At the centenary of Frank H. Knight’s Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit (1921), we explore the continuing relevance of Knightian uncertainty to the theory and practice of entrepreneurship. There are three challenges facing such assessment. First, RUP is complex and difficult to interpret. The key but neglected element of RUP is that Knight’s account is not solely about risk and uncertainty as states of nature, but about how an agent’s beliefs about uncertain outcomes and confidence in those beliefs guide (...) their choices. Second, RUP is Knight’s only effort in this area. His subsequent career led elsewhere, so he did not engage with subsequent interpretations of this work. Third, much of the current literature emphasizes that decisions must be different under the two states of nature with a consequent misunderstanding of entrepreneurial agency. This paper addresses each challenge in sequence. First, we explicate Knight’s (1921) approach and explain why that approach is murky. Second, as a complement to Knight’s interpretation, we examine Frank P. Ramsey’s approach to subjective probabilities to help clarify Knight’s murky approach. What links Knight and Ramsey is a shared pragmatism about entrepreneurial agency under uncertainty that depends upon the beliefs about, and confidence in, their judgments of possible outcomes. This Knight-Ramsey approach does not require actor’s behaviors to be determined by the class of uncertain environment (whether risk, uncertainty, or ambiguity) they face. We focus on the response by the entrepreneur to the existence of uncertainty in all its forms. We argue that this reductive account provides a foundation to examine common problems in management, including managerial hubris, the interaction between entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, and the need for experimentation (such as prototyping and market research) in advance of new product and venture launches. Third, we critique current literature that favors epistemic purism about the ontology of risk and uncertainty and ignores Knight-Ramsey pragmatism in meeting uncertainty, such as using formal and informal institutions for uncertainty mitigation. Our account locates Frank Knight’s subtleties in entrepreneurial behavior firmly in the literature on entrepreneurial agency a century later. (shrink)

The nationwide economic reform in 1986 transformed Vietnam from a centrally planned economy to a socialist-oriented market economy. Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial spirits within the populace are suggested to fuel the structural changes. Despite the importance of entrepreneurship in Vietnam’s economy, studies in Vietnam mainly pay attention to the practical aspects of entrepreneurial activities and neglect the cognitive and theoretical aspects of entrepreneurship. Thus, the current study employs the information-processing perspective of the Mindsponge Theory to explore how entrepreneurs’ knowledge (...) accumulation can affect their perceived likelihood of business success. Bayesian analysis indicates that business-related experience positively affects entrepreneurs’ business success likelihood. Greater willingness/readiness to transform thinking, acting, and beliefs can improve the business success of entrepreneurs who study others’ failures carefully. However, for entrepreneurs who perceive learning from others’ failures as unnecessary, higher willingness/readiness to transform diminishes their chance of success. Based on these findings, we recommend Vietnamese entrepreneurs accumulate knowledge through experience, learning, and an open mind for better decision-making and innovation creation capabilities. However, the learning process should be selective. (shrink)

Nyerere’s philosophy of education is one of the most influential and widely studied theories of education. Policy-makers have continued to draw from it for policy re-engineering. In this paper, the Nigerian educational system is examined in the light of the philosophy. This approach is predicated on the informed belief that there are social and historical commonalities between Nigeria and the target-society of Nyerere’s philosophy. To this end, it argues that the philosophy holds some important lessons for Nigeria’s education. For this (...) reason, there is need to inject some doses of its principles into the body polity of Nigeria’s education. The article identifies three areas – school financing, curricula development and entrepreneurial education – where the principles of the philosophy can be practically invaluable for Nigeria. In the final analysis, the paper identifies the linkage between national philosophy of education and national developmental ideology; and argues that a national philosophy of education of any country must be embedded in the national development ideology of that country of which the country’s philosophy of education must drive. (shrink)

Until recently, the economic history of pre-colonial Africa was replete with uncomplimentary theories and from scholars of different disciplines. The belief was that the economy was subsistent, uniform, unchanging and very uninteresting. These theorists believed that the dominant agricultural sector was virtually immobilized by a combination of primitive technology, like communal land tenure and extended family, while the development of key entrepreneurial groups was inhibited by the prevalence of an anti-capitalist value system. The historical analytical method was adopted in (...) this research. The theories portrayed pre-colonial Africans as people that lacked the capacity to progress even though they lived in a rich environment. It was believed that it was not until the advent of the Europeans that positive changes were recorded. However, contrary to these theories, the Ibibio pre-colonial economy was premised on agriculture, complemented by trade and the existence of local industries. Thus, their pre-colonial economy was more coordinated, complex and diversified than the Eurocentric writers opined. The success recorded in this direction was activated by economic diplomacy which the Ibibio had practiced in the pre-colonial period. Issues relating to the economy were properly managed through the adoption of various relevant methods and strategies. Since the economy of a people operates in the society and remains fundamental to the survival of such society with the capacity to influence the political and other institutional decisions, economic diplomacy triggered holistic development in Ibibioland. Based on these, it recommended that present day Ibibio economy should not be totally divorced from these fundamental variables if the Ibibio are to be economically relevant in present day Nigeria. (shrink)

