An Essay on Belief and AcceptanceIn this incisive new monograph one of Britain's most eminent philosophers explores the often overlooked tension between voluntariness and involuntariness in human cognition. He seeks to counter the widespread tendency for analytic epistemology to be dominated by the concept of belief. Is scientific knowledge properly conceived as being embodied, at its best, in a passive feeling of belief or in an active policy of acceptance? Should a jury's verdict declare what its members involuntarily believe or what they voluntarily accept? And should statements and assertions be presumed to express what their authors believe or what they accept? Does such a distinction between belief and acceptance help to resolve the paradoxes of self-deception and akrasia? Must people be taken to believe everything entailed by what they believe, or merely to accept everything entailed by what they accept? Through a systematic examination of these problems, the author sheds new light on issues of crucial importance in contemporary epistemology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science. |
Contents
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE? | 1 |
PURPOSIVE EXPLANATION | 40 |
WHAT COGNITIVE STATE DOES INDICATIVE | 68 |
Copyright | |
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accept that not-p act of acceptance action activity actually adopt agent akrasia appropriate argument attributed behaviour belief and acceptance belief that not-p beliefs and desires Cambridge causal certainly Clarendon Press closed under deducibility cognitive attitude commitment concept of belief conscious consequences context Davidson deceive deception deductive closure deliberations disposition to feel distinction between belief dominating thought evidence evidential example existence feel it true folk psychology goals hypotheses ignoratio elenchi implicit imply infer intellectual dishonesty intention Intentional Stance intuition involuntary irrational Irrationality issue juror kind knowledge logical maxim mind Moore's Paradox moral motive normally normative Oxford p₁ paradox particular perhaps person philosophical possible premiss probability psychology purposive explanation R. M. Hare rational reasons for accepting relevant scientific self-deceit situation someone sometimes speech-act supposed suppressed theory tion trier of fact two-systems analysis uncon unconsciously utterance verdict voluntary W. V. O. Quine