Editing Belief (section)

== Types ==
Beliefs can be categorized into various types depending on their ontological status, their degree, their object or their semantic properties.

=== Occurrent and dispositional ===
Having an occurrent belief that the [[Grand Canyon]] is in Arizona involves entertaining the representation associated with this belief{{mdash}}for example, by actively thinking about it. But the great majority of our beliefs are not active most of the time: they are merely dispositional.<ref name="Schwitzgebel"/> They usually become activated or occurrent when needed or relevant in some way and then fall back into their dispositional state afterwards.<ref name="Schwitzgebel"/> For example, the belief that 57 is greater than 14 was probably dispositional to the reader before reading this sentence, has become occurrent while reading it and may soon become dispositional again as the mind focuses elsewhere. The distinction between occurrent and dispositional beliefs is sometimes identified with the distinction between conscious and unconscious beliefs.<ref name="Bartlett">{{cite journal |last1=Bartlett |first1= Gary |title=Occurrent States |journal=Canadian Journal of Philosophy |date=2018 |volume=48 |issue=1 |pages=1–17 |doi=10.1080/00455091.2017.1323531 |s2cid=220316213 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/BAROS-4 |access-date=3 April 2021 |archive-date=4 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210504181849/https://philpapers.org/rec/BAROS-4 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Frise">{{cite journal |last1=Frise |first1=Matthew |title=Eliminating the Problem of Stored Beliefs |journal=American Philosophical Quarterly |date=2018 |volume=55 |issue=1 |pages=63–79 |doi=10.2307/45128599 |jstor=45128599 |s2cid=149057271 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/FRIETP-3 |access-date=3 April 2021 |archive-date=1 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210601042950/https://philpapers.org/rec/FRIETP-3 |url-status=live |doi-access=free }}</ref> But it has been argued that, despite overlapping, the two distinctions do not match. The reason for this is that beliefs can shape one's behaviour and be involved in one's reasoning even if the subject is not conscious of them. Such beliefs are cases of unconscious occurrent mental states.<ref name="Bartlett"/> On this view, being occurrent corresponds to being active, either consciously or unconsciously.<ref name="Frise"/>

A dispositional belief is not the same as a disposition to believe.<ref name="Audi"/> We have various dispositions to believe given the right perceptions; for example, to believe that it is raining given a perception of rain. Without this perception, there is still a disposition to believe but no actual dispositional belief.<ref name="Audi"/> On a dispositionalist conception of belief, there are no occurrent beliefs, since all beliefs are defined in terms of dispositions.<ref name="Schwitzgebel"/>

=== Full and partial ===
An important dispute in formal epistemology concerns the question of whether beliefs should be conceptualized as ''full'' beliefs or as ''partial'' beliefs.<ref name="Genin">{{cite web |last1=Genin |first1=Konstantin |last2=Huber |first2=Franz |title=Formal Representations of Belief |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/formal-belief/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=1 April 2021 |date=2021 |archive-date=13 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413164951/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/formal-belief/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Full beliefs are all-or-nothing attitudes: either one has a belief in a proposition or one does not. This conception is sufficient to understand many belief ascriptions found in everyday language: for example, Pedro's belief that the Earth is bigger than the Moon. But some cases involving comparisons between beliefs are not easily captured through full beliefs alone: for example, that Pedro's belief that the Earth is bigger than the Moon is more certain than his belief that the Earth is bigger than Venus. Such cases are most naturally analyzed in terms of partial beliefs involving degrees of belief, so-called ''[[Credence (statistics)|credences]]''.<ref name="Genin"/><ref name="Olsson"/> The higher the degree of a belief, the more certain the believer is that the believed proposition is true.<ref name="Hartmann"/> This is usually formalized by numbers between 0 and 1: a degree of 1 represents an absolutely certain belief, a belief of 0 corresponds to an absolutely certain disbelief and all the numbers in between correspond to intermediate degrees of certainty. In the [[Bayesian epistemology|Bayesian approach]], these degrees are interpreted as [[subjective probabilities]]:<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hájek |first1=Alan |title=Interpretations of Probability: 3.3 The Subjective Interpretation |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/probability-interpret/#SubPro |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=6 March 2021 |date=2019 |archive-date=17 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210217013520/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/probability-interpret/#SubPro |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Pettigrew">{{cite journal |last1=Pettigrew |first1=Richard |title=Précis of Accuracy and the Laws of Credence |journal=Philosophy and Phenomenological Research |date=2018 |volume=96 |issue=3 |pages=749–754 |doi=10.1111/phpr.12501 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/PETPOA-3 |access-date=3 April 2021 |archive-date=1 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210601042948/https://philpapers.org/rec/PETPOA-3 |url-status=live |hdl=1983/d9f3e1c4-1bc9-4e04-b74c-dba4eb795393 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> e.g. a belief of degree 0.9 that it will rain tomorrow means that the agent thinks that the probability of rain tomorrow is 90%. Bayesianism uses this relation between beliefs and probability to define the norms of rationality in terms of the laws of probability.<ref name="Hartmann">{{cite book |last1=Hartmann |first1=Stephan |last2=Sprenger |first2=Jan |title=The Routledge Companion to Epistemology |date=2010 |publisher=London: Routledge |pages=609–620 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/BOVSIO |chapter=Bayesian Epistemology |access-date=3 April 2021 |archive-date=16 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210516095047/https://philpapers.org/rec/BOVSIO |url-status=live }}</ref> This includes both synchronic laws about what one should believe at any moment and diachronic laws about how one should revise one's beliefs upon receiving new evidence.<ref name="Olsson">{{cite book |last1=Olsson |first1=Erik J. |title=Introduction to Formal Philosophy |date=2018 |publisher=Springer |pages=431–442 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/OLSBE |chapter=Bayesian Epistemology |access-date=3 April 2021 |archive-date=16 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210516095057/https://philpapers.org/rec/OLSBE |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Hartmann"/>

