Why Do You Believe That?

Abstract

Abstract Consider a case in which a man is deluded that his wife is unfaithful to him. When asked why he thinks this, he answers simply that the fifth lamp-post along on the left is unlit. He has no further story to tell about his friend sending him a signal via the lamp-post, or some such. The author argues that this man should not be classed as taking the state of the lamp-post to count in favour of the truth of the proposition that his wife is unfaithful to him, even mistakenly so. That is, he does not have a subjective epistemic reason on the basis of which to believe that his wife is unfaithful to him, let alone an objective one. But this does not debar him from believing that she is. There do seem to be beliefs held on the basis of no subjective epistemic reason. However, the author argues that this man does not believe that his wife is unfaithful to him insofar as he fails to give application to the relevant sense of the question, ‘Why do you believe that?’