Abstract
In Belief: A Pragmatic Picture, I define “belief” as information poised to guide relatively attentive, controlled action. Though I admit that this is one of several definitions compatible with science and common speech, I mount a pragmatic argument for its adoption as the best means for structuring egalitarian social relations. I here further explicate and defend the pragmatic view of belief in response to my critics.
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Notes
In fact, Gu et al. operationalize “belief” by equating it for the purposes of their study with exposure to testimony. “Factors that might modulate neural signals in the striatum, such as smokers’ prior beliefs, could also impact reinforcement learning behavior in smokers. To test this hypothesis, we used a within-subject balanced placebo design where we manipulated 24 smokers’ beliefs about the absence or presence of nicotine (belief: told “no nicotine” vs. told “nicotine”) in a denicotinized cigarette or a cigarette with nicotine (cigarette: placebo vs. nicotine) smoked immediately before an fMRI session in four separate visits” (Gu et al. 2015, 2540, emphasis added).
Bain was familiar with the placebo effect and the manifest physiological consequences of belief, hope, and despair (Bain 1894, 671–672).
Actually, there is some evidence that subjects are less than fully convinced of their mistaken view of the ball’s price (see, e.g., De Neys et al. 2013). But Mandelbaum doesn’t discuss degree of belief in this context, so I will indulge his simplifying assumptions.
This was of course also true of the USA’s founding generations. See, e.g., Breen (1997).
For more on this see the discussion of “locked in syndrome” (Zimmerman 2018, 15–16).
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Zimmerman, A. In defense of a pragmatic picture of belief. Philos Stud 177, 449–457 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-019-01402-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-019-01402-0