Belief
This thread is a discussion of belief.
In the first few pages there was some confusion that it was an attempt to define belief. It's not, since any such definition will be ultimately circular. The approach here will be analytic, but include some phenomenological observations.
Of course what is written here is subject to review. I'm making it up as I go along.
A belief is a propositional attitude.
That is, it can be placed in a general form as a relation between someone and a proposition. So "John believes that the sky is blue" can be rendered as
Believes (John, "The sky is blue")
B(a,p)
There's ill will in some circles towards this sort of analysis. Think of this as setting up a basic structure or grammar for belief. A belief is a relation between an individual and a proposition. That there is much more to be said about belief is not in contention; this is just a place to start. This is set as a falsifiable proposition. If there are any examples of beliefs that cannot be stated as relations between individuals and propositions, this proposal would have to be revisited.
It has been suggested that animal and other non-linguistic beliefs are a falsification of this suggestion. The argument is that non-linguistic creatures can have beliefs and yet cannot express these beliefs as propositions, and that hence beliefs cannot be propositional attitudes. But that is a misreading of what is going on here. Any belief, including that of creatures that cannot speak, can be placed in the form of a propositional attitude by those who can speak. A cat, for example, can believe that its bowl is empty, but cannot put that belief in the form B(a,p).
Belief does not imply truth
One obvious consequence of a belief being a relation between an individual and a proposition is that the truth of the proposition is unrelated to the truth of the belief.
That is, folk can believe things that are untrue. Or not believe things that are true.
A corollary of this is that belief does not stand in opposition to falsehood, but to doubt. Truth goes with falsehood, belief with doubt. And at the extreme end of belief we find certainty. In certainty, doubt is inadmissible.
If belief does not imply truth, and if one holds to the Justified True Belief definition of knowledge, it follows that belief does not imply knowledge.
The individual who has the belief holds that the proposition is true.
This is, if you like, the significance of a belief statement. It follows from Moore's paradox, in which someone is assume to believe something that they hold not to be true. For example:
"I believe the world is flat, but the world is not flat".
While this is difficult to set out as a clear contradiction, there is something deeply unhappy about it. The conclusion is that one thinks that what one believes is indeed true.
Note that Moore's paradox is in the first person. "John believes the world is flat, but the world is not flat" is not paradoxical - John is just wrong. "John believes that the world is flat and John believes the world is not flat" - John is inconsistent.
The perforative paradox comes about only when expressed in the first person.
One might think it so trivial that it is not worth saying: to believe some proposition is to believe that proposition to be true.
That is, talk of belief requires talk of truth.
One might be tempted, perhaps by pragmatism or by Bayesian thoughts, to replace that with measures of probability. You might think yourself only 99.99% certain that the cat is on the mat, and suppose thereby that you have banished truth. But of course, one is also thereby 99.99% certain that "the cat is on the mat" is true.
Belief makes sense of error
Austin talked of words that gain their meaning - use - mostly by being contrasted with their opposite. His example was real.
"it's not a fake; it's real"
"it's not a mirage, it's real!"
It's not a mistake - it's real"
and so on.
Belief can be understood in a similar fashion, as gaining it's usefulness from the contrast between a true belief and a false belief. That is, an important aspect of belief is that sometimes we think that something is the case, and yet it is not.
We bring belief into the discourse in order to make sense of such errors.
Belief is dynamic
Beliefs change over time. It follows that a decent account of belief must be able to account for this dynamism.
Beliefs explain but do not determine actions
Beliefs are used to explain actions. Further, such explanations are causal and sufficient. So if we have appropriate desires and a beliefs we can explain an action.
So, given that John is hungry, and that John believes eating a sandwich will remove his hunger, we have a sufficient causal explanation for why John ate the sandwich.
One may act in ways that are contrary to one's beliefs. A dissident may comply in order to protect herself and her family.
So given that John is hungry, and has a sandwich at hand, it does not follow that John will eat the sandwich.
Phenomenal states
Talk of phenomenal states strikes me as misguided.
If they are ineffable personal experiences, then they cannot be discussed - that's what "ineffable" means.
But if they can be spoken of, then they are our feelings, emotions and so on - stuff we already speak of.
So either phenomenal states do not enter into the discussion, or we have been talking about them for a very long time.
Either way, they do not add to the discussion.
An individual's belief is inscrutable
One can act in ways contrary to one's beliefs. It's a result of the lack of symmetry between beliefs and actions mentioned above - Beliefs explain but do not determine actions. Thanks due to @Hanover and @Cabbage Farmer.
Any belief can be made to account for any action, by adding suitable auxiliary beliefs.
This edit July 12
In the first few pages there was some confusion that it was an attempt to define belief. It's not, since any such definition will be ultimately circular. The approach here will be analytic, but include some phenomenological observations.
Of course what is written here is subject to review. I'm making it up as I go along.
A belief is a propositional attitude.
That is, it can be placed in a general form as a relation between someone and a proposition. So "John believes that the sky is blue" can be rendered as
Believes (John, "The sky is blue")
B(a,p)
There's ill will in some circles towards this sort of analysis. Think of this as setting up a basic structure or grammar for belief. A belief is a relation between an individual and a proposition. That there is much more to be said about belief is not in contention; this is just a place to start. This is set as a falsifiable proposition. If there are any examples of beliefs that cannot be stated as relations between individuals and propositions, this proposal would have to be revisited.
It has been suggested that animal and other non-linguistic beliefs are a falsification of this suggestion. The argument is that non-linguistic creatures can have beliefs and yet cannot express these beliefs as propositions, and that hence beliefs cannot be propositional attitudes. But that is a misreading of what is going on here. Any belief, including that of creatures that cannot speak, can be placed in the form of a propositional attitude by those who can speak. A cat, for example, can believe that its bowl is empty, but cannot put that belief in the form B(a,p).
Belief does not imply truth
One obvious consequence of a belief being a relation between an individual and a proposition is that the truth of the proposition is unrelated to the truth of the belief.
That is, folk can believe things that are untrue. Or not believe things that are true.
A corollary of this is that belief does not stand in opposition to falsehood, but to doubt. Truth goes with falsehood, belief with doubt. And at the extreme end of belief we find certainty. In certainty, doubt is inadmissible.
If belief does not imply truth, and if one holds to the Justified True Belief definition of knowledge, it follows that belief does not imply knowledge.
The individual who has the belief holds that the proposition is true.
This is, if you like, the significance of a belief statement. It follows from Moore's paradox, in which someone is assume to believe something that they hold not to be true. For example:
"I believe the world is flat, but the world is not flat".
While this is difficult to set out as a clear contradiction, there is something deeply unhappy about it. The conclusion is that one thinks that what one believes is indeed true.
Note that Moore's paradox is in the first person. "John believes the world is flat, but the world is not flat" is not paradoxical - John is just wrong. "John believes that the world is flat and John believes the world is not flat" - John is inconsistent.
The perforative paradox comes about only when expressed in the first person.
One might think it so trivial that it is not worth saying: to believe some proposition is to believe that proposition to be true.
That is, talk of belief requires talk of truth.
One might be tempted, perhaps by pragmatism or by Bayesian thoughts, to replace that with measures of probability. You might think yourself only 99.99% certain that the cat is on the mat, and suppose thereby that you have banished truth. But of course, one is also thereby 99.99% certain that "the cat is on the mat" is true.
Belief makes sense of error
Austin talked of words that gain their meaning - use - mostly by being contrasted with their opposite. His example was real.
"it's not a fake; it's real"
"it's not a mirage, it's real!"
It's not a mistake - it's real"
and so on.
Belief can be understood in a similar fashion, as gaining it's usefulness from the contrast between a true belief and a false belief. That is, an important aspect of belief is that sometimes we think that something is the case, and yet it is not.
We bring belief into the discourse in order to make sense of such errors.
Belief is dynamic
Beliefs change over time. It follows that a decent account of belief must be able to account for this dynamism.
Beliefs explain but do not determine actions
Beliefs are used to explain actions. Further, such explanations are causal and sufficient. So if we have appropriate desires and a beliefs we can explain an action.
So, given that John is hungry, and that John believes eating a sandwich will remove his hunger, we have a sufficient causal explanation for why John ate the sandwich.
One may act in ways that are contrary to one's beliefs. A dissident may comply in order to protect herself and her family.
So given that John is hungry, and has a sandwich at hand, it does not follow that John will eat the sandwich.
Phenomenal states
Talk of phenomenal states strikes me as misguided.
If they are ineffable personal experiences, then they cannot be discussed - that's what "ineffable" means.
But if they can be spoken of, then they are our feelings, emotions and so on - stuff we already speak of.
So either phenomenal states do not enter into the discussion, or we have been talking about them for a very long time.
Either way, they do not add to the discussion.
An individual's belief is inscrutable
One can act in ways contrary to one's beliefs. It's a result of the lack of symmetry between beliefs and actions mentioned above - Beliefs explain but do not determine actions. Thanks due to @Hanover and @Cabbage Farmer.
Any belief can be made to account for any action, by adding suitable auxiliary beliefs.
This edit July 12
Comments (1742)
It does not mean that the person whose mind it has colonized likes it, thinks that it probably corresponds with some external reality, etc. Hence, you get people saying things like, "I don't want to believe [B]A[/B], but I can't shake it".
And so it begins.
Talk of places in the mind must be metaphorical - the mind does not have places.
What is it to have a place in the mind?
Being a repressed memory.
Being in conscious thought presently and causing anxiety.
Etc.
So - my view - or at least the case I propose - is that 'John believes that the sky is blue' is always something about the speaker or writer of these words in their relation to their addressee(s) and can never be meaningfully removed from them into a pseudo-logical 'rendering'. You are assuming 'use', I am alleging language is always hovering between 'use' and 'mention'.
We are on Mars where the sky is actually purple.
We are in a retirement home where John stares out through a bleak window.
We are in a painting class which is supposed to be portraying the dark grey scene outside.
What sense does any translation or rendering like 'Believes(John, "The sky is blue")' make in these situations, as instances? How does such a rendering communicate to anyone else what is going on in such scenes? Isn't it just lexical rather than having any wider 'meaning'?
Maybe a feeling is mental content but is a non-belief, for example.
Quoting mcdoodle
I'm not claiming that rendering belief in such a relational form is all there is - far from it. I'm hoping that it gives us a starting point, not a whole story.
What we might gain is a structure from which to build an understanding.
I completely agree. But that might be Chomsky-as-scientist type understanding: logical form might somehow underlie how our minds work.It might however be the wrong sort of clue as to how things are between us as creatures. Maybe philosophically 'belief' is just a silly bit of linguistic bollox ('belief' doesn't always translate well, interestingly, into other languages).
I'm not meaning I have an answer here.
I wondered about the idea 'alief' as proposed by Gendler: a normative contrasting feeling-in-the-head. But I don't know if that contributes towards the structure we both want, or if, conversely, it's just inventing some more linguistic bollox :)
That's not too far from my own intuition. Hence my question about a belief having a place in the mind - or even being in the mind.
What could that mean?
Quoting mcdoodle
That's interesting - references? I'd like to know more.
Note also the customary distinction in Platonic epistemology distinguishing doxa, pistis, dianoia, and noesis, which are elaborated at length in the Analogy of the Divided Line, in the Republic. In this scheme, doxa and pistis correspond to belief, whereas the other terms denote knowledge (of mathematical truths and the Ideas, respectively.)
In your case, John knows the sky is blue - unless, presumably, John is blind, or he’s relying on someone else’s report. But unless that is the case, he knows it, doesn’t simply believe it.
dianoia(Jack, "4 is the square of 2")
Would that work?
if so the question becomes - what has been lost? Suggestions?
So what about the spectrometer measuring the number of photons in the wavelength that most people associate with "blue". Does it 'believe' that the sky is blue, or does it contain that information in some other form?
In the propositional attitude relation from the OP, the relation of belief does not apply to machines.
So in B(a,p), (a) cannot be a machine.
I think that if we have a simple definition of belief such as you propose where the 'fact' simply resides in, or belongs to, a person, then we are committed to an epistemological framework which gives some special ability or feature to humans. That they alone can contain/possess beliefs. I see no justification for this additional complication to the theory.
If the 'fact' that the sky is 'blue' (by which we mean the sky has properties that allow it membership of the set 'things which we call blue') is simply contained in John, then the spectrometer also contains that data.
The way out of this is to have a behaviourist approach to belief. John is acting in response to the blueness of the sky.
But this is a thread about belief, not facts. I'm not suggesting that facts reside in minds.
John can believe things that are not facts. Can a thermometer believe it is cold when it is hot?
Then what is "the sky is blue"? It cannot be a belief because it is itself just a variable in the thing you are defining as a belief. The first variable is a 'person', so what would you call the second variable in your definition?
So beliefs are some of those things that are in the mind.
Being in the mind does not however mean that it i something we are thinking about - hence you include repressed memories.
What is it to be in the mind?
OK, so what is preventing the spectrometer from containing a proposition?
Or does he have an attitude towards that proposition?
(Y)
Yes, I would say that in order to avoid the counter-intuitive conclusion that the spectrometer 'believes' the sky is blue, we have to add to our definition that the subject of the belief has some attitude towards it.
Essentially I would say that John 'believes' the sky is blue if some reaction within John is a consequence of the blueness of the sky.
Of course this definition means that a computer could believe that the sky is blue, but I have no problem with that.
Would you be comfortable with saying that the thermostat believed it was cold, so it turned on the heater?
Moreover, where is that belief?
Yes, I see no reason to ascribe some special factor to human responses to external stimuli. The simplest explanation seems entirely adequate. John's senses have detected that the sky is blue. This information is meaningless until John responds in some way, maybe his brain retrieves some memories of other times the sky was blue, or maybe he is moved to speak the words "the sky is blue". In either case I'm not seeing any magical thing needed to explain John that is not present in the reacting thermometer.
How would we describe the reaction of a thermometer which was somehow tricked into turning the heating on despite the fact that the room was very warm. To say the thermometer reacted that way because it 'believed' the room was cold seems an entirely consistent use of the word.
Hm. It seems your view might be contrasted with PO-MO's
Quoting WISDOMfromPO-MO
Is there a place or thing in the thermostat that we could call the belief that it is cold?
