Belief, Inference, and the Self-Conscious Mind

Description

It is impossible to hold patently contradictory beliefs in mind together at once. Why? Because we know that it is impossible for both to be true. This impossibility is a species of rational necessity, a phenomenon that uniquely characterizes the relation between one person's beliefs. Here, Eric Marcus argues that the unity of the rational mind--what makes it one mind--is what explains why, given what we already believe, we can't believe certain things and must believe certain others in this special sense. What explains this is that beliefs, and the inferences by which we acquire them, are constituted by a particular kind of endorsement of those very states and acts. This, in turn, entails that belief and inference are essentially self-conscious: to hold a belief or to make an inference is at the same time to know that one does. An examination of the nature of belief and inference, in light of the phenomenon of rational necessity, reveals how the unity of the rational mind is a function of our knowledge of ourselves as bound to believe the true. Rational self-consciousness is the form of mental togetherness. Cover Belief, Inference, and the Self-Conscious Mind Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1: Belief and Judgment I. Belief and Truth II. Judgment and the Limits of Irrationality III. Objections 2: The Self-Consciousness of Belief I. Belief and Honest Assertion II. Honest Assertion and Belief Avowal III. Belief Avowal and Doxastic Self-Knowledge IV. Explaining the Self-Consciousness of Belief 3: Making Nonsense of Moore’s Paradox I. What is Moore’s Paradox? II. Neo-Expressivism III. What Avowals Express 4: The Challenge for an Account of Inference I. The Taking Condition II. The Causal Theory III. Dispositions to the Rescue? IV. Broome’s Rule-Following Account V. The Constitution Theory VI. Inference as an Evaluative, Causation-Constituting Act 5: Inference without Regress I. Two Regresses II. What I Can’t Believe III. What I Must Believe IV. Taking as Understanding (and Not Intuition) V. Further Issues VI. Summary 6: The Unity of the Rational Mind I. The Self-Consciousness of Inference II. Self-Consciousness as the Source of Mental Togetherness III. Belief and Judgment Redux Conclusion: Philosophical Judgment Bibliography Index