Strengthened, and weakened, by belief

Bibliographic Data

ID21462005
AuthorsTue Trinh (0000-0002-6362-0974, Leibniz-Centre General Linguistics, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume47
Issue1
Pages37-76
Publication date2024-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLinguistics and Philosophy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0165-0157 • E-ISSN: 1573-0549
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s10988-023-09391-4
PMID38344658
OpenAlexW4386331156
LanguageEN
References cited93

This paper discusses a set of observations, many of which are novel, concerning differences between the adjectival modals certain and possible and their adverbial counterparts certainly and possibly . It argues that the observations can be derived from a standard interpretation of certain / certainly as universal and possible / possibly as existential quantifiers over possible worlds, in conjunction with the hypothesis that the adjectives quantify over knowledge and the adverbs quantify over belief. The claims on which the argument relies include the following: (i) knowledge implies belief, (ii) agents have epistemic access to their belief, (iii) relevance is closed under speakers’ belief, and (iv) commitment is pragmatically inconsistent with explicit denial of belief

Adverbial · Belief revision · Denial · Doxastic logic · Epistemic modality · Epistemology · Evidentiality · Linguistics · Metaphysics · Philosophy of language · Computer Science · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Logic, Reasoning, and Knowledge · Philosophy · Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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