Erkenntnis· 2026Q1
Doxastic Deliberation and the Puzzles of Transparency
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Short summary
Doxastic deliberation (deciding whether to believe a proposition) is largely transparent, meaning the question 'whether to believe p?' is equivalent to 'whether p?'.
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Key points
- Doxastic deliberation is generally considered transparent, equating the question of belief with the question of truth.
- Four challenges to this transparency thesis are presented: non-evidential reasons, deliberative dilemmas, self-effecting attitudes, and permissivist pragmatism.
- The paper argues that a properly limited transparency thesis can resolve these challenges.
- The core motivation of transparency, explaining why doxastic deliberation aligns with epistemic norms, is retained.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Abstract Doxastic deliberation about how to doxastically relate to a given proposition p is said to be transparent, in that the central deliberative question of ‘Whether to believe p?’ is equivalent to ‘Whether p?’. I discuss four challenges to this thesis based on non-evidential epistemic reasons, deliberative dilemmas, self-effecting attitudes, and permissivist pragmatism. By employing recent insights from both the theory of epistemic normativity and the literature on practical deliberation, I argue that each of these puzzles can be squared with a properly limited and constrained version of the transparency thesis. Ultimately, I show that the claim that doxastic deliberation is after settling ‘Whether p?’ can only be understood as an approximation of a sub-question of the initial normative deliberative question concerning a very specific set of attitudinal options. Nevertheless, the resulting theory retains the core motivation and upshots of the transparency thesis: one is still able to explain why the deliberative norms of doxastic deliberation appear to be, for the most part, epistemic norms.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Erkenntnis, 2026 · DOI ↗
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Field: Philosophy
PhilosophyArts and Humanities