The Persistent Interlocutor

Job de Grefte*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

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    Abstract

    A Persistent Interlocutor (PI) is someone who, in argumentative contexts, does not cease to question her opponent’s premises. The epistemic relevance of the PI has been debated throughout the history of philosophy. Pyrrhonians famously claim that our inability to dialectically vindicate our claims against a PI implies scepticism. Adam Leite disagrees (2005). Michael Resorla argues that the debate is based on a false premise (2009). In this paper, I argue that these views all fail to accurately account for the epistemic relevance of the PI. I then briefly present an account that aims to do better in this regard, based on the modal notion of safety. On the account proposed, the PI does not violate epistemic or dialectical norms. Rather, her behaviour tends to be epistemically perverse in the sense that it wastes cognitive resources. Perhaps surprisingly, this defect turns out not to be unique to the PI.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)53-68
    Number of pages16
    JournalArgumentation
    Volume37
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Mar-2023

    Keywords

    • Dialectical norms
    • Epistemic norms
    • Persistent interlocutor
    • Safety

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