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Morally Respectful Listening and its Epistemic Consequences
Author(s) -
Barry Galen
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
the southern journal of philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.281
H-Index - 21
eISSN - 2041-6962
pISSN - 0038-4283
DOI - 10.1111/sjp.12355
Subject(s) - surprise , active listening , epistemology , openness to experience , phenomenon , interpretation (philosophy) , context (archaeology) , psychology , proposition , reflective listening , appreciative listening , informational listening , social psychology , philosophy , linguistics , communication , paleontology , listening comprehension , biology
This paper focuses on the phenomenon of morally respectful listening. I defend a specific requirement for respectful listening in the context of disagreement. According to it, when listening occurs in the context of disagreement, the morally respectful listener must be open to the possibility that the speaker will surprise the listener with her positive epistemic qualities. That is, the listener must be open to what I call “epistemic surprise.” I also argue for a specific interpretation of this openness: to be open to epistemic surprise is to be open to unexpected changes in confidence levels concerning the proposition in question. I close by arguing that respectful listening is incompatible with a listener's being certain, and I apply this conclusion to three recent debates in epistemology to show that the phenomenon of listening has potentially far‐reaching consequences for epistemology.