Precis of Jonathan Berg, Direct Belief: An Essay on the Semantics, Pragmatics, and Metaphysics of Belief

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Abstract

In Direct Belief I argue for the Theory of Direct Belief, which treats having a belief about an individual as an unmediated relation between the believer and the individual the belief is about. After a critical review of alternative positions, I use Grice’s theory of conversational implicature to provide a detailed pragmatic account of substitution failure in belief ascriptions and go on to defend this view against objections, including those based on an unwarranted “Inner Speech” Picture of Thought. The work serves as a case study in pragmatic explanation, dealing also with methodological issues about context-sensitivity in language and the relation between semantics and pragmatics.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)7-17
Number of pages11
JournalPhilosophia (United States)
Volume45
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Mar 2017

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2015, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

Keywords

  • Belief
  • Conversational implicature
  • Frege
  • Grice
  • Pragmatics
  • Propositional attitudes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Philosophy

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