ABSTRACT

To believe is to believe somebody or something. Philosophers, inquiring into the nature of belief, have not bothered much about who is believed, partly because it seemed so obvious and partly because they quickly concluded that to believe somebody is to believe something, namely, what somebody says. What has interested them is what is believed. Prima facie, there are two obvious kinds of candidate for this role. On the one hand, there is what is said, e.g. in people’s actual or possible statements, stories, hypotheses, theories, rumours, alibis, etc. – what can, for short, be called a proposition. So that to believe the hypothesis that the butler committed the crime is to believe the proposition that the butler committed the crime. These are undoubtedly things we commonly believe. On the other hand, we may believe, e.g. that the earth is round, that tomorrow will be fine, that we have been swindled in the sale of our car, whether or not anything to this effect has been or will be said.