Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

According to fragmentation theories of belief, agents have a multiplicity of independent, compartmentalized belief states. In this paper, I raise a challenge to this increasingly popular view, arguing that the explanatory benefits of fragmentation come at the cost of abandoning some of the central explanatory roles of a theory of belief. This is not a price worth paying. Adequately addressing these challenges, I suggest, requires a return to a holistic understanding of belief. But the good news is that we can do so without relinquishing the goals that motivated the push to fragmentation in the first place, and in a way that preserves central insights from fragmentation theory.