Eliminating the Problem of Stored Beliefs

American Philosophical Quarterly 55 (1):63-79 (2018)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The problem of stored beliefs is that of explaining how non-occurrent, seemingly justified beliefs are indeed justified. Internalism about epistemic justification, the view that one’s mental life alone determines what one is justified in believing, allegedly cannot solve this problem. This paper provides a solution. It asks: Does having a belief that p require having a special relation to a mental representation that p? If the answer is yes, then there are no stored beliefs, and so there is no problem. Drawing on extensive research in cognitive psychology, this paper argues that memory doesn’t store the representations required for stored belief, and we don’t bear the special relation to anything memory does store. On the leading “no” answer, a belief is roughly a set of dispositions. This paper argues that a justified belief is then best understood as a set of dispositions. Since these dispositions are mental, internalism can count the right stored beliefs as justified.

Other Versions

No versions found

Similar books and articles

Preservationism in the Epistemology of Memory.Matthew Frise - 2017 - Philosophical Quarterly 67 (268).
Appearances and the Problem of Stored Beliefs.Kevin McCain & Scott Stapleford - 2023 - In Kevin McCain, Scott Stapleford & Matthias Steup, Seemings: New Arguments, New Angles. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 63–74.
The Defense Activation Theory of Epistemic Justification.Kihyeon Kim - 1992 - Dissertation, The University of Arizona
Evidentialism and the problem of stored beliefs.Tommaso Piazza - 2009 - Philosophical Studies 145 (2):311 - 324.
Knowledge from Forgetting.Sven Bernecker & Thomas Grundmann - 2017 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (3):525-540.
The Epistemic Role of Consciousness.Declan Smithies - 2019 - New York, USA: Oxford University Press.
Skepticism and Memory.Andrew Moon - 2017 - In Sven Bernecker & Kourken Michaelian, The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Memory. New York: Routledge. pp. 335-347.

Analytics

Added to PP
2018-02-22

Downloads
1,227 (#15,851)

6 months
175 (#22,726)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Matthew Frise
Milwaukee School of Engineering

Citations of this work

Forgetting.Matthew Frise - 2018 - In Kourken Michaelian, Dorothea Debus & Denis Perrin, New Directions in the Philosophy of Memory. New York: Routledge. pp. 223-240.
Skepticism and Memory.Andrew Moon - 2017 - In Sven Bernecker & Kourken Michaelian, The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Memory. New York: Routledge. pp. 335-347.
Reliabilism’s Memory Loss.Matthew Frise - 2021 - Philosophical Quarterly 71 (3):565-585.

View all 8 citations / Add more citations