Mutuality and Assertion

Sanford Goldberg (Northwestern University)

Abstract: Can assertions be warranted under conditions of systematic disagreement (of the sort we find in philosophy, politics, religion, and the more theoretical parts of the social and natural sciences)? On the one hand, there are strong reasons to regard assertion as governed by a demanding epistemic norm (such as knowledge), and it is plausible to think that in contexts of systematic peer disagreement we sometimes (often?) fail to attain knowledge. On the other, the practice of assertion persists in these areas, even under these conditions. (Indeed, the practice of philosophy would appear to depend on this practice.) In this paper I argue that this tension can be resolved by appeal to the hypothesis that the standard set by assertion's norm is fixed in part in terms of what is mutually believed by the speaker and her audience in the context in which the assertion is made. This paper aims to provide independent grounds for this hypothesis.