Philosophy Compass - 2022 - Ranalli - Deep Disagreement Part 1 Theories of Deep Disagreement

Received: 14 October 2021 Revised: 23 August 2022 Accepted: 1 October 2022
DOI: 10.1111/phc3.12886
ARTICLE
Deep Disagreement (Part 1): Theories of Deep

Disagreement
Chris Ranalli | Thirza Lagewaard
Department of Philosophy, Vrije Universiteit

Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Abstract
Some disagreements concern our most fundamental beliefs,
Correspondence
Chris Ranalli, Department of Philosophy, Vrije
principles, values, or worldviews, such as those about the
Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, existence of God, society and politics, or the trustworthiness
Amsterdam, 1081 HV The Netherlands.
Email: c.b.ranalli2@vu.nl
of science. These are ‘deep disagreements’. But what exactly
are deep disagreements? This paper critically overviews
Funding information
theories of deep disagreement. It does three things. First,
H2020 European Research Council, Grant/
Award Number: 851613 it explains the differences between deep and other kinds
[Corrections added on 28 October 2022, after of disagreement, including peer, persistent, and widespread
first online publication: Abstract has been
disagreement. Second, it critically overviews two main-
updated].
stream theories of deep disagreement, the Wittgensteinian
account and the Fundamental Epistemic Principle account,
before introducing a Hybrid account. Finally, it explores the
notion that deep disagreements can be deeper than others.
1 | INTRODUCTION
Some disagreements are persistent and seemingly intractable, like certain disagreements about vaccine safety, the
existence of God, or whether a fetus is a person (Carter, 2021; de Ridder, 2021; Talisse, 2013). Many of them are
cases of deep disagreement. Deep disagreements are glossed in different ways. As “clashes of perspective” (Kappel,
2021); “fundamental” disagreements (Smith & Lynch, 2021); disagreements about our “most basic commitments”
(Pritchard, 2021); as well as disagreements arising out of the “different worldviews” of the disagreeing parties (de
Ridder, 2021; Hazlett, 2014; Matheson, 2021).
But how exactly should we understand deep disagreements? What is it that sets them apart from other, familiar
kinds of disagreement, like peer disagreement? And how, rationally, should we respond to them?
This article gives an opinionated survey of the nature and epistemology of deep disagreement. It starts with
some preliminaries, key features of deep disagreement, and a case of deep disagreement widely discussed in the
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2 of 18 RANALLI and LAGEWAARD
literature that will serve as a reference point for our discussion (section 2). It then differentiates deep disagreement
from other kinds of disagreement, like persistent disagreement, irresolvable disagreement, and widespread disagree-
ment (section 3). In sections 4-5, we explore what it is that disputants disagree about when they deeply disagree.
While some philosophers take deep disagreements to be disagreements over fundamental epistemic principles
(Lynch, 2013, 2016), or over fundamental normative principles (de Ridder, 2021), others take them to be disagree-
ments over some broader set of commitments underlying the parties' worldviews (Fogelin, 2005; Hazlett, 2014;
Ranalli, 2021). We don't take a stand on who is right in this debate, and instead highlight the challenges facing
each one.
In Part 2 we take up our second question: how rationally, if at all, should we respond to deep disagreements?
Philosophers have typically argued that deep disagreements are rationally irresolvable. But what does this mean? As
we'll see, there are importantly different senses of ‘rational irresolution’ and its cognates. However, other philoso-
phers have argued that deep disagreements are rationally resolvable, and advocate for particular ways in which they
might be rationally resolved.
Moreover, many philosophers take deep disagreements to pose problems for collective decision-making within
democracy. For example, Lynch (2012) says that the “the ideal of civility requires us to find common ground with
those with whom we must discuss political matters” but that deep disagreements raise the “problem of defending
our epistemic principles from a common point view” (2012, p. 8). Kappel (2012) echoes this point: that many policy
choices in democracies should depend on “principles that all reasonable citizens could accept”, and yet deep disagree-
ments might make this ideal “impossible to meet” (Kappel, 2012, p. 17). Relatedly, some take deep disagreements to
lead to and even worsen polarization: “People involved in deep disagreements will easily come to see each other as
irrational, immoral, or worse” (de Ridder, 2021, p. 234; cf. Hannon & de Ridder, 2021, p. 87). This can lead disputants
to double-down on their prior views and to dismiss their opponents (de Ridder, 2021, p. 236). While these claims are
of course controversial, they highlight why many in the debate see deep disagreement as a pressing political problem.
Some of these social-political issues are explored in section 6 of Part 2.
2 | PRELIMINARIES
Deep disagreements are distinguished from other kinds of disagreements by being in some sense “fundamental”—as
opposed to, say, insubstantial, merely verbal, or shallow—arising from “clashes of worldview” (Hazlett, 2014). For now,
we'll bracket the question of what, exactly, makes a disagreement deep and home in on key paradigmatic features of
deep disagreements typically represented in the literature.
Consider the following case:
CONSPIRACY: Kim and Gwen disagree about the proposition p: ‘it is safe for your health to get vaccine
x’. Gwen believes p and bases her belief on the advice given by the national health organization and
government. When Kim presses her about why she trusts this advice, she draws on her view that her
government’s health agencies (e.g., by being informed by medical science; and by being sincere in
their intention and concern for citizen’s health, and to prevent widespread illness), biomedical science,
and mainstream science-reporting are in general reliable sources of evidence concerning one’s health
against infectious disease. Kim disagrees. He believes that vaccine x contains, for nefarious reasons, a
chip to track and control citizens. He denies that government health agencies, biomedical science,
and mainstream media are generally reliable sources of evidence, sincere, or concerned for citizen’s
welfare. He thinks that these institutions are under the direction of the ‘Illuminati’, a powerful and
nefarious secretive group, whose aim is world domination. Whereas Gwen thinks that we should trust
science and scientific institutions generally, Kim denies this, appealing to ‘gut feelings’, alternative
media sources (e.g., blogs, books, and forums that favorably discuss conspiracy theories) which are
RANALLI and LAGEWAARD 3 of 18
skeptical of medical science and the institutions which represent them. Instead, he believes q ‘rely-
ing on alternative media outlets A, B and C is a reliable way of forming true beliefs’, whereas Gwen
believes ∼ q, and much else besides.
This is just one example, but it follows the pattern found in the literature: (1) an agent A believes the disputed prop-
osition P and another, B, denies that P; (2) the reasons A gives to B for believing that P strikes B as question-begging,
and vice-versa for A. Many philosophers take deep disagreements at this stage to involve epistemic circularity, that is,
when one defends a source of belief by appealing to (or otherwise relies on) the source in question (see Carter, 2021;
Lynch, 2010, 2013; Matheson, 2021). Here, we don't assume that deep disagreements must involve epistemic circu-
larity, but note that it is frequently taken for granted in the literature. It is enough to recognize that the reasons
the disputants present for their disputed beliefs strike their interlocutor as question-begging, or in some other way
defective, e.g., by being reasons that the other thinks are clearly false (see, e.g., Johnson, 2022, p. 4). Additionally,
