Against the Phenomenal View of Evidence: Disagreement and Shared Evidence

In Kevin McCain, Scott Stapleford & Matthias Steup (eds.), Seemings: New Arguments, New Angles. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 54–62 (2023)
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Abstract

On the phenomenal view of evidence, seemings are evidence. More precisely, if it seems to S that p, S has evidence for p. Here, I raise a worry for this view of evidence; namely, that it has the counterintuitive consequence that two people who disagree would rarely, if ever, share evidence. This is because almost all differences in beliefs would involve differences in seemings. However, many literatures in epistemology, including the disagreement literature and the permissivism literature, presuppose that people who disagree often do share evidence. I conclude that this is a reason to question the phenomenal view of evidence.

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Elizabeth Jackson
Toronto Metropolitan University

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