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(2018) Synthese 195 (11).
This paper argues for a treatment of belief as essentially sensitive to certain features of context. The first part gives an argument that we must take belief to be context-sensitive in the same way that assertion is, if we are to preserve appealing principles tying belief to sincere assertion. In particular, whether an agent counts as believing that p in a context depends on the space of alternative possibilities the agent is considering in that context. One and the same doxastic state may amount to belief that p in one context but not another. The second part of the paper gives a formal treatment of doxastic states, according to which belief is context-sensitive along just these lines. The model is applied to characterize (but not to refute) skeptical arguments.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/s11229-017-1437-5
Full citation:
Clarke, R. (2018). Assertion, belief, and context. Synthese 195 (11), pp. 4951-4977.
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