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The Normativity of Belief and Self-Fulfilling Normative Beliefs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Nishi Shah
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Extract

As Descartes famously pointed out in the Second Meditation, the thought that someone is thinking is true anytime anyone thinks it. Furthermore, thinking it makes it true. Conversely, anytime anyone thinks that it is not the case that someone is thinking, this thought is false, and thinking it makes it false.

l will argue that the propositions ‘There is at least one true normative proposition’ and ‘There are no true normative propositions’ have very similar properties. The proposition ‘There is at least one true normative proposition,’ like the proposition ‘Someone is thinking,’ is true anytime anyone believes it, and, in an important sense, it is made true by someone's believing it. Conversely, anytime anyone believes that there are no true normative propositions, the proposition he believes is false and his believing it makes it false.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume , Volume 35: Belief and Agency , 2009 , pp. 189 - 212
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2009

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