we call them /deep 
disagreements/.

The phenomenon of deep disagreement raises issues for many areas, 
especially within philosophy (e.g. epistemology, metaphilosophy, 
metaethics) and law (e.g. legal theory). Deep Disagreements have already 
been tackled in philosophical debates surrounding /peer disagreement/. 
Epistemic peers are persons who share the same level of information on 
the given subject and are equipped with similar intellectual capacities, 
and the debated question is how they should rationally react to 
disagreements.

In legal theory, the debate about the /right answer thesis/ centers 
around the question whether all legal disputes have a single right 
answer. If we do not presuppose a right answer, Dworkin’s famous 
argument of the /semantic sting/ seems to force us into an implausible 
conclusion: that disagreements in law are merely based on linguistic 
misunderstandings. In philosophy, there is a related debate about the 
possibility of /faultless disagreements/, i.e. cases of disagreement in 
which no participant makes a mistake. The relationship between these 
debates has not been explored yet.

This conference aims to bring together researchers across disciplines to 
discuss philosophical and legal debates, to systematically apply them to 
the case of deep disagreements, and to test the theories in socially and 
politically relevant fields of application. The conference marks the 
launch of the DEEP DISAGREEMENTS project, directed by Geert Keil 
(Humboldt-Universitaet Berlin, Department of Philosophy) and Ralf 
Poscher (Universitaet Freiburg, Faculty of Law). The project is 
sponsored by the /Volkswagen Foundation/.

*Keynote Speakers:*

* Samantha Besson (Université de Fribourg)
* Brian Leiter (University of Chicago Law School)
* Ernest Sosa (Rutgers University)
* Folke Tersman (Uppsala University)

www.DeepDisagreements.de