a phenomenal, dispositional strongaccountstrong of belief.pdf

NOÛS 36:2 2002 249–275 A Phenomenal, Dispositional Account of Belief Eric Schwitzgebel University of California, Riverside Abstract This paper describes and defends in detail a novel account of belief, an account inspired by Ryle’s dispositional characterization of belief, but emphasizing irreduc- ibly phenomenal and cognitive dispositions as well as behavioral dispositions. Potential externalist and functionalist objections are considered, as well as con- cerns motivated by the inevitably ceteris paribus nature of the relevant disposi- tional attributions. It is argued that a dispositional account of belief is particularly well-suited to handle what might be called “in-between” cases of believing— cases in which it is neither quite right to describe a person as having a particular belief nor quite right to describe her as lacking it. Most philosophers of mind these days think that to believe something is to have a representation of some sort in one’s mind.1 A prima facie difficulty with this view is that representations seem to be discrete entities—either fully present in the mind or wholly absent—while belief is a continuous phenomenon. Not only does believing come in degrees of certainty a widely-acknowledged fact but one that introduces substantial complications for a representational account of belief if pursued in detail2 , but also multifarious other cases exist in which people are neither quite accurately describable as believing a certain proposi- tion, nor quite accurately describable as failing to believe it, such as in cases of self-deception, gradual learning, forgetfulness, and when there is ignorance of related facts. If the reader has a