The Natures of Judgment and Belief

Abstract

It is natural and usual in a theory of judgment to distinguish the content of a judgment, what is judged, usually a proposition, from the act of judging. There are theories, most notably Hume’s, in which this is not done. The difficulties which such theories encounter result for the most part from the difficulty they have in allowing the mind to entertain or assume the same proposition which it might also judge. I postpone until succeeding sections the question of how such theories may be modified to meet these problems and turn initially to theories in which the act is distinguished from the content.