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Single Idea 19743

[filed under theme 11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / a. Beliefs ]

Full Idea

Beliefs are partly constituted by features of the environment. ....a notebook plays for one person the same role that memory plays for another. ...The information is reliably there, available to consciousness, and to guide action, just as belief is.

Gist of Idea

A notebook counts as memory, if is available to consciousness and guides our actions

Source

A Clark / D Chalmers (The Extended Mind [1998], §4)

Book Ref

-: 'Analysis' [-], p.5


A Reaction

This is the modern externalist approach to beliefs (along with broad content and external cognition systems). Not quite what we used to mean by beliefs, but we'll get used to it. I believe Plato wrote what it said in his books. Is memory just a role?


The 28 ideas with the same theme [mental state aiming at truth (Gk. doxa)]:

We can believe a thing without knowing we believe it [Descartes]
Belief is stronger, clearer and steadier than imagination [Hume]
Opinion is subjectively and objectively insufficient; belief is subjective but not objective; knowledge is both [Kant]
Belief matters more than knowledge, and only begins when knowledge ceases [Nietzsche]
The goodness of opinions depends on their grounds, and corresponding degrees of conviction [Ross]
Beliefs can be ascribed to machines [Quine]
Beliefs are really enabling mechanisms for survival [Wilson,EO]
We can't contemplate our beliefs until we have expressed them [O'Connor]
Without language our beliefs are particular and present [O'Connor]
Having a belief involves the possibility of being mistaken [Davidson]
Belief is the power of metarepresentation [Dretske]
We must assess the truth of beliefs in identifying them [Newton-Smith]
A content is a property, and believing it is self-ascribing that property [Lewis, by Recanati]
The timid student has knowledge without belief, lacking confidence in their correct answer [Lewis]
Involuntary beliefs can still be evaluated [Feldman/Conee]
Belief truth-conditions are normal circumstances where the belief is supposed to occur [Papineau]
We could never pin down how many beliefs we have [Williams,M]
The function of beliefs is to produce beliefs-that-p when p [Millikan]
Belief is the most important propositional attitude [Lyons]
Maybe beliefs don't need to be conscious, if you are not conscious of the beliefs guiding your actions [Crane]
Maybe there are two kinds of belief - 'de re' beliefs and 'de dicto' beliefs [Crane]
We attribute beliefs to people in order to explain their behaviour [Chalmers]
A notebook counts as memory, if is available to consciousness and guides our actions [Clark/Chalmers]
We can have knowledge without belief, if others credit us with knowledge [Kusch]
The Humean theory of motivation is that beliefs may be motivators as well as desires [Engel]
It is necessary for a belief that it be held for a length of time [Fricker,M]
There are reasons 'for which' a belief is held, reasons 'why' it is believed, and reasons 'to' believe it [Neta]
The basing relation of a reason to a belief should both support and explain the belief [Neta]