Work

Believe It or Not, Disbelief Remains Mysterious

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: ABSTRACT As a basic doxastic attitude ranking with belief and withholding, disbelief remains a comparatively underexplored concept. According to the standard account of disbelief, to disbelieve that p is to believe that not‐p. A recently proposed rejection account of disbelief argues that disbelief is a sui generis doxastic attitude, viz., an attitude of rejection. This paper argues against both the standard account and the rejection account. I first illustrate that the standard account would entail implausible corollaries. Subsequently, an argument is given that the rejection account would collapse into the standard account and thus be plagued by similar difficulties. Therefore, disbelief remains a puzzling concept that warrants further investigation.

Source: Ratio

DOI: 10.1111/rati.12445

Author: Changsheng Lai

Institution: Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Language: English

Topic: Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics

Subfield: Philosophy

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: bronze

Funders: Tongji University, Xiamen University, National Office for Philosophy and Social Sciences, National Social Science Fund of China

Award: G4728581835