A DEFENSE OF DE RE BELIEF REPORTS

In Talk About Beliefs, Mark Crimmins claims that de re belief reports are not nearly as common as they are generally thought to be. In the f ollowing paper, I take issue with this claim. I begin with a critique of Crimmins' arguments on behalf of the claim, and then follow with an argument on behalf of the opposing claim: that de re belief reports a re indeed quite common. In defending this claim, I make some observati ons about the nature of tacit reference, a phenomenon central to Crimm ins' account of belief reports.