Is Belief Content Propositional?

Quoting creativesoul

Not all belief has propositional content.

What does it mean that something has propositional content? That it can be expressed in words?

How about some examples with and without.

Quoting creativesoul

That is, the content of belief is linguistic, propositional, and/or statements

I would shorten that to "the content of belief is propositional." since how the proposition is expressed - symbolic, spoken, or thought - are only the mechanisms of expression for that content.

I believe "x" to be true or to be false.

Quoting creativesoul

Not all belief has propositional content.

Example?

If one holds a belief without propositional content, then how would it fit under the definition of a "belief"? I would agree that you can have thoughts w/o propositional content, or speech, etc. But to hold a belief, I would have to think, entails the propositional content in order to be defined as one (a belief).

FYI, this is in the Debate Proposals category. @creativesoul is asking if anyone would like to argue against him in a formal debate (which, incidentally, would be our first).

This isn't the place to actually discuss the topic. I'll delete any further comments like the above two.

Still like to see this debated...

Anyone?

:brow:

Quoting creativesoul

Still like to see this debated...

Anyone?

I think it would just be a discussion about different ways to use "belief."

But people can use it anyway they want, true?

Reply to frank

The debate is about the content thereof. The topic presupposes that belief has content. Both sides must agree there, lest there is nothing to debate.

Quoting creativesoul

The debate is about the content thereof. The topic presupposes that belief has content. Both sides must agree there, lest there is nothing to debate.

I believe in you.

Reply to frank

At least I have one fan...

:wink:

I was posing the debate to those who hold that all belief content is propositional.

Quoting creativesoul

At least I have one fan...

:up: Did you know that most fish evolved from a fish that had a lung? They didn't use it, so it became detached from the esophagus and became an air bladder used for positioning.

Quoting creativesoul

I was posing the debate to those who hold that all belief content is propositional.

Yes. A person who takes that stance is pushing a certain way of using "belief."

John believes that Stephen King's first novel was Christine.

That usage does relate belief to a proposition. There are other ways to use the word, though.

Quoting creativesoul

I think that that is wrong. Not all belief has propositional content.

Not all belief has propositional content, but all knowledge does.

Quoting frank

I think it would just be a discussion about different ways to use "belief."

Eliminativism maintains that propositional content which includes beliefs and desires are fictions and will be replaced by future neuroscience with a scientific understanding of what really goes on when we say:

"Johnny did X because he believed it would get him Y."

But it sounds like creativesoul is wanting to debate what the content of beliefs are, not whether they exist.

Quoting Marchesk

Eliminativism maintains that propositional content which includes beliefs and desires are fictions and will be replaced by future neuroscience with a scientific understanding of what really goes on when we say:

"Johnny did X because he believed it would get him Y."

But it sounds like creativesoul is wanting to debate what the content of beliefs are, not whether they exist.

There's a misunderstanding here about what propositions are. People who talk about propositions can do so without reference to any sort of ontology. It's just a feature of communciation. Finding the term useful doesn't commit one to idealism or any other brand.

Eliminativism is a special kind of ontology in which a philosopher is swinging a sword in a dark room trying to kill something. We can ride on past eliminativists with the same apathy we have for solipsists.

Quoting frank

Did you know that most fish evolved from a fish that had a lung? They didn't use it, so it became detached from the esophagus and became an air bladder used for positioning.

I've heard/read something along those lines.




Quoting frank

I was posing the debate to those who hold that all belief content is propositional.
— creativesoul

Yes. A person who takes that stance is pushing a certain way of using "belief."

John believes that Stephen King's first novel was Christine.

That usage does relate belief to a proposition. There are other ways to use the word, though.

Indeed. The belief that approach is a position arguing for the idea that all belief content is propositional, because it is always a statement/proposition which follows the terms "believe that". I would argue for and against such an approach, in that I would 'sharpen' it by showing how it suffers from conflation as it is.

As far as other ways to use words...