(3) at least one of the reasons why (2) holds is that A doesn't trust the sources of evidence that B appeals to, and
vice-versa for B with regard to A's sources. They are mutually suspicious of each other's sources of reasons or
evidence.
Why is Conspiracy an example of deep disagreement? Here, we will refer to important features of deep disa-
greement. We don't argue that they are jointly necessary conditions, only that the deep disagreements typically
cited in the literature have these features, and that they're typically said to be characteristic of deep disagreement
(see Bondy, 2020; Fogelin, 2005; Hazlett, 2014; Johnson, 2022; Kappel, 2012; Lynch, 2010, 2013; Pritchard, 2018).
First, notice that while Kim and Gwen disagree about the proposition p, that it’s reasonably safe for your health to
get vaccine x, this is just part of their dispute, because even the reasons they employ to support their beliefs will be
disputed as well, as we saw with their beliefs about q. This ‘systematicity’ of deep disagreement—where the disagree-
ment might focus on one proposition but has a ripple-effect for other propositions the disputants believe—is widely
noted in the literature (see de Ridder, 2021; Fogelin, 2005; Ranalli, 2021). We'll discuss this idea in more detail in
section 3. For now, we'll introduce it by way of example.
For instance, when Gwen cites the fact that we should trust health agencies and biomedical scientists, Kim
denies this. This, then, is another point of disagreement between them. In turn, their disagreement over p is one of
their disagreements among many other actual or potential disagreements: disagreements about who is trustworthy;
disagreements about what methods are reliable; or disagreements about ontology (what exists) or metaphysics (the
nature of reality), with Kim affirming the existence of the conspiratorial group, the Illuminati, and Gwen denying it,
along with the many and varied commitments of that conspiracy theory.
Now, when exchanging reasons for and against p, Kim will not accept the reasons given by Gwen as good reasons
and vice-versa. Why? As we noted earlier, some philosophers have appealed to the notion of epistemic circular-
ity, which occurs when an agent tries to defend an epistemic principle but draws on a result of the principle as a
reason to believe that the principle is true, or even employs a method or source recommended by the principle (see
Carter, 2021; Lynch, 2010, 2013; Matheson, 2021; Williams, 2007).
For example, Gwen could appeal to the fact that the government and leading health organizations say that p, and
she might refer to the health institution's general trustworthiness on medical matters as a reason to believe that p.
However, Kim disputes this. On his view, these institutions are unreliable because of the influence of the Illuminati,
the powerful conspiratorial group. This is arguably a case of epistemic circularity because Gwen assumes the reliabil-
ity of official channels of scientific information by way of their track-record.
Of course, Gwen might also be able to independently verify their track-record—if they say that such-and-such
medicine prevents a virus, for example, she could ask a doctor whether she is now better protected from the virus
by getting the vaccine. Or if they say that virologists developed such-and-such technique that produces antibodies
against the virus, Gwen could consult a lab to test her for the relevant antibodies. Indeed, perhaps Gwen could train
and become an expert herself. Kim, however, will not accept the general reliability of any of these channels as a
reason to believe that p because he's liable to say that any doctor, scientist, etc., who corroborates the official view
on the vaccine is “in on the conspiracy”—they rely on their conspiracy theory beliefs as a way of pre-empting any
counter-evidence (see Napolitano, 2021). Similarly, Gwen will not see the reliability of alternative media outlets A, B
and C as a good reason for not-p, as Kim can only argue for their reliability in a circular way. 1 He sees these sources
as reliable because he believes not-p. Kim and Gwen are engaged here in a disagreement about what fixed-points to
draw on. 2
Some philosophers find this suggestion problematic. Is a disagreement deep only if the sorts of reasons people
can provide for their disputed belief are epistemically circular? Perhaps that's too narrow and would needlessly limit
the cases that count as genuinely deep (see, e.g., Ranalli, 2021). Additionally, even if someone disagreed with you
about ‘perception is reliable’, is it true that you have no reasons to believe it which don't rely on perception, or
on believing that perception is reliable? Perhaps it's just part of the best explanation of other beliefs you have—
or, alternatively, such reasons are circular but not thereby bad reasons (see, e.g., Carter & Pritchard, 2017). We'll
revisit epistemic circularity again in section 3.4. For now, it's enough to highlight many of the purported features
of deep disagreement in the literature, rather than take a stand on which features, exactly, are necessary for their
characterization.
3 | WHAT DEEP DISAGREEMENT IS NOT
What distinguishes deep disagreement from other sorts of disagreement? We can better understand deep disagree-
ment by distinguishing it from related phenomena. In this section, then, we'll concentrate on what deep disagreement
is not. This is important because it is easy to confuse ‘deep disagreement’ with related notions like ‘persistent disa-
greement’ and ‘irresolvable disagreement’. While these phenomena are related, as we'll see, they are arguably distinct
types of disagreement.
3.1 | Persistent Disagreement
Some disagreements persist, despite the fact that the disputants exchange reasons for their opposing views. Are
these deep disagreements? Not always. Some disagreements are merely persistent without being deep. While deep
disagreements often persist longer than your usual dispute, the mere fact that a disagreement persists over a long
period doesn't make it deep. Put another way, persistence is not a sufficient condition for deep disagreement, even
if it is a necessary condition.
To see why deep and persistent disagreement are distinct, consider two family members who continuously disa-
gree about their inheritance. Suppose the brother thinks he should get more of the share of the inheritance than
his sister, who disagrees, and suppose their disagreement persists because of their mutual stubbornness, with no
end in sight. An ideal observer would say that, due to their stubbornness, their disagreement will not resolve. Their
intellectual vices necessarily prevent them from resolving their dispute; resolution requires them to be less stubborn,
and more open-minded.
Their disagreement is not deep. Why? The answer is that disagreements can persist for a lot of reasons. In this
case, it's due to mutual character flaws, like stubbornness. In other cases, the disagreement's persistence could be
due to a mutual grudge, an unwillingness to consider each other seriously (a mutual hatred, perhaps), or the relevant
evidence that would decide the matter is missing, or forgotten (see, e.g., Elgin, 2018, p. 12).
What these kinds of cases suggest is that persistent disagreement and deep disagreement are distinct. Perhaps
their difference lies in the cause of the disagreement. For example, some philosophers have argued that deep disa-
greement persist over time because the participants cannot productively exchange reasons that will be accepted as
good reasons by the other party (e.g., neither participant recognizes the other's reasons as good reason to revise their
belief) (Lynch, 2016; Smith & Lynch, 2021). Others have said that the participants might disagree about something for
which no rational agent could reject (e.g., could participants rationally disagree over whether there are other minds?)
(Coliva & Palmira, 2021). These are possibilities we'll revisit in section 5. The take-home message, however, is that
some disagreements are likely persistent without being deep.
3.2 | Widespread disagreement