In spite of the concerted drive by most countries towards gender equality, the reality is that women still remain underutilised in certain spheres of professional endeavours, and entrepreneurship is no exception. Widening the gap between female and male participation in entrepreneurial activities is reinforced by customs, beliefs, culture and religion. Using the patriarchal perceptions that dissuade women from pursuing a business opportunity as the backdrop, this study sought to ascertain how it feels to be a woman entrepreneur in (...) a male-dominated society such as Rwanda. The study involved 398 women entrepreneurs who were purposely drawn to complete the survey questionnaire that was the basis of the quantitative approach adopted. The data was analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences(SPSS) software. The results suggest that women entrepreneurs worked lesser than men due to family issues; female-owned businesses are smaller in size than male businesses, and women find it difficult reaching the decision to start a business. The implication is that women's businesses suffer most and thus limiting their ability to contribute to the socio-economic development of a country as they would through employment and poverty reduction. By working together, government and stakeholders may eradicate any form of discrimination in business that is associated with gender. (shrink)

This research explore factors influencing entrepreneurial sustainability and financial stability within the context of the fashion industry, with a focus on the perceptions of fashion designers in Abia State. Descriptive survey methods were employed to provide a comprehensive understanding of the subject matter. The total population for the study was 487, which comprises all registered fashion designers operating in Aba, hence the whole population was used for the study. The study was carried out in Aba which is one of (...) the major fashion hubs in Abia State. Data was collected through structured questionnaire titled Questionnaire on Perceived Entrepreneurial Sustainability and Financial Stability among Fashion Designers (QPESFAFD). The data collected was analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the items on each objective. The findings revealed that there are perceived entrepreneurial sustainability strategies adopted by fashion designers, and perceptions influence the financial stability of fashion businesses. It also revealed that there are challenges and opportunities faced by fashion designers in sustaining their businesses and achieving financial stability. Based on the findings, recommendations were made that, there should be regular workshops and training sessions that will focus on financial management and planning specifically tailored for fashion designers and networking and collaboration platforms should facilitate knowledge sharing, resource pooling, and collaboration among fashion designers in Abia State. (shrink)

Entrepreneurship plays an indispensable role in the economic development and poverty reduction of emerging economies like Vietnam. The rapid development of technologies during the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) has a significant impact on business in every field, especially in the innovation-focused area of entrepreneurship. However, the topic of entrepreneurial activities with technology applications in Vietnam is under-researched. In addition, the body of literature regarding entrepreneurial finance tends to focus on advanced economies, while mostly neglecting the contextual differences (...) in developing nations. Therefore, this research contributes to these topics by investigating the main characteristics of a high potential market for entrepreneurs in Vietnam, which is the English language training market (ELTM). It also aims at indicating the impacts of technology on the entrepreneurial firms within this market, with an emphasis on financing sources. To answer the research questions, this study employs a qualitative analysis and conducts 12 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs and researchers in the field. The key findings in our study highlight the main contributing factors to the growth of the market, both universally and context-specific for a developing nation like Vietnam. It also lists the leaders in each market segment and the industry’s potential profit margin. The results also show that most entrepreneurs in the ELTM utilized private sources of finance rather than external ones, such as bank loans. It again confirms the idea from previous works that even with the rapid development of the economic and technological landscape, entrepreneurial activities in general barely benefit from additional sources of funding. However, it also points out the distinct characteristics of the ELTM that may influence these financing issues; for example, English training services usually collect revenues from customers before delivering their classes. This is of advantage for entrepreneurs in this area and helps significantly reduce the financial barriers. These findings, which are among the first attempts to contribute to a better understanding of entrepreneurial opportunities in the Industry 4.0 in Vietnam, provide valuable insights for policymakers and entrepreneurs, as well as investors. (shrink)