Such is the ground for semantic arguments, argument by definitional fiat, etc. Here, again, I would grant the sense/definition and then show it's inherent inadequacies wherever they may be. Such a debate could become an exercise in comparison/contrast, although an adequate criterion for what counts as belief could be agreed upon. The debate could proceed in a few different directions.

You're moving in the right direction with the talk about evolution. Belief being amenable to evolutionary progression is imperative. As it stands, to the best of my knowledge, there is no such academic understanding. The reason this is lacking is - in part at least - because of the idea that all belief has propositional content. That's just not true.

Quoting creativesoul

The belief that approach is a position arguing for the idea that all belief content is propositional,

It's just how we speak. I believe that. Are we saying it wrong?

Reply to frank

Not at all. We're accounting for it wrong.

A belief that is not a proposition would be something like an expectation. Sort of like a sense that there is a natural law that one never has articulated. But I think any belief would have a propositional counterpart. One could put it in a proposition. In fact with troublesome beliefs that the person in question has not formulated in an proposition, I think it is a good thing to try to 'put it into words' because that makes it easier to notice, to notice the effects of it, to test it, to challenge it, to begin the process of no longer having it. For example.

Quoting Coben

A belief that is not a proposition would be something like an expectation. Sort of like a sense that there is a natural law that one never has articulated. But I think any belief would have a propositional counterpart. One could put it in a proposition. In fact with troublesome beliefs that the person in question has not formulated in an proposition, I think it is a good thing to try to 'put it into words' because that makes it easier to notice, to notice the effects of it, to test it, to challenge it, to begin the process of no longer having it. For example.

Nice.

Expectation is the result of forming and re-forming thought/belief. Hume's bit on the so-called fallacy of induction, if taken to heart by one who does not know better, leads one to think/believe that that which all thought/belief is existentially dependent upon is somehow unacceptable/fallacious.

Acknowledging the possibility for unforeseen events does not render a belief which keeps them in mind unjustified and/or fallacious. Causality requires consistency. When one discovers a causal relationship, it requires doing what Hume calls a problem. When one misattributes a casual relationship, there is a problem, but it's not the problem of all induction. Rather, it's the problem with a misattribution of causality.

The Problem of Induction stems from Hume's ignorance regarding thought/belief itself. He does mention expectation in his Enquiry - in passing. He also readily admits of struggling with belief. Indeed he did and the consequences are shown in his work. Too bad so many centuries have passed without someone else noticing.

Quoting creativesoul

Acknowledging the possibility for unforeseen events does not render a belief which keeps them in mind unjustified and/or fallacious

No, it doesn't (me agreeing). Another word for them we could use are heuristics, which are rarely infallible, but that's ok since heuristics save us treating all situations invidually and as potential anomalies.

I'd have to reread the Hume to be intelligent about his position.

This one...

Come on Reply to Banno. Here's your big chance to officially "mop the floor" with my ideas...

:kiss:

Reply to Banno, get in the ring...

Oh, I can't turn that down. OK - You first.

Reply to Banno

Perfect. So, we have a topic. Aren't you the one arguing the affirmative?

Reply to Banno Reply to creativesoul

If you're going to do a debate you should agree on a motion. All key terms in the OP's question are vague, and each of you can use that to hedge.

So, to save it from being Banno arguing that propositional content is a property of statements (or more generally speech acts) and since belief is a propositional attitude, the content of the belief is the proposition it's directed towards, and so concluding it must be propositional content.

And you arguing that belief content is a broader semantic category - I don't know what kind of things you throw in it, other than that it can be "pre-linguistic" - and so since not all of that content is even "linguistic" (presumably not all words or symbols, I don't know where you come from on this), not all of that content can be propositional; since propositions must be linguistic.

If you continued like that, Banno could assert his definition of belief, you could assert your definition of belief, and there's a strong chance you'll both address none of the other's points and retreat to hedges.

I suggest that your motion be both more specific and thematise that conflict explicitly? "content" is vague and disputed, "belief" is vague and disputed, "propositional" is at least vague, every key term in the question is vague or disputed. I suggest something like "Beliefs are always about statements"? Do you agree that's effectively the same dispute? Presumably Banno takes "Yes" and you take "No"?

