Belief is concerned primarily with the epistemology of belief under two opponent views as to its nature: (1) the traditional view of belief as a mental event (occurrence), and (2) the view of belief as a disposition. Ultimately, Price justifies indulgence in the considerations relating to these two views on the grounds that it will, in the end, enable a distinction to be drawn between ‘belief in’ and ‘belief that’, which in turn will enable him to ‘… pay some attention to the belief “in” a world-outlook or world-view, because this type of belief “in” is an essential part of the religious attitude’. It also serves Lord Gifford’s requirements in allowing Price to discuss self-verifying beliefs and to determine what kind of attitude religious faith is.
Belief
Books
Belief
Lecture 2: The Varieties of Knowledge
Lecture 3: Belief and Knowledge
Lecture 4: Belief and Evidence (I)
Lecture 5: Belief and Evidence (II)
Lecture 6: Degrees of Assent: Newman's Criticisms of Locke
Lecture 7: Hume's Analysis of Belief
Lecture 8: Traditional Occurrence Analysis (I)
Lecture 9: Traditional Occurrence Analysis (II)
Lecture 10: The Freedom of Assent in Descartes and Hume
Lecture 1: The Dispositional Analysis: Introduction
Lecture 2: Another Version of the Dispositional Analysis
Lecture 3: The Dispositional Analysis: Inference and Assent
Lecture 5: Newman's Distinction between Real and Notional Assent
Lecture 6: Self-Verifying Beliefs
Lecture 8: Moral Beliefs Continued: Moral Beliefs and Feelings
The book retains its lecture format despite being extensively revised after its delivery in Aberdeen. It contains both sets of lectures (series 1 and 2), each composed of ten lectures. Lecture 1 raises issues relating to the performatory aspect of first-person belief sentences, highlights the primacy of believing a proposition over believing persons and considers some important issues surrounding degrees of belief. Price analyses complete conviction as the highest degree of belief, nothing short of which he considers worthy of the title.
- Jon Cameron, University of Aberdeen