This research, aims to develop a conceptual framework to assess the entrepreneurial properties of the Vietnamese reform, known as Doi Moi, even before the kickoff of Doi Moi policy itself. The authors argue that unlike many other scholars’ assertion, economic crisis and harsh realities were neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for the reform to take place, but the entrepreneurial elements and undertaking were, at least for the case of Vietnam’s reform. Entrepreneurial process, on the one hand, sought (...) structural changes and kicked off innovation, and on the other hand, its induced outcome further invited changes and associated opportunities. The paper also concludes that an assessment of possibility for the next stage of Doi Moi should take into account the entrepreneurial factors of the economy and predict the emergence of new entrepreneurial facets in the next phase of economic development. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to determine the impact of entrepreneurial initiative on the development of innovation activity of country enterprises. The theory of entrepreneurship by clarifying the essence of entrepreneurial initiative got further elaboration in the article. The methodical approach to the analysis and evaluation of the entrepreneurial initiative and its impact on the innovation activity of the enterprises, the results of which are the basis for further development of proposals to stimulate entrepreneurial initiative (...) and development of their innovation activity is suggested. The estimation of innovation activity of 1758 enterprises of Ukraine by calculating the integral indicator of innovation activity revealed its low level for innovation active enterprises. The method of one-dimensional linear regression has determined that an increase in the number of business structures per 10 thousand people of the country's population at a rate of 1.0 causes an increase in the indicator of innovation activity by 0.172. It is proved in the article that development of infrastructure of enterprenerial environment and creation of centers for entrepreneurship development act as an important mechanism of increasing innovation activity of enterprises of the country. (shrink)

Owing to the differences in the practice of entrepreneurship as occasioned by gender, culture and marital status, widow entrepreneurship ought to be studied separately. This is increasingly being re-echoed by the resilience of widow entrepreneurs in spite of the disinheritance, dehumanizing and discriminatory characteristics of the persisting widowhood practices in South Eastern Nigeria. This study therefore seeks to investigate the moderating role of entrepreneurial self-efficacy in the entrepreneurial experience, financial and non-financial performance of widow entrepreneurships in South Eastern (...) Nigeria. The study adopts cross sectional research design and simple random sampling technique. The generated data via questionnaire were analyzed based on Baron and Kenny’s (1986) four step approach for testing moderation. It was found that entrepreneurial self-efficacy moderates the relationships. The researchers conclude that entrepreneurial self-efficacy can increase or decrease the strength of the relationship between entrepreneurial experience, and financial and non-financial performance of widow entrepreneurships in the long run. (shrink)

Editorial Office MDPI St. Alban-Anlage 66 4052 Basel, Switzerland This is a reprint of articles from the Special Issue published online in the open access journal Journal of Risk and Financial Management (ISSN 1911-8074: SI Entrepreneurial Finance).

According to many philosophers, belief is a settling state. On this view, someone who believes p is disposed to take p for granted in practical and theoretical reasoning. This paper presents a simple objection to this settling conception of belief: it conflicts with our ordinary patterns of belief ascription. I show that ascriptions of unsettled beliefs are commonplace, and that they pose problems for all of the most promising ways of developing the settling conception. I proceed to explore the (...) implications of my argument for the relation between belief and credence, and for the relative importance of belief in psychological explanation. (shrink)

A widely accepted view in the discussion of personal identity is that the notion of psychological continuity expresses a one--many or many--one relation. This belief is unfounded. A notion of psychological continuity expresses a one--many or many--one relation only if it includes, as a constituent, psychological properties whose relation with their bearers is one--many or many--one; but the relation between an indexical psychological state and its bearer when first tokened is not a one--many or many--one relation. It follows that not (...) all types of psychological continuity may take a one--many or many--one form. This conclusion casts doubt on the Lockean approach to the issue, by showing that the notion of psychological continuity Lockeans rely on may not be available. (shrink)

We aim to do two things in this article. On the positive end, our goal is to explain how some seemingly incompatible aspects of belief live together, by presenting distinct mechanistic explanations of each of them: in particular we want to show how belief can be discerning, credulous, rational, and irrational. After clarifying our positive view, we take aim at some competitor views in the second half of the paper, particularly offering critiques of epistemic vigilance and social marketplace accounts of (...) belief. We conclude by inviting proponents to provide an architecture for belief that can be tested against existing models. (shrink)

Belief-credence dualism is the view that we have both beliefs and credences and neither attitude is reducible to the other. Pragmatic encroachment is the view that practical stakes can affect the epistemic rationality of states like knowledge or justified belief. In this paper, I argue that dualism offers a unique explanation of pragmatic encroachment cases. First, I explain pragmatic encroachment and what motivates it. Then, I explain dualism and outline a particular argument for dualism. Finally, I show how dualism (...) can explain the intuitions that underlie pragmatic encroachment. My basic proposal is that in high-stakes cases, it is not that one cannot rationally believe that p; instead, one ought not to rely on one's belief that p. One should rather rely on one's credence in p. I conclude that we need not commit ourselves to pragmatic encroachment in order to explain the intuitiveness of the cases that motivate it. (shrink)

