Alief and explanation

Hubbs, G. (2013). Alief and explanation. Metaphilosophy, 44(5), 604-620.

本文认为，alief概念是不必要的，在解释上是多余的，完全可以用其他概念来替代。The concept of alief lacks explanatory value.

Gendler describes alief as a representational state between belief and imagination (Gendler 2010b, 267–75, and 2010c, 290–99). Gendler认为，alief概念可以用来统一解释以下三个案例。(I) those in which habit behaviorally overrides memory, (II) those in which appearances (which are usually visual) behaviorally override evidence, and (III) those in which priming produces predictable behavior. 

作者则认为，这三个案例可以分别用普通的概念加以解释，不必使用alief。While this framework must be augmented if it is to describe the examples Gendler considers, this does not require adding a notion like that of alief to its explanatory resources—more mundane additions will suffice. By making the framework explicit and augmenting it in the mundane ways I recommend, we eliminate the explanatory need that might drive us to add a representation like that of alief to our account of the mind.