Abstract

Suspension of judgment or belief is often described as the neutral doxastic position or stance, alongside belief and disbelief. However, in this contribution, I will demonstrate that there is more than one way of being neutral. I will introduce paradigmatic cases involving cognitive neutrality and highlight significant differences in their nature, such as their relation to inquiry. I will argue that judgment suspension is an act of committing to indecision, leading to a qualified neutral state of mind. However, subjects can commit to indecision in different ways: depending on their epistemic situation and goals, they can suspend agnostically, precautionarily, or hypothetically. These three resulting states of committed indecision must be distinguished from uncommitted indecision, which is the basic state of doxastic neutrality.