“School of Philosophy”
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| Paper IPM / Philosophy / 8535 |
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| Abstract: | |
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Belief is generally thought to be the primary cognitive state representing
the world as be-ing a certain way, regulating our behavior and guiding us
around the world. It is thus re-garded as being constitutively linked with
the truth of its content. This feature of belief has been famously captured
in the thesis that believing is a purposive state aiming at truth. It has
however proved to be notoriously difficult to explain what the thesis really
involves. In this paper, I begin by critically examining a number of recent
attempts to un-pack the metaphor. I shall then proceed to highlight an error
that seems to cripple most of these attempts. This involves the confusion
between, what I call, doxastic and epistemic goals. Finally, having offered
my own positive account of the aim-of-belief thesis, I shall underline its
deflationary nature by distinguishing between aiming at truth and hitting
that target (truth). I end by comparing the account with certain prominent
inflationary theories of the nature of belief.
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