KATHRIN GLÜER-PAGIN: “Knowledge Resistance and Irrationality”

Abstract

Many Western countries appear to be experiencing deepening political polarization, including fact polarization. Fact polarization is “intense, persistent partisan contestation over facts that admit of scientific evidence” (Kahan 2016, 1). Knowledge resistance -- understood as a form of irrational resistance to the available empirical evidence -- might well be involved, especially when at least one side of a political divide denies robust and easily accessible scientific consensus. And in fact, the explanation of fact polarization most influential in the empirical literature is in terms of (politically) motivated reasoning. Experimental evidence for "the motivated reasoning hypothesis", however, is importantly confounded, and there is a growing number of philosophers questioning explanations of fact polarization in terms of irrationality. In this talk, I will survey these issues and discuss some ideas as to how to "rationalize" the phenomenon.