भूः भुवः स्वः

Suppose you are really confident that p. You encounter a person - whom you consider as smart and well-informed as yourself - who is as confident as you that p. Question: How should this fact of agreement bear evidentially on some of your existing beliefs? Let's consider two of them:  B1 - high confidence that p B2 - high confidence that the person I just met is as smart and well-informed as I am (call it q). To the extent disagreement over a proposition puts us in a position of reducing our confidence in the proposition, for the sake of parity,  agreements should move us to increase our confidence in the proposition. Thus, you should become even more confident in p compared to your earlier confidence-level. How should (dis)agreements bear on B2? This is an extremely controversial question. However, there is a plausible suggestion which is consistent across cases of agreements and disagreements  relevant to judgements about peerhood (i.e. q) - To the extent your peer agre...