I think we're getting into semantics here. We could say that beliefs are attitudes to a proposition that have to be contained in a mind, but there would be no epistemological reason to, just if we preferred to differentiate particular types of response and call them something different. As I say, I don't see any epistemological reason to do this, but that doesn't mean we can't.
Thing is, if we say the we're going to artificially restrict the use of the word 'belief' to humans (or other animals?) then we have two problems.
1. Where do we draw the line? Can an unconscious person have a belief, can a bacteria?
2. What do we call the same attitude to a proposition when it's contained in a computer, do we have another word that does the job?
I don't see any problem with it not having a representation. When John says "the sky is blue" we can propose the causal explanation of that John might 'believe' the sky is blue. Likewise if we were privy to all of John's thoughts we might say the same when we see some internal reaction. But until that time we have no justification for making the statement about John's beliefs, so I don't think there's any need for them to be contained anywhere, they are the causal chain.
All other animals have beliefs. The tiger 'believes' that the antelope will alleviate its hunger. If it turns out the antelope was a cardboard cut out, then it will have had a false belief. In what way are human beliefs different?
You can ask humans about it and they will explain it. The rest is just stimulus-and-response.
No I can't. I cannot ask a Polynesian to explain their beliefs because they will have no idea what I'm saying and I will be unable to understand any response.
One can translate Polynesian into English.
Also, how is not just stimuli-respone that when you hear the words "explain your beliefs" you respond with words which correspond to the way you intend to react to certain propositions?
It does not seem too unreasonable to suppose that belief has some dependence on meaning.
Many marine biologists can understand a significant part of dolphin communication. Can they have beliefs? What about babies before language, do they not have beliefs?
We're just fishing about for a sufficiently complex definition to satisfy our anthropocentrism when the simplest definition already suffices.
What job is being done by restricting the term 'belief' to those in possession of language?
Then how are we to assess whether the believer 'knows' what the proposition means. We're getting circular here. Would we not have to say they had a 'belief' about what the proposition means?
Then, by your definition they would have to know what it means to have such a belief. If we knew that we wouldn't be having this discussion would we?
So we would have that
Quoting Pseudonym
In the obvious case, the same way we find out that someone knows anything. Ask.
In other cases, watch how they act.
But why do we need these things, what purpose does this restriction of the definition serve?
Quoting Banno
Which brings us back to cats, and thermostats. The thermostat certainly acts as if it knows what the temperature reading means. Why else would it turn the heating on when it learns that the room is cold. It must know what coldness means in terms of what must be done next.
you might, though. It’s only a matter of translation. Polynesians are humans. Unlike, say, lions.
Quoting Pseudonym
Find me a thermostat which suspects you’re materialist.
To sort belief out from other propositional attitudes.
To believe something is to hold it to be true.
Perhaps we should say that the individual judges the proposition to be true?
Yes but why? Why are you wanting to give a special word to some responses to propositions just because those responses are carried out by a human?
How do you know it isn't possible to communicate with lions? Many people have effective communication with animals. Plus, you're neatly dodging how babies have beliefs, what about deaf mutes, are they incapable of belief?
Why would the content of a belief make any difference? I can find you a thermostat which clearly 'beleives' it's cold. I can find you a human who is incapable of believing I'm a materialist because they don't know what the word means. Your point is?
If you're curious then coming at the problem with an already fixed human-shaped answer isn't going to help.
I know humans have beliefs. It's not an unreasonable place to start.
You're looking to define belief. The usual method for defining something is broadly either analytical (what should it mean) or linguistic (what is it used to mean). Personally I think both have their uses, but what it is used to mean is of little use philosophically, it's more a sociological excersice.
Analytically then, we're looking to put a circle around some group of things on the basis of a set of shared properties which give us further insight. Defining those properties too narrowly is useless, it gives very little insight. If nothing turns out to be in the set that we didn't already know was in it then no useful information has been found. That's what I'm suggesting your anthropocentrism is doing. You're creating a definition in such as way as you already know everything that's in it. That's fine, but philosophically useless.
I have to do some real work now, but I look forward to reading your response later in the day.
False beliefs contribute to bias, illusion, and error.
If "mind" is the set of conditions experienced, and functions exercised, by an organism which produce behaviour, then; belief is a mental function. Therefore, it doesn't make sense to ask,"Where is mind?", or "Where is belief?"
Criterial evidence in the form of observed behaviour suggests that animals have attitudes (e.g., prey having a negative evaluation of predator). But inasmuch as propositions presuppose language, it is unlikely that animals have beliefs.
But hang on - can't one believe something that is indeed true? I believe this sentence is in English.
Quoting Galuchat
So believing is something the mind does? That's interesting.
Indeed, we seem to be ruling out animal belief along with thermostat belief.
It’s an allusion.
I can see advantages in making the definition explicit.
The aim of this thread, for me, is not so much to set out a true and faithful definition - there's no such thing - but to explore the pros and cons, work out what might be consistent and what doesn't work.
Yes.
No, it is something human beings do.
SO would you explicitly rule out non-human belief?
Does the crow show an understanding of displacement? Does he show that he understands that water will be displaced, but not sand?
Language comprehension. The crow's behaviour provides criterial evidence of understanding (a mental faculty), not of verbal modelling.
All about dissipative structures, triadic relations, heat death, habit, blah, blah.
Alluding to what?
What might an inconsistent definition look like (inconsistent with what?), or one that doesn't work (what is the job it has to do that it might fail at?).
Take the famous black swans. When defining what a Swan is we can either pick a set of criteria which are the bare minimum required to isolate swans from other birds, or we can select those criteria which we want to be associated with swans.
If we do the former, then when we encounter our first black Swan we can claim to have learned something new about swans (that they can be black).
If we do the latter (as it seems we're doing here deliberately trying to eliminate thermostats from the definition) then we learn nothing, we simply decide if 'whiteness' is one of the things we want a Swan to have, if it is, then the new things are not swans, if it isn't then we don't have a new fact about swans because we're not using ascribing properties based on necessity.
To bring it back round to belief. In the former, most useful sense, we need only give properties to 'belief' which are actually purposefully required to delineate it from something otherwise similar.
So the question is what is the useful consequence of delineating those attitudes to propositions which can be expressed in a language we can understand as some epistemologically distinct thing? Ascribing definitions based on some subjective ability of the observer is certainly not the 'normal' way to go about defining things.
Further, if Linnaeus lived a bit longer and decided that these Australian upstarts were not swans, he would have been laughed at.
That is, definitions are created post hoc; that is certainly the case here.
And my intuition, which I think I share with at least a few others around here, is that thermostats do not have beliefs.
No belief talk ever helped a pitcher pitch a 'no-hitter'.
So the crow can solve the problem, but can't tell us how?
I want to build on the idea that a believer must understand their belief. That for me means that the believer act on and express the belief. That the belief shows in their actions.
Or, to ward off the obvious objection, a belief would be expressed as the occasion arose.
Yeah, great philosopher, lousy zoologist.
And so ends any philosophical interest. You already hold a set of beliefs and we're just playing around with words until our descriptions of the world force it into your preconceived notions.
You've heard the one about the Buddhist pouring tea into an already full cup...
I would reject outright a language of thought. The private language argument shows it to be problematic, and connectionism shows it to be unnecessary.
One will not find a belief by dissecting a brain. Beliefs are found in behaviour, including spoken behaviour.
So what more is a belief than a disposition to act in certain ways?
But then one can have a repressed belief; one not expressed in behaviour.
Do you think beliefs are shown in philosophical discourse in the same way(s) they are shown in non-philosophical activity? In other words, do the actions that constitute doing philosophy show/evince belief in a different way from non-philosophical ones?
It seems strange to say that a belief can be found by dissecting sentences, in the same manner they will not be found amongst neurons. Something goes missing in the, at face value, sense of belief when it is distributed relationally over constitutive components. Regardless, philosophy can be characterised in some way by looking at connections between beliefs, philosophers, and philosophical language, and to act philosophically (in terms of debate/essay) is to exhibit those connections through language use - probably with regard to a chosen theme (question/problem) which highlights appropriate connections.
It may still be that to believe is to exhibit a psychological-neuronal-motor pattern, but this does not speak as to how beliefs are to be found in the use of language. Is it really true that beliefs take the crystalline form of attitudes towards propositional content when it is so hard to find a belief amongst words? What uses of language are sufficient to show a belief in play? And how, in turn, do they implicate a particular belief?
Besides X believes that P.
Not necessarily so, though I am sure applicable to some people. No need to superimpose truth in to of all beliefs. Quoting Galuchat
As everyone has beliefs as per their life experiences, one might say everyone has biases. Forget about illusions. What one experiences is what one experiences for whatever reason (s). Error? I have no idea what that is. Things happen and are unpredictable. Something may not turn out as expected and that is part of living. Maybe things will turn around and be closer to what one expects. Life zig zags and we learn from these experiences. There is only error if it is possible to precisely predict outcome and there isn't, not anywhere.
Quoting Galuchat
That it is. It is some expectation forged in memory. There can be weak beliefs and strong beliefs. Strong beliefs are intense memories that are sometimes called dogma. If lots people hold the same dogma it is frequently codified as truths. Thus the mind builds a spectrum of intensity of beliefs in memory.
With this one can speculate that any form of life that can create memory may have beliefs, even in its most rudimentary forms of expectations. But this cannot be known directly but some experiments may show it indirectly.
Is my conclusion based on dissecting sentences? Probably not.
Quoting fdrake
And we have a logic of belief:
If John believes A and John believes B then John believes A and B; and so on. Louis Lane believe superman can fly but does not believe that Clarke Kent can fly, despite clark and Superman being the very same individual.
Is it so hard to find beliefs amongst words? Perhaps not.
I'm not sure I believed myself to be writing English, I was simply writing a response in English. The belief never 'entered my head' as it were. Where is it being derived from?
Well, it isn't hard to find beliefs amongst words like 'X believes that Y' and pre-formed statements containing 'believes' as the verb. But that isn't all there is to belief, surely. Belief cannot be summoned in this way.
Setting out a logic of belief in terms of propositions is not providing a theory of how beliefs are expressed or implicated in language use. For example, it's difficult to ascertain what you believe belief is from your responses.
As it stands, I have a working hypothesis that you believe beliefs are propositional necessary conditions for doing things, especially with language use practices. Is this the case? I'll assume it's so. Another way of putting it: propositional attitudes without the coalescence of their propositional correlates.
It could be set out that to understand belief is to understand statements of the form 'X believes that P' and the logical relationships between statements of that sort. Can I ask you to carry out the translation exercise for my first post in this thread in terms of its implicated/constitutive beliefs? Or this one?
I don't think how beliefs are implicated in language use is a particularly trivial matter, why would there be so much philosophical scholarship on interpreting great thinkers if it were so cut and dry?
In any case, what purpose is served by the excersice in defining? (I don't mean to suggest that there is no purpose to it, or that it isn't intrinsically interesting).
Best
PA
Since I remember you like Austin:
Maybe the difficulty in finding the constitutive or implicated beliefs in an argument is that arguments consist of far more varied forms of interaction in terms of perlocution and illocutionary act-force composites than simply sequences of assertion-belief composites and their formal logical relations.
On the sentential level, there are elucidatory questions in demanding and providing forms, refutational questions as well assertions of belief. Further, in states of belief and unbelief of the writer; the writer also need not hold any specific belief in the negation of a particular statement even if they disbelieve the statement. There are evincing sentences with the illocutionary force of justification to the whole of a unit of debate, refutational ones which serve as counter-examples. Sentences may also be interpreted non-exclusively as expanding on previous points or introducing new ones; particularly good writers can move on and reinforce at the same time. Also, poetic summaries and quips with many possible perlocutionary forces are commonplace...
On the level of chains of sentences, there are elucidatory analogies which are requests for clarification, elucidatory analogies in support of a previously made point, refutational analogies which attempt to reframe a contrary position to absurdity, refutational analogies which attempt to reframe a contrary position towards irrelevance; there are conceptual bridges to transform a subunit of debate into an equivalent form (such as an analogy) - the bridges themselves can take on elucidatory, complementary or refutational perlocutionary forces. Edit: of course, there are accounts of phenomena indicating their place in the argument in relation to the theme of the debate and some constitutive particulars on the level of sentence chains too... I focussed a lot on analogies, but to give an account of a position isn't necessarily to analogise towards/against it.
On the level of whole arguments, subunits of the arguments can be arranged in a complementary position to a theme, a repudiative position to a theme - they can reframe, parody, mock... Suffice to say, there is a lot of variation and a lot of nuance.
To reduce belief to 'X believes that P' and logical relations between beliefs and contained propositions will tell you what to do with, at most, already formed beliefs from engaging with (a narrowly circumscribed set of) phenomena. This is a tiny part of an account of belief.
It doesn't take into account the 'hows' of belief formation when writing or interpreting, or how belief interacts with questions, arguments and evidence. Being unable to ascertain the exact beliefs of a speaker expressed in their words, or a close approximation to a subset thereof, isn't solely explainable by a failure of interpretation - it's also that much is lost when projecting the space of reasoning (rationalised belief formation, in some senses) down to its subspace of propositions and their relations. Much like the difference between formal logic and rhetorical strategy.
A belief is a habit of interpretation. It reads reality in terms of confirming signs.
If an individual wears his underpants over his trousers, it is inductively more likely that he is a superhero with superpowers. The belief is some established Baysesian model. How you wear your underpants is a sign by which the reality can be predicted.
Of course beliefs aren't infallible. Which is why evolution builds in both a psychological propensity for habit formation and for sudden disbelief or questioning when some chosen sign starts to seem unreliable. The surprise of a mismatch - Clark Kent is noticed to have shifted location at a speed which had to be superhuman - can spark the search for a better habit of interpretation. How he rocks his duds ceases to be a signifier.
The belief that Clark and Superman are the "very same individual" is of course just a further habit of interpretation - an inductive inference open to falsification.
Whether the belief is "true" or not falls out of the picture as some kind of transcendental pipedream. In making belief dependent on "a sign", the believing mind is separating itself from the world to build its own functional relation with that world.
The world presses in with all its myriad messy variety. The mind's job is to reduce that clutter to some set of sharp symbolic responses. To what category can an experience be assigned in terms of some yes/no definite question?
