Assertion, belief, and context
pp. 4951-4977
Abstract
This paper argues for a treatment of belief as essentially sensitive to certain features of context. The first part gives an argument that we must take belief to be context-sensitive in the same way that assertion is, if we are to preserve appealing principles tying belief to sincere assertion. In particular, whether an agent counts as believing that p in a context depends on the space of alternative possibilities the agent is considering in that context. One and the same doxastic state may amount to belief that p in one context but not another. The second part of the paper gives a formal treatment of doxastic states, according to which belief is context-sensitive along just these lines. The model is applied to characterize (but not to refute) skeptical arguments.
Publication details
Published in:
Cossara Stefano, Rauzy Jean-Baptiste, Zhang Xiaoxing (2018) Cartesian epistemology. Synthese 195 (11).
Pages: 4951-4977
DOI: 10.1007/s11229-017-1437-5
Full citation:
Clarke Roger (2018) „Assertion, belief, and context“. Synthese 195 (11), 4951–4977.