•  11
    Belief Holism and the Scope of Doxastic Norms
    with Alexander Miller
    Acta Analytica 38 (4): 575-584. 2023.
    Much of the recent literature on the normativity of belief has focused on undermining or defending narrow scope readings of doxastic norms. Wide scope readings are largely assumed to have been decisively refuted. This paper will oppose this trend by defending a wide scope reading of the norm of belief. We shall argue for the modest claim that if it is plausible to regard belief as constitutively normative (in the minimal sense that false belief is eo ipso defective), then a modified version of t…Read more
  •  6
    Examining the ''œMotivationa Introversion'' Argument about Meaning
    Metaphysics (University of Isfahan) 8 (21): 1-16. 2016.
    Kripke uses a fictional skeptical character in order to review and refuses “cognitive meaning” theory. According to this theory, the propositions which contain reference to the meaning show the state of mind of belief which is a correct state of mind. In order to challenge this theory, Kripke uses another theory which is known as “Normativity of meaning” in philosophic literature. According to the latter theory, meaning of a word limits its application in a normative way; for example, if I use ‘…Read more
  •  6
    Dose the Conceptual Interdependency of Belief and Desire Undermine the Normativity of Content?
    Journal of Philosophical Investigations at University of Tabriz 9 (17): 95-103. 2015.
    The normativity of mental content thesis appears to have been the most influential in contemporary philosophy of mind. Paul Boghossian (2003, 2005) has developed an argument for the normativity of mental content on the basis of two premises, i.e. firstly, the normativity of the notion of belief and secondly, the priority of the notion of belief to the notion of desire. In his recent article Alexander Miller (2008) has criticised Boghossian’s argument for the normativity of mental content. To mak…Read more
  •  79
    Believing In Twin Earth: New Evidence for the Normativity of Belief
    with Alexander Miller
    European Journal of Philosophy 25 (4): 1327-1339. 2017.
    According to many philosophers, the notion of belief is constitutively normative ; Shah ; Shah and Velleman (); Gibbard (); Wedgwood ). In a series of widely discussed papers, Terence Horgan and Mark Timmons have developed an ingenious ‘Moral Twin Earth’ argument against ‘Cornell Realist’ metaethical views which hold that moral terms have synthetic natural definitions in the manner of natural kind terms. In this paper we shall suggest that an adaptation of the Moral Twin Earth argument to the do…Read more
  •  276
    On the logic of aiming at truth
    with Michael Luntley
    Analysis 73 (3): 419-422. 2013.
    We argue that the debate about the normativity of belief thesis has been hampered by the slogan, ‘belief aims at truth’. We show that the slogan provides no content to the normativity of belief. The slogan encourages formulations of the norm as a prescriptive norm. There are well-known problems with such formulations. We provide a new formulation of the thesis as a prohibitive norm. This captures the key intuition most normativists about belief want to endorse
  •  49
    My dissertation concerns post Kripkean debates which locate normativity not as a feature of linguistic meaning but as applicable to mental content. My aim is to identify a clear sense in which the thesis is plausible and to defend the thesis against recent criticisms. In order to do this, I will consider the two main premises that the normativity thesis is based upon, namely, (a) that belief is conceptually priority to desire and (b) that belief is a normative concept. Most criticisms of the nor…Read more