Assertion, Belief, and Context

Roger Clarke

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

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Abstract

This paper argues for a treatment of belief as essentially sensitive to certain features of context. The first part gives an argument that we must take belief to be context-sensitive in the same way that assertion is, if we are to preserve appealing principles tying belief to sincere assertion. In particular, whether an agent counts as believing that p in a context depends on the space of alternative possibilities the agent is considering in that context. One and the same doxastic state may amount to belief that p in one context but not another. The second part of the paper gives a formal treatment of doxastic states, according to which belief is context-sensitive along just these lines. The model is applied to characterize (but not to refute) skeptical arguments.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)4951-4977
Number of pages27
JournalSynthese
Volume195
Issue number11
Early online date18 May 2017
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 19 Nov 2018

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Alternative Possibilities
Skeptical Arguments

Keywords

  • assertion
  • belief
  • contextualism
  • sincerity

Cite this

Clarke, Roger. / Assertion, Belief, and Context. In: Synthese. 2018 ; Vol. 195, No. 11. pp. 4951-4977.
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Clarke, R 2018, 'Assertion, Belief, and Context', Synthese, vol. 195, no. 11, pp. 4951-4977. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-017-1437-5

Assertion, Belief, and Context. / Clarke, Roger.

In: Synthese, Vol. 195, No. 11, 19.11.2018, p. 4951-4977.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

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Clarke R. Assertion, Belief, and Context. Synthese. 2018 Nov 19;195(11):4951-4977. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-017-1437-5

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  • Assertion, belief, and context

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