Tilburg Center for Moral Philosophy, Epistemology and Philosophy of Science (TiLPS), Department of Philosophy, Tilburg University.
Cogn Sci. 2023 Oct;47(10):e13361. doi: 10.1111/cogs.13361.
The puzzle of belief arises as currently no definition captures the various ways in which people believe. As a solution to this puzzle and to make the study of belief empirically tractable, Van Leeuwen and Lombrozo suggest acknowledging the plurality of beliefs and organizing beliefs according to their shared functions and traits. However, their proposal does not make yet the distinction between proper and derived functions of belief-generating cognitive systems. For that, we need a theoretical perspective anchored in evolutionary thinking. Such a perspective allows us to recognize the adaptive problems belief-generating cognitive systems solve and what sorts of beliefs they will tend to produce. By analyzing beliefs based on evolutionary considerations, we not only make the puzzle of belief empirically tractable, but also take an important step toward solving it.
信念之谜的出现是因为目前没有一个定义能够捕捉到人们信仰的各种方式。为了解决这个难题，并使对信念的研究在经验上具有可操作性，范·列文和隆布罗佐建议承认信念的多样性，并根据其共同的功能和特征来组织信念。然而，他们的提议尚未区分产生信念的认知系统的固有功能和衍生功能。为此，我们需要一个以进化思维为基础的理论视角。这种观点使我们能够认识到产生信念的认知系统所解决的适应性问题，以及它们可能产生的信念类型。通过基于进化考虑来分析信念，我们不仅使信念之谜在经验上具有可操作性，而且朝着解决它迈出了重要的一步。
