Alexander Bird (KCL): “The Aim of Belief and the Aim of Science”

Abstract: I argue that the aim of belief and the aim of science are both knowledge. The ‘aim of belief’ is to be identified with the product of a properly functioning cognitive system. Science is an institution that is the social, functional analogue of a cognitive system, and its aim is the same as that of belief. In both cases it is knowledge rather than true belief that is the product of proper functioning.

Alexander Bird is the Peter Sowerby Professor of Philosophy and Medicine at King’s College London.