Deep disagreement should also be differentiated from merely widespread disagreement. A disagreement over p is
widespread when a lot of people disagree about p. It's not like a disagreement between two friends or colleagues, but
a disagreement with many diverse participants. Indeed, it should not be confused with group disagreement either,
since two groups might disagree about whether, say, their city should build more parks, without it being widespread,
since not that many people actually engage in the disagreement.
While deep disagreements are often widespread, there is widespread disagreement without it being deep. For
example, when people from neighbouring countries disagree about whose country has the best cuisine and disagree
about which country has the best music, wine, nature, etc., these disagreements are widespread but probably not
deep. The reason why is that it could be part of a tradition of rivalry and mutual competitiveness as opposed to
different worldviews, contrary fundamental principles, or different basic commitments—that is to say, it's not about
the sorts of things philosophers frequently refer to as making a disagreement deep. Many people who disagree
persistently about the quality of their cuisine, nature, wine, and so forth might, for example, accept many of the same
religious, epistemological, and moral views of their rivals, as is sometimes the case with people from similar places,
like France and Italy.
One key difference between widespread and deep disagreement is that the latter rationally commits the disa-
greeing parties to disagreeing over many other propositions (see, e.g., Fogelin, 2005). A disagreement is systematic
when it is interrelated with other disagreements (e.g., disagreement over p implies commitment to many more disa-
greements; disagreements over q, r, s,…). Merely widespread disagreements needn't have this effect; they are simply
shared by many people.
To see the difference, contrast the widespread disagreement between French and Italians about who's cuisine
(music, nature) is best, with the disagreement between Evangelical fundamentalists and humanistic atheists about
God's existence, the reliability of Biblical testimony, the weight of scripture over science, the metaphysics of persons,
the origin of the universe, and so on. Their disagreement is not merely due to a longstanding rivalry, or a history of
different aesthetic preferences, but differences in worldview, fundamental principles, or basic commitments. 3
3.3 | Peer Disagreement
Deep disagreement can also be contrasted with peer disagreement. Consider:
DINNER CHECK: two people at a restaurant disagree about the total cost for each patron’s dinner
after a 20% tip. Samanya believes that it’s $41 whereas Karoline believes that it’s $45. They both have
reliable arithmetical abilities, are not drunk or overly tired, and have seen the receipt.
This is an example of a peer disagreement (Christensen, 2009; Frances & Matheson, 2019). Much has been writ-
ten about how to rationally respond to such a disagreement. 4 In an epistemic peer disagreement, at least two peers
disagree about a proposition p. Two people are epistemic peers when they are (roughly) equally likely to evaluate the
evidence relevant to the disputed proposition correctly (Christensen, 2009; Matheson, 2015).
Many would say that in cases of peer disagreement, you have no immediate reason to think that the other person
is wrong and you are right. This is because you are epistemic peers: you are just as likely to be right as each other.
According to some, this is enough higher-order evidence to adjust your belief in the direction of your peer's belief
(Matheson, 2009). First-order evidence is evidence for (or against) the proposition. It bears on whether the proposition
is (likely) true or false. Higher-order evidence, by contrast, is evidence about the quality of the first-order evidence
and/or the capacity of the inquirer to rationally respond to the first-order evidence. A peer disagreement is often
considered higher-order evidence against your first-order evidence: it gives you a reason to reconsider your own
doxastic state, even if it doesn't require you to adjust your prior belief.
How does this differ from deep disagreement? One feature that makes deep disagreement interesting is that the
disputants would not regard each other as equally reasonable, or equally likely to be right about the disputed propo-
sition. Rather, they think that they have an epistemic advantage not had by their interlocuter. Put another way, they
don't regard each other as epistemic peers. Call this Non-Reciprocity:
Non-reciprocity: In cases of deep disagreement, the disputants S1 and S2 who disagree about whether
p would not regard each other as just as likely to be right about whether p.
It's a controversial question whether deep disagreement excludes the possibility that the disputants are
epistemic peers with respect to the disputed proposition, however. Non-reciprocity doesn't entail that they're
not epistemic peers. This is because the disputants might be in just as good of an epistemic position to evaluate
the relevant evidence bearing on whether p; perhaps the fundamentalist is just as likely to evaluate the evidence
bearing on ‘God exists’ correctly as the atheist, for example. As we'll see in section 5, however, some philoso-
phers argue that deep disagreements simply could not be disagreements between epistemic peers (e.g., Kappel,
2021).
Non-reciprocity is much less controversial, however. After all, if you have a ‘clash of perspective’ with someone,
born out of your ‘different worldviews’, it's hard to see how you could, rationally, regard each other as equally reason-
able with respect to the disputed proposition. But there is a difference between being epistemic peers and recognizing
one's disputant as an epistemic peer. The intuition is just that they could not be instances of what Feldman calls
‘mutually recognized reasonable disagreement’, which is different from peer disagreement (Feldman, 2006; Hazlett,
2014).
For example, it's hard to see Kim and Gwen as recognizing each other as epistemic peers, since they have reasons
to think that they'll evaluate the evidence bearing on the question ‘‘it is safe for your health to get vaccine x?’ radically
differently from each other. Crucially, however, the failure to recognize one's interlocuter as one's epistemic peer
doesn't seem to entail that they're not their epistemic peer.
4 | THEORIES OF DEEP DISAGREEMENT
Theories of deep disagreement try to answer the question: what are deep disagreements? That is, what exactly makes
them different from other types of disagreement? As a starting point, deep disagreements are characterized by a
lack of shared background and by being systematic and persistent. Below, we'll comment on these features. Later, we'll
explore the content of this lack (e.g., a lack of hinge propositions, epistemic principles, or what?)
4.1 | Not Enough Shared Background
Does rational argumentation presuppose “a rich background of agreement”? (Fogelin, 2005, p. 6). One popular idea
about deep disagreement is that the disputants lack enough “shared background belief and preferences” (Fogelin,
2005, p. 7), ‘frameworks’, or overlap in ‘worldviews’ to engage in rational argumentation about certain issues. Rational
argumentation is matter of argumentation in which disputants exchange and evaluate each other's reasons for their
disputed beliefs by appealing to reasons.
For example, if someone argues for ‘God exists’ by appeal to the ontological argument, that ‘God is that which
has every perfection’ and ‘whatever has every perfection exists’, and the disputant argues against this view by citing
reasons against the premises of the argument, this would be an instance of rational argumentation. It doesn't mean
that the reasons that each disputant appeals to are in fact good reasons for their view, but that their disagreement is
a manifestation of rational argumentation because the disputant's employ reasons for and against the disputed belief,
as opposed to personal attacks (“you're stupid”), vice charges (“you're closed-minded”), or genealogical charges (“you
