Abstract
Associative theories of cognitive representation begin with an ontology of two kinds of entities: concepts and associations. According to most social cognitive theories of attitudes, attitudes are object-evaluation associations of varying strength, where strength is defined in terms of accessibility. This paper proposes a cognitive account of belief such that beliefs are object-attribute associations of varying strength: thus, insofar as evaluative concepts are examples of attribute concepts, attitudes are a species of belief. This cognitive account of belief also denies that additional processes of endorsement - explicit or otherwise - are strictly required for an object-attribute association to count as a belief.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 284-301 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | Contemporary Pragmatism |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2018 |
Keywords
- Attitude
- Belief
- Cognitive association
- Social cognition
- Social psychology
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Philosophy