Formal Epistemology Workshop '08—DRAFT #1

It is a datum that we believe, disbelieve and suspend judgement. It is also a datum that we invest levels of confidence. How do these activities relate to one another? More specifically: how do the psychological states of belief, disbelief and suspended judgement relate to the psychological states of invested confidence? and how do the related epistemologies of these states relate to one another? This paper will set out answers to these questions. My goal will be to make clear why something like the picture to be developed must be right, and to use that story to explain why the orthodox model of that picture goes wrong. In §1 I present a familiar line on the relation between confidence and more coarsely grained attitudes. In §2 I make trouble for that line by motivating a liberalisation of its conception of confidence. In §3 I detail a link that the liberated conception of confidence bears to belief, disbelief and suspended judgement. And in §4 I use that story to explain why the orthodox model of the liberated conception of confidence goes wrong. 1. A Credal Approach to Coarse Attitudes. Belief, disbelief and suspended judgment are epistemically evaluable attitudes