Explanations must be sufficient to induce belief in the sentence to be explained (for instance, some observation), or ensure its consistency with other beliefs, in a manner that adequately accounts for factual and hypothetical sentences.
Given the distinction between (A) having reason to think a certain proposition is true, and (B) having reason to induce belief in that proposition, taking steps to generate belief in a certain proposition may be the rational thing to do, even if that proposition lacks sufficient evidential support.
Moreover, it could induce beliefs related to the promotion of pain relief and refraining from catastrophic thinking.
This perspective dates back to the notion of unconscious inference (Helmholtz, 1866/1962) and has been formalised in recent decades to cover deep or hierarchical Bayesian inference – about the causes of our sensations – and how these inferences induce beliefs, movement and behaviour (Clark, 2013b; Dayan, Hinton, & Neal, 1995; Friston, Kilner, & Harrison, 2006; Hohwy, 2013; Lee & Mumford, 2003).
Still, the prospect of voluntarily inducing belief for purely non-epistemic reasons has struck many commentators as manipulative and self-deceptive.
First, the notion of types goes further than what we described above: an agent A's type involves (or induces) beliefs about the types of the other agents, their types involve beliefs about A's type, etc.
As we mentioned earlier, given the distinction between (A) having reason to think a certain proposition is true, and (B) having reason to induce a belief in that proposition, it may be that a particular proposition lacks sufficient evidential support, but that forming a belief in that proposition is the rational action to perform.
Therefore, it is best to avoid using weak arguments; they may induce the belief that the speaker has no better arguments to support his thesis.
Grice's suggestion was that the meaning of a sentence can be understood in terms of a speaker's intention to induce a belief in the hearer by means of the hearer's recognition of that intention.
The origin story is clever and cute, and just hard enough to understand to induce a belief in the stability of the supply of the bitcoins, leading to a rush for them now, as opposed to later.
using any Claimant's name in any manner likely to induce the belief that any of the Respondent Websites is endorsed by any Claimant.
