Possibilities, representations, and norms of belief: remarks on David Hunter’s On Believing

Abstract

ABSTRACT David Hunter’s On Believing is a rich and worthwhile defense of a distinctive view about the objects and nature of belief. In these comments, I discuss three aspects of the book. I agree with Hunter that the objects of belief are properties or (as I prefer to refer to them) states of affairs. But I argue that he has too narrow a view of the range of possible objects of belief. I defend the idea that belief is in part a matter of representing the world, an idea Hunter appears to criticize. And I defend the idea that one or another truthy property provides a norm for evaluating beliefs.