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 language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 4951-4977 |
Number of pages | 27 |
Journal | Synthese |
Volume | 195 |
Issue number | 11 |
Early online date | 18 May 2017 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 19 Nov 2018 |
Keywords
- assertion
- belief
- contextualism
- sincerity
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Philosophy