The central question in the dispute between full and partial beliefs is whether these two types are really distinct types or whether one type can be explained in terms of the other.<ref name="Genin"/> One answer to this question is called the ''Lockean thesis''. It states that partial beliefs are basic and that full beliefs are to be conceived as partial beliefs above a certain threshold: for example, every belief above 0.9 is a full belief.<ref name="Genin"/><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dorst |first1=Kevin |title=Lockeans Maximize Expected Accuracy |journal=Mind |date=2019 |volume=128 |issue=509 |pages=175–211 |doi=10.1093/mind/fzx028 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/DORLME-2 |access-date=3 April 2021 |archive-date=20 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201020201413/https://philpapers.org/rec/DORLME-2 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Locke |first1=Dustin Troy |title=The Decision-Theoretic Lockean Thesis |journal=Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy |date=2014 |volume=57 |issue=1 |pages=28–54 |doi=10.1080/0020174x.2013.858421 |s2cid=85521556 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/LOCTDL |access-date=3 April 2021 |archive-date=5 July 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160705133728/http://philpapers.org/rec/LOCTDL |url-status=live }}</ref> Defenders of a primitive notion of full belief, on the other hand, have tried to explain partial beliefs as full beliefs about probabilities.<ref name="Genin"/> On this view, having a partial belief of degree 0.9 that it will rain tomorrow is the same as having a full belief that the probability of rain tomorrow is 90%. Another approach circumvents the notion of probability altogether and replaces degrees of belief with degrees of disposition to revise one's full belief.<ref name="Genin"/> From this perspective, both a belief of degree 0.6 and a belief of degree 0.9 may be seen as full beliefs. The difference between them is that the former belief can readily be changed upon receiving new evidence while the latter is more stable.<ref name="Genin"/>

