The Normativity of Belief and Self-Fulfilling Normative Beliefs

Canadian Journal of Philosophy 39 (S1):189-212 (2009)
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Abstract

As Descartes famously pointed out in the Second Meditation, the thought that someone is thinking is true anytime anyone thinks it. Furthermore, thinking it makes it true. Conversely, anytime anyone thinks that it is not the case that someone is thinking, this thought is false, and thinking it makes it false.l will argue that the propositions ‘There is at least one true normative proposition’ and ‘There are no true normative propositions’ have very similar properties. The proposition ‘There is at least one true normative proposition,’ like the proposition ‘Someone is thinking,’ is true anytime anyone believes it, and, in an important sense, it is made true by someone's believing it. Conversely, anytime anyone believes that there are no true normative propositions, the proposition he believes is false and his believing it makes it false.

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Citations of this work

Surprising Suspensions: The Epistemic Value of Being Ignorant.Christopher Willard-Kyle - 2021 - Dissertation, Rutgers University - New Brunswick
Against the Doctrine of Infallibility.Christopher Willard-Kyle - 2021 - Philosophical Quarterly 71 (4):pqaa082.

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References found in this work

Metaphysical Dependence: Grounding and Reduction.Gideon Rosen - 2010 - In Bob Hale & Aviv Hoffmann (eds.), Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, and Epistemology. Oxford University Press. pp. 109-135.
Doxastic deliberation.Nishi Shah & J. David Velleman - 2005 - Philosophical Review 114 (4):497-534.
How truth governs belief.Nishi Shah - 2003 - Philosophical Review 112 (4):447-482.
The Possibility of Practical Reason.J. David Velleman - 2000 - Philosophical Studies 121 (3):263-275.
A new argument for evidentialism.Nishi Shah - 2006 - Philosophical Quarterly 56 (225):481–498.

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