Workshop: Is Belief Weak?

Some philosophers argue that belief is weak. With this they mean that a warranted belief requires a low level of evidential support, much lower than knowledge and assertion. They argue that sometimes it is appropriate to believe things that are merely likely, or more likely true than false. If they were right, this would lead to a radical revision or rejection of traditional and widely accepted views concerning belief, knowledge, assertion and their relations. This workshop features the contributions of some of the most important philosophers engaged in this debate. They will introduce their original research on this topic and will try to convince us that belief is weak, or that it is not. Some of the talks will focus in particular on cross-linguistic and cross-cultural approaches to the problem, highlighting differences and similarities between the ways in which we express doxastic attitudes in different languages.

Time: 2022.9.6 16:00-19:05 (UTC+8)

Place: Zoom ID: 875 4416 2981  

           Password: 781327

Organizers: Jie GAO, ZJU 100 Young Professor 

                     Davide Fassio, ZJU 100 Young Professor

Schedule:

Title: Strong Belief Is Ordinary

Speaker: Roger Clarke (Queen’s University, Belfast)

Abstract: In an influential recent paper, Hawthorne, Rothschild, and Spectre (“HRS”) argue that belief is weak. More precisely: they argue that the referent of believe in ordinary language is much weaker than epistemologists usually suppose; that one needs very little evidence to be entitled to believe a proposition in this sense; and that the referent of believe in ordinary language just is the ordinary concept of belief. I argue here to the contrary. HRS identify two alleged tests of weakness—the neg-raising and weak upper bounds tests, as I call them—which they claim believe and think pass. But I identify several other expressions in ordinary English for attributing belief, all of which fail both tests. Therefore, even if HRS are correct that believe and think refer to a weak attitude, it does not follow that the ordinary concept of belief is weak. I conclude by raising some problems for the accounts of belief as guessing, building on HRS’s arguments, due to Kevin Dorst, Matt Mandelkern, and Ben Holguín.

Title: Moore's Paradox and Norms of Belief and Assertion in Japanese

Speaker: Masashi Kasaki (Hiroshima University)

Abstract: Moore’s paradox is induced by the infelicity of sincere assertions of certain forms. I call them “Moore paradoxical forms.” They involve a conjunction of an indicative sentence and a present-tense first-person psychological verb scoping over the same indicative sentence. Several psychological verbs are often used in Moore paradoxical forms: “believe,” “know,” and “be certain.” It remains unsettled what makes assertions of Moore paradoxical forms infelicitous. Some attempt to explain their infelicity by appealing to either a norm of belief or a norm of assertion. In this talk, I explore what can be said about norms of belief and assertion in Japanese by considering the Japanese counterparts of Moore paradoxical forms and other related linguistic phenomena. First, I suggest that, due to specific features of Japanese, there are circumstances in which Moore paradoxical forms may not be treated in a parallel fashion between English and Japanese. Second, this exploration also reveals different pragmatic functions of “I believe” in Japanese. Finally, I argue that it is difficult, if not impossible, to use Moore’s paradox to motivate a norm of belief or assertion.

Title: Memory Belief Is Weak

Speaker: Changsheng Lai (Shanghai Jiaotong University)

Abstract: Recent years have seen extensive debate over whether ‘belief is weak’, viz, whether the epistemic standard required by belief is lower than that for assertion or knowledge. While most current studies focus on notions like ‘ordinary belief’ and ‘outright belief’, this paper purports to advance this debate by investigating a specific type of belief—memory belief. I will argue that (outright) beliefs formed on the basis of episodic memories are ‘weak’ due to two forms of ‘entitlement inequality’. My key argument is thus twofold. First, by rejecting the epistemic theory of memory, I argue that one can be entitled to belief but not to knowledge. Second, by scrutinizing the communicative function of memory, it will be demonstrated that one can be entitled to belief but not to assertion, such that memory can play its functional role in supporting epistemic vigilance.

Title: Is Belief Weak in Chinese

Speaker: Xinyuan Liu (Zhejiang University)

Abstract: Recently there has been an heated debate about whether belief is weak. Roughly, we can say that belief is weak if the evidential support it requires for being warranted is lower than that required by assertion or knowledge. Most discussions on this issue are based on linguistic considerations about the English verb 'believe' and related verbs expressing doxastic attitudes. This paper aims to explore whether corresponding belief-ascriptions in Chinese are weak. I apply some of the tests in Hawthorne, Rothschild, and Spectre (“HRS”) to Chinese verbs expressing doxastic attitudes. I argue that some such verbs are just as weak as the English verb ‘believe’. Other verbs express much stronger doxastic attitudes, but the evidential support that warrant the corresponding attitudes seems still lower than that required by assertion or knowledge.