Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

An alleged problem for possible worlds semantics

An alleged problem for possible worlds semantics 62 george f. schumm regarding anything as true? Might there not be representations that pro- mote the satisfaction of the subject’s desires just if their content is true but which are more primitive than beliefs? This is not the place to answer these questions. Nevertheless, it seems that to regard something as true, no less than to believe it, is to adopt an attitude which makes us responsive to norms of rationality. Being in a representational state with the right motivational powers does not obviously imply being subject in the same way to the relevant norms, and so does not obviously imply being in a state of regarding as true. In assessing the motivational theory of belief, we might do better to consider, not whether the motivational theory fails to distinguish one kind of regarding-as-true attitude from another, but rather whether it fails to rule out the possibility of states which share the motivational role of beliefs, but which cannot be considered even as attitudes in which the subject regards something as true. University College London London WC1E 6BT, UK l.o’brien@ucl.ac.uk Reference Velleman, J. D. 2000. On the aim of belief. In The Possibility of Practical Reason, 244–81. Oxford: http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Analysis Oxford University Press

An alleged problem for possible worlds semantics

Schumm, George F.
Analysis , Volume 65 (1) – Jan 1, 2005
Download PDF
8 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/oxford-university-press/an-alleged-problem-for-possible-worlds-semantics-pSgOXiDCSx

References (0)

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
Oxford University Press
Copyright
© Published by Oxford University Press.
ISSN
0003-2638
eISSN
1467-8284
DOI
10.1093/analys/65.1.62
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

62 george f. schumm regarding anything as true? Might there not be representations that pro- mote the satisfaction of the subject’s desires just if their content is true but which are more primitive than beliefs? This is not the place to answer these questions. Nevertheless, it seems that to regard something as true, no less than to believe it, is to adopt an attitude which makes us responsive to norms of rationality. Being in a representational state with the right motivational powers does not obviously imply being subject in the same way to the relevant norms, and so does not obviously imply being in a state of regarding as true. In assessing the motivational theory of belief, we might do better to consider, not whether the motivational theory fails to distinguish one kind of regarding-as-true attitude from another, but rather whether it fails to rule out the possibility of states which share the motivational role of beliefs, but which cannot be considered even as attitudes in which the subject regards something as true. University College London London WC1E 6BT, UK l.o’brien@ucl.ac.uk Reference Velleman, J. D. 2000. On the aim of belief. In The Possibility of Practical Reason, 244–81. Oxford:

Journal

Analysis – Oxford University Press

Published: Jan 1, 2005

There are no references for this article.