Disagreement within contemporary analytic philosophy
: a pragmatic perspective

  • Quentin Parker Pharr

Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis (PhD)

Abstract

In this thesis, I offer a new perspective on the extant disagreement within contemporary analytic philosophy - and, in particular, a perspective which is grounded in both the 2009 and 2020 PhilPapers Surveys of David Bourget and David Chalmers (2014; and forthcoming), as well as a tradition that is often disregarded by contemporary analytic philosophers: Pragmatism. I call it “a pragmatic perspective.” Using that perspective, I work through various aspects of the existing philosophical literatures on disagreement in order to evaluate the discipline’s own. On the one hand, I clarify and extend this literature - especially, as it applies to the discipline. But, several gaps are also found and addressed, including: what pragmatic commitments and policies contemporary analytic philosophers might need to make and enact in order to address their disagreement; how disagreement might affect the possession, transferability, and vindication of various collective epistemic/rational goods (for example, collective knowledge or rational consensus); and what consequences such philosophers might be forced to face - both inside and outside of their discipline - if they are unable to possess, transfer, and vindicate all that many epistemic/rational goods. Overall, my results are more grounded conclusions regarding both the nature and extent of the disagreement within the discipline, as well as a clearer understanding of why contemporary analytic philosophers might be right to worry about it and how they might be able to resolve it.
Date of Award30 Nov 2022
Original languageEnglish
Awarding Institution
  • University of St Andrews
SupervisorKevin Andrew Scharp (Supervisor) & Sonia Roca Royes (Supervisor)

Keywords

  • Disagreement
  • Meta-philosophy
  • Analytic philosophy
  • Pragmatism

Access Status

  • Full text open

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