=== Belief-in and belief-that ===
Traditionally, philosophers have mainly focused in their inquiries concerning belief on the notion of ''belief-that''.<ref name="Price">{{cite journal |last1=Price |first1=H. H. |title=Belief 'In' and Belief 'That' |journal=Religious Studies |date=1965 |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=5–27 |doi=10.1017/S0034412500002304 |s2cid=170731716 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/PRIBIA |access-date=2 March 2021 |archive-date=1 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210601043007/https://philpapers.org/rec/PRIBIA |url-status=live }}</ref> Belief-that can be characterized as a [[propositional attitude]] to a claim which is either true or false. ''Belief-in'', on the other hand, is more closely related to notions like trust or faith in that it refers usually to an attitude to persons.<ref name="Price"/> ''Belief-in'' plays a central role in many [[religious traditions]] in which ''belief in God'' is one of the central virtues of their followers.<ref name="Williams">{{cite journal |last1=Williams |first1=John N. |title=Belief-in and Belief in God |journal=Religious Studies |date=1992 |volume=28 |issue=3 |pages=401–406 |doi=10.1017/s0034412500021740 |s2cid=170864816 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/WILBAB-3 |access-date=2 March 2021 |archive-date=19 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210519211421/https://philpapers.org/rec/WILBAB-3 |url-status=live }}</ref> The difference between belief-in and belief-that is sometimes blurry since various expressions using the term "belief in" seem to be translatable into corresponding expressions using the term "belief that" instead.<ref name="Macintosh2">{{cite journal |last1=Macintosh |first1=J. J. |title=Belief-in Revisited: A Reply to Williams |journal=Religious Studies |date=1994 |volume=30 |issue=4 |pages=487–503 |doi=10.1017/S0034412500023131 |s2cid=170786861 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/MACBRA-4 |access-date=2 March 2021 |archive-date=29 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200929102145/https://philpapers.org/rec/MACBRA-4 |url-status=live }}</ref> For example, a ''belief in'' fairies may be said to be a ''belief that'' fairies exist.<ref name="Williams"/> In this sense, belief-in is often used when the entity is not real, or its existence is in doubt. Typical examples would include: "he believes in witches and ghosts" or "many children believe in [[Santa Claus]]" or "I believe in a deity".<ref name="Macintosh"/> Not all usages of belief-in concern the existence of something: some are ''commendatory'' in that they express a positive attitude towards their object.<ref name="Macintosh">{{cite book |last1=Macintosh |first1=Jack |title=The Oxford Companion to Philosophy |date=2005 |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/HONTOC-2 |chapter=Belief-in |access-date=2 March 2021 |archive-date=29 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210129082636/https://philpapers.org/rec/HONTOC-2 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Price"/> It has been suggested that these cases can also be accounted for in terms of belief-that. For example, a ''belief in'' marriage could be translated as a ''belief that'' marriage is good.<ref name="Williams"/> Belief-in is used in a similar sense when expressing [[self-confidence]] or faith in one's self or one's abilities.

Defenders of a reductive account of belief-in have used this line of thought to argue that ''belief in God'' can be analyzed in a similar way: e.g. that it amounts to a belief that God exists with his characteristic attributes, like [[omniscience]] and [[omnipotence]].<ref name="Williams"/> Opponents of this account often concede that belief-in may entail various forms of belief-that, but that there are additional aspects to belief-in that are not reducible to belief-that.<ref name="Macintosh2"/> For example, a ''belief in'' an ideal may involve the ''belief that'' this ideal is something good, but it additionally involves a positive evaluative attitude toward this ideal that goes beyond a mere propositional attitude.<ref name="Williams"/> Applied to the ''belief in'' God, opponents of the reductive approach may hold that a ''belief that'' God exists may be a necessary pre-condition for ''belief in'' God, but that it is not sufficient.<ref name="Williams"/><ref name="Macintosh2"/>

=== ''De dicto'' and ''de re'' ===
{{see also|De dicto and de re}}
The difference between ''de dicto'' and ''de re'' beliefs or the corresponding ascriptions concerns the contributions singular terms like names and other referential devices make to the semantic properties of the belief or its ascription.<ref name="Schwitzgebel"/><ref name="Broackes">{{cite journal |last1=Broackes |first1=Justin |title=Belief de Re and de Dicto |journal=Philosophical Quarterly |date=1986 |volume=36 |issue=144 |pages=374–383 |doi=10.2307/2220191 |jstor=2220191 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/BROBDR |access-date=3 April 2021 |archive-date=17 November 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161117193918/http://philpapers.org/rec/BROBDR |url-status=live }}</ref> In regular contexts, the [[truth-value]] of a sentence does not change upon substitution of co-referring terms.<ref name="Nelson">{{cite web |last1=Nelson |first1=Michael |title=Propositional Attitude Reports: The De Re/De Dicto Distinction |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prop-attitude-reports/dere.html |website=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=2 April 2021 |archive-date=13 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413223910/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prop-attitude-reports/dere.html |url-status=live }}</ref> For example, since the names "Superman" and "Clark Kent" refer to the same person, we can replace one with the other in the sentence "Superman is strong" without changing its truth-value; this issue is more complicated in case of belief ascriptions.<ref name="Nelson"/> For example, Lois believes that Superman is strong but she does not believe that Clark Kent is strong.<ref name="Schwitzgebel"/> This difficulty arises due to the fact that she does not know that the two names refer to the same entity. Beliefs or belief ascriptions for which this substitution does not generally work are ''de dicto'', otherwise, they are ''de re''.<ref name="Schwitzgebel"/><ref name="Nelson"/><ref name="Broackes"/> In a ''de re'' sense, Lois does believe that Clark Kent is strong, while in a ''de dicto'' sense she does not. The contexts corresponding to ''de dicto'' ascriptions are known as [[Opaque context|referentially opaque contexts]] while ''de re'' ascriptions are referentially transparent.<ref name="Schwitzgebel"/><ref name="Nelson"/>

