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Abstract

I defend a proposition-directed, sui generis account of agnosticism, according to which being agnostic about some proposition, P, involves a sceptical or questioning mental stance towards both the truth and falsity of P. Call this the questioning-attitude account. The questioning-attitude account contrasts with the question-directed attitude account of Jane Friedman, which holds that the object of agnosticism is a question rather than a proposition. I argue that the questioning-attitude account not only avoids a major weakness of Friedman’s question-directed attitude account, but it also displays the following three attractive features: (1) it offers an explanation of why ascriptions of agnosticism often take an interrogative compliment, (2) it offers a univocal account of the content of all three doxastic attitudes, and (3) it fleshes out the claim that agnosticism is sui generis by describing what makes agnosticism distinct from both belief and disbelief.

Details

Title
The questioning-attitude account of agnosticism
Author
Archer, Avery 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

1  The George Washington University, Department of Philosophy, Washington, USA (GRID:grid.253615.6) (ISNI:0000 0004 1936 9510) 
Pages
498
Publication year
2022
Publication date
Dec 2022
Publisher
Springer Nature B.V.
ISSN
00397857
e-ISSN
15730964
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03971-w
ProQuest document ID
2739574836
Copyright
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2022. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.