Abstract

In the fourth chapter I present my own causal analysis of occurrent believing. It utilizes the psychological notion of "attending" while taking advantage of some features of the other two analyses. Attending causes encoding of information which, in turn, causes the acquisition of a multi-track disposition. All of this happens throughout a period of time so that it is itself an event. ;In my concluding chapter I discuss some of the consequences of my view. "Deciding to believe" now deserves another look; the notion of memory should be reviewed to see if it is more like belief than like knowledge; and, by providing an analysis of belief as an event, the causal explanation of human action can now go through. ;In the third chapter I briefly review some aspects of the two types of theories of dispositions--phenomenalist and realist. I give some feasibility arguments for my accepting and using the realist approach. Chief among these is that the realist view is better able to answer the ontological question concerning what makes an object have a disposition . ;In my first chapter I discuss instances of the Traditional analysis. Although their details vary, these views cannot account for standing, long-term beliefs. Since these views all maintain that a belief is some present event, then when the event is absent, so is the belief. Yet one datum that must be accommodated is that we sometimes have beliefs without having an associated present event. ;In my second chapter I discuss some instances of the modern analysis. Again the details vary, but there is the common problem of accounting for one's awareness of his own belief. That is, we seem to often be directly aware of our own beliefs. Yet the dispositional analysis maintains that this is never so. ;The Dispositional or modern analysis of belief does not allow for the above explanation of human action. The relata of causal relations are all and only events. But this dispositional analysis of belief does not allow for belief being anything but a state. Therefore, it cannot handle the above treatment of the causes of action. ;What is required is a revival of the Traditional or occurrent theory without exacerbating the problems that accompany it. What seems in order is a move back to the dispositional analysis. But one must take care here, too, to avoid the existing problems. The end result is a theory of occurrent believing. ;In the history of philosophy there has been a debate over what is the nature of belief. One group of debaters hold that belief is an event . Among supporters of this view are Descartes, Hume, and James. The opposed view is that belief is all and only a mental state . Supporters of this view are Ryle, Price, and Braithwaite . This latter approach to belief has won out in recent times. However, in the last twenty years, another approach to the explanation of human action has had some popularity. This is the causal approach. It maintains that an event is an action if it has certain kinds of causes, namely, some pro attitude, like an intending or a wanting, and a cognitive element, a belief