Our interest in understanding belief stems partly from our being creatures who think. However, the term ‘belief’ is used to refer to many states: from the fully conscious rational state that partly constitutes knowledge to the fanciful states of alarm clocks. Which of the many ‘belief’ states must a theory of belief be answerable to? This is the scope question. I begin my answer with a reply to a recent argument that belief is invariably weak, i.e., that the evidential standards that are required for belief are low. Although one state we refer to using the term ‘belief’ fits this profile, other ‘belief’ states do not. Crucially, when ‘belief’ is heard in a weak sense, it attributes a state that only a rational creature can be in. I will use this observation as a starting point for an argument that the study of (our) belief should not be constrained by the requirement that the illuminated state be held in common with any non-rational being. This lends support to the Transformative Theory of Rationality, according to which rationality does not merely add powers or complexity to the animal mind, but transforms it into a different kind of mind altogether.

中文翻译：

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“信仰”与信仰

我们对理解信仰的兴趣部分源于我们是会思考的生物。然而，“信仰”一词用于指代多种状态：从部分构成知识的完全有意识的理性状态到闹钟的幻想状态。信仰理论必须对众多“信仰”状态中的哪一个负责？这就是范围问题。我的回答首先是对最近一个论点的回答，即信仰总是很弱，即信仰所需的证据标准很低。尽管我们使用“信念”一词来指称的一种状态符合这一特征，但其他“信念”状态则不然。至关重要的是，当“信仰”在弱意义上被听到时，它就归因于一种只有理性生物才能处于的状态。我将使用这一观察作为论证的起点，即对（我们的）信仰的研究不应受到限制通过要求照明状态与任何非理性存在都具有共同点。这为理性的变革理论提供了支持，根据该理论，理性不仅增加了动物心智的力量或复杂性，而且将其完全转变为一种不同的心智。