just believe that because …”), among others.
Many thinkers in the debate on deep disagreement have thought that there is something about the fact that
the arguers lack enough ‘shared background’ necessary for productively exchanging reasons for their beliefs that
prevents them from rationally resolving their disagreements (see, e.g., Aikin, 2019; Fogelin, 2005).
Consider, for example, some of the disagreements about abortion in the United States, where some people
defend the fetuses' “right to life” based on their religious view that the fetus has a soul (created by God) at concep-
tion. This reason doesn't persuade some people not simply because they think its weaker than the reasons for the
“right to choose”, but because they deny the religious ontology of souls and God that bring those kinds of reasons
into view.
But is a lack of ‘shared background’ necessary for deep disagreement? One immediate issue with this view is that
the relevant ideas about ‘shared background’ are not all equivalent. For example, some philosophers have said that
disputants need to have a sufficient overlap in worldview. Hazlett (2014) defines ‘worldview’ as “an interconnected set
of beliefs about metaphysics and ethics”, whereas Matheson (2021) and others say that there should be an overlap in
the disputants ‘frameworks’, defining ‘frameworks’ as the “set of principles that you endorse that gives an account of
what is evidence for what, and assigns evidential weights” (Matheson, 2021, p. 3). Fogelin (2005), however, says that
it’s necessary for the disputants to have ‘shared background beliefs and preferences’, where he means shared hinge
propositions and moral values, such as that ‘there is an external world’ or ‘all persons have souls’.
This gives us at least three different views about what sort of shared background is necessary for rational argu-
mentation to occur:
Worldview Requirement: S1 and S2 share enough shared background to rationally argue about
whether p only if S1 and S2 have an overlapping set of interconnected metaphysical and ethical beliefs,
W (see Hazlett, 2014).
Epistemic Requirement: S1 and S2 have enough shared background to rationally argue about whether
p only if S1 and S2 have shared principles which specify when a piece of evidence E supports (a disputed
proposition) p, or how to weigh different pieces of evidence, E1, E2, E3, …, vis-à-vis the question about
whether p (see Lynch, 2013; Matheson, 2021)
Hinge Requirement: S1 and S2 have enough shared background to rationally argue about whether p
only if S1 and S2 have an overlapping set of hinge propositions (see Fogelin, 2005; Pritchard, 2018).
In each case, the thought is that in a deep disagreement the disputants don't have the requisite shared back-
ground for the productive exchange of reasons necessary for rational argumentation.
This dispute about what's necessary for rational argumentation to occur leads into the question of what makes a
disagreement deep. Some say that deep disagreement is due to differences in interconnected beliefs in metaphysics
and ethics (Hazlett, 2014), some of which are hinge propositions for the disputants (Fogelin, 2005), and that this
yields disagreement; others say that they are about fundamental epistemic principles (Kappel, 2012; Lynch, 2013;
Matheson, 2021) or fundamental normative principles (de Ridder, 2021).
4.2 | Systematicity and Persistence
The idea the deep disagreement involves a lack of shared background between the disputants relates to two
other key features of deep disagreements: systematicity and persistence. Deep disagreements are systematic and
persistent in a way that more ordinary disagreements are not (Fogelin, 2005; Ranalli, 2018). First, let's consider the
systematicity of deep disagreement. Although a deep disagreement might begin as a disagreement over a single
proposition, such as that ‘abortion is wrong’, the initial disagreement reveals that the disputants disagree over a
whole network of related propositions, such as whether ‘the fetus is a person’, ‘persons have souls’, ‘we can trust
the Bible’, and ‘God exists’, for example. These beliefs are part of A's worldview, and none of them are part of B's
worldview. In short, A is a certain kind of religious believer, whereas B is a certain kind of non-religious believer.
Not all of their disagreements are likely to be deep and thereby persistent, but this one is because of their contrary
worldviews.
We can also understand systematicity as a kind of first-person rational tension. This means that, from A's
perspective, revising their disputed belief would commit them to revising many of their other beliefs. This phenome-
non is frequently noted in the literature (see de Ridder, 2021; Fogelin, 2005; Lavorerio, 2021; Ranalli, 2018). To see
how this works, consider:
ABORTION DISAGREEMENT: A and B disagree over (P) ‘abortion is wrong’. A presents (R1) ‘the fetus
is a person’ as support for P, but B denies this; she doesn’t believe that fetuses are persons. Now,
A believes R1 because ‘the soul enters the egg at conception, and one should not harm souls’ (R2),
which she in turn believes because ‘God created us and our souls’ (R3), which she believes because of
her religious faith and trust in Biblical testimony, which she might express by saying (R4) ‘The Bible is
trustworthy’. B not only denies P, then. She denies the chain of reasons A cites as support for P, which
might in practice “lie in the background” (Fogelin, 2005, p. 8).
For A, then, revising her belief that P would, from her perspective, commit her to revising her beliefs that R1,
R2, R3, and R4, and perhaps much more, which would put rational pressure on her worldview (e.g., to substantially
revise her worldview). This doesn't mean that rationality requires belief revision, only that cases of deep disagreement
can present a rational tension, whereby disagreement over one proposition seems to commit the interlocutors to
disagreeing—and so potentially revising—many other beliefs as well.
Deep disagreements also display persistence. This means that they often persist despite the presentation of
reasons for their disputed beliefs. The contrast, then, is with disagreements which persist because of the disputant's
affective attitudes (e.g., anger) towards the other disputant, what the person stands for (e.g., their political affilia-
tions), or their epistemic vices (e.g., closed-mindedness). These disagreements are persistent for affective and charac-
ter trait-based reasons, rather than a failure to appreciate the other person's reasons for their belief. In cases of deep
disagreement, the thought is that even if we assume that the disputants have epistemic virtues and lack ill-regard for
their interlocuter, the disagreement will likely survive the presentation of reasons.
Fogelin (2005) suggests that this is due to the fact that the disputants lack shared background beliefs
about how to evaluate reasons for the initial disputed proposition. In the abortion case, the disputant's back-
ground beliefs preempt them from appreciating their interlocuter's proffered reasons as good reasons for their
belief, which leads to the persistence of their disagreement. Another name for ‘persistence’ is that the disa-
greement is ‘unresolved’ or more specifically ‘rationally unresolved’. This means that the disputants fail to reach
agreement via the exchange of epistemic reasons that would rationalize adopting or keeping a certain attitude
(Feldman, 2005).
These are some of the key characteristics of deep disagreements. But what is the nature of the lacked “shared
background belief and preferences”, exactly? (Fogelin, 2005, p. 7). The two main approaches to deep disagreement
in the recent epistemological literature are the Wittgensteinian approach and the Fundamental Epistemic Principle
approach. Below, we'll review these approaches.
4.3 | Wittgensteinian Approaches
Wittgensteinian approaches to deep disagreement are rooted in Wittgenstein's (1969) remarks in On Certainty. This
theory can be seen at work in Fogelin (2005), Hazlett (2014), and Godden and Brenner (2010), among several others.
The view is the following:
Wittgensteinian Theory: Deep disagreements are disagreements over hinge commitments (whether
explicitly or implicitly).
The Wittgensteinian Theory entails that A and B deeply disagree over P if and only if either they disagree over P
and P is a hinge proposition, or else their disagreement over P commits them to disagreeing over a hinge proposition.
The first kind of case is a ‘direct’ deep disagreement, whereas the second is ‘indirect’. For example, in the abortion
case, it might not be that ‘the fetus is a person’ is a hinge commitment of A's, and its denial is not a hinge commitment
of B's, but because of the way A and B support their belief here (i.e., the kinds of reasons they provide and their role in
their worldviews), A and B are committed to disagreeing over hinge commitments; B denies A's belief that ‘God exist’,
for example, which is a hinge commitment for A, and its negation a hinge commitment for B.
Hinge commitments are the basic presuppositions of a person's worldview or belief system, as well as the basic
presuppositions that guide inquiry (Wright, 2014). The thought is that we cannot do without hinge commitments, as
they are the certainties that we need in order for epistemic evaluation to take place at all (Pritchard, 2016). These are
some examples of hinge commitments:
‘there is an external world, sense perception is reliable, I am not a brain in a vat, my faculty of reasoning
is reliable, the Earth is more than three minutes old, testimony is reliable, memory is reliable’ We need
such hinge commitments to reason about the world (Brueckner, 2007, p. 285). 5
Other philosophers include more specific propositions that are essential to disparate worldviews, like ‘God
exists’, ‘The Bible is trustworthy’, ‘God does not exist’, or ‘Only natural, non-supernatural, things exists’. Some have
even argued that there could be hinges like ‘there are highly politically powerful, secret Satanic child sex-traffickers’
(see Smith, 2022, p. 6). At root, hinge propositions frame worldviews. When they are the subject of extensive doubt,
entire areas of inquiry will also be doubted (Wright, 2014). This can explain why a disagreement over a hinge commit-
ment is systematic: it commits the disputants to disagreeing about a nexus of other propositions.
Why is a disagreement ‘deep’ when it is about hinge commitments? The reason why is that hinge commit-
ments regulate what counts as reasons or evidence for our beliefs and other attitudes. Unlike ordinary beliefs, hinge
commitments lack ‘standard’ evidence against them that would be recognized by the agent who accepts them as
reasons against them. 6 For example, a person for whom ‘there is an external world’ is a basic presupposition has
no ‘more basic’ way to justify this commitment; it's rather one of their starting points for evaluating reasons for and
against belief generally. Likewise, the person for whom ‘There is a worldwide evil conspiracy’ is a hinge treats it as a
fixed-point in their evaluations of testimony, pieces of reasoning, and other beliefs.
This raises the question about the epistemic status of hinge commitments. Hinge commitments frame what
counts as a reason for belief, but how then could we ever be justified in believing our hinge commitments? Many
philosophers take it that hinge commitments, if they have epistemic status, have a non-standard epistemic status
(e.g., not grounded in evidence, or truth).
Here, we will review three mainstream theories about the nature of hinge commitments.
Entitlement theory: Some argue that there is a default entitlement to accept hinge commitments,
whereby an entitlement for P is a right to accept that P without supporting evidence for P, and that our
epistemic justification for hinge commitments consists in having such a default entitlement. 7 As with-
out these commitments in place, our worldviews would crumble (Wright, 2004, 2014; Hazlett, 2014).
Arationality Theory: Other philosophers argue that hinge commitments are outside the scope of
rational evaluation altogether (Moyal-Sharrock, 2016; Pritchard, 2016). They are essentially arational.
This is a radical position because it means that no true positive or negative epistemic appraisal—as
rational, irrational; justified or unjustified—of one’s doxastic attitude towards hinge commitments is
possible. Indeed, it also means that we aren’t entitled to hinges either, as entitlement is a species of
epistemic justification, albeit a non-evidential type of justification.
Constitutivism: Finally, some philosophers argue that hinge commitments are constitutive of being a
rational agent (Coliva, 2015). This is Constitutivism. On this view, hinges are rationally evaluable in
terms of being constitutive of rational agency.
The epistemology of hinge commitments gives us a starting point for thinking about the epistemology of deep
disagreement. Corresponding to each of our three theories, Entitlement theory, Constitutivism, and Arationality
theory, we have at least three options. When there is a disagreement about hinge commitments, the disagreeing
parties can point to their entitlement to accept their own hinge commitments; or to the fact that it’s part of their
rational agency to accept their hinge commitment; or to the fact that it’s just neither rational nor irrational for them
to believe what they do. Within their own belief system, their hinge commitments will seem to them to be something
for which doubt is confusing, or totally irrational. Of course, this kind of reasoning will not strike the other party as
a compelling argument, as she has her own hinge commitments that she is entitled to; doubting them would strike
her as confusing as well (cf. Hazlett, 2014). This lack of shared background explains why disagreements over hinge
propositions are persistent. Both parties' best reasons for their hinge commitment are not seen as good reasons in the
framework of their opponent.
Why endorse the Wittgensteinian account? One immediate upshot of the Wittgensteinian theory is that it can
easily account for the variety of deep disagreement. Disagreements can be deep due to different kinds of hinges:
moral, metaphysical, and epistemic.
For example, as we explored in the abortion case, some disagreements about abortion are deep because the
disputants are drawing on different non-negotiable starting points about the nature of persons and reality, e.g., that a
fetus has a soul at conception, which manifests their commitment the existence of souls and God, along with certain
beliefs about the reliability of religious sources (Fogelin, 2005). Likewise, some debates between conspiracy theorists
and people who accept official explanations of major political events seem to be rooted in more fundamental disa-
greements about the nature of social reality, such as whether we are regularly deceived by the government, science
and media (see, e.g., Aikin, 2019). Returning to Conspiracy, the proponent of the Wittgensteinian account might say
that Kim, the conspiracy theorist, has as a hinge that there is a worldwide conspiracy which corrupts science and
science communication, so that we should not trust the official channels of scientific information, including scientist's
testimony, peer-reviewed journal articles, and so on. Gwen denies this, and trusts the official channels of scientific
information. It's a hinge for Kim, we might think, because of the normative role it plays in how he epistemically evalu-
ates any of the claims made by scientists, mainstream media, politicians, and so on. It is for a Kim a fixed-point against
which he evaluates any of their claims.
So, the Wittgensteinian account helps to explain the variety of deep disagreement by drawing on the variety of
hinge commitments we might disagree about and their role in facilitating reasons for people's divergent beliefs. The
result is that the account is broad enough to explain why not only certain hypothetical and philosophical disagree-
ments can be deep but why many major real-world political disagreements can be deep as well.
However, there are challenges facing several versions of the Wittgensteinian account. If hinge commitments
