Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T15:05:07.623Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

On the possibility of doxastic venture: a reply to Buckareff

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2005

JOHN BISHOP
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand

Abstract

In response to Buckareff, I agree that it is indeed impossible intentionally and directly to acquire a belief one judges not to be supported by one's evidence. But Jamesian doxastic venture does not involve any such direct self-inducing of belief: it is rather a matter of an agent's taking to be true in practical reasoning what she already, through some ‘passional’, non-epistemic, cause, holds true beyond the support of her evidence. To deny that beliefs may sometimes have passional causes is, I argue, purely a rationalist dogma. I do concede to Buckareff, however, that a venture of faith might sometimes be sub-doxastic, in the sense that full practical commitment is made to faith-propositions without actual belief. That concession requires only a minor modification, however, to a doxastic-venture model of faith.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)