A Pure Representational Account of Faith and Desire

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We hold various attitudes towards the world. We believe that it is going to rain tomorrow, we desire that our favourite sports team wins the championship. This thesis is a philosophical investigation into the nature of such mental states, also known as "the attitudes". In particular, I am interested in what makes an attitude the type of attitude that it is (e.g. a belief rather than a desire). According to the dominant view, attitudes have two components. The first component is their representational content. A belief that it is going to rain tomorrow represents that it is going to rain tomorrow. The second component is the attitude type: e.g. belief and desire. It is this second component that distinguishes a belief that it is going to rain tomorrow from a desire that it is going to rain tomorrow. Traditionally, philosophers have been primarily interested in the representational content of mental states. As a result, the second component of the attitudes has been neglected. In this thesis I investigate this second component. In particular, I am interested in the question of what it is for a given mental state to be the kind of attitude it is: what it is to be a belief rather than a desire.