Plato distinguished between opinion or common belief (doxa) and
certain knowledge, and that’s still a workable distinction today: unlike
“1+1=2” or “there are no square circles,” an opinion has a degree of
subjectivity and uncertainty to it. But “opinion” ranges from tastes or
preferences, through views about questions that concern most people such
as prudence or politics, to views grounded in technical expertise, such
as legal or scientific opinions.
You can’t really argue about the first kind of opinion. I’d be silly
to insist that you’re wrong to think strawberry ice cream is better than
chocolate. The problem is that sometimes we implicitly seem to take
opinions of the second and even the third sort to be unarguable in the
way questions of taste are. Perhaps that’s one reason (no doubt there
are others) why enthusiastic amateurs think they’re entitled to disagree
with climate scientists and immunologists and have their views
“respected.”
o resto está aqui.
o resto está aqui.

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