IF I were to open, my bit would be a copy-and-paste from my profile. So I'll ceed the opening post to @creativesoul, who can address that profile.

As for definitions, the point of a philosophical debate can be, and I suspect in this case will be, setting out a definition.

SO I suggest we start with creative pointing to my errors in the profile.

grabs popcorn

Reply to creativesoul As far as I can tell, there seems to be a slight confusion regarding language implicit in the question. If I'm anywhere near the ballpark, the assumption seems to be that language has to be symbolic i.e. the symbol needn't or rather shouldn't be be a scaled-model replica of the referent. What I mean is the word "cow" doesn't, in any way, look like a cow and nor does the word "mouse" look like a mouse. However, I'm led to believe that language began as pictograms - the words actually looked like the object they represented. Only later, did what we now recognize as true symbolism in language evolve. I don't know what the future holds but retrospectively speaking it looks like language can be/must've been pictorial with sufficiently complex propositional (picture-based) content that could, at the very least, enable thoughts to form...beliefs would emerge from such thoughts.

”In philosophy, a proposition is the meaning of a declarative sentence, where "meaning" is understood to be a non-linguistic entity which is shared by all sentences with the same meaning.” --wikipedia

This is the standard AP definition. If Nagase drops by he could elaborate.

When a deer smells a wolf and runs the other way, does the deer have beliefs about the smell and that it means a wolf is nearby, and that if a wolf is nearby then it is a good idea to run in the opposite direction?

Does a bee have a belief that a porch light is the Moon and then uses it to navigate its way back to the hive?

Does a cat believe that the sound of a can opener indicates lunch is about to be served?

Did Ildefonso have beliefs before he learned language?
https://vimeo.com/72072873

Language is means of consolidating complex configurations of sensory information into one sound or scribble. Think of how high level computer languages make it easier to talk to a computer than using complex machine code. It allows the mind to take shortcuts in thinking by using placeholders for these complex concepts.

Quoting frank

In philosophy, a proposition is the meaning of a declarative sentence, where "meaning" is understood to be a non-linguistic entity which is shared by all sentences with the same meaning.” --wikipedia

Yes, but @Banno keeps on explicitly disavowing this definition. His definition is truth-apt statements. (Hooray.) I.e. syntactical not semantical objects.

Then the semantics via truth, of course. But you have to go via the T-schema (boo), which needs statements. That's why people can't tempt him to stretch "beliefs" to be about [to have as "content"] more than just the meanings of statements. He doesn't believe in such things. (Hooray.)

Edit: Frank... Meh. Context favoured "statements".

Reply to bongo fury
The T-schema is sentences, not statements. You can do as Austin did and just reject propositions, but continuing to use the word while harboring a non-standard meaning just props up a bamboozle.

Reply to Banno

Ok Banno. So, in order to do this proper(and I'm certain we can), we'll need to get approval from the mods and/or administrators, set the parameters of the debate(the actual debate topic, who opens, length of posts, timeframe between replies, and whether or not there is a hard fast end). In addition, the administrators will need to create a place for us to proceed without interruption from those following the debate. The other site had two threads, one for participants following and discussing the debate, and one specifically reserved for the exclusive use of the participants.

The title of the debate proposal has a few folk hereabouts worried about the ambiguity of key terms. Given the 'nature' of language use, I think some ambiguity is inevitable, and that that ambiguity is part of what makes debates interesting. I'd be surprised if you didn't want to retain a certain amount of ambiguity, and that's ok by me.

However, Reply to fdrake has since suggested a change in the topic sentence, and given his own reasons for doing so. From where I sit, it doesn't seem to negatively effect/affect my approach to a debate about belief content.

The only real sticking point that I see regards your earlier suggestion that you would basically copy and paste your profile here as an opening argument, or that that's what I ought respond to in my opening argument. The problem is that there's nothing in your profile about the content of belief. So, there's really nothing for me to respond to regarding the debate topic.

So, perhaps it's best if we take the advice/suggestion of fdrake and debate "Beliefs are always about statements"?