A cat is a cat until something clicks because the world we are reading in terms of a set of predictable features is throwing up too many surprises. This "cat" is rather bulky, bushy tailed, with a bumbling gait and a black mask across its eyes. Hey, it's a "racoon". (Well it isn't. It's the advance force of an invading alien armada as we are next about to learn. Etc.)
So a belief is a habitual way to read the world in terms of a set of signs. It is a theory that is held "true" while it holds up functionally in terms of the acts of measurement which it legitimates. As long as the signs are seen, the interpretation is held to be justified.
But the relation is an indirect one. The signs that confirm our state of belief are part of our psychology, not part of the world in some brute physicalist sense. They are informational not material, phenomenal not noumenal, in being answers to our potential questions.
A discussion. And I have one.
Quoting fdrake
It is, indeed; but perhaps it is a start.
I'm off to Sydney for a few days. I'll be giving this some more thought. Cheers.
It is trust or confidence in the truth of something.
Beliefs might be rational, irrational, justified, or unjustified, and a belief requires no language skills. A cat can have a belief, as can a pre-lingual baby. I might believe a cat is a hat for no reason at all, but truly believe it. My cat might believe a stick is a snake and attack it, even if it never saw a snake before.
Even if my belief about the definition of "belief" is wrong, it's just as much a belief.
Behaviorism doesn't hold that beliefs are behavior, but only that behavior is the only empirical evidence we have of beliefs. The belief is in the black box of your mind, and you can't see it because it's a black box and that's how black boxes work.
If behavior were belief you could, but it's not. Belief references a conscious state, and since we can't observe the conscious state of feeling cold in another person, we rely upon outward behavioral manifestations, which may or may not accurately indicate the content of the conscious state.
And, by the way, when I get cold, I don't behave like a thermostat, as in I don't send an electrical current to the furnace and blow hot air through vents. I say this because we're taking for granted that thermostats are some form of undeniable AI that passes the Turing Test. In truth, it's fairly simple to determine by behavioral observation alone that even the most advanced AI systems are not conscious entities.
I think philosophers in general ought to be more reluctant to take part in these discussions over "what is X?" questions. The debate about the meaning of the word can be endless and fruitless if there are no criteria for a succesful definition and no purpose served by the defining.
PA
Belief is generally considered an element of knowledge, and it therefore is significant. I agree that words are contextual and can be subject to endless defining and redefining, but it's also obvious that we rely upon words as having some form of fixed meaning as well, else we couldn't use them to communicate. So, I think your attempt to jettison the whole debate as pointless isn't entirely fair, but I do think you could prove your point by continuously offering counterexamples to the definitions arrived at if you wished to prove your thesis that this discussion is pointless.
Example of involuntary:
I have troubles choosing to believe, to be convinced, that there are pink elephants in the front-yard (say, maybe just for five minutes sharp).
If I hallucinate them, then I'd likely falsely believe that they're there, though perhaps somewhat justified.
So, there's a part of beliefs that have to be genuine, honest, which also is related to justification, indoctrination, or whatever.
I guess formation of belief is a whole study in its own right.
What are examples of voluntary beliefs?
Is seeing believing?
(Err sorry, not intending to off-track the thread.)
[sub]seeing is believing (Wiktionary entry)
Seeing & Believing (Raymond Tallis, Philosophy Now, 2013)
Seeing is believing (Nature, Dec 2005)
Seeing Is Believing (Richard I Cook, Annals of Surgery, Apr 2003)
[/sub]
Given this formulation, how would you distinguish a belief from a working hypothesis?
For example, I'm an atheist. I intuitively reject the proposition "God exists," and so it's not that hard to maneuvre me into situations where I commit myself to saying "God does not exist," is true. Is this already a belief, or is it a clue that I hold a belief that is incompatible with the proposition "God exists?" and it is politically expedient to claim that I believe "God does not exist."
Am I rejecting the proposition "God exists," without commiting to its negative? Is what I'm really rejecting the relevance of the proposition, rather than it's truth value? That is, I don't care and don't want to spend the time to figure out what I believe?
"God does not exist," works well enough for me as a working hypothesis: I act as if God does not exist. But acting as if God does not exist is not the same thing as believing that God does not exist. Imagine that theists don't exist. Obviously, I would not have to be an atheist. In many cases I would act the same as I am now, but in situations where the theism/atheism divide is relevan, I do act differently. A working hypothesis like "God does not exist" is only of use, because theists exist (I'm not motivated to invent theism just to deny its existance).
If we define "belief" as a propositional attitude, I have a problem, here: I wouldn't be able to hold an intuitive belief that I find to express in words, but that's pretty much what I experience. I'm uncertain about a lot of things, and that I react more vehemently against theism than say materialism is at least partly down to a defense mechanism against perceived social control. If it's possible to figure out intuitively held beliefs by making propositions and observing your reactions towards them, then beliefs must precede propositions in some way - that is rather than a belief being an attitude towards a proposition, a belief would have to be something more foundational - something that gives rise to your attitudes to propositions.
I find "belief" harder to define that way, but it addresses a second problem I have, here: namely that you have to understand a proposition to believe in it. Intuitively, I don't think so. You can believe that a proposition is true, because you trust the person who utters it. Now, you can easily rephrase things to make it fit: for example:
I do not understand propisition A.
I understand the proposition "Person B understands propostion A," and think it is true.
I understand the proposition "Person B thinks proposition A is true," and think its true.
With these addtions, I could believe a lot of things to be true without understanding them. All I need to do is "trust an expert".
But I think if I do this something gets lost. I have an ill-thought-through hunch that we generalise "trusting experts" from childhood on (the first probably being our parents), so that there's always some sort of social component already included. That is: "belief" may be a mechanism to restrict doubt, so that we don't find ourselves eternally unable to make decisions.
In other words, maybe by judging "propositions" we tag as "important" we're really picking our team; maybe "beliefs" are prepositional predispositions rather than attitudes? The likelihood to respond to a certain preposition either favourably or disfavourably? That way, you wouldn't form an ad-hoc belief everytime you say "that's hogwash!"
I apologise if this doesn't make much sense. It's just that if I see my shoe laces come untied I bend down and tie them. If someone were to formulate that in propositions, like "Your shoulaces are untied" (fact: true/false), "You should tie them," (value judgement: true/false) I can have attitudes to those propositions, but I have a hard time to consider them beliefs just on the ground that they've been formulated. However, when you formulate those propositions beliefs do come into play. So I sort of think that beliefs are pre-linguistic and valuable even if not (fully?) understood.
(I've actually considered that we substitute understanding for belief - that is, we ignore things we don't quite understand in order to contain doubt enough to render us capable of decisions - people with a greater tolerance for doubt would need less belief [tautology?], and we would be predisposed to defend our beliefs because losing them would render us incapable of decisions. The tolerance for doubt might differ not only by person but also by topic. But all that's even more tentative than the rest of my post.).
That's the whole point of my example. What are we defining if we insist that belief requires a concious state (a state which we cannot even reliably identify since no-one is agreed what conciousness is anyway)? I see little point in playing philosophy with our cups already full, to decide in advance what sort of thing we want belief to mean and then play this charade of pretending we're doing doing some meaningful investigation discovering exactly what we set out to 'discover'.
If you think a belief requires conciousness in order to define it, in order to separate it meaningfully from other similar states without conciousness, then what is the job that adding conciousness as a condition is doing for our definition? What error would we be making if we were to describe the thermostat as 'believing' it was cold on the basis of it's behaviour (turning the heating up) other than insulting your anthropocentric view that humans must have a whole series of special words to describe their states of being?
We all know that we are conscious, and we subjectively have no doubt about it. That we can't precisely define it makes it like any other term, including "belief," the term we're trying to identify here.Quoting Pseudonym
It's just a misuse of language to say a thermostat believes, and it's clear that something different is happening when I believe it's too hot and the thermostat switches on the furnace. Surely our language can support a particular word that distinguishes between thermostat behavior and human behavior.
Behavior is not what defines belief. It's just evidence of an internal state. If I'm shivering and exhibiting every sign of being cold, it is not necessary that I believe I'm cold. I might think I'm warm because I've become unable to distinguish cold from hot, or maybe I'm entirely numb, with no feeling at all and my body is reactively shivering.
And as I've also said, even when we look to behavior to decipher particular mental states, we are usually very adept at it and we notice clear signs that an entity is not conscious. That is, the behavior of a thermostat would not lead anyone to actually believe it has a belief or that it is conscious. We can figure out (just as we can when computers submit to a Turing Test) when an entity is mimicking conscious like behavior and when it is truly conscious.
To say the thermostat "believes" it's cold is no different than saying the tree believes it's windy because its leaves wave in the wind. You have just misdefined a word to a way no one uses it. Quoting PseudonymYes, you've discovered it. I don't believe a word I'm saying, but I feel the need to keep humans in their esteemed place in the world so I'm insisting upon an anthropomorphic definition of belief. No, I do believe that cats and dogs have beliefs too, but not thermostats or waving trees.
Not at all, there are many perfectly rational people (myself included) who consider consciousness to be an illusion, that we are distinguishable from thermostats only in the number of such computations we can carry out at any one time. In fact, I would go as far as to say that, if we allow for some phenomenal emergence, then actually most philosophers of mind agree that our brains work in this way. There is nothing ontological to distinguish us from thermostats other than volume of data processed.
Quoting Hanover
As I said, if you've already made up your mind as to what 'believe' should mean and what is apparently "clear" about the differences between the state of our brains when we believe something and the state of the bimetallic strip in a thermostat when is 'believes' it is cold, then what purpose is there to your involvement in this discussion?
Quoting Hanover
Indeed, and the thermostat, if broken, might turn the heating off despite 'beliving' that it is cold, but we would in both cases be equally able to judge that something has gone wrong. I'm still not hearing anything of this magical difference between humans and thermostats which actually makes any difference to the meaning and use of the term 'belief'.
Quoting Hanover
Firstly, no we can't figure it out, but that's an entirely different debate and unnecessary herebecause, secondly you're talking here about consciousness (which I agree it is easy to see the thermostat doesn't have). You have yet to establish why you think it necessary for belief to be linked to consciousness. What job does such a restriction do to the meaning and use of the word?
Quoting Hanover
So what about insects, bacteria, unconscious people, philosophical zombies, AI... Where do you draw the line on what can have beliefs and why?
Do you suppose thermostats have phenomenal states?Quoting Pseudonym
I guess having an opinion bars one from discussing that opinion with someone who has an opposing view? I do think it is very clear that your claiming that a thermostat has a belief is not how the word belief is used among speakers of English. Quoting Pseudonym
I don't get why you put belief in quotes unless you're using it in a strained figurative sense and not literally. My understanding of your thesis was that thermostats had beliefs in the literal sense.Quoting Pseudonym
Empirically, no computer makes it past a few minutes in a Turing Test. A belief is a product of consciousness. A comatose patient doesn't form beliefs. Quoting Pseudonym
Sure, when is a chair a chair. Some things are clearly not chairs and some things clearly are, but that I can't tell you the exact dividing line hardly means there are no chairs. But, back at you, the same question. When is a belief a belief? Does the tree waving in the wind believe the wind is blowing? Does the ice forming in the freezer believe the temperature fell to 0 degree Celsius? Does the grape crushed on the floor believe that people are heavier than grapes?
Apparently metal expanding and flipping a switch is a belief, so I'm not real clear why all physical reactions aren't beliefs.
No, but then I don't really hold with phenomenalism in humans either.
Quoting Hanover
I wasn't opposed to your coming to this discussion with an existing opinion (I certainly have), what I couldn't understand the purpose of was your arguing against my position simply by stating that it does not tally with yours. Either there are some steps wrong can take to ascertain which position is most tenable or we might as well be arguing about whether blue or green is the best colour.
If you wish to assert that "it's clear that something different is happening when I believe it's too hot and the thermostat switches on the furnace.". I'd like to hear an argument as to why you think that, I'm not going to just take your word for it.
Quoting Hanover
My use of the thermostat was never intended as an Ordinary Language proposition about how the word 'belief' is used (the single quotes are to indicate reference to the word as opposed to its accepted meaning, by the way). The example is to explore whether our restriction of the term 'belief' to conscious creatures is justified analytically. This is a philosophy forum, not a linguists forum, I'm not so interested in how the word is used so much as what we can learn from it. That's why I keep coming back to the question of whether there is any meaningful job being done by restricting the word belief to conscious creatures. What is it about consciousness that makes belief data different from any other data (such as that which is stored in the position of a bimetallic strip)?
Quoting Hanover
A belief is an attitude to a proposition in some way, I think perhaps we can all agree on that (although maybe not). The question is whether there is any need for the holder of that attitude to be aware they are holding it.
What differentiates a thermostat from the examples you give is that in the examples, there is no outside observer to whom the data is relevant. We're all quite comfortable with the idea that a computer hard drive contains data, it's all just diodes, but we call it data because the outcome is unpredictable to us. The ice in some way 'contains' the data that it's below freezing point, but that data was not unpredictable to us, the thermostat's data is.
I'm a determinist, so as far as I'm concerned, a person putting a coat on is a direct mechanistic consequence of the environment acting on their biological system. No different to the air temperature acting on the thermostat and causing it to switch the heating on. Yet at some point in time, we want to be able to say that the person 'believes' it is cold and it is this belief that causes them to put a coat on.
In order to be a cause, this belief must be a prior state of the biological system. More specifically it must be exactly that particular state which causes the coat putting on activity. If that state is what a belief is, then logically, that same prior state must also be a belief in the thermostat.
I can't make any sense of this statement.Quoting Pseudonym
The thermostat isn't conscious, although I thought we've already been discussing that.Quoting Pseudonym
A meaningless distinction.Quoting Pseudonym
So are you admitting that there is a distinction between my belief and the thermostat's, yet you just don't think it's relevant enough to warrant it having a different term attached to it? If you're acknowledging my distinction, yet you just want to lump both as "beliefs," then we just disagree on terminology, not concepts.Quoting Pseudonym
If consciousness exists in belief(1) but not belief(2), they are different.Quoting Pseudonym
Is a proposition a linguistic statement? Are you now saying the thermostat has an attitude toward a linguistic statement? As best I can tell, all the spring does is expand, and that's what you call an "attitude"? Quoting Pseudonym
I don't follow any of these distinctions. The water freezes at 0 degrees and forms a barrier around our home to insulate us through the miracle of nature. I notice it does all that. Does the ice now have a belief it can insulate me? I can put mercury in a test tube and watch it rise with the temperature and use that for whatever purpose I choose, so now does the mercury have a belief? And if the thermostat exists in a house that no one enters, and the data it provides is relevant to no one, does it no longer have a belief? If I believe I'll have a ham sandwich for lunch, do I have a belief if that belief is irrelevant to everyone else.Quoting Pseudonym
And was it submitted that determinism was incompatible with having a conscious or forming a belief?Quoting Pseudonym
This is an antiquated view of determinism, but regardless, it's irrelevant whether the thermostat's reaction and the human reaction are pre-determined. I've not argued that beliefs arise from an other world miracle substance.
