Belief and Self‐consciousness

International Journal of Philosophical Studies 16 (5):673 – 693 (2008)
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Abstract

This paper is about what is distinctive about first-person beliefs. I discuss several sets of puzzling cases of first-person belief. The first focus on the relation between belief and action, while the second focus on the relation of belief to subjectivity. I argue that in the absence of an explanation of the dispositional difference, individuating such beliefs more finely than truth conditions merely marks the difference. I argue that the puzzles reveal a difference in the ways that I am disposed to revise my beliefs about myself. This point develops the insight that Anscombe and others had that those of an agent's beliefs about himself that manifest that special self-consciousness are not based on observation, testimony or inference. The puzzles show that this kind of self-consciousness involves, not a special kind of belief or even a special kind of self-reference, but a special kind of belief revision policy.

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David Hunter
Toronto Metropolitan University

Citations of this work

Alienated Belief.David Hunter - 2011 - Dialectica 65 (2):221-240.
The metaphysics of responsible believing.David Hunter - 2018 - Manuscrito 41 (4):255-285.

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References found in this work

Attitudes de dicto and de se.David Lewis - 1979 - Philosophical Review 88 (4):513-543.
About the law of inertia.Gottlob Frege - 1961 - Synthese 13 (4):350 - 363.

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