Abstract
I argue that Sui-Generis Views are preferrable to Non-Belief and Higher-Order Belief Views because of the three dominant contemporary conceptions of agnosticism, only Sui-Generis Views leave room for the possibility of agnosticism-involving doxastic inconsistency. In order to establish that this constitutes a point in favour of Sui-Generis Views, this paper offers a sustained argument in support of the thesis that doxastic inconsistency consistency involving (dis)believing P and agnosticism towards P is possible. The paper concludes by responding to Thomas Raleigh’s argument against the possibility of agnosticism-involving doxastic inconsistency.
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Notes
For a detailed description of my preferred version of the Sui-Generis View, see Archer (2022).
For discussion, see Friedman (2017).
See and cf. Bergmann (2005).
See and cf. Hájek (1998).
Markman and Duke (2016: 216).
Markman and Duke (2016: 215).
It is worth emphasizing that one need not believe that inquiry is a sufficient condition for agnosticism to acknowledge that inquiring into some question is strongly correlated with agnosticism with respect to the question. Recall, the present argument only requires that the present description of Lisa be psychologically possible, not inevitable.
Lee (2020: 7).
Brown (2008: 176).
It is worth noting that the compossibility thesis defended in this paper is consistently not only with Lee’s rejection of the possibility of occurrently believing P at t and wondering whether P at t, but also with the rejection of the compossibility of occurrently believing P at t and occurrently being agnostic towards P at t. Indeed, for the cognitive mechanism of mental fragmentation to successfully facilitate a case of doxastic inconsistency, I believe that at least one of the two inconsistent states must be non-occurrent.
Lee (2020: 12).
Raleigh (2021: 10).
References
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Chisholm, R. (1976). Person and object. La Salle, IL: Open Court.
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Lee, W. (2020). Belief and settledness. Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2020.1772865
Markman, A., & Duke, R. (2016). Brain briefs : Answers to the most (and least) pressing questions about your mind. Sterling.
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Raleigh, T. (2021). Suspending is believing. Synthese, 198, 2449–2474.
Wedgwood, R. (2002). The aim of belief. Philosophical Perspectives, 16, 267–297.
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Archer, A. Agnosticism-Involving Doxastic Inconsistency. Erkenn (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-023-00745-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-023-00745-9