  The claim that agents believe propositions under characters is reasonably clear when agents utter sentences to express their indexical beliefs. But agents believe many propositions that they do not express with sentences. Perhaps for this reason, Perry (1979) modifies the ways-of-believing theory by distinguishing between (i) the proposition that an agent believes and (ii) the belief state in virtue of which the agent believes that proposition. Perry holds that for any one proposition, there are many belief states that would enable an agent to believe that proposition. An agent can be in one of these belief states while failing to be in another. Belief states can be classified into types by the characters of the sentences that they dispose agents to utter. For instance, a belief state that would cause John to utter ‘He is making a mess’ can be classified with the character of that sentence, whereas a belief state that disposes John to utter ‘I am making mess’ can be classified with the character of that sentence. John can rationally be in a belief state of the first sort while failing to be in a belief state of the second sort. He can, in addition, be in a belief state of the first sort while also being in a belief state that disposes him to utter the negation of the second. For further discussion and criticisms, see Wettstein (1986), Taschek (1987), and Crimmins (1992, chapter 1).