The Adoption Problem and the Nature of General Belief

Abstract

Abstract The Adoption Problem suggests that it is impossible to rationally choose or adopt new basic logical principles. It aims to refute cognitivist views according to which adopting a logical principle is accepting or coming to believe a general principle, and then applying it in reasoning – according to which it is coming to have a belief whose content is a general proposition, which is then applied in reasoning. In this paper, we explore a new solution to the Adoption Problem inspired by Ramsey’s view of general beliefs as ‘habit[s] of singular belief’ (Ramsey 1929: 148). According to him, beliefs with a general content are special in that they are dispositional states. We show how this feature paves the way for a solution to the Adoption Problem which combines cognitivism with a form of expressivism.