The significant difference between the thermostat and the human belief is that the thermostat necessitates action, and in the human being belief doesn't necessarily result in action. One may or may not act on a belief. That's free will.
It would be more accurate to depict the thermometer itself as the thing with belief, such that the thermometer shows what it believes the temperature to be, and leaves it to the mechanism of the thermostat as to whether or not action ought to be taken on that belief, but the problems with this are twofold. The temperature shown by the thermometer still needs to be interpreted for meaning, while in human beings, belief is inexplicably bound to meaning. Also, the thermostat has no choice about acting on the belief, while the human being does.
I'd take this a step further and eliminate the issue of free will. I can have a belief without any behavioral correlate. I can believe I'm going to the store tomorrow and no one would ever be able to know it. A thermostat cannot have a belief without a behavioral correlate because there's complete identity between the behavior and the belief in the thermostat.
I don't think that you can actually get rid of free will like that. Suppose you are "determined" to go to the store, in a determinist sense. What allows you to put off your trip to the store until tomorrow, rather than right now, other than will power? And if you're not so sure that you will actually go to the store tomorrow, then why do you believe it?
Quoting Hanover
Yes, that is exactly what I'm doing. There is a distinction between my cat and my next door neighbour's cat but not a significant enough one that they are not both still cats. Their 'catness' is do to with necessary characteristics which distinguish them from other animals in a useful way not an arbitrary one. The fact that one has long fur and one has short fur might well be the most obvious difference between the two, but it has no meaning, they could still breed and produce offspring (presumably with medium length fur).
Conciousness is nothing but a CCTV camera of our brain, watching a selection of the activity therein. What I'm arguing is that a belief is just a particular type of data, one that determines what an action will be in certain circumstances. any device capable of holding this type of data can have a belief. The fact that in our data holding device there is a feature that watches some of the activity makes no meaningful difference to the function of that data. It does exactly the same thing as it does in any machine, it causes us to act in a certain way in response to certain stimuli.
So what difference does conciousness make to the holding of a belief?
Quoting Hanover
I thought it would have been obvious that we were discussing the philosophy of mind (seeing as that is what the whole topic is about) and as such I thought is self-evident that the term 'proposition' would be understood in that context where a proposition relates to the brain state equivalent to a truth. I'm using the terms we would normally apply to humans in describing the thermostat to highlight the fact that there are no meaningful differences other than volume of data. I've yet to hear an argument explaining how the differences between the 'belief' in a human mind and the state of some other data holding device relative to how it will then act actually cause any meaningfully different ontology.
Quoting Hanover
It's only been five years since I left academia, but if in the meantime, some updated version of determinism has arisen other than the concept that all things have prior cause I'd love to hear it. If you are not arguing that the the relevant difference between the human's response to the cold and the thermostat's is that one can freely decide what to do about it and the other cannot, then what are you arguing is the difference?
To summarise - what difference is conciousness making to the properties of the data we're calling a 'belief'?
So explain to me how this works then. A human has a belief that it is cold and no other beliefs at all. The human 'decides' nonetheless to ignore the belief that they are cold and take off their jumper. Where did the thought to take off the jumper come from? Did it just magically appear in the brain?
I've already explained how a broken thermostat can have a belief (hold data related to an action), that it is cold, but fail to act on it because it's switch is broken or (for a more complex thermostat) it has been wrongly programmed. How is that any different from your brain holding the data we're calling a 'belief' but due to some other data (presuming we're being deterministic about it) arrives at the net result that you will not go to the store.
The only way you can say that your not going to the store is not the direct and necessary consequence of some belief is if you invoke dualism to say that the notion of not going to the store arose spontaneously in your mind. Otherwise it must have come directly and with absolute certainty, from some previous brain sate ('belief')
All that is different in more complex devices such as the human brain/body is that we have to produce a net result from many, often competing, beliefs. The thermostat only has 'it is cold' and 'when it is cold the heating is to be switched on', so it's action derives predictably. A human might have 'it is cold', 'when it is cold I should put my coat on' and 'my coat makes me look foolish because it is not fashionable'. So whether the human puts the coat on is now a moot point determined by the fourth belief 'maintaining my temperature is more important than maintaining my fashion status'.
In reality, of course, there will be hundreds (if not thousands) of such beliefs in a human at any one time which is what makes them so fascinatingly unpredictable, but at no point in time do any of these 'belief' magically become something else in a human system to what they are in any other system which both holds and responds to data.
That doesn't work. What kind of ridiculous question is that?
Quoting Pseudonym
Looks like you're arguing for dualism now. But it's not the case that "not going to the store" is spontaneous, there's a reason for that. What is the case, is that one can decide to go to the store, but not at the present moment. so the person holds the seemingly contradictory beliefs, "I am going to the store", and "I am not going to the store (right now)". This allows that the decision to actually go to the store (and this is the source of the action), can be truly spontaneous. The person is all ready to go to the store, and chooses a time to leave, randomly.. .
No, the person could be said to hold the entirety complementary beliefs 'I am not going to the store right now' and 'I am going to the store at some point in the future'. As soon as the belief 'I am not going to the store right now' is removed or replaced as a direct consequence of external or internal stimuli, then they go to the store.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
So how do they do that? Have they got a random number generator in their brain? Where does the random element come from?
What's more, if there is a truly random element (say quantum uncertainty) then that's not free-will is it. We're no more in charge of the randomness than we are of the causal chain.
OK, I'll accept that representation. The point is that the act of going to the store is not derived from, or caused by the belief. When "I am not going to the store right now" is removed, you are left with "I am going to the store at some point in the future". However, in reality you are actually going to the store right now. So your representation has created a separation between the belief "I am going to the store at some point in the future" and the action, going to the store right now.
Quoting Pseudonym
That's why dualism is required, as you implied in your earlier post. Without dualism these features of the human being cannot be understood.
Consciousness mediates data by adding the ability to act on account of believing in different ways. This is what differentiates animals from machines.Everything may be reducible to mere data in the case of machines, but not in the case of animals. Machines do not believe, they merely respond to input (data) with output (action) mechanically. Animals transform input (sensation) into disposition to act (believing), but the nature of those acts is not mechanically determined. The next, linguistically mediated, step is to be reflectively self-aware of believing, and to formulate those dispositions to act as held beliefs.
Well, we've reach a point where we fundamentally disagree on axiomatic grounds so I don't see we can go any further. You seem to be so unwilling to question your idea of what a human is that you have to invent a magical realm with it's own laws of physics and mess with the obvious determinacy of our own macro world, just to maintain your belief.
Personally, I think ten thousand years of presuming the world is deterministic and having that presumption work is pretty good evidence that it is, in fact, deterministic (at least at the scale we're looking at). Rather than invent magical realms, I'd rather first explore the far simpler possibility that what we think it is to be a human being is maybe wrong.
So, lay out for me exactly how conciousness does this. Lets simplify things and take a simple man, John. John has only three beliefs - that it is cold, that putting coats on alleviates cold, and that he does not like being cold. A computer would take these propositions and lead directly to putting a coat on by IF(it is cold) THEN(do the thing that alleviates cold), considering it holds the data - it is cold, and the thing that alleviates cold is putting a coat on.
So, if John has only those three belief (the if-then belief about what he ought to do, the belief that it's cold and the belief that coast are the thing that alleviate cold), how does conciousness do anything meaningful to his belief, his actions, or in fact, anything meaningful at all?
In other words, if you're claiming "the nature of those acts is not mechanically determined", by what are they determined?
Consciousness enables animals to perform unpredictable acts, and to an even greater degree, it enables humans, to perform not only unpredictable acts, but completely unpredictable kinds of acts.
Quoting Pseudonym
They are organically determined.
Huh? You think that free will has been consistently denied in favour of determinism for the last ten thousand years? Are you blind to the evidence?
I asked how, you've simply re-asserted your belief that it does, not how it does it.
Quoting Janus
How? What is the actual mechanism by which something no-physical causes a physical action? Where in the causal chain does it intercept?
What evidence?
I'm saying that the whole rest of the universe apart from our personal experience is demonstrably deterministic so the simplest theory that does not require us to invent new realms is that we too are deterministic and any impressions of ourselves to the contrary are wrong.
The evidence that would be required to falsify that theory would be evidence that it is not possible, that there is no mechanism by which our actions could be predetermined. I see no such evidence, so I continue with the simplest theory, that's the scientific method that has proven so successful thus far.
There is, however, a great deal of evidence in support of the fact that our actions are not the result of 'free-will'. The Libet experiments for example, showing that the sub-concious brain prepares to take physical action before the concious part of the brain is aware of the decision to. Experiments on hypnotic suggestion which have shown that when subjects have an hypnotic suggestion implanted, say to crawl on the floor when the hypnotist clicks their fingers, they will invariable come up with some justification for their desire to do so in terms of a free choice "I'm just going to check if I've dropped something" or "what a fascinating floor tiles, I'm just going to take a closer look", all the while the experimenter knows full well that these are post hoc stories and the real driver of the action is the hypnotic suggestion, yet to the subject the feeling is entirely that they are checking if they've dropped something, or interested in the floor tile.
So the simplest theory is that our actions are entirely deterministic and our feeling of free-will is mistaken, and we have considerable evidence that what we think is us choosing something is actually just a post hoc story.
Who said consciousness is non-physical? Think of Spinoza's cogitans and extensa being one thing understood two ways.
The whole legal system is designed around intention and free will.
Quoting Pseudonym
I think we know our own actions better than we know "the whole rest of the universe". So if our own actions display free will, and we design the legal system for dealing with our actions as if we have free will, then even if the rest of the universe displays determinism, I would tend to think that we don't know the rest of the universe very well. And, it is quite evident that we do not understand the rest of the universe very well, as is evident from concepts like quantum uncertainty, spatial expansion, dark matter, and dark energy.
Quoting Pseudonym
The Libet experiments support the existence of will power, the capacity of the conscious mind to prevent "caused" physical action. Preparing to take physical action, and actually taking that action is two distinct things. That we have the capacity to consciously prevent a caused physical action from occurring, until the desired time, indicates the existence of free will.
Quoting Pseudonym
I don't see how placing an individual in a hypnotic trance is relevant to the issue of conscious free will. That's like arguing that a person has no conscious free will within one's dreams.
I don't see how cogitans helps. It's still got to cause some action in the brain and so we still can't answer the question of what causes it to act if not some other thing. How does it do something but not be caused to do it by some other thing?
Ain't so. All modern physics and technology is based upon it ain't so. There isn't one Interpretation of any theory any where on this Earth that holds that the universe we live in is deterministic. What's more there is zero evidence for a deterministic universe which is why there probably isn't a theory for it.
And if the universe was deterministic, then everything becomes irrelevant since there is no Law of Physics that says bouncing particles have to reveal the truth to anyone. It's all an illusion.
But here is my main point with regard to reducing a belief to a proposition attitude: it captures some, but certainly not all, of our intuitions about beliefs.
Specifically
So again I submit it not as the end of the analysis but as a suitable beginning.
We use them at least in part, in combination with a desire, to provide explanations for behaviour.
So we enter into an evaluation of beliefs. Some beliefs are cool, some just too weird.
A common suggestion that I will support is that beliefs are evaluated not on their moral value but on their rational standing. One ought not accept irrational beliefs.
They are a back-construct based on behaviour. So, are they anything more than this?
I suspect not.
But philosophy consists in words, so a philosophical discussion ought take words seriously.
Is the thread worthy? Watch it grow.
An involuntary belief becomes apparent through action. So that aspect of belief remains.
@Sam26 would put involuntary beliefs at the foundation of his epistemology.
Hm
Some analysis of the negation of “dawn storm believes god exists”
In the structure suggested above, this is a relation between you and the proposition “god exists”. However, there are two possible negations:
1) It is not the case the dawn believes that god exists
This does not commit you to be believing that god does not exist.
2) dawn believes that it is not the case that god exists
This does commit you to not believing in god.
The first is agnosticism; the second atheism.
Surely you can see how this is circular? The fact that we think we have free-will (and so have developed a legal system based on it) cannot possibly be used as evidence that we do have free-will, how on earth are you concluding that? We used to think the sun the went round the earth, we used to think that Zeus ruled the world with thunderbolts as weapons, we used to think that the world was determined by Newtonian laws at whatever scale.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I would have thought pretty much the whole of psychology is evidence that we do not know our own actions well at all. I'm not going to list studies because it is literally all of them, you will not find a single psychological study which concludes that what we thought was the case in our minds is spot on and we got it right first time intuitively.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, the Libet experiments did not show that, they showed a consistent pattern of pre-formation, as have subsequent experiments to test the theory, it's not a 'chosen' time, there's not widely varying element in the delay, it's consistently within a similar small time-scale before the action.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It demonstrates that the stories we tell ourselves about what motivated us to act can be so convincing as to seem unquestionably real and yet still be completely false. There have been countless other psychological experiment which show the same thing - we do not know our own minds at all.
Right, so how does something occur without a cause? If cogitans and extensa are the same thing, then that which causes changes in cogitans must also cause changes in extensa and vice versa, so we have not got anywhere with the question of how cogitans/extensa can be 'changed' in any way without a prior cause.
In one sense philosophy does consist in words. Philosophical doctrines are always expressed in words. But then, any doctrine is a doctrine expressed in words. Scientific theories are expressed in words. Should they also "take words seriously"? And what is involved in "taking words seriously" anyway? I agree if you mean that a philosopher should take great care to define his terms for his purposes and to be clear about what he is doing and what he is trying to say.
In another sense philosophy does not consist in words. Philosophy isn't about words - or maybe I should say, worthwhile philosophy isn't.