The 21st century imposed many challenges on mankind, among them there is a very important problem of entrepreneurial leadership transformation. Entrepreneurship gradual modification under the pressure of factors of innovation, informatization of the environment and the need for socialization of the relations between businessmen and society has led to the need of new understanding of leadership positions. The purpose of this scientific research is to substantiate the style of entrepreneurial leadership, which will become dominant in the 21st century. (...) Analyzing and systematizing the scientific works of many modern scholars by the methods of theoretical synthesis, analysis and synthesis, we have solved the problems of entrepreneurial leadership transformation. The use of the historical and logical method has revealed the relationship between the entrepreneurial leadership development and entrepreneurial types. The study found that the global business environment requires new leaders, whose key competences will meet the needs of society, educational space, ethical requirements, etc. Studying the similarities and differences of various leadership styles has become the basis for the allocation of a new style – the leadership of conscious influence, the main characteristics of which are given in this research. In order to achieve the goals, set by the leader-entrepreneur, it is proposed to systematize the leadership opportunities on tactical and strategic, the factors of influence on their realization in the future are generalized. By the method of scientific and theoretical prediction the portrait of an entrepreneur in a global perspective has been formed. Prospects for further research in this area are the development of a methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of business leaders' actions and systematization of ways to increase their effectiveness in the future. (shrink)

I explore how rational belief and rational credence relate to evidence. I begin by looking at three cases where rational belief and credence seem to respond differently to evidence: cases of naked statistical evidence, lotteries, and hedged assertions. I consider an explanation for these cases, namely, that one ought not form beliefs on the basis of statistical evidence alone, and raise worries for this view. Then, I suggest another view that explains how belief and credence relate to evidence. My (...) view focuses on the possibilities that the evidence makes salient. I argue that this makes better sense of the difference between rational credence and rational belief than other accounts. (shrink)

There are currently two robust traditions in philosophy dealing with doxastic attitudes: the tradition that is concerned primarily with all-or-nothing belief, and the tradition that is concerned primarily with degree of belief or credence. This paper concerns the relationship between belief and credence for a rational agent, and is directed at those who may have hoped that the notion of belief can either be reduced to credence or eliminated altogether when characterizing the norms governing ideally rational agents. It presents a (...) puzzle which lends support to two theses. First, that there is no formal reduction of a rational agent’s beliefs to her credences, because belief and credence are each responsive to different features of a body of evidence. Second, that if our traditional understanding of our practices of holding each other responsible is correct, then belief has a distinctive role to play, even for ideally rational agents, that cannot be played by credence. The question of which avenues remain for the credence-only theorist is considered. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the relationship between belief and credence is a central question in epistemology. This is because the belief-credence relationship has significant implications for a number of current epistemological issues. I focus on five controversies: permissivism, disagreement, pragmatic encroachment, doxastic voluntarism, and the relationship between doxastic attitudes and prudential rationality. I argue that each debate is constrained in particular ways, depending on whether the relevant attitude is belief or credence. This means that epistemologists should pay attention (...) to whether they are framing questions in terms of belief or in terms of credence and the success or failure of a reductionist project in the belief-credence realm has significant implications for epistemology generally. (shrink)

Beliefs can be resistant to evidence. Nonetheless, the orthodox view in epistemology analyzes beliefs as evidence-responsive attitudes. I address this tension by deploying analytical tools on capacities and masking to show that the cognitive science of evidence-resistance supports rather than undermines the orthodox view. In doing so, I argue for the claim that belief requires the capacity for evidence-responsiveness. More precisely, if a subject believes that p, then they have the capacity to rationally respond to evidence bearing on (...) p. Because capacities for evidence-responsiveness are fallible and may be masked, beliefs can be held in the face of counter-evidence. Indeed, I will argue that our best science of belief supports the claim that evidence-resistant beliefs result from masks on evidence-responsiveness capacities. This account of belief not only allows for resistance to evidence, but provides us with a framework for describing and explaining actual cases of evidence-resistance. (shrink)

I argue that any account of imagination should satisfy the following three desiderata. First, imaginations induce actions only in conjunction with beliefs about the environment of the imagining subject. Second, there is a continuum between imaginations and beliefs. Recognizing this continuum is crucial to explain the phenomenon of imaginative immersion. Third, the mental states that relate to imaginations in the way that desires relate to beliefs are a special kind of desire, namely desires to make true in (...) fiction. These desires to make true in fiction do not differ from regular desires in kind, but only in content. I argue for these three desiderata in turn by critically discussing several recent accounts of imagination. (shrink)

