When involved in a disagreement, a common reaction is to tell oneself that, given that the information about one's own epistemic standing is clearly superior in both amount and quality to the information about one's opponent's epistemic standing, one is justified in one's confidence that one's view is correct. In line with this natural reaction to disagreement, some contributors to the debate on its epistemic significance have claimed that one can stick to one's guns by relying in part on information about one's first-order evidence and the functioning of one's cognitive capacities. In this article, I argue that such a manoeuvre to settle controversies encounters the problem that both disputants can make use of it, the problem that one may be wrong about one's current conscious experience, and the problem that it is a live possibility that many of one's beliefs are the product of epistemically distorting factors. I also argue that, even if we grant that personal information is reliable, when it comes to real-life rather than idealized disagreements, the extent of the unpossessed information about one's opponent's epistemic standing provides a reason for doubting that personal information can function as a symmetry breaker.

中文翻译：

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个人信息作为分歧中的对称破坏者

当涉及分歧时，一个常见的反应是告诉自己，鉴于关于自己认知立场的信息在数量和质量上都明显优于关于对手认知立场的信息，一个人有理由相信自己的观点是正确的。与这种对分歧的自然反应一致，一些对其认知意义进行辩论的贡献者声称，一个人可以通过部分依赖关于一个人的一阶证据和一个人的认知能力功能的信息来坚持自己的立场。在本文中，我认为这种解决争议的策略遇到了双方都可以利用它的问题，一个人可能对自己当前的意识体验有误的问题，还有一个问题是，一个人的许多信念是认知扭曲因素的产物，这是一种活生生的可能性。我还认为，即使我们承认个人信息是可靠的，但当涉及到现实生活而不是理想化的分歧时，关于对手认知地位的未掌握信息的范围提供了一个怀疑个人信息可以作为对称破坏者。