Belief-that, Belief-in, and the Unity of Belief

The English ‘believe,’ like equivalents in many languages, gets used in several ways: ‘believe in me,’ ‘believe me,’ ‘believe my claim,’ ‘believe that p.’ It might seem that all the attitudes in question reduce to belief-that. I argue for a very different view. Linguistic data suggests that ‘believe’ in all its uses refers to an attitude which is closest to belief-in, although belief-in is just one particularly strong variety of it. This general attitude is one of reliant commitment, which I call by its Ancient Greek name, pistis. The use of ‘believe’ for belief-that thus reveals a folk conception of belief-that as pistis: pistis in a representation or its content, qua guide to or part of reality. I argue that this conception is promising: it yields an account of belief that explains its relation to knowledge, truth, and action, and can help resolve debates about its nature and its norms.