Most philosophers find it puzzling how beliefs could wrong, and this leads them to conclude that they do not. So there is much philosophical work to be done in sorting out whether I am right to say that they do, as well as how this could be so. But in this paper I will take for granted that beliefs can wrong, and ask instead when beliefs wrong. My answer will be that beliefs wrong when they falsely (...) diminish. This answer has three parts: that beliefs wrong only when they are false, that beliefs wrong only when they diminish, and that false diminishment is sufficient for wronging. I will seek to elaborate on and defend all three of these claims, but it is the first to which I will give the most attention. (shrink)

I examine three attitudes: belief, faith, and hope. I argue that all three attitudes play the same role in rationalizing action. First, I explain two models of rational action—the decision-theory model and the belief-desire model. Both models entail there are two components of rational action: an epistemic component and a conative component. Then, using this framework, I show how belief, faith, and hope that p can all make it rational to accept, or act as if, p. I conclude by showing (...) how my picture can explain how action-oriented commitments can be rational over time, both in the face of counterevidence and in the face of waning affections. (shrink)

Most studies on entrepreneurship have highlighted the relative importance of a conducive environment for the development of entrepreneurship. This notwithstanding, entrepreneurship has been noted to thrive even under the most adverse conditions, such as during economic, social and political instabilities. Using resilience as the propensity to bounce back after adversity and xenophobia, crime, unhealthy competition, etc. as correlates of adversity or an unconducive business environment, this paper investigated the preponderance of Somali grocery shops in South African township despite the perceived (...) hostility of the business environment. Anchored on the qualitative research approach, a purposive sample of 13 participants provided the required data for analysis. Specifically, the data collection took the form of focus group interviews in which two groups of 6 and 7 informants were purposively selected to be part of the interviews. Prominent in the results was the fact that almost all the current Somali grocery shops in the study area have been victims of crime and theft. Furthermore, virtually all the Somali grocery shops that were victimized during the xenophobic outburst have since re-opened. The foregoing themes of resilience and adversity unmistakably indicate the propensity of Somali grocery shop owners’ ability to bounce back. As to what township entrepreneurs worry or fear most, clearly, the fear of the re-occurrence of the xenophobic attacks surpassed that of burglary, theft and death. As to what fuels Somali’s persistence and preponderance in townships, both push and pull factors were reported. Reporting on risk aversion, it was noted that most of the founders (here referred to as an entrepreneur) are not actively involved in running the shops. They simply recruit others to do the job on their behalf. Under this circumstance, the risk is limited to financial risk. This approach is quite different for other African immigrants in the same township. -/- . (shrink)

We care what people think of us. The thesis that beliefs wrong, although compelling, can sound ridiculous. The norms that properly govern belief are plausibly epistemic norms such as truth, accuracy, and evidence. Moral and prudential norms seem to play no role in settling the question of whether to believe p, and they are irrelevant to answering the question of what you should believe. This leaves us with the question: can we wrong one another by virtue of what we (...) believe about each other? Can beliefs wrong? In this introduction, I present a brief summary of the articles that make up this special issue. The aim is to direct readers to open avenues for future research by highlighting questions and challenges that are far from being settled. These papers shouldn’t be taken as the last word on the subject. Rather, they mark the beginning of a serious exploration into a set of questions that concern the morality of belief, i.e., doxastic morality. (shrink)

Keeping track of what others believe is a central part of human social cognition. However, the social relevance of those beliefs can vary a great deal. Some belief attributions mostly tell us about what a person is likely to do next. Other belief attributions tell us more about a person's social identity. In this paper, I argue that we cope with this challenge by employing two distinct concepts of belief in our everyday social interactions. The epistemic concept of belief (...) is primarily used to keep track of what other people take to be true, and this informs how we predict and interpret their behaviors. The symbolic concept of belief, in contrast, is primarily used as a means of signaling one's social identity to other members of one's community. In turn, community members closely monitor each other's symbolic beliefs as a means of enforcing social norms. (shrink)

Philosophers commonly say that beliefs come in degrees. Drawing from the literature, I make precise three arguments for this claim: an argument from degrees of confidence, an argument from degrees of firmness, and an argument from natural language. I show that they all fail. I also advance three arguments that beliefs do not come in degrees: an argument from natural language, an argument from intuition, and an argument from the metaphysics of degrees. On the basis of these arguments, (...) I conclude that beliefs do not come in degrees. (shrink)

Credences are beliefs about evidential probabilities. We give the view an assessment-sensitive formulation, show how it evades the standard objections, and give several arguments in support.

