Why do you think the issues involved here are different than those in other academic fields?

I don't. The same issues exist in, e.g., physics when experimental validation is not easily available. For a recent example, see John Preskill's account of the recent conference about the black hole firewall paradox. But in physics there is at least a hope of experimental phenomena being predicted eventually and settling the argument. In philosophy there no such hope, so it's a cleaner setup for studying the question

what makes an argument persuasive to some scientists and not to others?