Daring to doubt! Shaftesbury, doubt, and polite conversation.
Shaftesbury thought that dogmatism was an epistemic vice that violated the norms of good inquiry by inhibiting the proper exercise of reason. One way that Shaftesbury attempted to defend against dogmatic thought and culture was to recommend that society followed the norms of what he called "polite c...
| Published in: | Southern Journal of Philosophy Vol. 63; no. 2; pp. 192 - 211 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Wiley-Blackwell
Jun2025
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=187112302&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 187112302 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00384283 2GW jtl: Southern Journal of Philosophy issn: 00384283 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Jun2025 vid: 63 iid: 2 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell artinfo: ui: 187112302 10.1111/sjp.12621 ppf: 192 ppct: 19 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 285KB tig: atl: Daring to doubt! Shaftesbury, doubt, and polite conversation. aug: au: Maroney, Sean affil: Department of Philosophy, King's College London, London, UK su: Dogmatism Inquiry (Theory of knowledge) Linguistic politeness Virtue epistemology Suspicion Philosophers Social norms Discourse sug: subj: Dogmatism Inquiry (Theory of knowledge) Linguistic politeness Virtue epistemology Suspicion Philosophers Social norms Discourse ab: Shaftesbury thought that dogmatism was an epistemic vice that violated the norms of good inquiry by inhibiting the proper exercise of reason. One way that Shaftesbury attempted to defend against dogmatic thought and culture was to recommend that society followed the norms of what he called "polite conversation." This notion has received a fair amount of scholarship. However, it was not Shaftesbury's only recommendation. The earl accused his contemporaries of being "too lazy and effeminate, and withal a little too cowardly, to dare doubt!" (C 2.108). In so doing, Shaftesbury endorsed doubt. But just what does Shaftesbury mean by this endorsement? What is doubt? Why should we doubt? Under what conditions should we doubt? This article takes seriously Shaftesbury's invocation to doubt and develops an account of doubt that fits systematically within Shaftesbury's social, ethical, epistemic project. Doubt, for Shaftesbury, is an attitude that inoculates against dogmatism much like polite conversation is an activity that inoculates against dogmatic exchange. This article argues that Shaftesbury endorses doubt because it (1) promotes genuine inquiry and (2) motivates polite conversation, which itself tends to produce epistemically good outcomes. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Southern Journal of Philosophy is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Southern Journal of Philosophy holder: Wiley-Blackwell dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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