ABSTRACT
Some reasons for taking belief to come by degrees were sketched in chapter 1.IV. One was that we can doubt any contingent proposition A, which cannot just mean that we do not believe A, for that will be true if we have never thought of A. Nor can doubting A mean disbelieving A, i.e. believing its negation — A, since we can doubt both A and — A at once. Doubt must therefore be a socalled propositional attitude in its own right; or rather, since it comes by degrees, it must be a family of attitudes, ranging from near-belief to near-disbelief.
