Belief and Intentionality

There are at least four main theories about the relation of belief to knowledge:First is the idea of inconsistency of belief and knowledge, which was first proposed by Plato. Second is the idea of their correspondence which was suggested by such philosophers as Ayer, with which some Muslim logicians and philosophers have sympathized. Third is the separability of belief and knowledge and their different spheres, put forward by Colin Radford. And finally, is the theory supported by behaviorism, and called “eliminativism”. One of the consequences of these viewpoints is their different interpretations of the most important facet of belief, namely, “intentional aspect”, the history of which goes back to Ibn-Sīnā. This article is an attempt to explore these points of view. In the first part, the metaphysical issues about belief are discussed, and in the second part, epistemological aspect is studied. The author favors the idea that “understanding” is what can constitute knowledge.