The Import of the Puzzle About Belief

Abstract

We may suppose that Pierre ... is a leading philosopher and logician. He would never let contradictory beliefs pass. And surely anyone, lead- ing logician or no, is in principle in a position to notice and correct contradictory beliefs if he has them. Precisely for this reason, we re- gard individuals who contradict themselves as subject to greater cen- sure than those who merely have false beliefs. But it is clear that Pierre ... is in no position to see, by logic alone, that at least one of his beliefs must be false. He lacks information, not logical acumen. He cannot be convicted of inconsistency: to do so is incorrect. (Kripke 1988, 122) Kripke speaks of acumen, of epistemic censure, and of being convicted of inconsistency: it is clear that he has a normative epistemic notion in mind. The idea is that if Pierre had logically contradictory be- liefs, he would be violating norms of theoretical rationality. In spite of the connection Kripke establishes, relations between these epi- stemic norms and theories of propositional attitudes have been underappreciated. I here return to Kripke's puzzle with special attention to the role of rationality. My investigation will focus on three areas. First, in what does the

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