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Chapter 7 - Intuitive and Reflective Beliefs

from Implicit vs Explicit Beliefs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2022

By
Dan Sperber
Edited by
Julien Musolino ,
Joseph Sommer  and
Pernille Hemmer
Julien Musolino
Affiliation:
Rutgers University, New Jersey
Joseph Sommer
Affiliation:
Rutgers University, New Jersey
Pernille Hemmer
Affiliation:
Rutgers University, New Jersey
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Summary

Humans have two kinds of beliefs, intuitive beliefs and reflective beliefs. Intuitive beliefs are a fundamental category of cognition, defined in the architecture of the mind. They are formulated in an intuitive mental lexicon. Humans are also capable of entertaining an indefinite variety of higher-order or "reflective" propositional attitudes, many of which are of a credal sort. Reasons to hold reflective beliefs are provided by other beliefs that describe the source of the reflective belief as reliable, or that provide an explicit argument in favour of the reflective belief. The mental lexicon of reflective beliefs includes not only intuitive, but also reflective concepts.

Keywords

intuitionreflectionbeliefconceptmetarepresentation
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cognitive Science of Belief
A Multidisciplinary Approach
 , pp. 153 - 171
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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