The Aim of Belief

The interlocutor was skeptical that belief had an aim, and that if it did it was anything specifically epistemic.

Excerpt:

But there should be something quite general to say.  "Believe" is a verb, which connotes *some* kind of action or action-likeness.  When I hear a noise and look to see what it is, that looking isn't a conscious act, but it does have a motive or at least a purpose.  Belief should have a *role* right?  Even if it has a more ultimate purpose, it should have a proximate function as well.

What's the function of the heart?  Well, yes, to keep the organism alive.  But what's it's proximate function?  To pump blood.  

So even if the goal of belief is ultimately the survival of the organism, what's it's specific role?  

It is questionable whether it is possible to believe p and think p false.  Likewise it is questionable whether it is think p true, but not believe it.  It almost sounds like a contradiction.

But this isn't true with knowledge or survival value.  It's not contradictory seeming to say that S believes that p but doesn't know that p or doesn't think she knows that p, etc.  

This kinds of considerations lead me to believe that belief does have an aim and that that aim is truth-related.  Now I think that there's an even more proximate aim, which is evidence, since that's what we're directly acquainted with. 

And since I think that the nature of a thing is revealed in it's most proximate function, what Aristotle calls the "specific difference" it seems to me that  belief must have an aim.