Off-campus UMass Amherst users: To download dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your UMass Amherst user name and password.
Non-UMass Amherst users, please click the view more button below to purchase a copy of this dissertation from Proquest.
(Some titles may also be available free of charge in our Open Access Dissertation Collection, so please check there first.)
Subjectivity and the objects of belief
Abstract
This dissertation is a study of the problem of beliefs about oneself, or so-called de se beliefs: for example, the beliefs that I would express by saying 'I am left-handed' or 'I am in Massachusetts'. The problem arises against the background conception of belief as a propositional attitude, i.e., as a relation between conscious subjects and abstract entities that are either true or false absolutely. Many philosophers have recently argued that the intentional objects of one's de se beliefs could not be propositions: since, e.g., I can believe the proposition that Neil Feit is left-handed without believing myself to be left-handed (if I somehow fail to realize that I am Neil Feit), and I can believe any proposition expressed by a sentence of the form 'the F is left-handed'--where 'the F' is a qualitative description--without believing myself to be left-handed (if I do not think that 'the F' denotes me). I take the position that the argument is sound, and, after surveying various attempts to solve the problem, I defend the self-ascription view of belief: viz., the view that to have a belief is to ascribe a property to oneself. For example, I believe that I am left-handed simply by self-ascribing the property of being left-handed. I defend the view against various objections to it, discuss its relations to other views about the objects of belief and the other attitudes, and maintain that it can account for the acceptance of propositions (de dicto belief) and for beliefs about particular individuals (de re belief) as well as for beliefs directly about oneself. I argue that belief states are best taken to be self-ascribed properties, and try to solve some problems about de re belief from the perspective of the self-ascription view.
Subject Area
Philosophy
Recommended Citation
Feit, Neil Philip, "Subjectivity and the objects of belief" (1996). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9638955.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9638955