Believe It or Not: Transparency Is False

Abstract

Transparency is the view that the deliberative question whether to believe P gives way to the question whether P. In this paper, I argue that transparency is false. I begin by teasing out two commitments of transparency: (i) the set of possible answers to the question whether to believe P is the same set of possible answers to the question whether P; (ii) the question whether to believe P can be settled on the basis of all and only those considerations on the basis of which the question whether P can be settled. Against (i), I argue that a distinct type of suspended judgment constitutes an answer to whether to believe P, but not whether P. Against (ii), I argue that the question whether to believe P, but not the question whether P, can be settled partly on the basis of considerations about which evidential standards to use.