Varieties of Doubt

Abstract

Abstract This chapter provides a partial taxonomy of doubt. This will give us perspective into where our skeptical inclinations fall in the larger catalog of uncertainty mental states. The chapter also discusses the “Spinozan” truth-bias according to which we tend to have pro-doxastic attitudes towards any proposition we entertain. On such a conception of the mind, doubting mechanisms such as the one proposed in this book play a crucial role in regulating the quality of our beliefs. At the end, the chapter also discusses some studies on deficits of doubt which will grant us some insight into where those states may be localized in the human brain. The latter is needed if we are to achieve a full understanding of the skeptical mechanism. It corresponds to the third level (physical implementation) of cognitive explanations in David Marr’s hierarchy of information processing.