play such a basic role in explaining what counts as a good reason for belief or doubt, this might lead one to wonder
whether one could even believe or doubt them in the first place. As Pritchard (2016) has argued, beliefs are by their
nature subject to rational evaluation, like counter-evidence and defeat. If hinge commitments are outside the scope
of standard rational evaluation—like having evidential support, or truth-indicating track-records—this makes it hard
to see how they could be beliefs or other positive doxastic attitudes (e.g., credences). But then, how could there be
deep disagreements? Aren't disagreements genuine only if the conflicting attitudes of the parties are beliefs of some
kind? (see MacFarlane, 2014; Marques, 2014). If this worry takes hold, a version of the Wittgensteinian account that
places hinge commitments outside the scope of epistemic evaluation is in danger of self-subversion: it accounts
for the depth of deep disagreement at the expense of losing its status as genuine disagreement. Since other hinge
epistemologists say that we can believe hinges, or that our hinge commitments involve other kinds of doxastic atti-
tudes, like acceptance (Coliva, 2015), or trust (Wright, 2014), these theories might be better for accommodating deep
disagreement.
One might also worry that the Wittgensteinian account is potentially wedded to controversial epistemological
theories. As we have seen, epistemologists typically think of hinges as outside the scope of standard rational eval-
uation; that is, evaluation in terms of evidence for or against the belief. Put generally, the epistemology of hinges is
non-evidential, in the sense that, if they enjoy an epistemic status at all, it is not an evidential one. 8 But then hinge
epistemology seems to be at odds with ‘evidentialism’, the commonly held view that a belief is rational or justified to
the extent that one's evidence supports it. 9
Another problem is that the Wittgensteinian account seems to be committed to epistemic relativism, the idea
that a belief is justified or unjustified only relative to a framework for evaluating beliefs, and never objectively
(Kusch, 2018; Pritchard, 2011a, 2018). This is because hinge commitments are supposed to be what sets the limit
for rational evaluation. Hinge commitments frame one's conception of which beliefs are justified or unjustified. But
the recognition of deep disagreement seems to force us to recognize a plurality of hinges—that is, cultures with
different hinge commitments. This makes it look like contrary evaluations of our beliefs can be justified, relative to
the evaluator's hinges, whereas our contrary beliefs can also be justified, relative to our hinges. Deep disagreement
would then support epistemic relativism. But epistemic relativism is fraught with significant challenges of its own
(Boghossian, 2006). 10
4.4 | The Epistemic Principles approach
An alternative view is that there is an intimate connection between deep disagreement and epistemic principles. This
is the view that:
Fundamental Epistemic Principles Theory: deep disagreements are disagreements over fundamental
epistemic principles.
More specifically, the Fundamental Epistemic Principle theory says that A and B deeply disagree over p if and
only if they disagree over p and p is a fundamental epistemic principle. An epistemic principle tells us how we should
form our beliefs. Such principles concern what counts as reliable evidence for a given doxastic attitude and/or what
counts as justified belief within a certain domain (Lynch, 2010).
For example, the epistemic principle of tasseography tell us that we can gain justified beliefs about our
fortunes by interpreting the patterns of coffee grounds. We all accept certain epistemic principles when forming
and updating beliefs, so the thought goes, even if we disagree about which epistemic principles are legitimate or
correct.
What makes an epistemic principle ‘fundamental’? Following Lynch (2010, 2016), we can distinguish between
fundamental and non-fundamental epistemic principles as follows. Fundamental epistemic principles are such that
they:
[…] can’t be shown to be true without employing the source that the relevant principle endorses as
reliable. For this reason, explicit defenses of such principles will always be subject to a charge of circu-
larity (Lynch, 2016, p. 250).
These might include: ‘inferential methods like deduction or induction and non-inferential methods, like sense
perception’ (Kappel, 2012, p. 10; Lynch, 2010, p. 264). These methods are fundamental because they can't be shown
to have the target positive epistemic status without relying on the method in question. So, as many contemporary
epistemologists think: ordinary external world beliefs can be justified by sensory experience, but you cannot show
that this belief-forming practice is reliable without employing that very method. As Kappel puts it: ‘the best epistemic
reasons for it are epistemically circular’ (Kappel, 2012, p. 10).
This explains why deep disagreement are persistent: when the disputants try to defend their principles from chal-
lenges, they provide circular reasons that do not convince the other party. There is no shared epistemic background
to call upon to resolve the disagreement. It also explains why deep disagreements are systematic: our fundamental
epistemic principles inform many of our beliefs.
To see how this approach works in practice, consider the Conspiracy case. We can think of Kim's and Gwen's
disagreement about vaccine safety as rooted in their commitment to contrary fundamental epistemic principles. For
example, we might see Kim as denying that peer-reviewed scientific publications and mainstream science media are
trustworthy sources whereas Gwen accepts that they are. Gwen believes “You normally can trust mainstream media
and official expert testimony”, whereas Kim believes “You normally cannot trust mainstream media and official expert
testimony”. When Gwen tries to support her belief that some book or news article is reliable, Kim is liable to ask her
why she believes that such sources are trustworthy, to which Gwen will likely appeal to the testimony of scientists
and the media, something that Kim will regard as question-begging. Likewise, when Gwen challenges Kim's belief, he
will appeal to alternative media sources, which Gwen will challenge as unreliable.
An upside of the Fundamental Epistemic Principle approach is that it appeals to what mainstream epistemology is
already committed to: epistemic principles and doxastic attitudes. It doesn't require the existence of a non-evidential
epistemic status, for example, as hinge epistemology seems to demand, nor does it seem to be committed to epis-
temic relativism. For fundamental epistemic principles might be ‘objective’ in the sense that their correctness is deter-
mined by what the world is like—like reliability or truth-conduciveness—and do not depend upon peoples' attitudes
or epistemic practices.
However, this approach faces a challenge concerning the scope of deep disagreement. Are disagreements deep
only if the disputants disagree (or are committed to disagreeing) over a fundamental epistemic principle? The Funda-
mental Epistemic Principle approach is narrower in scope than the Wittgensteinian approach, as it cannot account
for disagreements that one might want to describe as deep which do not involve fundamental epistemic principles.
Consider the fact that disagreements about fundamental (non-epistemic) normative principles and fundamental
metaphysical principles do not easily fit within the scope of ‘deep disagreement’ given the Fundamental Epistemic
Principle approach, despite the fact that some disagreements about the nature of reality or morality do seem to be
deep in the sense that they are persistent, systematic and that there is a lack of shared background to call upon to
resolve the disagreement. In contrast, the Wittgensteinian approach can describe them as deep. 11
Also note that the number of fundamental epistemic principles is quite limited. Disagreement about fundamental
principles as such will be quite limited in real life (Lagewaard, 2021). This will restrict the number of deep disagree-
