Thesis (Ph. D.)--Cornell University, 1910. / "Reprinted from the American journal of psychology October, 1910, vol. XXI."

Thesis--PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis--University of Wisconsin--Madison. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 281-294).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 141-146). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (PH. D.)- Columbia university, 1924. / Vita. "Reprinted from Archives of psychology... no. 67." Bibliography: p. 46-47.

The aim of this dissertation is to provide a non-Fregean account of the functioning of belief attributions (BA's), specifically those of the form 'B believes that Fa' where 'a' is a proper name, which provides a satisfactory account of the phenomena associated with the substitution of co-referential names and with the use of vacuous names. After an intitial study of non-Fregean theories of reference, specifically those of Kripke, Kaplan and Donnellan in which Kaplan's introduction of content, of the singular proposition, is found to be necessary, an examination of certain proposed solutions for BA's, compatable with direct reference, is carried out. These proposals, namely those of Quine, Perry and Nathan Salmon, are all found wanting, the latter two due to their being, ultimately, Fregean. A non-Fregean approach is initiated beginning with an examination of our actual practices in using BA's. It is found that very different information can be conveyed by the use of the same sentence in the same context. While this differing information cannot be captured by means of the proposition expressed, it can be captured by treating the BA as an answer to a question. Belnap's logic of questions and answers is then developed to encompass vacuous terms and, with this in place, two distinct uses of BA's emerge. In one, the BA is used to provide a direct answer to the question; in the other it is used in order to modify the claim to truth of the embedded proposition, to provide a tentative answer. Problematic cases of BA's are then examined. It is found that substitution in all cases is permissible. Supposed difficulties with this position in the area of belief itself and with the explanation of action are discussed and resolved, the latter partly by means of the development and application of an account of 'why' questions and answers. The use of vacuous names is then investigated and a difference noted between cases in which the BA is used to provide a tentative answer and those in which it constitutes a direct answer. In the former case, the use of a vacuous name results in no answer being given. However, given the nature of tentative answers, no problems specific to belief attributions are generated in such cases. In order to deal with cases where the vacuous name occurs in a BA asserted as a direct answer, Evans' account of pretend games is invoked, though modified to permit a possible world account of counterfactuals. / Arts, Faculty of / Philosophy, Department of / Graduate

Most epistemologists agree that epistemic justification is required for knowledge. This requirement is usually formulated in one of two ways: (JR1) S knows that p only if S is justified in believing that p. (JR2) S knows that p only if S's belief that p is justified. Surprisingly (JR1) and (JR2) are generally regarded as synonymous formulations of the justification condition. In Chapter 1, I argue that such a synonymy thesis is mistaken and that, in fact, (JR1) and (JR2) specify substantively different requirements. (JR1) requires that the person be justified, whereas (JR2) requires that the belief in question be justified, and intuitively, these constitute different requirements. Thus, it is concluded that (JR1) and (JR2) employ inherently different kinds of epistemic justification in their respective analysantia. I dub them "personal justification" and "doxastic justification", respectively. The remainder of the dissertation is devoted to demonstrating both the legitimacy and the importance of the personal/doxastic justification distinction. For example, the distinction helps account for the divergent intuitions that regularly arise regarding justificatory evaluations in demon-world contexts. In Chapters 2 and 3 I provide analyses for doxastic and personal justification. Chapter 2 spells out an externalist reliabilist account of doxastic justification which safely avoids demon-world counterexamples. Chapter 3 advances an internalist coherence account of personal justification. In defending this coherence theory, I argue that all foundation theories are false and that the regress argument on which they are predicated is unsound. In Chapter 4, I propose an analysis of ordinary knowledge which only requires doxastic justification. Nevertheless personal justification plays a negative, undermining role in the analysis. I then demonstrate that this analysis of knowledge is immune to typical Gettier examples. It also remains unscathed by Harman's beefed-up Gettier cases. Finally, I consider a stronger analysis of knowledge requiring both doxastic and personal justification. Though the latter analysis proves too strong for ordinary knowledge, it remains interesting as an analysis of a more intellectualistic kind of knowledge. The final chapter examines the internalist/externalist controversy and demonstrates that this controversy is yet another manifestation of the personal/doxastic justification conflation.

The study expounds the views of Macmurray, Baillie and Oman on religious belief in the context of their other epistemological, anthropological and theological convictions. It is shown that each of the writers argues that religious belief is a response to a feature of everyday experience (human alienation, moral intuition and the sense of the holy respectively), that each of them takes the view that religious belief functions in order to achieve a valued end (community, willing obedience to divinely ordained duties and the on-going development of moral personality) which is regarded as both the will of God and essential to human flourishing, and that they also hold that religious beliefs may be confirmed in relation to the valued end which they aim to promote. I argue that whilst each is not without their lacunas and inadequacies, the three writers provide insights which may be useful in understanding religious belief in a Christian context. I maintain, for instance, that Macmurray's argument that religion is a derivative response to a critical dimension of ordinary experience is an illuminating perspective. Again, it is argued that there are resources in Baillie's work to help in the articulation of the view that Christian belief is a response to an a priori encounter with the divine presence in experience. Again, Oman's emphasis on the role of feeling in the disclosure of the divine is plausible, and his analysis of the nature of religious belief is particularly rich in illuminating insights. An important argument that runs through the thesis is that it is plausible to think that there are preconceptual experiences that are cognitively important. In this sense, the study aims to help underpin an experiential approach in the face of those critics who deny the conceptual possibility of such primal experiences.

Issued also as thesis, Bern. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 109-110).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Johns Hopkins University. / Biographical sketch. Includes bibliographical references.