Defending Evidence-Resistant Beliefs

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 99 (3):517-537 (2016)
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Abstract

There is a view in the literature around beliefs that evidence responsiveness is a necessary feature of beliefs. The reasoning is that because beliefs are governed by truth they must be evidence responsive. A mental state that fails to be evidence responsive, therefore, could not be a belief as it could not be governed by truth. The implication is that even those evidence-resistant mental states that appear to be beliefs are in fact something else. I argue that evidence resistance is a feature of at least some beliefs, so evidence responsiveness cannot be a necessary feature of belief.

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Nikolai Viedge
University of Witwatersrand (PhD)

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References found in this work

Doxastic deliberation.Nishi Shah & J. David Velleman - 2005 - Philosophical Review 114 (4):497-534.
How truth governs belief.Nishi Shah - 2003 - Philosophical Review 112 (4):447-482.
Problems of the Self.Bernard Williams - 1973 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 37 (3):551-551.

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