it’s still stalling, because they should start with the argument that would best rebut the same claim by someone who was “allowed in the discourse.” this modification is trivial and doesn’t make epistemic stalling a non-thing, i.e. people obviously do in fact do this.
To follow-up, you’ll need to justify that “they should start the argument with what would best rebut the same claim by someone who was ‘allowed in the discourse’”. That’s a normative claim that your original post doesn’t justify. It likely can be justified, but you haven’t yet done that.
Also, their starting with the claim that would be the best rebuttal is an act of allowing you into the discourse. If they believe you aren’t allowed in the discourse, they won’t let you in. So, your justification of the normative claim needs to remain sensitive to their sincerely held beliefs about the relevant discursive norms.
They aren’t trying to stall for time. They are trying to maintain appropriate boundaries.
the burden of evidence doesn’t change by who is “allowed” into a discussion. if I make a claim about the migration patterns of birds the evidence required for this claim is going to be the same regardless of who is hearing it. if I make a claim about the inequalities in society this doesn’t change. they’re both empirical claims and both have the same kinds of evidential requirements. if someone is trying to “maintain appropriate boundaries”, whatever that means, making empirical claims is probably the opposite of that.
this idea of being “allowed in the discourse” is a nonsequitur. if you need to be “allowed” to make truth claims, what you’re doing isn’t a truthseeking or epistemic practice, so it’s not something that terms relating to epistemic hygiene describe in any sense and only relevant in as an instance of misinterpretation. this is akin to saying that if someone says you can’t dance with them at an event that a canned line about their refusal to provide evidence, such as “you can google it” — perhaps “it” refers to the dance steps — doesn’t necessarily describe bad epistemic practice. well, duh. but dancing isn’t an epistemic activity, so it’s a left-field objection anyway.
I think your article is poorly written, and its unclarity is causing confusion between you, me, and the others.
Discourse norms, some of which govern who is allowed in the conversation, are relevant. It is not a non sequitur. It is relevant, because you are making normative claims about discourse and what kinds of claims interlocutors are supposed to begin with. Specifically, one claim you are making is that interlocutors are supposed to begin with content-relevant, information-optimized claims.
I’ve offered a contrary consideration. Some interlocutors rightly begin with permissibility claims about who is allowed into the conversation at all. I think this is where your poor writing runs us afoul. You don’t sufficiently describe your one and only discursive example:
“here’s a common claim where it’s just a matter of time until some piece of information dismisses it: ‘you’re just saying that because you’re white.’”
Are these interlocutors already passed the pre-discursive permissibility claims stage? Are they literally just now speaking, as though the objector overheard someone speaking, thought that the speaker was participating in something for which they have no permission, and is claiming a norm violation? It is not clear.
Now that I have read more of your comments, your intention is clearer. I think you are claiming that “Epistemic stalling” occurs only after pre-discursive permissibility claims, only during content-relevant critical discussion of knowledge and belief claims—only during active truth-seeking. Am I right this is what you are trying to say?
If so, my objection is that the kinds of language used during active truth-seeking is often indistinguishable from the kinds of language used during pre-discursive considerations. “You aren’t allowed in this conversation because you are white.” That claim isn’t epistemic stalling so long as it is made prior to active truth-seeking. So, whether a claim is epistemic stalling depends on the stage of in discourse the claim is made. That should be a reasonable objection to your analysis of epistemic stalling.
A second example is from one of my previous comments. If I am distracting a security guard by saying things like, “Oh, you are just saying that because you are white,” what I am doing is stalling, but not epistemic stalling, because I’m not engaged with the security guard in a mutual project of active truth-seeking. Again, it turns out that whether a claim ”… because you are white …” is epistemic stalling depends at least in part on where the claim is made. Your article does not discuss these kinds of issues. If you feel strongly about the topic, I would suggest revising this article with a keen eye on fleshing out some of these over-looked details.
Alfred, to be frank, your article is unclear and poorly written. Dagon, for example, thinks the political/non-political examples matter. They think that partly because your article is unclear. You should take more seriously their confusion as what-not-to-do in the future. Write with greater clarity.
I think you write unclearly on semi-intentional purpose. Your communication strategy seems to be: write something unclear, then explain why the audience (in this case commenters) misunderstood you. That’s how you responded to Christian, to Dagon, and to Big Steve.
I think you are wrong about epistemic stalling, but you’ve only explained why I misunderstood what you said. That’s a non-sequitur response on your part.
Consider your red/purple/fuschia example you gave to Dagon. What truthseeking activity is going on in the example? They are trying to figure out which color pops? That’s a silly way to interpret their conversation. They’re trying to decide which colors to wear—that’s not a truthseeking activity.
Also, after further thought, isn’t calling out the identity issue about “argon” and “Big Steve” epistemic stalling? Here we are, you and I, engaged in a truthseeking activity & you offer an objection easily refuted given enough time. How isn’t that epistemic stalling?
if you need to be “allowed” to make truth claims, what you’re doing isn’t a truthseeking or epistemic practice
This would imply that a court of law that has specific rules about who is allowed to make what claims and has specific kinds of burdens of evidence isn’t a truth seeking enterprise.
The quality of the rules of discourse in a court of law are better then those rules of discourse that disallow non-whites from voicing certain opinions but in both cases, participants in the discourse believe that arguments have to follow certain standards.
• courts of laws aren’t primarily truthseeking practices. as in, courts fulfill a governmental function primarily and the truth is auxiliary. they can be truthseeking, but they aren’t by design. the adversarial system for example is antithetical to truthseeking, because attorneys have no obligation to the whole truth. lying by omission is permitted.
• even if they were, what you’re trying to get at—analogizing the role of demographic qualities to licensing credentials—doesn’t hold here. a steelman of your argument would be that licensing means lawyers can more deftly handle certain kinds of evidence, so their licensure is a shortcut because we know to listen to them over someone else. this would NOT mean that their licensure makes some claim correct. for this analogy to hold, “you’re just saying that because you’re not a lawyer” would have to be a coherent objection. there are very few instances where this objection would be relevant to the truth of any claim and even in those objections, the truth of the claim that “you’re just saying that because” rebuts wouldn’t depend on who is “allowed in the discourse”, it would be a descriptive explanation of the origin of their interlocutor’s ignorance.
Court have a system for seeking truth when participants are adversarial and rules that have intention of producing truth under those conditions. While it’s not the only goal that courts have truth finding is one of the major goals. In situations where participants are adversial it’s useful to have a system that takes that into account.
“Objection, this is hearsay” is a move that you can use in court to shut down a witness. It’s a principle where people who don’t have direct experience about whether something is true are not allowed to say what they want over it.
It’s similar in nature to the complaint that someone speaks about something where they lack certain direct experience because they are white.
it’s still stalling, because they should start with the argument that would best rebut the same claim by someone who was “allowed in the discourse.” this modification is trivial and doesn’t make epistemic stalling a non-thing, i.e. people obviously do in fact do this.
To follow-up, you’ll need to justify that “they should start the argument with what would best rebut the same claim by someone who was ‘allowed in the discourse’”. That’s a normative claim that your original post doesn’t justify. It likely can be justified, but you haven’t yet done that.
Also, their starting with the claim that would be the best rebuttal is an act of allowing you into the discourse. If they believe you aren’t allowed in the discourse, they won’t let you in. So, your justification of the normative claim needs to remain sensitive to their sincerely held beliefs about the relevant discursive norms.
They aren’t trying to stall for time. They are trying to maintain appropriate boundaries.
the burden of evidence doesn’t change by who is “allowed” into a discussion. if I make a claim about the migration patterns of birds the evidence required for this claim is going to be the same regardless of who is hearing it. if I make a claim about the inequalities in society this doesn’t change. they’re both empirical claims and both have the same kinds of evidential requirements. if someone is trying to “maintain appropriate boundaries”, whatever that means, making empirical claims is probably the opposite of that.
this idea of being “allowed in the discourse” is a nonsequitur. if you need to be “allowed” to make truth claims, what you’re doing isn’t a truthseeking or epistemic practice, so it’s not something that terms relating to epistemic hygiene describe in any sense and only relevant in as an instance of misinterpretation. this is akin to saying that if someone says you can’t dance with them at an event that a canned line about their refusal to provide evidence, such as “you can google it” — perhaps “it” refers to the dance steps — doesn’t necessarily describe bad epistemic practice. well, duh. but dancing isn’t an epistemic activity, so it’s a left-field objection anyway.
I think your article is poorly written, and its unclarity is causing confusion between you, me, and the others.
Discourse norms, some of which govern who is allowed in the conversation, are relevant. It is not a non sequitur. It is relevant, because you are making normative claims about discourse and what kinds of claims interlocutors are supposed to begin with. Specifically, one claim you are making is that interlocutors are supposed to begin with content-relevant, information-optimized claims.
