Ways to Settle Beliefs
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2026
This introduction outlines the approach and argument of the book, summarising the content of all chapters. The main claim is that knowing can generally be defined as a correct way of doing. The approach is neopragmatist and anti-representational, building on the philosophies of Wilfrid Sellars and Robert Brandom, with the classical pragmatists – Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey – forming the general background. The book’s most original contribution is methodologism, a position in which knowing and meaning require following the ‘method’ or way that attributes warrant to what is known and meaning to what is meant. The ‘method’ of methodologism refers to the etymological meaning of ‘method’ as a way. This way must be correct, where correctness is determined by the rules of practice in a community. There are two general goals for our ‘methods’: (1) The most fundamental aim is to settle our beliefs, and (2) in the absence of a settlement (or the possibility of achieving a settlement in practice), to guide our conversational practice.
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