A practice-based account of the truth norm of belief

Xintong Wei

doi:10.1017/epi.2022.26

A practice-based account of the truth norm of belief

Xintong Wei^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

It is a platitude that belief is subject to a standard of correctness: a belief is correct if and only if it is true. But not all standards of correctness are authoritative or binding. Some standards of correctness may be arbitrary, unjustified or outrightly wrong. Given this, one challenge to proponents of the truth norm of belief, is to answer what Korsgaard (1996) calls ‘the normative question’. Is the truth norm of belief authoritative or binding regarding what one ought to or may believe? If so, what grounds its authority? The aim of this paper is to offer a novel answer to the grounding challenge on a reason-based normative framework. I develop and defend a practice-based account of the truth norm, according to which, the authority of the truth norm of belief is grounded in what I call the T-practice, a justified social practice that functions to facilitate knowledge production, maintenance, and social cooperation.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1-21
Number of pages	21
Journal	Episteme
Volume	First View
Early online date	19 Aug 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2022.26
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 19 Aug 2022

Keywords

The Truth Norm of Belief
Belief
Truth
The Nature of Belief
Epistemic Normativity
Social Practices
Practice-based Norms
Evaluative Norms
Constitutive Norms

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10.1017/epi.2022.26Licence: CC BY

Wei_2022_Episteme_Practice-based-account_CC
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Final published version, 361 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "A practice-based account of the truth norm of belief",

abstract = "It is a platitude that belief is subject to a standard of correctness: a belief is correct if and only if it is true. But not all standards of correctness are authoritative or binding. Some standards of correctness may be arbitrary, unjustified or outrightly wrong. Given this, one challenge to proponents of the truth norm of belief, is to answer what Korsgaard (1996) calls {\textquoteleft}the normative question{\textquoteright}. Is the truth norm of belief authoritative or binding regarding what one ought to or may believe? If so, what grounds its authority? The aim of this paper is to offer a novel answer to the grounding challenge on a reason-based normative framework. I develop and defend a practice-based account of the truth norm, according to which, the authority of the truth norm of belief is grounded in what I call the T-practice, a justified social practice that functions to facilitate knowledge production, maintenance, and social cooperation.",

keywords = "The Truth Norm of Belief, Belief, Truth, The Nature of Belief, Epistemic Normativity, Social Practices, Practice-based Norms, Evaluative Norms, Constitutive Norms",

author = "Xintong Wei",

note = "This work was supported by the 2021-2022 Analysis Trust Studentship, Royal Institute of Philosophy 2020-2021 Jacobsen Studentship, the Aristotelian Society 2020-2021 Student Bursary, and the John Templeton Foundation PhD Studentship under Grant 58450.",

year = "2022",

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doi = "10.1017/epi.2022.26",

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AB - It is a platitude that belief is subject to a standard of correctness: a belief is correct if and only if it is true. But not all standards of correctness are authoritative or binding. Some standards of correctness may be arbitrary, unjustified or outrightly wrong. Given this, one challenge to proponents of the truth norm of belief, is to answer what Korsgaard (1996) calls ‘the normative question’. Is the truth norm of belief authoritative or binding regarding what one ought to or may believe? If so, what grounds its authority? The aim of this paper is to offer a novel answer to the grounding challenge on a reason-based normative framework. I develop and defend a practice-based account of the truth norm, according to which, the authority of the truth norm of belief is grounded in what I call the T-practice, a justified social practice that functions to facilitate knowledge production, maintenance, and social cooperation.

KW - The Truth Norm of Belief

KW - Belief

KW - Truth

KW - The Nature of Belief

KW - Epistemic Normativity

KW - Social Practices

KW - Practice-based Norms

KW - Evaluative Norms

KW - Constitutive Norms

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VL - First View

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JO - Episteme

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ER -

A practice-based account of the truth norm of belief

Abstract

Keywords

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