===Collective belief===
A collective belief is referred to when people speak of what "we" believe when this is not simply elliptical for what "we all" believe.<ref>
{{cite book
 | last1 = Dancy
 | first1 = Jonathan
 | author-link1 = Jonathan Dancy
 | year = 2014
 | edition = 2
 | title = A Companion to Epistemology
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=WToMZZoTu_QC
 | series = Just the Facts101
 | publisher = Content Technologies Inc.
 | isbn = 978-1478400028
 | access-date = 30 Apr 2019
 | quote = A collective belief is referred to when people speak of what 'we' believe when this is not simply elliptical for what 'we all' believe.
}}</ref>
Sociologist [[Émile Durkheim]] wrote of collective beliefs and proposed that they, like all "[[social fact]]s", "inhered in" social [[Group (sociology)|groups]] as opposed to individual persons. [[Jonathan Dancy]] states that "Durkheim's discussion of collective belief, though suggestive, is relatively obscure".<ref>
{{cite book
 | last1 = Dancy
 | first1 = Jonathan
 | author-link1 = Jonathan Dancy
 | year = 2014
 | edition = 2
 | title = A Companion to Epistemology
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=WToMZZoTu_QC
 | series = Just the Facts101
 | publisher = Content Technologies Inc.
 | publication-date = 2016
 | isbn = 978-1478400028
 | access-date = 30 Apr 2019
 | quote = Sociologist Émile Durkheim wrote of collective beliefs and proposed that they, like all 'social facts', 'inhered in' social groups as opposed to individual persons. Durkheim's discussion of collective belief, though suggestive, is relatively obscure.
}}</ref>
[[Margaret Gilbert]] has offered a related account in terms of the joint commitment of a number of persons as a body to accept a certain belief. According to this account, individuals who together collectively believe something need not personally believe it individually. Gilbert's work on the topic has stimulated a developing literature among philosophers.<ref>{{Cite journal |last= Gilbert |first= Margaret |date= 1987 |title= Modelling collective belief |url= http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf00485446 |journal= Synthese |volume= 73 |issue= 1 |pages= 185–204 |doi= 10.1007/bf00485446|s2cid= 46976878|issn= 0039-7857}}</ref> One question that has arisen is whether and how philosophical accounts of belief in general need to be sensitive to the possibility of collective belief.

Collective belief can play a role in [[Control theory (sociology)|social control]]<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Innes
 |first1               = Martin
 |date                 = 16 December 2003
 |chapter              = A history of the idea of social control
 |title                = Understanding Social Control: Deviance, crime and social order
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=jwBEBgAAQBAJ
 |series               = UK Higher Education OUP Humanities & Social Sciences Criminology
 |publication-place    = Maidenhead, Berkshire
 |publisher            = McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
 |page                 = 22
 |isbn                 = 9780335225880
 |access-date          = 30 October 2023
 |quote                = [...] all states and all collectives draw upon shared remembrances of the past to establish or preserve a sense of shared identity and a collective belief system. A coherent approach to understanding the functions of social control for collective life is to be found in Erikson's (1966) discussion of the social control of witchcraft in seventeenth-century New England.
}} 
</ref>
and serve as a touchstone for identifying and purging [[heresies]],<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Sandkühler
 |first1               = Hans Jörg
 |editor-last1         = Abel
 |editor-first1        = Günter
 |editor-link1         = Günter Abel
 |editor-last2         = Conant
 |editor-first2        = James
 |editor-link2         = James F. Conant
 |date                 = 23 December 2011
 |chapter              = Critique of Representation: Cultures of Knowledge - Humanly Speaking
 |title                = Rethinking Epistemology
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=py412Sy7XpwC
 |series               = Berlin Studies in Knowledge Research, volume 1
 |volume               = 1
 |publication-place    = Berlin
 |publisher            = Walter de Gruyter
 |page                 = 185
 |isbn                 = 9783110253573
 |access-date          = 30 October 2023
 |quote                = Collective belief systems are characterized by the belief of knowing what counts as proper beliefs; divergence is condemned as heresy, betrayal, apostasy, etc.
}} 
</ref>
[[Deviance (sociology)|deviancy]]<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Visano
 |first1               = L. A.
 |year                 = 1998
 |title                = Crime and Culture: Refining the Traditions
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=g7ZIAAAAYAAJ
 |publication-place    = Toronto
 |publisher            = Canadian Scholars Press
 |page                 = 51
 |isbn                 = 9781551301273
 |access-date          = 30 October 2023
 |quote                = [...] deviance cannot be studied in isolation nor understood apart from [...] overwhelmingly binding collective belief systems.
}} 
</ref>
or political [[deviationism]].