Duck: “So (at least…
Duck: “So (at least on the pragmatist cum Davidsonian view I recommend) we never say: this belief of mine might be false; for to say of something that it might be false is to regard the issue of its truth as no longer settled – and thus no longer a belief at all.”
Come on. One often says that a belief of hers might be wrong. For example:
L.W.: Why are the detective magazines so bloody expensive this month?
N.M.: I believe that there’s a paper shortage, but I might be mistaken.
What Moore reminded us of is that one never says that a (current) belief of hers is actually false. But one often admits the possibility that it might be. That’s not abandoning the belief; it’s just expressing some epistemic humility about the beliefs that you have.
In fact, it’s precisely in such moments of epistemic humility that we’re most likely to use the phrase “I believe that —,” instead of simply asserting the content of the belief without qualification.
I have no firm idea as to whether this grammatical point bears on anything of substance in your post, though. I believe it might, but you never know…
Anticopyright.