The Epistemology of Belief - Hamid Vahid

Hamid Vahid's book deals with an array of issues – the idea that belief aims at truth, Moore's paradox, the basing relation, the problem of easy knowledge, fallibilism and self‐knowledge. One of Vahid's favourite weapons is the principle of charity. It is very hard to stick to this principle when interpreting most of his arguments. Each chapter addresses a single problem. Vahid begins with a survey and critique of existing approaches and ends by defending his own solution. Some of his criticisms are effective: see his objection to Velleman (p. 32). Just as many are unconvincing or based on elementary mistakes: see his attempt to refute a condition putatively necessary for knowledge by arguing that it is not sufficient (pp. 53–4). But I shall focus on three of Vahid's own views. Ch. 1 defends the thesis that belief aims at truth. Borrowing from Velleman, Vahid thinks that the way to understand this idea is to say that our primary aim in believing that p is to regard p as true for its own sake. This is supposed to distinguish belief from other regardings as true, such as supposing and imagining. Vahid's argument for this thesis draws on Davidson's theory of radical interpretation with special emphasis on the principle of charity. This principle ‘demands that we assume, for example, that the speakers believe that it is raining when it is raining in their vicinity. It requires us, in other words, to assume that people believe the obvious (by our lights), that is, believe what we, the interpreters, regard as obvious or regard as true’ (p. 28). Here is where the trouble starts

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