The main idea behind this book is that beliefs are, in an interesting philosophical sense, unreal. There are three main aims of the book. The first is to provide a novel characterization of the debate about the reality of beliefs that focuses not on the question of whether beliefs exist, but rather on the question of whether they can be treated as natural properties. The second aim is to propose and justify a novel version of anti-realism, called “minimal non-realism”. It is argued that beliefs …
Read moreThe main idea behind this book is that beliefs are, in an interesting philosophical sense, unreal. There are three main aims of the book. The first is to provide a novel characterization of the debate about the reality of beliefs that focuses not on the question of whether beliefs exist, but rather on the question of whether they can be treated as natural properties. The second aim is to propose and justify a novel version of anti-realism, called “minimal non-realism”. It is argued that beliefs cannot be seen as constituting natural kinds, that they are not causally relevant, and that their content cannot be naturalized. The third aim is to inquire into the relation between the anti-realist outlook on beliefs and the folk-psychological concept of belief. It is argued that the minimal non-realist position should be seen as a justified revision of the concept in question, conducted in the general spirit of conceptual engineering. The proposed version of anti-realism has important consequences: it suggests a view according to which folk psychology should be seen as independent from cognitive science. Minimal non-realism also leads to the adoption of a pragmatic metaphilosophy of belief, according to which questions about the boundaries of beliefs should be answered by reference to pragmatic and normative considerations.
