1 Trust in the guise of belief 1 2 nd Place Prize in Annual Robert Papazian Competition at IJPS Anthony Robert Booth Abstract What kind of mental state is trust? It seems to have features that can lead one to think that it is a doxastic state (cf. Adler 1994, Baier 1986, Hieronymi 2008, Keren 2014, McMyler 2011) but also features that can lead one to think that it is a non-doxastic state (cf. Baker 1987, Faulkner 2011, Jones 1996, McLeod 2011). This has even lead some philosophers to think that trust is a unique mental state that has both mind-to-world and world-to-mind direction of fit (Holton 1996), or to give up on the idea that there is a univocal analysis of trust to be had (Hardin 2004, Simpson 2012). Here, I propose that ‘trust’ is the name we give to mental states that we would think of as beliefs if belief was to be thought of in ‘pragmatist’ terms (that is, as a state posited primarily to explain agents’ actions) and belief resists ‘pragmatist’ treatment. Only such an account, I argue, can univocally account for all the diverse features of trust. As such, I also propose that the explanation of trust provides us with a case for understanding the limitations of a comprehensively ‘pragmatist’, or ‘Neo-Wittgensteinian’ conception of the mental. 1. A ‘Mixed’ Mental State Pragmatism What is trust? What kind of mental state is it? Is it a belief-like (doxastic) state, an affective, emotive state, or perhaps a kind of a stance (perhaps a ‘participant stance’ which comes along with evidential standards for judging the trustworthiness of a fellow person 2 )? There currently does not seem to be any real consensus as regards the answer to this question. Some think that 1 With many thanks to Boudewijn de Bruin, Gail Leckie, Marco Meyer, Michael Morris, Mahon O’Brien, Alex Oliver, Rik Peels, Sarah Sawyer, Rowland Stout, Chris Thompson, Rik Peels, Jens Van ‘t Klooster, and an audience at the University of Southampton Philosophy Research Seminar, for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. 2 As well as involving thinking it appropriate to have certain reactive attitudes on discovery of a betrayal of trust.