Quoting Banno
I agree. Is this the kind of thing you want? A list of things that beliefs are used for?
Thinking about extensa we might posit a chain or nexus of causes,thinking abut cogitans we might posit a chain or nexus of reasons. From the point of view of extensa you might think you have come believe X on account of a prior series of neural processes. From the point of view of cogitans you would think you have come to believe X on account of a prior process of reasoning.
Under these definitions: do I have to understand the proposition "God exists," to be an agnostic? Or differently put, is not understanding the proposition "God exists," sufficient to make me an agnostic? Is the difference between not understanding a proposition, and understanding a proposition but believing it to be undecided (or undecidable) relevant?
When faced with a proposition, how do I find out what it is that I blieve? If I believe that two contradictory propositions are true, but I am unaware of the contradiction - do I hold at least one mistaken belief or am I wrong about at least one of my beliefs? Is this meaningful distinction in the first place?
You're behaving in a ridiculous manner Pseudonym. It was your argument "that ten thousand years of presuming the world is deterministic and having that presumption work is pretty good evidence that it is, in fact, deterministic". The style of argument you are criticizing is your own. I simply pointed out that your premise is wrong, the belief in determinism has not been prevalent for the last ten thousand years.
I appreciate the effort, but it's still no clearer how you get unpredictability out of this. Viewed as extensa there are prior processes, viewed as cogitans there are prior reasons. In each case the prior elements lead to the current state. They do so eiher mechanistic all, or randomly, but where in that process is free-will? Where does something identifiable as 'you' get to affect things without being caused by something else?
Of course it has. How do you think we do anything? Any action you take at all is dependent on a belief in determinism, that actions have prior causes. The repeated use of fire was based on a belief that rubbing sticks reliably 'causes' fire, knapping flint reliably 'causes' sharp edges. The agrarian revolution, the industrial revolution and everything you make use of from either, all rely on presuming the universe is deterministic. The only exception is our belief in our own free-will. What I'm saying is that because it is the only exception, we need a very good reason to maintain that it is, I don't see those very good reasons independent of the fact that we believe it.
You're just spouting random nonsense Pseudonym. I always try to maintain the attitude that I might fail, in any action which I take. This attitude inspires one to proceed with care and seriously consider all one's actions. You demonstrate a complete misunderstand of human actions, when you say that the use of fire is based in the belief that rubbing sticks "reliably" causes fire.
Really, so when hitting a nail in with a hammer you "seriously consider" the possibility that the force from the hammer might not deterministically cause the nail to move if it hits. What do you seriously consider might be the alternative? That the nail simply move the opposite direction of its own accord?
Yes. Have you ever hit a nail on the side of the head, and watched it go flying off somewhere. Furthermore, I seriously consider the possibility that the hammer might miss the nail and hit my thumb. There are all sorts of possibilities which must be considered when driving a nail. It's not like I think that determinism ensures that the hammer will reliably drive the nail, so I pick the hammer and start swinging away. It is me, making the appropriate actions with my conscious mind which reliably drives the nail, the nail is far from determined to be driven. So I must be very careful to actually make the appropriate actions.
Do you think that beliefs are necessarily derived from utterances?
The unpredictability follows if you don't assume (as Spinoza did assume, being entranced by the Newtonian paradigm) that prior elements lead inexorably to current states. The causes that operate in the extensa domain ars probablistic not deterministic. The reasons that operate in the cogitans domain are influential, not dictatorial.
I have no problem with that. I don't agree, as quantum indeterminacy tends to resolve at a macro level, but I'll grant you its possible. Still doesn't get you to free-will though. Randomness isn't free-will.
Quoting Janus
Setting aside the obvious question of how on earth you know this, if the reasons are only influential, then the state of the cogitans is not determined by prior reasons, fine. This still doesn't get you free-will. It gets you a space for free-will, the space left by the underdeterminacy of the prior reasons, but that's just a space where some other thing can cause the cogitans to become what it is in the present moment. You're claiming that the will causes it. I'm asking how, if you are not a dualist, does the will cause the cogitans to enter some other state what does it do to it?
Also, if the cogitans and the extensa are the same thing, then even if the cogitans is put into some state by the will, then how does it ensure that the extensa is put into a matching state? You've just admitted that the extensa's state is caused entirely and sufficiently by probabilistic prior causes, so how come it matches the cogitans, which is not?
You're still falling into a conflation of domains. Of course acting for reasons is not random; but it is also not deterministic; I can choose which reasons to act or believe on account of. That freedom to choose is just what is meant by free will.
Quoting Pseudonym
Ironically it seems to be you that is falling into a Cartesian dualism in imagining that cogitation and will are ontologically, as opposed to merely heuristically, separate.
Quoting Pseudonym
I have not admitted that; that would be you falling into your own presuppositions and reading tendentiously. Prior events are probablistically, not deterministically, related to subsequent events; that is a way we can understand what we think of as physical reality; it is merely a human understanding, that should not be reified into some ontological absolute.
Quoting Pseudonym
Why would I need to get something I already have?
Fie, so what causes you to choose the option you choose. How could you choose other than the option which seems like the right one? If you're choosing between vanilla and chocolate ice cream, at what point in the process do you tell your brain to choose vanilla, despite the fact that it registers a preference for chocolate? when do you tell your brain to create that thought to tell your brain to do that?...and so on.
Quoting Janus
I'm trying to understand your position that genuine free-will exists without dualism, it's a very unusual position. Every philosopher I've ever read on the subject has either been a dualism or a compatibilist, I've never encountered such a view as yours and I don't understand the mechanism you're proposing at all.
Quoting Janus
So you're suggesting now that states are not probabilistically determined by prior states, that this is only a "human understanding", so what does determine current states of the extensa then?
You're still falling into dualist presuppositions here. In effect you're asking me to give an account that accords with presuppositions I don't accept.
Quoting Pseudonym
Again you cannot escape your prejudice. If freedom could be explained in terms of a "mechanism" it would not be freedom, would it?
Quoting Pseudonym
It is not the understanding that subsequent states are probablistically related to prior states that I am questioning, but your deterministic understanding of it, and the way you reify that into an absolute against which you want to claim that freedom is an "illusion".
In any case, all this is going well off-topic re the thread.
The question is, is it the belief which is uttered or something which has the same propositional content?
These are the weak points, in my assessment. You state in your profile that a proposition is a statement which can be true or false. Yet it's conceivable to me that an individual could not understand the statement, "The sky is blue", or any translation of it, yet nevertheless believe that the sky is blue. It does not strike me, prima facie, as an impossibility. If so, it further seems to me that this would also mean that the individual would tacitly think that the statement is true, even if the individual had no conscious understanding of the concept of truth or of statements. If these concepts and their relations and so on were explained to the individual, then one would expect that he or she would affirm that that was indeed what he or she had believed prior to attaining awareness of the fact.
I think you must do better than just tell me what you can imagine. Some folk say they can conceive of a round square.
No, I think that you must explain why it is supposedly impossible, as one could do with your example of a round square. What more can I do except describe the situation, which I have done already to some extent, and note the absence of contradiction, which again I have already done. Do you want more detail or what?
That's the contradiction. Any test you did to see if the individual believed the sky was blue would by that very fact be teaching them a translation of "the sky is blue".
How could you believe the sky is blue if you had no concept of blue or of the sky? If you did have such concepts, which would necessarily be expressed in some language, then you would, with the appropriate help in translating, be able to understand the English sentence "the sky is blue".
Sure, without such concepts, meaning without any language, you could see the blue sky, but that is not the same as believing the sky is blue.
Not a contradiction. As I said, that would affirm what was the case [i]prior[/I] to the learning of the translation. And we know that prior to the learning of the translation, he had no understanding of its meaning.
Quoting Janus
Obviously by seeing the actual blue sky. No concept required.
Quoting Janus
So you answered your own question. It doesn't have to be the same. In fact, I agree that the one is not the same as the other. But the one [i]leads[/I] to the other, which is all that matters. You see, then you believe. Simples. No concepts required. No linguistic understanding required.
I'm curious as to why this discussion has spanned eight pages.
How? What you will have done is to teach a new game - picking a colour swatch or whatever. Notice that in the very act of teaching the individual to pick a colour swatch you would use multiple examples, and not just of blue. You are teaching a language game.
And that's the point. Belief is a language game. It requires language.
I think that you're missing out steps in your argument which you seem to be simply assuming, so let's break it down.
We start with an individual with no understanding of the statement, "The sky is blue", or any translation of it, yes? He's a lone, primitive, hunter-gatherer type, shall we say?
Now, how on earth will teaching him the meaning of a statement somehow demonstrate that he [i]already knew[/I] the meaning which you've just taught him?
I say that he is, in a sense, a blank slate. That the meaning is learnt, not preloaded into his brain or something of the sort. That would be quite absurd when you think about it. How many statements would we already understand the meaning of before we had ever even learnt what the symbols which form the language mean? It seems that there would be an infinite number, yet we wouldn't even at that point have learnt the basic building blocks and methods of construction. How is that plausible?
Odd; you seem now to be adamantly agreeing with me.
You have taught him to participate in a language game. In order to play, our friend must learn to differentiate blue form other colours; that is, he learns what "blue" is. In so doing he may well form a belief about the sky being blue.
No, I don't think that we agree, unless you agree with me that he already had that belief, namely that the sky is blue, despite having had no prior understanding of the meaning of the corresponding statement, or the words which compose it, or any such translation of the statement or the words which compose it.
Teaching him the meaning of a language will do just that, but it doesn't demonstrate this controversial assumption you seem to have about his prior state of understanding. There are two distinct means of formation at play here. He forms the belief that the sky is blue after seeing the blue sky. And he forms an understanding of the meaning of the statement, "The sky is blue", after learning the language. Yet, if he remained a lone primitive until death, then he could go his whole life without ever having gained the latter formation. And, furthermore, if he did so, say, at some point later in life, then that would affirm nothing from your side of the debate, but it would on the contrary affirm what I've been saying on my side of the debate, as I expect the individual would attest.
Seeing the blue sky is not believing that the sky is blue. Actually, there is a sense in which a pre-linguistic percipient could be said not to even see the blue sky since s/he has no concept of blue or sky. Of course, from our linguistically conditioned point of view it makes sense to us to say she sees the blue sky. But believing that the sky is blue is, whatever the case might be regarding the mere seeing of the blue sky, a further reflective step that is not possible without language.
:wink:
Pretty cool things, these beliefs that do nothing.
Did you not read what I just said? I haven't claimed otherwise. I am not claiming equivalence. I am claiming entailment. Don't waste my time.
Quoting Janus
Sure, a lot of absurd things can be said, especially in philosophy. The right thing to do, I feel, is to set the record straight, not embrace such twaddle.
Quoting Janus
No, she sees the blue sky regardless. Is there the sky? Yes. Is it blue? Yes. Does she see it? Yes. That's what is required, and as a matter of fact; not these additional false requirements that you're positing about language or concepts or points of view or whatnot.
Quoting Janus
You have yet to demonstrate to me that this further step of ascertaining belief is not possible without language. Asserting it won't do.
But
Quoting Sapientia
will?
Seriously?
Seeing is believing. Literally.
Quoting Banno
Well that conversion went down hill quickly. Is this an indication from you that you have nothing substantial to say in reply? Because that's how I'm interpreting it.
Okay, so I have an assertion to match your own. I'm willing to explore it, and defend it and so on, but it's down to yourself and others to ask me questions about it, and offer up scrutiny. That's how dialogue works, right?
And remember! I broke it down and ran it by you. Don't blame me for what you've disregarded in haste. Perhaps if you engaged more when given the opportunity...
Quoting Sapientia
Do you accept the above? If so, why wouldn't he believe that the sky's blue if he has seen it with his own eyes? You might posit that language is necessary, but how so?
So you are claiming that seeing the blue sky entails believing that the sky is blue? I think you're just playing with words, or perhaps with yourself, here; you can define terms to suit your own argument, for sure; and continue to ignore more cogent definitions if that's what turns you on.
Assuming, for the sake of argument, that ants can see the colour blue; if seeing entails believing, does that mean that ants believe the sky is blue?
If seeing and believing are not equivalent, then is the seeing one cognitive state and the believing another, in your view?
Quoting Sapientia
Fuck, man, that's a brilliant argument!
Quoting Sapientia
So, seeing the sky is blue is not equivalent to believing the sky is blue; and yet nothing more is required? :roll:
Quoting Sapientia
And how would I go about demonstrating that to you, seemingly so mired in your own simplistic commonsensical prejudices, that you would not accept the premises of any account I might offer? You can always say "No, no no!", to anything I say; so why should I continue to waste my time if I detect no real desire to learn in the interlocutor?
Really, so, we never believe anything we cannot see?
I was being sarcastic
Thank God for that!
No; because he does not know what "blue" is.
Yes, I've been claiming from the start that the one entails the other, as I made clear. Or, better put, that the one leads to the other, as I said originally. You could've picked that up sooner had you paid closer attention. But I suppose you think that that's somehow my fault.
Anyway, let's move on, please.
Quoting Janus
Well, no, ants don't believe that the sky is blue, but when I said what I did, I did so with the understanding that we were speaking in the context of humans, not ants. If you suddenly change the underlying context without warning, then don't be surprised if you "catch people out". Well done, but that seems like something a sophist would do to gain a hollow victory.
To be clear, ants don't believe shit. They differ drastically from humans, and to such an extent that the comparison is clearly an inappropriate one: a category error.
So, moving on...
Let's see what else you have up your sleeve.
Quoting Janus
They're obviously different. One is the visual process, the other the state of becoming convinced that something is the case.
Quoting Janus
Required for what? In the context of what you quoted, I was referring to what was required for it [i]to be the case[/I] that she is seeing the blue sky, not what was required for belief. So if that's different to how you've interpreted it, then you've misinterpreted my meaning. I made that point in response to your bringing up of points of view, as if differing points of view can somehow alter the fact of the matter.
Quoting Janus
You can do what you want. You can either set out your case, or focus on what you perceive to be my motives. Play the ball or play the man. Get to the point or waste both of our time. The choice is yours. I'm not going to beg. It's no skin off my back either way.
