Wallace on Propositional Attitudes

Abstract

This note is a solution to a paradox proposed by john wallace in "propositional attitudes and identity" ('j. phil'. 66, 145-152). wallace deduced from a set of 'prima facie' plausible premisses the conclusion that the ideally rational man believes to be true every proposition that he desires to be true. in my note, i present a counterexample to one of the premisses, and then suggest two weaker versions of the premiss--neither sufficient to derive the paradoxical conclusion--to account for its plausibility.