Your solution doesn’t work, because you assume there is a lawlike phenomenon. Goodman wrote, “Plainly, then, we must look for a way of distinguishing lawlike from accidental statements.” This means you can’t just assume there is a lawlike phenomenon. Rather, you must offer some means of distinguishing lawlike from accidental phenomena.
Big Steve
Karma: 1
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?
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.
I think you are right about the non-usefulness of the concept “epistemic stalling”, although I think there are good-faith and sincere uses for the phenomenon Alfred is discussing, the phenomenon of making identity-based claims like “but you’re white”. You and I can let bygones by bygones about it while agreeing that this post needs to be revised with an enriched description of the intended phenomenon. As written, the post does not adequately describe its subject, and this lack of clarity leads to confusion and misinterpretation. Furthermore, the (sparse) content that is clear seems wrong and beside the point. Anyway, good discussion we had. Until next time!
Do you think romantic, relationship-based examples would help? Like, a boyfriend who gets a text, then his partner asks about that text, but then the boyfriend responds with something like “Omgosh, you are too nosy!” That seems a little bit like epistemic stalling (although, personally, I think Alfred is wrong about epistemic stalling).
So, I guess I am addressing your comment with two questions. First, do you think Alfred will think that my example is an example of epistemic stalling? Second, given what Alfred wrote about epistemic stalling, do you personally think my example should qualify as an example of epistemic stalling?
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.
That is a good point. Below, I related epistemic stalling to intentionality, but I also agree with your response. The reason why people say things like “but you’re white” often isn’t to offer some form of argumentative justification. Rather, people say those things to function like barriers to entry: only non-whites allowed.
There are, of course, ethical issues around that kind of response, but this post is about the pragmatics of speech, not its ethics. Still, this post seems to get wrong, as you point out, the actual pragmatics of why people do what is called “epistemic stalling”.
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.
lmao epic, TAG. somehow—both you and me found this 5 year old article & commented on it in the past 6 hours