What do you think?

Reply to Banno

If you want me to critique the profile, that would end up being an entirely different debate.

Reply to Banno

I would be willing to argue in the affirmative for "Not all beliefs are about statements", "Beliefs are not always about statements", "Not all belief has propositional content", "Not all belief is an attitude towards a proposition", "Not all belief is an attitude towards a statement", "Not all belief consists of propositional attitude", "Not all belief consists of statements", "Not all belief consists of propositions"...

Or you could argue in the affirmative of any of these by removing the "not".

Quoting creativesoul

the problem is that there's nothing in your profile about the content of belief.

Statements are combinations of nouns and verbs and such like; Some statements are either true or false, and we can call these propositions. So, "The present king of France is bald" is a statement, but not a proposition.

Beliefs range over propositions. (arguably, they might be made to range over statements: Fred believes the present king of France is bald.)

Beliefs set out a relation of a particular sort between an agent and a proposition.

This relation is such that if the agent acts in some way then there is a belief and a desire that together are sufficient to explain the agent's action. Banno wants water; he believes he can pour a glass from the tap; so he goes to the tap to pour a glass of water.

Hu?

Look, if you like, set up a site and I will re-write what I've said above with a bit more context and something to keep the peanut gallery interested and put it up as the OP. Then you can explain how cats have beliefs and yet don't understand propositions and we can go on from there - again.

@fdrake seems to be in the way here. Bring it.

Quoting Banno

IF I were to open, my bit would be a copy-and-paste from my profile. So I'll ceed the opening post to creativesoul, who can address that profile.

As for definitions, the point of a philosophical debate can be, and I suspect in this case will be, setting out a definition.

SO I suggest we start with creative pointing to my errors in the profile.

My esteemed and revered interlocutor, for whom I hold much respect, you are talking about what using the term "belief" requires. You are talking about all of the different ways that you are using the term.

I could critique that terminological usage in terms of it's coherency and/or lack of self-contradiction. If it is consistent, it lacks self-contradiction, and as a result I ought be able to swap any particular use of the term with the definition offered(whether that be by name or description) and not suffer a loss in meaningful content or arrive at mutually exclusive definitions/senses of the term "belief"(self-contradiction).

That would be a very short debate.

Reply to Harry Hindu Thanks for the video. I've been looking for more info about this chap for a couple of years.

Yawn.

We doing' this, or what?

Reply to Banno

We need to agree on the debate topic/statement, then set the parameters, right? I'm attempting to get the ball rolling here...

I've offered a list of candidates. Perhaps you missed it?

Quoting creativesoul

I would be willing to argue in the affirmative for "Not all beliefs are about statements", "Beliefs are not always about statements", "Not all belief has propositional content", "Not all belief is an attitude towards a proposition", "Not all belief is an attitude towards a statement", "Not all belief consists of propositional attitude", "Not all belief consists of statements", "Not all belief consists of propositions"...

Or you could argue in the affirmative of any of these by removing the "not".

We also need some type of administrative intervention so as to set up the place. So, I suspect when you and I agree on the debate topic and the parameters of the debate, that the appropriate actions will be taken by the administrators to help facilitate it.

Reply to Banno

Let's do it.

Quoting creativesoul

We also need some type of administrative intervention so as to set up the place.

Title is:

Is Belief Content Propositional?


I write the OP. Three posts each. No more than a week between posts.

Reply to Banno

All that sounds good. Minimum/maximum word count per post?

Three or five posts each?

You changed that... or I misread???

Three is not enough.

I'm not going to write a dissertation - you? 1500 words.

I realised five could mean we were still going in March...

Three is not enough. 1500 sounds good. We could shorten the response time to 72 hrs.

Reply to Banno

I do wonder about the topic being a question, but I'm willing to critique your OP, provided it answers the debate question in the affirmative. If the debate focuses upon your answer and my critique thereof, we may only need three posts each. We could still reduce the response time to 72 hours.

Reply to Michael Reply to fdrake

Is this acceptable?