According to the cognitive model of psychopathology, maladaptive beliefs about oneself, others, and the world are the main factors contributing to the development and persistence of various forms of mental suffering. Therefore, the key therapeutic process of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)—a therapeutic approach rooted in the cognitive model—is cognitive restructuring, i.e., a process of revision of such maladaptive beliefs. In this paper, I examine the philosophical assumptions underlying CBT and offer theoretical reasons to think that the effectiveness of (...) belief revision in psychotherapy is very limited. This is the case, I argue, because the cognitive model wrongly assumes that our body of beliefs is unified, while it is in fact fragmented. (shrink)

In this essay, I develop an account of belief as commitment to the truth of a proposition. On my account, to believe p is to represent p as true by way of committing to the truth of p. To commit to the truth of p, in the sense I am interested in, is to exercise the normative power to subject one’s representation of p as true to the normative standard of truth. As I argue, my account of belief as commitment (...) of the truth explains a variety of features of belief that separate it from attitudes like acceptance, supposition, and imagination. Most importantly, it explains the distinctive connection between belief and evidence. Moreover, my account helps solve three further puzzles about belief, regarding doxastic voluntarism, the aim of belief, and Moore’s paradox. (shrink)

We distinguish between two categories of belief—thin belief and thick belief—and provide evidence that they approximate genuinely distinct categories within folk psychology. We use the distinction to make informative predictions about how laypeople view the relationship between knowledge and belief. More specifically, we show that if the distinction is genuine, then we can make sense of otherwise extremely puzzling recent experimental findings on the entailment thesis (i.e. the widely held philosophical thesis that knowledge entails belief). We also suggest that the (...) distinction can be applied to debates in the philosophy of mind and metaethics. (shrink)

This chapter defends the thesis that feeling conviction is sufficient for belief: if you feel conviction that p, then you believe that p. I begin with a neutral characterization of belief in terms of its normative profile: belief is a state that is subject to certain distinctive norms of rationality. The main argument of the chapter is that feelings of conviction are beliefs because they are subject to the same norms of rationality that govern our beliefs. Functionalists often (...) deny that feelings of conviction constitute beliefs when they play dysfunctional causal roles, as in cases of mad belief or delusion or implicit bias, but this only serves to obscure the kind of irrationality involved in such cases. These are dysfunctional beliefs, rather than non-doxastic states, or "in-between" cases. (shrink)

Many psychologists studying lay belief attribution and behavior explanation cite Donald Davidson in support of their assumption that people construe beliefs as inner causes. But Davidson’s influential argument is unsound; there are no objective grounds for the intuition that the folk construe beliefs as inner causes that produce behavior. Indeed, recent experimental work by Ian Apperly, Bertram Malle, Henry Wellman, and Tania Lombrozo provides an empirical framework that accords well with Gilbert Ryle’s alternative thesis that the folk construe (...) beliefs as patterns of living that contextualize behavior. (shrink)

Radical moral encroachment is the view that belief itself is morally evaluable, and that some moral properties of belief itself make a difference to epistemic rationality. To date, almost all proponents of radical moral encroachment hold to an asymmetry thesis: the moral encroaches on rational belief, but not on rational credence. In this paper, we argue against the asymmetry thesis; we show that, insofar as one accepts the most prominent arguments for radical moral encroachment on belief, one should likewise accept (...) radical moral encroachment on credence. We outline and reject potential attempts to establish a basis for asymmetry between the attitude types. Then, we explore the merits and demerits of the two available responses to our symmetry claim: (i) embracing moral encroachment on credence and (ii) denying moral encroachment on belief. (shrink)

Tim Crane maintains that beliefs cannot be conscious because they persist in the absence of consciousness. Conscious judgments can share their contents with beliefs, and their occurrence can be evidence for what one believes; but they cannot be beliefs, because they don’t persist. I challenge Crane’s premise that belief attributions to the temporarily unconscious are literally true. To say of an unconscious agent that she believes that p is like saying that she sings well. To say she (...) sings well is to say that when she sings, her singing is good. To say that she believes that p is to say that when she consciously considers the content that p she consciously affirms it. I also argue that the phenomenal view of intentional content Crane appears to endorse prima facie commits him to the view, at least controversial, perhaps incoherent, that there is unconscious phenomenology. Keywords : Belief; Consciousness; Unconscious; Intentional Content; Judgment. Credenze coscienti Riassunto: Tim Crane sostiene che le credenze non possano essere coscienti, dal momento che perdurano anche in assenza di coscienza. I giudizi formulati consapevolmente possono condividere i loro contenuti con le credenze e il loro verificarsi può essere una forma di evidenza a supporto di quanto uno crede. E tuttavia essi non possono essere credenze, dal momento che non perdurano. Nel commento metto in discussione la premessa di Crane secondo cui porre l’attribuzione di credenze su un piano temporaneamente inconscio sia vero in senso letterale. Dire di un agente non cosciente che esso creda che p è come dire che canti bene. Dire che canti bene è dire che quando canta, il suo canto è buono. Dire che crede che p è dire che quando considera consapevolmente il contenuto p costui lo afferma consapevolmente. Inoltre intendo affermare che la visione fenomenica del contenuto intenzionale che Crane sembra abbracciare lo impegni prima facie nei confronti della prospettiva, quantomeno controversa e probabilmente incoerente, secondo cui esisterebbe una dimensione fenomenica inconscia. Parole chiave: Credenza; Coscienza; Inconscio; Contenuto intenzionale; Giudizio. (shrink)

Many of our beliefs behave irrationally: this is hardly news to anyone. Although beliefs’ irrational tendencies need to be taken into account, this paper argues that beliefs necessarily preserve at least a minimal level of rationality. This view offers a plausible picture of what makes belief unique and will help us to set beliefs apart from other cognitive attitudes.

