 The distinction between acceptance and belief can be supported by appeal to cases in which one accepts a proposition without believing it and cases in which one believes a proposition without accepting it. Van Fraassen (1980) has argued that the former attitude is common in science: the scientist often does not think that some particular theory on which her work depends is the literal truth, and thus does not believe it, but she nonetheless accepts it as an adequate basis for research. The ladder case, due to Bratman (1999), may involve belief without acceptance: One may genuinely believe, even before checking it, that the ladder is stable, but because so much depends on it and because it is good general policy, one nonetheless does not accept that the ladder is stable until one has checked it more carefully.