ments. However, disagreements about hinge commitments seem to be more prevalent. Whether this is a challenge
to the view depends on how widely one wants to apply the concept of deep disagreement.
4.5 | A Hybrid View
Some philosophers have suggested that there are different varieties of deep disagreement, and that the Wittgenstein-
ian and Epistemic Principle theories account for these different sorts of deep disagreement. Below, well explore these
theories.
According to Smith and Lynch (2021), the ‘core feature’ of deep disagreement is that the kinds of arguments one
could appeal to in ideal cases won't be able to “persuade through epistemically cogent arguments” (Smith & Lynch,
2021, p. 6). Using this core feature, they distinguish three varieties of deep disagreements: (1) principle-level disagree-
ments, (2) sub-principle level disagreements and (3) framework-level disagreements.
Framework-level disagreement corresponds to what we call the Wittgensteinian approach whereas principle-level
disagreements correspond to the Fundamental Epistemic Principle approach.
That leaves sub-principle level disagreement. A sub-principle level disagreement is not over epistemic principles,
but about how to fill in schematic epistemic principles (see Goldman, 2010). For example, it is generally accepted that
there is an epistemic principle concerning the reliability of testimony. This norm looks something like this:
T-norm: For agent A, and recognized authority R, if R says that p, then A should ceteris paribus believe
p (see Smith & Lynch, 2021, p. 4).
But how should A and R be filled in? Suppose a person is brought up in a community where they were taught
by qualified teachers, parents and other authorities that God does not exist and another person is brought up in a
community where they were taught by qualified teachers, parents and other authorities that God exists. Given the
T-norm, they are both justified in their belief. Suppose they meet and recognize that they disagree about whether
God exists. Their higher-order disagreement will not be about the reliability of testimony but about who is a recog-
nized authority. That is, their disagreement will not be about the epistemic principle, but about how to interpret the
epistemic principle. According to Smith & Lynch, if the epistemic position of both parties remain fixed, neither of
them would be able to persuade the other with epistemic reasons alone (Smith & Lynch, 2021, p. 5). This is why the
disagreement is deep.
Notice that sub-principle deep disagreement is a much more inclusive kind of deep disagreement. Indeed, this
leads to an objection: why think that sub-principle ‘deep disagreement’ is really a kind of deep disagreement if they
don't “involve the parties disagreeing over a large class of domains”? (Smith & Lynch, 2021, p. 6).
The reason that such cases will count as a kind of deep disagreement is that the disputants won't be rationally
persuaded by what Smith and Lynch (2021) call “epistemically cogent arguments”, even in ideal cases where neither
disputant is insensitive to evidence, stubborn, or disinterested in truth. Epistemically cogent arguments are argu-
ments whereby the disputant would (if only ideally) recognize the premises as good reasons to believe the conclusion
(see Smith & Lynch, 2021, p. 2). Their point is that the disputants will not recognize the reasons as good. There is, on
their view “no possibility of rational persuasion” in these cases (ibid).
We note that this view may be a downside for those who think that there is a very limited set of deep disa-
greement, or that deep disagreement is always systematic. An upside of a wider notion of deep disagreement is
that it can be more easily linked to other areas in social epistemology, like epistemic injustice. Lagewaard (2021)
argues that there are disagreements that become deep because of epistemic injustice. These can be described as
sub-principle level disagreements. Let's say two people disagree about the occurrence of racism in a specific area (for
example: sports, education, or the housing market). Many would recognize that communities of people of color have
a certain authority in this case, as they are the ones that experience racism. Suppose person A believes that there is
indeed racism in, for example, education, citing the testimony of people of color. Given the T-norm, she is justified
in her belief. Person B believes that there is no racism in education because, due to racist prejudices, she does not
recognize the authority of people of color in education. She instead trusts the testimony of her white peers that tell
her they've never experienced racism in education. Given the T-norm, she might be justified in her belief, although
her interpretation of the norm was caused by testimonial injustice (see Fricker, 2007). The resulting disagreement will
be difficult to resolve with epistemic reasons alone.
5 | LEVELS OF DEPTH
Some disagreements seem deeper than others. We might think that since some deep disagreements are resolved
while others aren't, perhaps there was a difference in just how deep they were (see Duran, 2016). This suggests that
deep disagreements can vary in their relative depths. The idea of deep disagreements with varying levels of depth can
be used to refine the above approaches.
Aikin (2019) describes ‘depth’, in relation to deep disagreement, as a gradable and comparative notion. It is grada-
ble because the disagreement can be more or less deep. It is comparable because some disagreements are deeper than
others. Some disagreements can be profoundly deep while others are a little less deep.
One might worry that the Wittgensteinian approach entails that all deep disagreements are equally deep. This
is because what makes a disagreement deep or not is whether it is over a hinge commitment. However, the
Wittgensteinian can make sense of the idea that some disagreements are deeper than others. Disagreements over
hinges are deeper than disagreements that aren't over hinges. But suppose two people disagree over a subset of
non-hinge propositions that rationally commits them disputants to hinge disagreement. The disagreement about that
subset could be considered ‘deeper’ than ordinary disagreement, but less deep than outright hinge disagreement.
For example, the disagreement about (M) ‘the Moon is a hologram’ is not a deep disagreement according to the
Wittgensteinian account. But the reasons motivating the disagreement over M include different attitudes towards
hinges. The proponent of M thinks that M is true because he's convinced that science is untrustworthy, that our
senses can't be trusted, or perhaps that there is a worldwide conspiracy at play for all major social-political events,
whereas the opponent is convinced that they're wrong about this. So, they're committed to disagreeing about hinges.
Since not all disagreements rationally presuppose disagreement over hinges, we can track the depth of a disagree-
ment by finding out how much distance there is between the disputant's present disagreement and whether they are
thereby rationally committed to disagreeing about hinges. 12
How about the Fundamental Epistemic Principle approach? For this approach, the category ‘deep disagree-
ment’ is reserved for disagreements over fundamental epistemic principles, but fundamentality itself doesn't admit of
degrees since it is a modal property about what cannot be justified non-circularly. There's no room for degrees here.
This approach to deep disagreement will thereby limit which deep disagreements really count as ‘deep’ in real
life. Not many people doubt the reliability of fundamental principles about sense perception or memory, for example.
This severely limits the applicability of the theory. Indeed, many disagreements that we wish to describe as ‘deep’, like
Conspiracy, are not about fundamental epistemic principles, but are nevertheless systematic, persistent and are char-
acterized by a lack of common ground. For example, when people disagree about the reliability of scientific method-