But he doesn't need to know what "blue" is. Why would he? He does, however, need to know what blue is. That is, he doesn't need to know anything at all about the word, "blue". He doesn't need to know any words at all, in fact. Why would he? He just needs to recognise that the sky is the colour blue.
The consideration has been of believing in the context of pre-linguistic beings. Ants see, just as humans do; and we can coherently say that they see the blue sky in the restricted context of our own way of talking about ants. If you claim pre-linguistic humans can believe the sky is blue, then what about chimps, or dogs, or tigers? Where, and on the basis of what, pre-linguistically speaking, would you draw the line?
Quoting Sapientia
And being convinced that something is the case does not require language? We know that it is possible to be convinced that something is the case if you are a language-user; and it is very clear how language enables that. So, what argument do you have to support your contention that it is possible in the absence of language ability? Give an account of how it is possible absent language. Just to make my position clear, I don't deny that some 'higher animals' can, and pre-linguistic humans could, believe; but believing in that basic sense of 'disposition to act' is not the same as the propositional 'believing that something is the case' or, in other words, 'holding a belief'.
Quoting Sapientia
You said that seeing entails holding beliefs, but that they are not the same cognitive state. So, something more than merely seeing must be required to get from one cognitive state to the other. What is it? You don't get something for nothing. If you claim that nothing more is required for holding beleifs than for seeing then it follows that "what was required for it to be the case that she is seeing the blue sky" would be exactly the same as "what was required for belief".
Whose consideration? Yours, but not mine. My understanding, as I explained in my last reply, was that we were talking exclusively about humans, and that's the way that I'd like to keep it. I see no reason to discuss ants. Banno is the creator of the discussion, and I saw no mention of ants from him. He spoke of agents, and I somehow doubt that Banno considers ants to be capable of agency in relation to belief, language, and so on. These are obviously beyond the capabilities of ants, so that's that.
What next?
Quoting Janus
Pre-linguistic humans are considerably more advanced than dogs and tigers, as well as, to a lesser extent, chimps. So there's no comparison to be made on equivalent terms. The former have a far superior intellect which enables them in ways beyond lesser species. Whether animals besides humans have the capacity for belief is for another discussion. I see no need to go into that here.
Quoting Janus
Correct. Why would it?
Quoting Janus
No, it's not at all clear that it's language which enables the possibility of being convinced that something is the case. That's a controversial claim. Why do you think that it's a subject of debate within philosophy? I grant that there is a correlation, but, as you should know, correlation does not imply causation.
I put it to you that advanced functionality, not language, determines the possibility of being convinced that something is the case.
I don't make this distinction that you do between belief as disposition to act, and belief that something is the case. I'm not even really sure what you mean by the former. But the latter is part of what I am talking about. We've been discussing Banno's example of the belief that the sky is blue, after all, which is an instance of that sort of belief.
Belief is being convinced that something is the case. If someone sees that the sky is blue, then that's convincing enough for most people, I think it's safe to say. I don't see how taking language out of the equation would change that, as it seems you'd have to maintain.
Consider that it's not language which convinces; it's seeing the blue sky. Were primitive peoples not convinced upon seeing the blue sky that there is a sky, and it is the colour that we know of as blue? There were humans before language developed, correct? We didn't begin with language; that came later. These early humans must surely have looked up at the blue sky and noticed its colour in contrast to the colours of its surroundings, yes? So why then would they not believe what they've seen? You must answer that question.
Quoting Janus
Look, forget "entails". My original wording, as I've said, was better, which was that the one leads to the other. I now expect you to be charitable enough to stick to my preferred wording, after I've pressed the point a few times now. And I would further qualify, despite any previous impressions that I might have given, that the one doesn't [i]necessarily[/I] lead to the other. However, it would in the vast majority of cases, and in fact does so in the vast majority of cases, which is good reason, in the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary, to think that it would be no different in the case of pre-linguistic humans.
The "something more" after the seeing is whatever intellectual faculties are involved in becoming convinced that something is the case. Does that require language? No, I don't think so. Not in every conceivable case. If Henry, the pre-linguistic human, sees the blue sky, and he can distinguish its colour from others, such that it is identifiable as being of that particular colour, and not of any different colour, such as red, and if he has the intellectual capacity to connect the dots, then why would he not have the belief that the sky is blue, whether he's aware of it or not? Where is language in all of that? I think that it's absent, and therefore unnecessary.
I think that it would help if you didn't think of belief as a string of words, like a mirror image of a statement in mental form, or some sort of self-reflective internal monologue. Nor is it necessarily composed of concepts. That's simply not characteristic of belief as a whole, or in essence. It's also, and I would argue, more fundamentally, about raw experience, like for example, a splash of water on your face. I don't need to understand "splash" or "water" or "face" to believe that water splashed my face. Can't you see how absurd that philosophical thinking is? How far removed from reality it is? The nitty gritty world of lived experience is not a world full of abstractions. (It makes me think of Plato, as depicted in the School of Athens, pointing up to the sky, head in the clouds, full of wild ideas, instead of gesturing downwards, more closely grounded in reality, like his more astute student, Aristotle, depicted alongside him).
So, just what, apart from linguistic ability, are those mysterious "intellectual capacities"? Explain how someone could be said to believe something is the case, if they are not capable of conceptualizing. We already know that we are able to do it if we are able to conceptualize (which obviously requires language use), so how are you going to argue that we would be able to do it in the absence of the ability to use language?
Quoting Sapientia
I already made the distinction between believing as a basic disposition to act, which is what some sufficiently intelligent animals (and thus presumably pre-linguistic humans) seem to be capable of doing, and holding beliefs in the sense of 'believing that'. But you are claiming that non, or pre-linguistic, beings are capable of both, and I haven't seen any account of how that would be possible coming from you. On the other hand if you want to reject any distinction between pre-linguistic believing and linguistically mediated believing that (which some of comments would seem to indicate); then you need to give cogent reasons for the rejection of what seems to be perfectly valid distinction.
How could there be a colour that we know of as blue, without the word "blue"? Remove the word "blue" and we wouldn't know of that colour as blue. The person without language might recognize the colour of the sky, and compare that to objects of a similar colour, but this is completely different from believing that the sky is blue.
No, I don't take it as a given that conceptualisation requires language use, rather than that language is a tool necessary to express concepts. You can't beg the question or put the cart before the horse. Perhaps you should first break down what exactly you think conceptualisation is.
And again, I am going to draw attention to the fallaciousness of basing your argument on your consideration that we are able to believe if we are able to conceptualise. [I]Cum hoc ergo propter hoc[/I].
I don't see why I should humour you when I've just gone into detail describing the circumstances of a situation in which a pre-linguistic human would plausibly believe something to be the case. It's reason enough that those circumstances would be enough to convince the vast majority of humans that something is the case, so, without compelling evidence to the contrary, which it's down to you to provide, it stands to reason that the situation would be no different in the case of a pre-linguistic human. The burden lies with you.
Quoting Janus
If you haven't seen it, then I suggest that you go and look again, because it's there for all to see. I have confirmed to you once already that I was talking about 'believing that', which is blindingly obvious, given that the example I have used time and again is the example of believing that the sky is blue. So you can do away with your talk of belief as a basic disposition to act, whatever that means. Don't make me repeat myself.
Quoting Janus
I don't fully understand the distinction you're making, to be honest, as I've told you once already. This [i]belief as a disposition to act[/I] which you've introduced to the discussion doesn't sound like what I've been describing. You'll have to make your meaning plain, provide examples, and demonstrate that that's what I have in fact been talking about, despite all evidence to the contrary, and my own repeated affirmations that I'm talking about belief-[I]that[/I], as in the belief that the sky is blue. My suspicion is that you're trying to pigeonhole me into a stance that you're more comfortable attacking.
I think that you've missed the point. I wasn't arguing that there could be a colour that we know of as blue, without the word "blue". I was arguing that the pre-linguistic human would be able to see and distinguish the colour which I am now referring to as "blue". We are not in the thought experiment. I am not in the thought experiment. I am only referring to the colour as "blue" so that you know what I'm talking about.
And I never argued that the person without language recognising the colour of the sky, and comparing that to objects of a similar colour, is the same as believing that the sky is blue. If you read what I've been saying, you'll see that I've made an effort to dispel that misreading. That's just a description of the first step, or the perquisites, to forming belief. It's nothing new; it's called empiricism. It has been around for quite some time.
Now if the water did not freeze, at a suitable temperature we might justifiably seek an explanation; and that explanation would be found in things like atmospheric pressure, or more likely impurities in the mix.
When John is cold, he puts on a coat.
If John does not put his coat on, we might look for explanations in terms of where his coat is; but if his coat is at hand, we might look to John's beliefs about cold and coats and such.
While we can make a reliable rule about water freezing at zero degrees, we can't make the same sort of rule about John putting on his coat.
But we could make a reasonably reliable rule about John shivering when his core body temperature drops.
Why did John put on his coat? John was cold. John believed that putting his coat on would make him warm.
So was have an explanation for John's act in terms of a belief and a desire.
Why did the water freeze? The water was cold.
That's is. No explanation in terms of belief and desire is available.
Why did the thermostat trigger? The thermostat was cold, and it believed that by triggering, it would turn on the heater, thereby warming the room it was in.
There's something unhappy here. Can we pinpoint what it is that makes a causal explanation in terms of belief and desire work for John but not for the thermostat?
Is it that while John might have acted otherwise, the thermostat had no choice?
TBH, it seems to me you are more intent on trying to make it appear that you have already won the argument, than you are on actually arguing for your position. I'll respond if you provide some actual arguments or address any of the points I've raised. If you don't want to, that's OK with me.
Been there, done that. Still waiting for you to fulfill your end of the bargain. Let's see:
Quoting Janus
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Quoting Sapientia
I'm not going to waste more time than necessary, so I'll address just one point at a time. It is obvious that language enables holding beliefs since there is no ot..her way to express or formulate a belief to ourselves and others, and since in the absence of being able to express or formulate a belief such as the example in question "I believe the sky is blue", there would be no way to know or show that I held any non-linguistic belief equivalent to "I believe the sky is blue". The onus is on you to show how, in the absence of language, it could be shown that anyone held any such belief or kind of belief.
The presence of belief in the sense of "disposition to act" can be shown by the presence of the relevant actions. If you want to claim the kinds of beliefs shown by the presence of actions should be understood to be of a propositional kind like those which are expressed linguistically then you need to give an argument as to why they should be thought to be so.
Surely a belief would be positively held if it can be revealed as an expectation which can be positively contradicted. That seems evidence enough it is held in a counterfactual fashion.
I don't think anyone was arguing that animals do not believe in the sense of expecting and being disposed to act; the point at issue seems to be whether such non-linguistic believings are propositional in the sense that linguistically formulated beliefs are, and, in consequence of that, whether or not they should be considered equivalent to linguistically formulated beliefs.
Well propositional just means that a belief can be asserted in a way that makes it true or false.
So if we leave out the asserting bit - which is where you definitely need linguistic structure - then we can see some degree of continuity between animals and humans in terms of holding beliefs open to falsification.
The animal has the semantics, if not the syntax. And that is where I would draw the sharp line.
The proposition could not be expressed in some timeless and placeless fashion. The belief is embodied. But I wouldn't deny the animal a semantic state that is counterfactual in nature.
I see what you're saying, but I think it's more than just that. 'Propositional' I would say means formulated as 'I believe that'; this way a belief is given a definite form. And not all beliefs can be shown to be true or false, either.
Can't see it. Don't believe you.
Is there such a sharp distinction between syntax and semantics? How is it drawn?
This is good.
Thinking it through, there are four possibilities:
Add "but John does not understand the proposition "God exists",
The first looks like Moore's paradox - so let's dismiss it.
The second looks reasonable.
The third looks Moorish, as well.
The last looks reasonable.
SO my account of agnosticism needs work.
Agnisticism:
Maybe?
More evidence that one must understand the proposition entailed by a belief.
Moore's paradox: I believe p, but p is not true.
Compared to: I believe p, but I do not understand p.
SO the further issue raised by @Dawnstorm still stands: can one believe something one does not understand?
You're right, if you want to start a new thread, I will answer there, otherwise I may consider doing so myself in a few days, as I should like to try and understand your position better.
Cornell University researchers studying Elephant Language since 1986 have concluded "We believe that very complex information is communicated acoustically, including emotive state, physical characteristics, intention, and perhaps reference to abstract concepts."
Prairie Dogs give alarm call which reliably convey predator type, size, colour, speed and direction of a predator, as do several types of primate. African hunting Dogs and Wolves also convey similar signals about threats and opportunities appropriate to carnivores. These activities cause appropriate defensive behaviour. How could appropriate defensive behaviour possibly be taken if the the animal doing the communication does not 'believe' the predator does have the properties it's describing and the listeners do actually 'believe' that too?
Since these beliefs are vocalised, they fall on the same side of the sharp distinction you're trying to make. Yet, these action are not present in only the most intelligent of animals, there is no pattern to their evolution, there's no ecological significance that has been noted. It just seems that in some circumstances there is an evolutionary advantage to vocalising the beliefs about predators/dangers. Is it not, therefore, the much simpler theory to presume that all 'beliefs' are of the same type, human or other animal, and it is merely appropriate sometimes to vocalise them?
Okay, let's start by examining the premises of your argument:
1) "There is no other way to express (or formulate) a belief to ourselves and others than through language".
It's trivially true that there is no other way to express (or formulate) a belief to ourselves and others than through language. That demonstrates nothing of relevance.
2) "In the absence of being able to express (or formulate) a belief, such as "I believe the sky is blue", there would be no way to know or show that I held any non-linguistic belief equivalent to "I believe the sky is blue"".
Now, it's another trivial truth that, in the absence of my being able to express any such belief, there would be no way that I could show that I held any non-linguistic belief equivalent to "I believe the sky is blue". That's yet another pointless truism which demonstrates nothing of relevance.
These premises of yours might as well say that in the absence of the ability to speak, then I won't be able to talk; or that there's no way that I can see, other than through vision. Utterly pointless! Although somewhat amusing.
However, that said, there is another aspect to your second premise, which is about knowledge. Focusing solely on this aspect, I'd argue that your second premise would be false, since one could indeed know that someone under such circumstances obtained a belief. That's just what I've been arguing.
And as for your conclusion:
C) (Therefore), "language enables holding beliefs".