Entrepreneurship education is among the key drivers of the country’s economy, and teachers are primarily responsible for its integration into teaching and finding the best and most useful method. The purpose of this research is to determine the level of entrepreneurial competence and teaching methods among entrepreneurship education teachers. Focusing on the concept of entrepreneurial competencies combining conceptual, human relations, strategic, commitment, opportunity, organizational and strategic competencies. Using quantitative – descriptive survey, the study tested its significant difference and (...) relationship when grouped with the profile variables. The findings indicate a significant correlation between the variables particularly, with the technical competence which has the strongest correlation. The paper sheds some light concerning the status of the current entrepreneurial competence of the teachers in the division and recommends training curriculum to develop their competencies in handling the subject. (shrink)

Most work in Kant’s epistemology focuses on what happens “upstream” from experience, prior to the formation of conscious propositional attitudes. By contrast, this essay focuses on what happens "downstream": the formation of assent (Fuerwahrhalten) in its various modes. The mode of assent that Kant calls "Belief" (Glaube) is the main topic: not only moral Belief but also "pragmatic" and "doctrinal" Belief as well. I argue that Kant’s discussion shows that we should reject standard accounts of the extent to which theoretical (...) reason can provide justified assent about things-in-themselves, in favor of one that is much more liberal. Interpretive benefits are not the only results of the discussion, however. I also hope it will become clear along the way that there is such a thing as Kantian Belief, and that we often have quite a lot of it. -/- . (shrink)

A number of philosophers have argued that it is hard for finite agents like us to reason and make decisions relying solely on our credences and preferences. They hold that for us to cope with our cognitive limitations, we need binary beliefs as well. For they think that such beliefs, by disposing us to treat certain propositions as true, help us cut down on the number of possibilities we need to consider when we reason. But using Ross and (...) Schroeder as my stalking horse, I argue that such an appeal to binary beliefs does not work. I begin by explaining why there’s supposedly a problem for an account of reasoning that invokes only credences and preferences. I then argue that Ross and Schroeder’s account of belief—as well as other similar accounts—does not help solve the problem. Finally, I consider an alternative approach to solving the problem. This approach, unlike the accounts I criticise, does not hold that having a disposition to treat a proposition as true is necessary for believing it. (shrink)

In this paper two systems of AGM-like Paraconsistent Belief Revision are overviewed, both defined over Logics of Formal Inconsistency (LFIs) due to the possibility of defining a formal consistency operator within these logics. The AGM° system is strongly based on this operator and internalize the notion of formal consistency in the explicit constructions and postulates. Alternatively, the AGMp system uses the AGM-compliance of LFIs and thus assumes a wider notion of paraconsistency - not necessarily related to the notion of formal (...) consistency. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that faith’s going beyond the evidence need not compromise faith’s epistemic rationality. First, I explain how some of the recent literature on belief and credence points to a distinction between what I call B-evidence and C-evidence. Then, I apply this distinction to rational faith. I argue that if faith is more sensitive to B-evidence than to C-evidence, faith can go beyond the evidence and still be epistemically rational.

I examine the relationship between belief and credences and distinguish between a dogmatic, a Lockean, an agentic, and an abductive notion of belief. I conclude with some thoughts on voluntarism and evidentialism.

Don’t form beliefs on the basis of coin flips or random guesses. More generally, don’t take belief gambles: if a proposition is no more likely to be true than false given your total body of evidence, don’t go ahead and believe that proposition. Few would deny this seemingly innocuous piece of epistemic advice. But what, exactly, is wrong with taking belief gambles? Philosophers have debated versions of this question at least since the classic dispute between William Clifford and William (...) James near the end of the nineteenth century. Here I reassess the normative standing of belief gambles from the perspective of epistemic decision theory. The main lesson of the paper is a negative one: it turns out that we need to make some surprisingly strong and hard-to-motivate assumptions to establish a general norm against belief gambles within a decision-theoretic framework. I take this to pose a dilemma for epistemic decision theory: it forces us to either make seemingly unmotivated assumptions to secure a norm against belief gambles, or concede that belief gambles can be rational after all. (shrink)

In Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee reveals that American man of integrity Atticus Finch harbors deep-seated racist beliefs. Bob Ewell, Finch's nemesis in To Kill a Mockingbird, harbors the same beliefs. But the two men live out their shared racist beliefs in dramatically different fashions. This article argues that extant dispositionalist accounts of belief lack the tools to accommodate Finch and Ewell's divergent styles of believing. It then draws on literary and philosophical character studies to construct (...) the required tools. (shrink)

The belief norm of academic publishing states that researchers should believe certain claims they publish. The purpose of this paper is to defend the belief norm of academic publishing. In its defense, the advantages and disadvantages of the belief norm are evaluated for academic research and for the publication system. It is concluded that while the norm does not come without costs, academic research systemically benefits from the belief norm and that it should be counted among those that sustain the (...) practice of academic publishing. (shrink)

Belief is a familiar attitude: taking something to be the case or regarding it as true. But we are more confident in some of our beliefs than in others. For this reason, many epistemologists appeal to a second attitude, called credence, similar to a degree of confidence. This raises the question: how do belief and credence relate to each other? On a belief-first view, beliefs are more fundamental and credences are a species of beliefs, e.g. beliefs (...) about probabilities. On a credence-first view, credences are more fundamental and beliefs are a species of credence, e.g. credence above some threshold. In this thesis, I develop and defend a third view that I call belief-credence dualism. On this view, belief and credence are independent, equally fundamental attitudes, and neither reduces to the other. I begin by motivating the project: why should we care about the relationship between belief and credence? I argue it has broad implications for many debates in epistemology and beyond. Then, I defend dualism, arguing that it can explain features of our mental lives that a credence-first view and a belief-first view cannot. I also argue that dualism has attractive, interesting implications when applied to the pragmatic encroachment debate. Finally, I explore implications of dualism, both for the nature of evidence and how faith might go beyond the evidence but nonetheless be epistemically rational. I conclude that the human mind is, in some ways, complex, but we should be happy with this conclusion also long as each mental state we posit has a clear role to play. (shrink)

Belief-in reports of the form 'S believes in O' have been taken to have at least two senses: factual and evaluative. I begin by briefly suggesting that there is no evidence for two distinct senses, then spend most of the paper developing a general semantics for belief-in reports. I explore, and use my semantics to explain, several features of belief-in reports: the context-dependence of what belief-that reports they entail, their widespread lack of equivalence with belief-that reports, and their neg-raising property. (...) Put roughly, my semantics says that 'S believes in O' a) asserts that, for some contextually salient property F, S believes that O has F and b) presupposes that S either has a belief that O has F for which they meet an affective and evidential requirement or has a belief that O doesn’t have F for which they meet an affective and evidential requirement. (shrink)

Aim: Underscoring the xenophobic violence that has befallen African immigrants in South Africa in the recent past is the perception held in certain quarters that African immigrants take away entrepreneurial opportunities among others from the Natives. This paper sought to determine how African immigrant entrepreneurs identify business opportunities in South Africa in tandem with what South African entrepreneurs could learn from African immigrants. -/- Method: The paper was based on quantitative data from 220 participants collected by way of a (...) semi-structured questionnaire. As such, the study benefited from the qualitative insights associated with the use open-ended questions in the questionnaire. The data was analyzed using version 24 of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. -/- Results: suggest that African immigrants uncover entrepreneurial opportunities through: startup partners, previous employment, families, through ethnic networks, prior knowledge of the market need, prior knowledge of how to serve the market and prior knowledge of the challenges serving the market. Value/Contribution: this study is premised on the fact that no previous study has attempted to investigate how immigrants identify business opportunities, in tandem with what South African entrepreneurs could learn from African immigrants. -/- Implications: Considering the close parallel between African immigrants and the indigenous black South Africans, it is to be hoped that the study would be of interest to the latter in particular, policy makers and academics in general. (shrink)

I argue for the existence of imaginative beliefs: mental states that are imaginative in format and doxastic in attitude. I advance two arguments for this thesis. First, there are imaginings that play the functional roles of belief. Second, there are imaginings that play the epistemic roles of belief. These arguments supply both descriptive and normative grounds for positing imaginative beliefs. I also argue that this view fares better than alternatives that posit distinct imaginative and doxastic states to account (...) for the same phenomena. Along the way, I demonstrate the theoretical significance of imaginative beliefs by showing how they pose a challenge for standard taxonomies of the mind, clarify the sense in which imagination is occurrent and voluntary, explain the justificatory role of the imagination, and point to a deep but underappreciated symmetry between imagistic and non-imagistic thought. (shrink)