At the end of the last chapter we were left with the following problem. How can the basic account be extended to cover the self attribution of any consciously held belief? We considered the belief that there are mountains on the other side of the moon. Attributing to myself agnosticism about Tom being at the party enables me to avoid postulating an unwarranted indeterminacy in the facts. In the case where I change my mind about creationism, attributing to myself a change of mind enables me to avoid allowing that the facts have changed. In a case such as the lottery paradox, attributing inconsistent beliefs to myself enables me to avoid taking the world to be inconsistent. No like end is attained, it seems, if I attribute to myself a belief in the existence of mountains on the other side of the moon. According to the basic account, what reason do I have for attributing to myself that belief?

The answer is this. The type of reason the basic account gives one to self attribute the presence or absence of some beliefs does not permit one to be selective. Consider again my agnosticism about Tom being at the party. Nothing about my behaviour indicates that I am agnostic about Tom being at the party. Nevertheless, I have this reason to take myself to have no opinion about his being there. If I do not, I will have to regard it as indeterminate whether some present fact obtains. I might put it this way.