It's a complete [I]non sequitur![/I]
Quoting Janus
Look, I'm not saying anything complicated. It is a relatively simple matter of knowing what the facts are and what they logically entail. I've been over this a number of times now, and I don't know why you seem to be having so much trouble with it. Does Henry see the blue sky? Yes. That's a fact. Now, given this fact, and given what we know about what it would likely take to convince a person that the sky is blue, we can reasonably infer that Henry obtains such a belief, that is, Henry believes that the sky is blue. I have yet to see you provide any serious objections or counters to this argument. You'd need to throw a spanner into the works, but all you've come up with so far amounts to nothing.
Yes. I agree that language puts it out into a social space where there is then the further fact of the “I” that is doing the asserting.
But still, the guts of the issue for me is that a belief has this counterfactual structure.
Colourless green ideas sleep furiously. Apparently.
But you're referring to the belief, as the belief that the sky is blue as well. And there cannot be the belief that the sky is blue without "blue". So where does this leave the belief?
I haven't denied that animals are capable of signaling in quite complex ways, but any assertion like the one underlined would need to be supported by strong argument. I not it is only a "perhaps". It is symbolic language which enables abstraction, and to return to our example the belief that the sky is blue arguably involves abstraction.
A pre-linguistic percipient may be able to see the blue sky, but it would be a perversion of the term "belief' to say that she therefore necessarily believes that the sky is blue. She sees the blue sky, and if she associates the colour with other objects she has seen, say flowers, we may be able to say that she doesn't merely see the blue sky, but that she sees that the sky is like the flowers. No belief is necessarily involved in this merely associative 'seeing that'.
An association between the colour of the sky and the colour of the flowers is established, but for a belief regarding the colour of the sky to obtain she must be able to form the abstract concept of colour. I don't think it is plausible that a percipient could form such an abstract concept in the absence of linguistic capacity. In any case how could we ever know that they were able to formulate abstract concepts in the absence of symbolic language? We know we can do it, and that it is done using symbolic language; can we imagine another way to do it?
So, I have been arguing all along that the kind of "believing" animals and pre-linguistic humans do at most consists in association that leads to expectation, and that we should distinguish between that and the kind of propositional 'believing that' or 'holding and/or asserting beliefs' that we.
It is significant that in your second paragraph above you place "believe" between inverted commas; it seems to show that you are not counting it as fully fledged belief.
Are you suggesting that animals might imagine alternative scenarios?
Provide some arguments to back up your assertions and aspersions and if it is good enough I might respond.
If someone sees the blue sky that does not entail that they see that the sky is blue; the latter would involve association with other experiences involving blue objects. But even seeing that the sky is blue in this associative sense cannot sensibly be said to lead to conviction that something is the case; because the conception of something being the case requires the abstractive ability to consider that it might not have been the case, and it is most plausible that such reasoning is possible only with symbolic language.
In any case conviction or belief is redundant when we see. If we see the blue sky it is redundant to say that we believe the sky is blue unless we are speculating about whether we might be deceived, that it might be an illusion or a dream, and so on. In the presence of such questions it might be appropriate to say we believe.
And this kind of belief is different than the kind of expectation your dog, pre-linguistic child or pet troglodyte child might experience when s/he hears the sound of your car arriving in the driveway. Do you seriously believe that she considers the possibility that her expectation might be mistaken?
No. I would agree they need linguistic structure to flesh out alternatives to that degree - scenarios in which they themselves feature as actors.
My point is that I wouldn't die in a ditch trying to defend some overly specific defintion of "belief". It is a generic kind of word.
So if an animal shows clear signs of being surprised, confused, taken aback, having to think again, then that is good enough for me to show that there was prior to that some reasonable inductive expectation in place in their mind.
And from the point of psychological theory, that way of processing the world is of fundamental importance. Animal neurobiology is set up just like the scientific method. By forming habits of anticipation, we can then ignore the world as much as possible and so insert "ourselves" into the equation as actors with freedoms.
This flips the usual Kantian representational view, or correspondence theories of truth, on their head. So it is important to emphasise this aspect of belief in animal cognition as it then confirms a Peircean continuity of nature when it comes to basic epistemic method. Brains already reason like scientists are meant to.
Cheryl Misak summed it up nicely in Truth and the End of Inquiry...
Yep, @Pseudonym is only talking about indexical or iconic semiosis here in regard to animal communication. Symbols are a whole different thing. Syntactical mechanism - an epistemic cut - displaces the meanings from the world being referenced.
Abstraction speaks to this step from the physically embodied situation - the emotional hoot and holler, or the friendly wag of the tail - to a second-order story where there is now a "self" in control of the "information".
If a dog could feign a happy tail wag in order to fool another dog so as to achieve some other purpose, then we would have the start of a symbolic or abstract level of semiosis.
But just wagging a tail out of engrained biological habit is merely an indexical level of sign. It indicates a mood that other dogs can reliably interpret. The dog does not have the self-hood that might mean this tail-wagging could conceal a further counterfactual surprise.
I agree with everything else you say in this post; I am really just arguing for the usefulness of distinctions between different kinds of believing in pre-linguistic and linguistic contexts. Perhpas it would be better to say that animals (and pre-linguistic humans) associate and expect than to say they believe, and to reserve the term 'believe' for linguistic contexts.
Actually, I think it would be more productive to differentiate these so-called "different kinds of believing" as something other than believing. This forces us to describe them and determine the differences, and why they are other than "believing", instead of just asserting that these different types of mental conditions are really all the same, as forms of "believing".
A distinction would be useful. But making a sharp distinction is also really difficult as the linguistically structured human mind never actually abandons its non-linguistic animal roots. It just builds new floors on the old foundations.
So I sympathise with the project. It is one that I share. But you are coming up against the problem that animals are just animals, then humans are linguistically-structured - yet still, linguistically-structured animals.
It is like asking if animals have memories. Sure they do. But they have recognition memories and not recollective or autobiographical memories. They have memories that are ecologically embedded in the here and now - and so support recognition - rather than memories which are displaced in time and place via a socially-constructed notion of "being a self with a personal narrative."
So belief is more usefully the generic term - an umbrella term like memory. Then we would want to make a distinction that gets at a reliable experimental difference. I focus on recognition vs recollection as cogsci experiments reveal the vastly different "capacities" involved. We can recognise a truly vast variety of once seen slides. But we can only recall a dozen at best - and usually the first and last of a sequence of some thousands.
I haven't really thought about "belief" in that cogsci light. But there ought to be some similarly striking way to get at the difference between the "pure animal" form of the capacity and its "linguistically-structured human extra".
Anyway, my point is that most people just speak past the critical animal vs human mental difference. So we do need a distinction that picks out the difference. But then that distinction has to arise out of a scientific model of the situation. And that is the approach I try to follow.
Yes, in fact I was in the process of editing that post to add that maybe it would be better not to say that animals and pre-linguistic humans believe but that they associate and expect. Unfortunately we had a power outage here and I lost the edit.
Ha ha, hope you don't mind if I laugh about that.
We can see that belief is a mental thing, and there are other mental things like thinking, remembering, and anticipating. I would associate belief with remembering. I think the same type of conviction whereby we remember things, is the type of conviction which is fundamental to belief. Thinking itself, being an activity of change, and considering various options, doesn't seem to be consistent with "belief", which is to hold an unchanging thought. And anticipation seems to have doubt inherent within it, so it doesn't seem to be consistent with belief either. Perhaps belief is a special type of remembering.
So beliefs can't be weak and strong? Beliefs aren't by nature probabilistic and so held with various degrees of conviction? There is some "degree of doubt" that is inherent for good reason. It helps to know that we don't know as well as to be sure that we do know.
Quoting Janus
I agree that homing in on expectation makes the right distinction in that it then stresses the future-facing nature of a habit of belief.
So the animal mind is embodied in its ecological setting - carried along in an ever-unfolding present. And that means it is always in a state of expectation about what might happen next. Surprises reveal that its belief system needs updating.
And then symbolically displaced or abstracted human thought can lift itself out of this relentless flow of the present. We can form expectations that transcend their ties to the immediacy of our actual time and place. They can become propositional beliefs in that they are disconnected from our material state of being - the here and now of what we have to do to navigate our immediate physical circumstance - and now exist in the realm of the purely imaginary.
They are statements that can be shared with other selves, other minds. And statements that can relate even to ourselves in "other circumstances" - alternative realities.
Luckily it was not much work that I lost, so I am happy for you to laugh about it to your heart's content. :smile:
I am not clear though on how you think belief could be equivalent to memory, although belief certainly relies on memory.
That raises an interesting question. If something happens most of the time, for example, let's say lions have never been at the waterhole first thing in the morning, but suddenly lions start appearing at the waterhole first thing in the morning, but only occasionally; does the gazelle revise her expectation that lions will not be at the waterhole first thing in the morning, or continue to expect that they will not be there. Presumably she will not think 'they may or may not be there' but she will become just a tad more wary.
Like I replied to MU, do you think that beliefs can only speak of absolute certainties? If they are Bayesian expectations concerning probabilities then they are more accurate if they capture something true about the inherent uncertainties of life.
This again highlights a fundamental difference in metaphysical outlook. If you take a constraints-based view of ontology, like Peirce, then reality is inherently spontaneous or uncertain. It only become regular and predictable to the degree that unpredictability is regulated by habits, laws or past history.
So the argument is the world itself is inherently unpredictable (as quantum mechanics demonstrates at a fundamental physical level). And brains evolved to be Bayesian reasoning devices as that is the probabilistic logic - the constraints-based approach - which reflects the way the world itself works.
So the problem would be in believing "belief" to be deficient to the degree that it fails to speak with absolute definiteness about a world that is absolutely definite - the familiar position Banno takes in his naive realism.
Instead, we are in the contrary position where the world is inherently probabilistic and any entity seeking autonomous being through a modelling relation with that world would be wise to mirror the constraints-based probabilistic structure of that world. We wouldn't want to be doing information processing like an input-crunching computer, for instance.
So a gazelle would take a Bayesian approach - one that is "selfish" in terms of including its own needs in terms of a risk/reward assessment of waterhole safety.
If the lions are always there, but it is the only place to drink, then that is a problem that is going to have to be solved somehow - as the alternative is simply two different ways of dying.
The smartest thing to do is then to approach the waterhole in as wary a fashion as possible. If the gazelle had enough brains, it might be able to work out the best time is when the lions are just eating one of its friends. The sight of a pride of lions chowing down and occupied might become the basis of a new belief about when to approach a waterhole.
A counter example to uncertainty leading to wariness is the kind of behaviour that animals show when the world seems to present no recognised threat.
Check out lions in a zoo. It is damn near impossible to get them to notice you as a visitor standing outside the cage. Likewise in the wild where the presence of a human does not signal any kind of traditional threat - the story of the dodo.
The way the brain works, we don't even notice the world that doesn't matter. The fridge in the kitchen hums the whole time and we don't ever hear it. The hum may as well not exist. But when the hum suddenly stops - your power goes out perhaps - then suddenly that is a significant fact showing you did have some kind of running expectation about the noise being there after all.
So our beliefs have to be able to be accurately tuned to the way the world really is. And the way the world is can range from the continuous to the intermittent, from the possible to the certain, from the vague to the definite.
Propositional belief would seem to be a special class of belief in that context - belief that is somehow either absolutely right or wrong, and not merely constrained in its ambiguities or uncertainties. That is certainly how naive realists would go about it. But Pragmatism would say the world actually is probabilistic and so an accurate description of it would be accurate in terms of the objective ambiguity or uncertainty it can attach to any truth value.
I agree, doubt is inherent within belief because we know that we are never beyond the possibility of mistake. But I think that what separates belief from similar mental content which is not belief, is the conviction that there is a low possibility of mistake. This conviction is tied up with temporal extension such that a longer period of time without mistake reinforces the conviction.
Quoting Janus
I didn't say belief is equivalent to memory. I said that of the different mental conditions which I could think of, thinking, memory, and anticipation, belief seems to be most closely related to memory. So it may be like a special type of memory, not equivalent to memory though.
But I think the relationship between belief and memory is more than just belief relying on memory. Belief relies on thinking, and it relies on anticipation, in the same way that memory relies on thinking, and memory relies on anticipation. So belief is more closely related to memory than it is to thinking and anticipation, even though it relies on these things.
So isn't this just pragmatism? You are now thinking of a belief as a proposition - a hypothesis that, if true, would have expectable consequences. You are breaking down the three-part method for forming a reasonable and justified belief - abduction, deduction, inductive confirmation - into its components and labelling the first bit, the leap to a hypothesis that makes predictions, as "the belief". And that separates it from "the justification".
Fair enough. And that goes to the disembodied way that linguistically-scaffolded humans can learn to speak about how they think. We can learn the trick of understanding "a state of believing" to devolve into these three essential steps. That is how we can objectify "what we believe", and the extent to which "it is justified", even to ourselves. We can point to the hypothesis, its expectable consequences, and the degree that our predictions are not false.
So all I say is that animals can't of course speak objectively in a way that clearly separates a belief from its justification. But the basic psychological structure is the same in that the brain is naturally wired up to work like that - to form general expectancies, to then make particular predictions, and then finally to revisit habits of belief when error correction becomes needed.
Right, but "the justification" may or may not be composed of other beliefs, or may be partially composed of beliefs and partially composed of other things. So the strength of the justification depends on the strength of the beliefs used in the justification, such that if things other than beliefs are used to justify, then the justification is weak. That's why feelings and intuitions don't make good justification, though they are often used.
Quoting apokrisis
I think that what separates belief from the other psychological capacities which you refer to, is the temporal persistence. We must be able to maintain the same idea for an extended period of time in order to bring about the effect of inductive confirmation. This is why words are necessary, words have the capacity to fix the idea, to a much greater extent than is possible by simply remembering images. Images shift and change, and become vague very quickly. With words ideas become inter-subjective and this provides the temporal extension which is necessary to strengthen an idea into a belief.
But does this really carve up the mind at its joints once you get into a systems-style understanding of neurocognition? Is there an imagery faculty, an intuition faculty, a feelings faculty, all making their individual contributions to the activity being witnessed in this theatre of conscious experience?
I think not. If our models of neurocognition can't rid us of this Cartesian theatre metaphor - this uber-representationalism - we have failed.
