Comments Elsewhere

Clayton,

Careful with the modalities there. “Custer died at Little Big Horn but he might not have” is actually a sentence of a sort that we often say. For example, he might not have if he’d been a better tactician, or less of an asshole. It’s just that here “might not have” raises a counterfactual possibility for Custer, rather than a salient error-possibility for the belief about what actually happened, which is the sort of possibility that Duck’s point was about.

That quibble aside, I’m a bit confused by your reply. Are you siding with the view that you can’t raise the possibility that a belief of yours might be false, without thereby treating it as something other than a belief? Or with the view that you can? Because Duck’s view is apparently the former, but what you say about “I believe that Custer died at Little Big Horn” as vs. “Custer died at Little Big Horn” would seem to count in favor of the latter view, not the former.

It’s true that asserting that Custer died at Little Big Horn expresses a belief to the effect that Custer died at Little Big Horn. And it’s true that directly asserting that rules out raising an error-possibility for that belief. But it’s precisely when you not only express a belief but also say that you believe so-and-so that you can raise error-possibilities for the belief in question. And I certainly find it hard to believe that you treat P less as one of your beliefs when you say “I believe that P” than when you say simply “P.” You’re treating the belief as something you’re more ready to give up or revise; and you’re treating its truth as less than certain; but you’re not thereby actually giving it up, in whole or in part, or treating it as something other than a belief of yours.