Still No Hope for Conciliationism

Conciliatory views of peer disagreement (aka Conciliationism) have repeatedly been challenged on the grounds that they are epistemically self-undermining. Recently, Dixon (2024) argues that this challenge is worse than previously thought: it is (almost certainly) permanent and this provides strong reason to abandon Conciliationism as (almost certainly) hopeless. In response, Justin (2025, Episteme) argues that the self-undermining challenge and Dixon’s arguments, at best, only apply to the belief-suspension versions of Conciliationism but not to degree-of-belief (aka credal) versions of Conciliationism. Thus, not only can Conciliationists largely avoid the self-undermining challenge but, contra Dixon, this challenge also does not provide adequate reason to abandon Conciliationism as hopeless. This paper argues that not only can the self-undermining challenge be reformulated to apply to credal versions of Conciliationism, this reformulated challenge extends and further supports Dixon’s pessimism: because there (almost certainly) is or will be peer disagreement on any way of responding to this reformulated challenge, any response (almost certainly) be defeated by the very view it is attempting to defend. Thus, credal Conciliationism is also (almost certainly) permanently self-undermining and there is (almost certainly) still no hope for Conciliationism.