ology, evolutionary biology, mainstream media or the Catholic Church's testimony, these are not about fundamental
principles, but we want to describe some disagreements about these principles as deep.
To counter this kind of worry, Lagewaard (2021) argues that we should widen the Epistemic Principle approach
to include disagreements about ‘relatively fundamental principles’. What are relatively fundamental principles? Like
Lynch's (2016) account, fundamental epistemic principles are those that can only be shown to be reliable by circular
reasoning. However, we can account for levels-of-depth as tracking steps-of-reasoning. When arguing for the most
derived kinds of epistemic principles, like the reliability of a specific weather forecasting app, it takes many argumen-
tative steps to get to fundamental epistemic principles. The more steps you (in principle) need to get to a fundamental
epistemic principle, the less fundamental a principle is. If you only need one or two steps to come to a principle that
can only be argued for in a circular way, that principle could be called relatively fundamental. Why? Because when
disagreeing about such principles you need only a few steps to run into circularity. It will be very difficult to resolve
such disagreement by exchanging reasons that are accepted by both parties. When disagreements about ‘relatively
fundamental principles’ are also considered deep, the fundamental epistemic principle approach can apply the label
‘deep’ to the whole set of disagreements that we want to describe as deep (like the Conspiracy example).
6 | CONCLUSION
We've seen several accounts of deep disagreement. One central idea has stood out: that it’s hard to see how dispu-
tants could persuade each other using epistemic reasons alone because of their lack of common ground. What does
rationality require from us when we find ourselves in deep disagreement? Part 2 explores this question.
ACKNOWLE DG E ME NTS
We'd like to thank an anonymous reviewer of Philosophy Compass for their extremely helpful feedback. Finally, we
thank the Philosophy Compass Editor Alex Guerrero and Area Editor Daniel Greco for their support. Work on this
article was made possible by project EXTREME (Extreme Beliefs: The Epistemology and Ethics of Fundamentalism),
which has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020
research and innovation program (Grant agreement No. 851613) and from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) (Grant
Number 276-20-024).
CO N FLI CT OF I NTE RE ST
We declare that we have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
O RC ID
Chris Ranalli https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5652-4829
END NOTE S
1
Compare with how Lynch (2010) and Pritchard (2011a) discuss the disputant's reasons in their deep disagreement cases.
As Lynch (2010) puts it: “Overt deep epistemic disagreements are marked by epistemic circularity” (Lynch, 2010, p. 270).
2
See Pittard (2019) for characterizing deep disagreements in terms of different fundamental fixed-points. This should be
contrasted with Cuneo & Shafer-Landau's (2014) conception of moral fixed-points, which are necessary for having any
system of moral norms. One might think fixed-points can be epistemic or metaphysical in Pittard's sense by simply being
the propositions that some people in fact presuppose in their theoretical reasoning without thereby taking on the stronger
view that they are necessary for having any system of norms.
3
The connection between deep disagreement and systematicity raises the question: are all systematic disagreements
deep? Arguably not because there can be disagreements about mathematical axioms or principles of logic which
might yield systematic (albeit specialized) mathematical or logical disagreement: a disagreement about, say, the law of
non-contradiction or Leibniz's law is likely to reverberate. Deep disagreement, on the other hand, displays a certain type
of systematicity: the disagreement over p not only commits the disputants to other, interrelated propositions but propo-
sitions that are not so narrow or domain relative. For example, canonical cases about creationism, abortion, or conspiracy
theories reverberate into ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology (cf. Hazlett, 2014). (e.g., some disagreements about abor-
tion rely on claims about the metaphysics of persons, God, morality, and so on; some disagreements about the age of the
earth rely on claims about the reliability of science, the nature of reality, and so on).
4
See Christensen & Lackey (2013) and Feldman & Warfield (2010).
5
These propositions are epistemic and ontological, but several philosophers have extended the notion of hinge commit-
ments so that there can be moral, social or even political hinges. See (Ashton, 2019), (Boncompagni, 2021), (Coliva, 2015)
and (Ranalli, 2022).
6
Albeit this leaves it open that one might have evidence for a hinge commitment. (Neta, 2019) defends this view.
(Hazlett, 2006) defends the view that if H is a hinge commitment for S, there cannot be undermining evidence for H for S,
but there can be rebutting evidence.
7
The nature of hinge commitments is debated. See (Pritchard, 2011b) and (Moyal-Sharrock, 2004) for overviews.
8
Although truth-centered epistemology, like evidentialism and reliabilism, are perhaps epistemological orthodoxy, many
philosophers accept some form of non-evidentialist epistemology in order to deal with skepticism. See (Graham &
Pedersen, 2020) and (Moretti & Pedersen, 2021).
9
Evidentialism was originally defending by (Conee & Feldman, 1985). See (Feldman, 2005) for the application of evidential-
ism to deep disagreement.
10
See Coliva (2015), who tries to overcome relativistic challenges. See also Graham and Pederson (2020), who try to over-
come the worry about entitlement hinge epistemology not being wedded to evidence.
11
See Ranalli (2018) for this objection and a reply. De Ridder (2021) develops a Fundamental Normative Principle theory in
its place.
12
However, see Popa (2022), who thinks that all disagreements are deep.
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AUT HOR BI OGRAPHI E S
Chris Ranalli is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at VU Amsterdam. His research is primarily in epistemol-
ogy and the intersection of epistemology and philosophy of mind and epistemology and ethics. His work has
appeared in American Philosophical Quarterly, Synthese, and Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Mind. He is currently
exploring belief manipulation, skepticism, closed-mindedness and resistance to evidence, and their applications.
He is part of the ERC Extreme Beliefs group, which studies the ethics and epistemology of various ‘extreme’
beliefs and behaviors.
Thirza Lagewaard is a PhD student at VU Amsterdam. She is part of the NWO Knowledgeable Democracy
project. Her research is in social and political epistemology. She focuses on epistemic injustice, deep disagree-
ment, democracy, and feminist epistemology. Her work has appeared in Philosophical Studies and is forthcoming
in the Oxford Handbook of Social Epistemology.
How to cite this article: Ranalli, C., & Lagewaard, T. (2022). Deep Disagreement (Part 1): Theories of Deep
Disagreement. Philosophy Compass, 17(12), e12886. https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12886

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Received: 14 October 2021 Revised: 23 August 2022 Accepted: 1 October 2022

Deep Disagreement (Part 1): Theories of Deep

Chris Ranalli | Thirza Lagewaard

Department of Philosophy, Vrije Universiteit

Philosophy Compass. 2022;17:e12886. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/phc3 1 of 18

3 | WHAT DEEP DISAGREEMENT IS NOT

3.1 | Persistent Disagreement

3.2 | Widespread disagreement

3.3 | Peer Disagreement

Deep disagreement can also be contrasted with peer disagreement. Consider:

4 | THEORIES OF DEEP DISAGREEMENT

4.1 | Not Enough Shared Background

4.2 | Systematicity and Persistence

4.3 | Wittgensteinian Approaches

4.4 | The Epistemic Principles approach

4.5 | A Hybrid View

AUT HOR BI OGRAPHI E S

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