Developing original accounts of the many aspects of belief, On
Believing puts the believer at the heart of the story. Hunter argues
that to believe something is to be in position to do, think, and feel
things in light of a possibility whose obtaining would make one right.
The logical aspect is that being right depends only on whether that
possibility obtains. The psychological one concerns how that
possibility can rationalise what one does, thinks, and feels. But,
Hunter argues, beliefs are not causes, capacities, or dispositions.
Rather, believing rationalises because possibilities are potential
reasons. Hunter also denies that believing is a form of representing.
The objects of belief are possibilities, not representations, and
belief states are not themselves true or false. Hunter defends this
modal view against familiar objections and explores how objective and
subjective limits to belief generate credal illusions and ground
credal necessities. Developing a novel account of the normativity of
belief, he argues that voluntary acts of inference make us responsible
for our beliefs. While denying that believing is intrinsically
normative, Hunter grounds the ethics of belief in attributive
goodness. Believing something is to our credit when it shows us to be
good in some way, and what we ought to believe depends on what we
ought to know, and not on the evidence we have. The ethics of belief,
Hunter argues, concern how a believer ought to be positioned in a
world of possibilities.
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Being Right in a World of Possibilities
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780192675613
Publisert
2022
Utgiver
Vendor
OUP Oxford
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter