Andrej Jovićević
KU Leuven
Recent work in epistemology defends the unorthodox theses that (1) belief is an evidentially weak, (2) question-sensitive attitude, and that (3) rationally permitted belief is sometimes a matter of guessing. These theses fit together naturally to form a unified account of weak, question-sensitive belief. A formal account of weak, question-sensitive belief as a coherent phenomenon is still forthcoming, however.
The main aim of this paper is to develop a formal account that captures belief’s weak- ness and question-sensitivity in the setting of epistemic logic. We introduce a class of models in which the points of evaluation are situations, or world-evidence pairs, with evidence understood liberally to include sets of live possibilities, measures of uncertainty, and QUDs. A proposition is believed at a situation just in case it is implied by the most informative probabilistically dominant answer to the QUD, on some way of specifying the threshold of probabilistic dominance.
The second aim of the paper is to explore one set of implications for the interaction of weak, question-sensitive belief with knowledge. On a natural interpretation of knowledge in our models, it emerges that belief is positively and negatively introspective, implied by knowledge, and consistent (albeit only with respect to a single situation); furthermore, believing that p is consistent both with disbelieving that one knows p and with knowing that one is ignorant of p. We argue that, on the target notion of belief, these are desirable predictions.
Chair: Mattia Rossi
Time: 04 September, 10:00 – 10:30 (Cancelled)
Location: SR 1.003
SOPhiA 2026 