Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy
Belief is Weak
Levi Spectre (The Open University of Israel)
28 April 2014 | 15:00 | Room 411
Abstract
(with John Hawthorne and Daniel Rothschild)
The paper argues against two views about belief: a. entitlement equality—standards for assertion are the same as those for belief. b. a belief knowledge norm—one ought to believe that p only if one knows that p. Three arguments are offered showing that our ordinary notion of belief is too weak, perhaps much too weak, to serve as a standard for assertion and too weak for being governed by a knowledge norm. What emerges from these arguments is a notion of belief that is rational even when doubted, closer to a Bayesian view about belief than might have been expected, and shares properties that are standardly associated with partial (or graded) belief. An account outline of belief that originates from the arguments will be sketched: Believing that p is similar to thinking p likely.
