ISBN : 9780198807957
When we should engage with those we disagree with? We sometimes dismiss particularly controversial speakers and ideas without bothering to engage critically with those speakers and ideas-without, say, taking time to figure out where any arguments for those controversial ideas go wrong. Jeremy Fantl argues that we can know that arguments for controversial ideas go wrong even without engaging critically with them or figuring out where they err. Further, when we know that some argument goes wrong, we sometimes shouldn't engage critically with that argument and, if we do engage, we shouldn't engage open-mindedly.
Part I: The Epistemology of Open-Mindedness
1 Open-Mindedness
2 A Defense of (a different kind of) Dogmatism
3 The Epistemic Efficacy of Amateurism
4 Psychic Phenomena and the Existence of God
Part II: The Ethics of Participation in Argumentation
5 The Obligation to Engage
6 Against Open-Minded Engagement (for Some People)
7 Against Closed-Minded Engagement (in Some Situations)
8 On Inviting Problematic Speakers to Campus