I’ve offered a contrary consideration. Some interlocutors rightly begin with permissibility claims about who is allowed into the conversation at all. I think this is where your poor writing runs us afoul. You don’t sufficiently describe your one and only discursive example:
“here’s a common claim where it’s just a matter of time until some piece of information dismisses it: ‘you’re just saying that because you’re white.’”
Are these interlocutors already passed the pre-discursive permissibility claims stage? Are they literally just now speaking, as though the objector overheard someone speaking, thought that the speaker was participating in something for which they have no permission, and is claiming a norm violation? It is not clear.
Now that I have read more of your comments, your intention is clearer. I think you are claiming that “Epistemic stalling” occurs only after pre-discursive permissibility claims, only during content-relevant critical discussion of knowledge and belief claims—only during active truth-seeking. Am I right this is what you are trying to say?
If so, my objection is that the kinds of language used during active truth-seeking is often indistinguishable from the kinds of language used during pre-discursive considerations. “You aren’t allowed in this conversation because you are white.” That claim isn’t epistemic stalling so long as it is made prior to active truth-seeking. So, whether a claim is epistemic stalling depends on the stage of in discourse the claim is made. That should be a reasonable objection to your analysis of epistemic stalling.
A second example is from one of my previous comments. If I am distracting a security guard by saying things like, “Oh, you are just saying that because you are white,” what I am doing is stalling, but not epistemic stalling, because I’m not engaged with the security guard in a mutual project of active truth-seeking. Again, it turns out that whether a claim ”… because you are white …” is epistemic stalling depends at least in part on where the claim is made. Your article does not discuss these kinds of issues. If you feel strongly about the topic, I would suggest revising this article with a keen eye on fleshing out some of these over-looked details.
argon, please use a consistent name across all media. if I had known this Big Steve account was you, it would have saved me a lot of time.
Why should it matter who Big Steve is?
Alfred, to be frank, your article is unclear and poorly written. Dagon, for example, thinks the political/non-political examples matter. They think that partly because your article is unclear. You should take more seriously their confusion as what-not-to-do in the future. Write with greater clarity.
I think you write unclearly on semi-intentional purpose. Your communication strategy seems to be: write something unclear, then explain why the audience (in this case commenters) misunderstood you. That’s how you responded to Christian, to Dagon, and to Big Steve.
I think you are wrong about epistemic stalling, but you’ve only explained why I misunderstood what you said. That’s a non-sequitur response on your part.
Consider your red/purple/fuschia example you gave to Dagon. What truthseeking activity is going on in the example? They are trying to figure out which color pops? That’s a silly way to interpret their conversation. They’re trying to decide which colors to wear—that’s not a truthseeking activity.
Also, after further thought, isn’t calling out the identity issue about “argon” and “Big Steve” epistemic stalling? Here we are, you and I, engaged in a truthseeking activity & you offer an objection easily refuted given enough time. How isn’t that epistemic stalling?
This would imply that a court of law that has specific rules about who is allowed to make what claims and has specific kinds of burdens of evidence isn’t a truth seeking enterprise.
The quality of the rules of discourse in a court of law are better then those rules of discourse that disallow non-whites from voicing certain opinions but in both cases, participants in the discourse believe that arguments have to follow certain standards.
• courts of laws aren’t primarily truthseeking practices. as in, courts fulfill a governmental function primarily and the truth is auxiliary. they can be truthseeking, but they aren’t by design. the adversarial system for example is antithetical to truthseeking, because attorneys have no obligation to the whole truth. lying by omission is permitted.
• even if they were, what you’re trying to get at—analogizing the role of demographic qualities to licensing credentials—doesn’t hold here. a steelman of your argument would be that licensing means lawyers can more deftly handle certain kinds of evidence, so their licensure is a shortcut because we know to listen to them over someone else. this would NOT mean that their licensure makes some claim correct. for this analogy to hold, “you’re just saying that because you’re not a lawyer” would have to be a coherent objection. there are very few instances where this objection would be relevant to the truth of any claim and even in those objections, the truth of the claim that “you’re just saying that because” rebuts wouldn’t depend on who is “allowed in the discourse”, it would be a descriptive explanation of the origin of their interlocutor’s ignorance.
Court have a system for seeking truth when participants are adversarial and rules that have intention of producing truth under those conditions. While it’s not the only goal that courts have truth finding is one of the major goals. In situations where participants are adversial it’s useful to have a system that takes that into account.
“Objection, this is hearsay” is a move that you can use in court to shut down a witness. It’s a principle where people who don’t have direct experience about whether something is true are not allowed to say what they want over it.
It’s similar in nature to the complaint that someone speaks about something where they lack certain direct experience because they are white.