You should address the relationship between intention and stalling. Using your example, suppose I’m the ‘stalling’ objector, but I sincerely believe whiteness matters and haven’t considered how to respond to a non-white person making the objection. I would give all the same objections you mentioned, but with sincerity. Does this count as epistemic stalling?
In your discussion here, intentionality is entirely unmentioned and absent. Intentionality’s relationship to epistemic stalling is important, because half of your post is about how to avoid epistemic stalling. If epistemic stalling implies intentionality, then people who engage in epistemic stalling won’t follow your advice—they are intentionally stalling in the first place! If epistemic stalling doesn’t imply intentionality, then sincere but poorly reasoned objectors will be (wrongly, I believe) accused of stalling. If intentionality doesn’t matter, then I think you are wrong about epistemic stalling. Stalling in non-epistemic contexts is intentional. I’m “stalling for time” when I distract a security guard while my friend escapes through the back. Since epistemic stalling is a kind of stalling, I would similarly expect epistemic stalling to imply intentionality.
people who procrastinate, including me and probably you and most people reading this, do so in a semi-intentional state where they’re half-aware and might be more aware if prompted but can easily suppress awareness further too. intention is not binary. at the point of performance, procrastinators (so, all of us) aren’t actively thinking “I’m procrastinating” nor are they aware that they’re explicitly making choices to do that. but, if a person interrupts them to let them know they’re doing that, their consciousness might be shaken enough to stop the behavior. (of course, we can train ourselves to do that too, and it’s obviously much harder.)
I didn’t address intentionality because I don’t think the binary states of intentional or unintentional are helpful in stopping it. most people don’t make fallacies or other acts of bad epistemic practice in completely intentional or completely unintentional modes. they often have some vague awareness that what they’re doing is off but, like someone who is procrastinating, they’re probably not going to scrutinize their intentions further unless they have the vocabulary and concepts to do so quickly. this purpose of post is to provide both.
You should address the relationship between intention and stalling. Using your example, suppose I’m the ‘stalling’ objector, but I sincerely believe whiteness matters and haven’t considered how to respond to a non-white person making the objection. I would give all the same objections you mentioned, but with sincerity. Does this count as epistemic stalling?
In your discussion here, intentionality is entirely unmentioned and absent. Intentionality’s relationship to epistemic stalling is important, because half of your post is about how to avoid epistemic stalling. If epistemic stalling implies intentionality, then people who engage in epistemic stalling won’t follow your advice—they are intentionally stalling in the first place! If epistemic stalling doesn’t imply intentionality, then sincere but poorly reasoned objectors will be (wrongly, I believe) accused of stalling. If intentionality doesn’t matter, then I think you are wrong about epistemic stalling. Stalling in non-epistemic contexts is intentional. I’m “stalling for time” when I distract a security guard while my friend escapes through the back. Since epistemic stalling is a kind of stalling, I would similarly expect epistemic stalling to imply intentionality.
people who procrastinate, including me and probably you and most people reading this, do so in a semi-intentional state where they’re half-aware and might be more aware if prompted but can easily suppress awareness further too. intention is not binary. at the point of performance, procrastinators (so, all of us) aren’t actively thinking “I’m procrastinating” nor are they aware that they’re explicitly making choices to do that. but, if a person interrupts them to let them know they’re doing that, their consciousness might be shaken enough to stop the behavior. (of course, we can train ourselves to do that too, and it’s obviously much harder.)
I didn’t address intentionality because I don’t think the binary states of intentional or unintentional are helpful in stopping it. most people don’t make fallacies or other acts of bad epistemic practice in completely intentional or completely unintentional modes. they often have some vague awareness that what they’re doing is off but, like someone who is procrastinating, they’re probably not going to scrutinize their intentions further unless they have the vocabulary and concepts to do so quickly. this purpose of post is to provide both.