How to Think About Tacit (or Implicit) Beliefs

ABSTRACT This paper defends a novel theory of tacit belief (sometimes called “implicit belief”). After providing some background and taxonomy, I argue that dispositionalist theories of belief fail to provide a good account of tacit beliefs; this failure gives us a reason to reject those dispositionalist theories. I then construct and defend my theory of tacit belief. Very generally, S tacitly believes p if and only if S is disposed to judge that p on the basis (in the right sort of way) of S's explicit beliefs. Specifying what “the right sort of way” of basing is will be the interesting and crucial part of my theory. I then show how my theory handles various cases and respond to objections.