Subjectivity and the objects of belief.

This dissertation is a study of the problem of beliefs about oneself, or so-called de se beliefs: for example, the beliefs that I would express by saying \u27I am left-handed\u27 or \u27I am in Massachusetts\u27. The problem arises against the background conception of belief as a propositional attitude, i.e., as a relation between conscious subjects and abstract entities that are either true or false absolutely. Many philosophers have recently argued that the intentional objects of one\u27s de se beliefs could not be propositions: since, e.g., I can believe the proposition that Neil Feit is left-handed without believing myself to be left-handed (if I somehow fail to realize that I am Neil Feit), and I can believe any proposition expressed by a sentence of the form \u27the F is left-handed\u27--where \u27the F\u27 is a qualitative description--without believing myself to be left-handed (if I do not think that \u27the F\u27 denotes me). I take the position that the argument is sound, and, after surveying various attempts to solve the problem, I defend the self-ascription view of belief: viz., the view that to have a belief is to ascribe a property to oneself. For example, I believe that I am left-handed simply by self-ascribing the property of being left-handed. I defend the view against various objections to it, discuss its relations to other views about the objects of belief and the other attitudes, and maintain that it can account for the acceptance of propositions (de dicto belief) and for beliefs about particular individuals (de re belief) as well as for beliefs directly about oneself. I argue that belief states are best taken to be self-ascribed properties, and try to solve some problems about de re belief from the perspective of the self-ascription view

High-performance Bragg gratings in chalcogenide rib waveguides written with a modified Sagnac interferometer

This paper was published in Journal of the Optical Society of America B-Optical Physics and is made available as an electronic reprint with the permission of OSA. The paper can be found at the following URL on the OSA website: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?URI=josab-23-7-1323. Systematic or multiple reproduction or distribution to multiple locations via electronic or other means is prohibited and is subject to penalties under law.Mehrdad Shokooh-Saremi, Vahid G. Ta'eed, Neil J. Baker, Ian C. M. Littler, David J. Moss, Benjamin J. Eggleton, Yinlan Ruan, and Barry Luther-Davie