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A Pure Representationalist Account Of Belief And Desire, Stephen Pearce

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

According to the traditional view, beliefs and desires are mental representations that play particular functional roles. A belief that P is state which represents P and plays the belief-role, while a desire that P is a state which represents that P and plays the desire-role. In this dissertation I argue that the traditional view has trouble accounting for (a) role that belief and desire play in the causal and rational explanation of behaviour and (b) our knowledge of our own conscious, occurrent beliefs and desires. In its place I argue for Pure Attitude Representationalism (PAR), which holds that beliefs …