Holding true and holding as true

Our thanks go to Jonathan Malino. We also wish to express our gratitude to the reviewers of Synthese for their exacting and valuable comments.     

Believing and Willing

Henri Bergson and William James were great admirers of each other, and James seemed to think he got valuable ideas from Bergson. But early critics were right to see in Bergson the antithesis of pragmatism. Unfolding this antithesis is a convenient way to study important concepts and innovations in Bergson's philosophy. I concentrate on his ideas of duration and intuition, and show how they prove the necessity of going beyond pragmatism. The reason is because knowledge itself goes beyond the utilitarian limitations in which pragmatism confines it. Knowledge is more than utility, more than adaptation, more than pragmatism, because our cognitive powers prove capable of more than any naturally selected service to survival.     

In-between Believing

For any proposition p , it may sometimes occur that a person is not quite accurately describable as believing that p , nor quite accurately describable as failing to believe that p . I describe such a person as in an 'in-between state of belief'. I argue for the prevalence of in-between states of believing, and assert the need for an account of belief that allows us intelligibly to talk about in-between believing. I suggest that Bayesian and representationalist approaches are inadequate to the task, and that a Rylean dispositional account of belief might do the trick.     

Multi-Centered Worlds,Limited Accessibility and Ways of Believing

Philosophia - Recent descendants of David Lewis, such as Stephen Torre, Dilip Ninan, and Dirk Kindermann have utilized multi-centered propositions, which are roughly sets of possible worlds...     

Believing on trust

The aim of the paper is to propose a way in which believing on trust can ground doxastic justification and knowledge. My focus will be the notion of trust that plays the role depicted by such cases as concerned Hardwig (J Philos 82:335–49, 1985; J Philos 88:693–708, 1991) in his early papers, papers that are often referenced in recent debates in social epistemology. My primary aim is not exegetical, but since it sometimes not so clear what Hardwig’s claims are, I offer some remarks of interpretation that might be of interest. The main purpose of the paper, however, is this: following various cues in Hardwig’s writing, I specify certain epistemic properties of agents in social systems, such that, roughly speaking, for agents to know (or be justified in believing) what the ‘system knows’, social relations of epistemic trust between agents in the system are necessary. I will suggest that we can view this social form of epistemic trust as non-inferential dispositions to believe what some individual or other source of information asserts or transmits. When this disposition is discriminating and defeater-sensitive, it can ground knowledge and justification. Or, more cautiously, we should be sympathetic to this view if we are inclined to accept the core insight of process reliabilism. Finally, I will offer some remarks about how epistemic trust and epistemic reasons may relate on this picture.     

Thinking is Believing

Abstract

The idea that people can entertain propositions without believing them is widespread, intuitive, and most probably false. The main goal of this essay is to argue against the claim that people can entertain a proposition without believing it. Evidence is presented demonstrating that we cannot withhold assent from any proposition we happen to consider. A model of belief fixation is then sketched and used to explain hitherto disparate, recalcitrant and somewhat mysterious psychological phenomena. The proposed model is one where beliefs are the automatic output of a computationally null belief acquisition reflex. In short, the model holds that the mere activation of a mentally represented truth apt proposition leads to immediately believing it. The essay concludes by considering some consequences that the proposed model of belief acquisition has for our concept of rationality.     

Believing in Miracles

Classical Christian definitions of miracle speak of events transcending the natural powers of objects. A personal creator, I argue, might well cause such events in order to achieve a supernatural purpose—bringing creatures to eternal life. Miracles—events transcending natural powers, disclosing and realizing the divine purpose—would then be integral to the rational order of nature. David Hume' arguments against believing reports of miracles are shown to be very weak. Laws of nature, I suggest, are best seen not as exceptionless rules but as context–dependent realizations of natural powers. In that context miracles transcend the natural order not as "violations" but as intelligible realizations of a divine supernatural purpose. Miracles are not parts of scientific theory but can be parts of a web of rational belief fully consistent with science.     

Obedience and Believing a Person

I argue that there is a mutually illuminating parallel between the concept of obedience and the concept of believing a person. Just as both believing what a person says and believing what a person says for the reason that the person says it are insufficient for believing the person, so acting as a person demands and acting as a person demands for the reason that the person demands it are insufficient for obeying the person. Unlike the concept of believing a person, however, the concept of obedience has two distinct senses, one applying to coerced action and one applying to non‐coerced action based on authoritative directives. While the former sense of obedience has no theoretical analogue, the latter sense of obedience can be understood as the practical analogue of the theoretical case of believing a person, making room for a deep parallel between believing and acting on authority.     

Believing the impossible

A version of this paper was read at the Western Division meetings of the APA in April 1990. I am indebted for the comments of my commentator on that occasion, Stephen Hetherington. I am also indebted to Ruth Marcus for helpful correspondence, and to Steven Luper-Foy for comments. Work on the paper was supported by an academic leave from Trinity University.     

Believing the improbable

I would like to thank Brad Armendt, Patrick Maher, Bas Van Fraassen and Joan Weiner for comments on this (and/or earlier versions of this) paper. I have also benefited from conversation and correspondence with Stewart Cohen. Some of the research of which this paper was a product was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.