Perhaps we cannot carve up the mind because that would kill the person, but we can make these distinctions in principle to help us understand, just like we can make distinctions on the visible spectrum, and say "blue" and "red" are particular ranges of wavelength, when in reality, the colours we see are all combinations. Likewise, neurocognition, as it exists consists of all these features together, but we can separate them out, in principle, to help us understand.
It is supported by strong arguments. 20 years of scientific research into animal communication. Thousands of recordings analysed and matched to very subtle behavioural clues as to the mental states of the animal involved by people far more qualified to make such judgements than you or I.
Notwithstanding the above, I take issue with your anthropocentric assertion that it would need to be supported by a very strong argument. Why? Why is it not the case that the idea that human beings are magically endowed with some special powers unavailable to other animals is the one requiring a 'very strong argument' to support it?
Quoting Janus
The whole point of this discussion is about the meaning of the term belief. To suggest anything would be a 'perversion' of the term begs the question. We're asking what the term means, we cannot dismiss options on the grounds that they would be a 'perversion' of what the term means in the middle of such an investigation, it makes the whole matter pointless. If you already know for a fact what belief's are then why are you taking part?
Quoting Janus
These two statements are self-contradictory. In the first you claim that it is not plausible that something could form an abstract concept in the absence of linguistic capacity, then you state that we would know whether they had or not anyway. Well if the second conclusion is true, how have you formed the first other than through anthropocentric prejudice.
The whole argument seems to be of the form -
"Animals can't form beliefs because they don't have language"
- "But animals do seem to have a language capable of communicating abstract concepts such as beliefs"
"They can't have"
- " Why not?"
" Because animals can't form beliefs"
Quoting Janus
No, the use of inverted commas indicates that the term has a disputed meaning, I'm acknowledging that we do not agree on it.
Try;
Mitchell, Robert W.; Thompson, Nicholas S. (1986). Deception, Perspectives on Human and Nonhuman Deceit.
Byrne, R.; Whiten. A. (1991). Computation and mindreading in primate tactical deception. In Natural Theories of Mind: Evolution, Development and Simulation of Everyday Mindreading. Whiten, A. (ed.). pp. 127-141. Cambridge: Basil blackwell
Byrne, Richard; Whiten, A. (1985). "Tactical deception of familiar individuals in baboons (Papio ursinus)". Animal Behaviour. 33 (2): 669–673.
Byrne, Richard; Corp, Nadia (2004). "Neocortex size predicts deception rate in primates". The Royal Society. 271: 1693–1699
Simmons, R (1992). "Brood adoption and deceit among African marsh harriers, Circus ranivorus". Ibis. 134: 32–34
Bugnyarf, T.; Kotrschal, K. (2002). "Observational learning and the raiding of food caches in ravens, Corvus corax: is it 'tactical' deception?". Animal Behaviour. 64: 185–195
Byrne, R. and whiten. A., (1991). Computation and mindreading in primate tactical deception. In Natural Theories of Mind: Evolution, Development and Simulation of Everyday Mindreading.
deWaal, F., (1986). Deception in the natural communication of chimpanzees. In Deception: Perspectives on Human and Non-human Deceit. Mitchell, (ed.). pp. 221-224
Kirkpatrick, C., (2007). Tactical deception and the great apes: Insight into the question of theory of mind,"
Byrne, Richard; Whiten (1985). "Tactical deception of familiar individuals in baboons (Papio ursinus)". Animal Behaviour. 33 (2): 669–673.
Wheeler, Brandon (2009). "Monkeys crying wolf? Tufted". The Royal Society. 276: 3013–3018
Miles, H. L. (1986). How can I tell a lie? Apes, language, and the problem of deception. Deception: Perspectives on human and nonhuman deceit, 245-266.
Yes, don't let's allow evidence to get in the way of our opinions, I must have forgotten where I was for a minute.
I am not arguing against borderline examples. I am setting out the nature of the difference.
Chimps of course get close to the use of private signs that are semi symbolic. One of de Waal’s chimps held out her hand clasped in the other as a begging motion. That is indexical going on symbolic in having a new element of ritual or repetition. But it didn’t catch on as a group symbol - syntactic structure with habitual meaning.
So again, I am familiar with the literature. Evolution of language was what I was studying about 35 years ago. If you have specific examples to discuss, bring them on.
I can find the papers for you when I am back in the office tomorrow morning, but if you studied the matter, you must at least be familiar with predator calls, which are entirely symbolic, and their deceptive use in resource exploitation?
Again, I'm not disputing that there are numerous borderline cases. And so the question then becomes, why a sudden and vast human difference?
It's an open question. I don't think that it has been adequately answered.
But we do know stuff like that the great apes can be taught vocabs of a few hundred words and yet vocab learning never "takes off" in the exponential fashion it does in infant Homo sapiens. And grammatical structure never becomes a natural habit in the easy and fluent fashion it does for all humans.
Likewise there was a fairly sudden transition to symbolic culture in Homo sapiens' history. The wearing of jewellery and the painting of caves. That picture has become muddied now that the evidence is shifting to credit Neanderthals with greater symbolic culture. But still, this is another pointer towards a genuine transition from a pre-abstract, pre-symbolic, pre-syntactic, animal condition to the full-blown, free and easy, human level of linguistic semiosis.
So what I am reacting against is the one note tone of your posts. You seem only concerned about minimising the scale of the evolutionary transition here. I agree that there is plenty of evidence of some continuity in regards to language use or symbolic thought. And indeed, animals are far closer than most people think once science looks in detail.
But then there is the other side to this debate - the fact that human language use and symbolic thought becomes as different as night and day. And that raises the question of exactly what explains the strength of this sharp difference? We need the further theory that accounts for that.
I'm happy to discuss the possible evolutionary mechanisms. But first we would have to move beyond the simplistic arguments based on there being an actual borderline where animals employ sign - and even employ it deceptively or counterfactually.
Yes, perhaps that surprises some. But then that use remains rooted in the here and now of an ecological context. Nothing has changed in a big way. It is only with humans that something explosive happens and sign becomes the tool of thought itself. We find ourselves in a different game.
I'm not getting the connection between what you quote from me here and your question.
To answer generally: I don't think beliefs can speak of absolute certainties at all. For example I am absolutely certain that I see a blue sky; belief simply doesn't enter into it. Note, though, that when I say I am absolutely certain I see a blue sky, I am not making any claim about what is causing that seeing.
Yes, I wasn't suggesting that there is a simple one way relationship of dependence between memory and belief. It could be said that memory is dependent on belief, in the sense that I must believe my memories to be accurate. But I prefer to say that I know (some of) my memories are accurate. I really don't like to talk in terms of belief at all except when it comes to speculative matters, and even there I prefer to talk about judgement than belief. How do we know what we know? We know by experiencing ourselves knowing. Knowing, in the absolute sense of deductive certitude, is possible only in a very limited ambit.
This seems just like word play over definitions.
In my approach, it is all one process - a sign relation with the world, a modelling relation with the world. And so I don't really get this business of trying to chop things up into beliefs vs certainties vs whatevers. Sure we can emphasise different aspects of the whole process in our jargon, but it becomes word play to die in a ditch over unnecessarily disconnected definitions.
So here, is it your belief that the sky is blue? Is your certainty about what you will see if you check not the justification of this belief when propositionally framed?
To say belief simply doesn't enter into it is to make the point that when you are looking and seeing a blue sky, then there is a level at which you are modelling the world - the biological level of perception - which is clearly distinct from the linguistic level where you might be talking about the fact of this biological level of modelling.
Rightfully speaking, your belief would concern the fact that there is this "you", and it is experiencing certain qualia - namely a "sky" that is a certain general hue which you label "blue". But then - to sustain your point - you want to set all that linguistic framing aside and pretend there is only the naked experiencing of a blue sky with no doubt involved, and hence no belief either.
Which you should realise is a meta-cognitive position. It is the linguistic self imagining what it would be like to be a non-linguistic self, and then insisting in speech that it actually is just like that. You have adopted a model of the phenomenal self that you insist is the reality - despite knowing it to be a linguistically framed model of "raw feels with no believing involved".
As a form of denial, it is pretty elaborate.
No, that is not what I was saying. I am just as absolutely certain that I am a linguistic being whose cognition is mediated by that fact, as I am that I see a blue sky.
So are you proposing that "absolute certainty" as a verifiable fact or not? Is your willingness to act in accordance with that belief the evidence required by the social construction involved?
There are two views in play here.
The naive realist just thinks linguistic framing can be stripped away to leave some kind of direct and unmediated phenomenology exposed, like the seabed after the tide has gone out. I am arguing - counter to that - that the best we can do is to ascend to a meta-linguistic frame in which there is now the self that is seen to have a linguistic framing wrapped around their raw animalistic consciousness.
This is why I would draw attention to the "I" that you mention as the being that is by turns, linguistic or experiential. This "I" that is suddenly so certain in an apparently direct and unmediated fashion.
Can you explain the presence of this "I-ness"? My explanation is that it is arises semiotically as part of the modelling relation. It is the necessary "other" to the construction of "the world". A naive realist, by contrast - as Banno continually demonstrates - just takes this "I" for granted. And so from there we wind up in all the confusions of Cartesian dualism and an idealist metaphysics of mind.
I would say the "I-ness" is the fundamental fact upon which all other knowledge turns. It cannot be explained because it is the ground of all explanation.
Yes, the world is the ineliminable "other" to the I, it is what-is-to-be explained and the I is what-explains.
Of course our modeling of the world is inevitably dualistic in the sense that there are those two poles of explained and explainer, but there is a third element; the relation between the two poles: the explanation. So the unity of reality is really a trinity.
So that is where we would differ then.
Quoting Janus
Well that is the semiotic position I take. And it serves to generalise this "I-ness" in a suitable fashion. The I-ness becomes as much a problem for physics as neuroscience. It becomes a generic issue of knowledge.
So again, there are two choices here. Either you take I-ness at face value - the face value it now has within our dualising culture which speaks of "consciousness" as some kind of ultimate substance. Or you instead step back to see this as the most general metaphysical issue of all - the dichotomy of the observer and the observable which has to be resolved in the pan-semiotic generality of a sign relation metaphysics.
You seem to be arguing for these two opposed approaches as if they were the same thing. One treats consciousness or experience as ineffably subjective - beyond inquiry. The other just gets on with building a meta-level objective theory - making it the subject of an inquiry.
I'm not sure we are really disagreeing so much as it being a matter of emphasis. We can objectify consciousness or the I in terms of its activities and come to understand and explain it, but it is nonetheless always I, the consciousness, that is doing the understanding and explaining. Consciousness is fundamental to all knowing. Of course what is known is necessary too, and the activity of knowing itself. But it is always consciousness that does the knowing. Or in Peircean terms, it is the interpretant that is the most fundamental element of the sign relation.
That's what I said. All these different bits of jargon - truth, belief, certainty, justification, etc - they are emphasising different aspects of a pragmatic modelling relation.
And the Peircean notion of that is anti-foundationalist in treating the whole kit and kaboodle as emergent - in a mutual, co-arising, fashion. So to the degree that you treat anything as foundational - like I-ness - we would have to disagree.
Quoting Janus
No. Not unless here you are prepared to re-define consciousness - with all its embedded dualistic substance metaphysics - as the modelling relation itself. It is the modelling relation that is "fundamental" to all knowing.
Quoting Janus
Where does he argue for that?
Yes, why not define consciousness that way? It is modeling that brings about form. Formless matter is not substantive, but incoherent. Just as is incoherent the notion of consciousness as any kind of quasi-matter (thought of as substance in that kind of sense). But consciousness, if defined as the modeling relation itself is foundational and so could also be thought of as being, in that sense, substantial.
Quoting apokrisis
I'm not saying Peirce argues for that (although it might be what he is alluding to with his notion of matter as "effete mind").
If we count the modeling relation itself as being consciousness, then it would be in a restricted sense (as individual consciousness) that the interpretant would be considered to represent consciousness. Taken that way then it would not be right to say the interpretant is fundamental. On the other hand if we think there is a God...then the sign relation would be like the holy trinity, where the interpretant is the father, the object is the son, and the sign is the holy spirit. :smile:
But that is how I redefine "consciousness" - as a biosemiotic modelling relation. And then beyond that, I would agree with Peirce's project of total generalisation in the form of pan-semiotic physicalism. Even the universe arises from this kind of "mind-full" self-organising relation.
So I am happy to rewrite substance ontology in terms of a process metaphysics. My complaint here is that you still seem to be arguing from a substance metaphysics. I agree, it might only seem that way. We might be in strong agreement in the end.
Quoting Janus
That is confusing phrasing. Why would we want to treat consciousness or mindfulness or any "one thing" as fundamental? The modelling relation is irreducibly triadic. It is a process and so the substantial is what emerges in the end, at the limit. It still sounds like you want to make idealism come out right despite endorsing a modelling relations story.
Quoting Janus
So you do want to make idealism top dog here! :)
I think you are caught between two metaphysics and you still have to work through to reach a position that is actually self-consistent. That still seems the basic issue here.
Quoting Janus
Again, you want to take a semiotic metaphysics - which is immanent, emergent and irreducibly triadic - and make it fit an idealist metaphysics which permits transcendence, foundationalism and absolute separability.
The interpretant is talked of as a third element - a habit of mind in the presence of a sign. Yet really, in being identified with Thirdness, we have to remember that Thirdness becomes the third that incorporates the other two - the Firstness that is the uncertainty of the world, the Secondness which is the crispness of a sign, a reaction. So Thirdness stands for the whole of the sign relation, and not just the third element of that relation - the interpretant.
So while Peircian semiotics sounds analytic - three separable parts in relation - it is actually synthetic or holistic. The three parts are irreducibly in a relation that has to involve all three. The relation itself is the three-cornered thing - or the hierarchical organisation.
Thus - even joking - God, son and holy spirit would have to be irreducibly related in a collaboratively causal fashion. So there could be no leftover notions of transcendence, foundationalism or separability to celebrate. That would have to be an explicit outcome of adopting a semiotic metaphysics here, not something that could be fudged for any lingering feel-good reasons.
How different do you consider the Met Office's Cray XC40 supercomputer (capable of over 14,000 trillion arithmetic operations per second, containing a total of 460,000 computer cores) from a 1985 BBC Microcomputer? Personally they are as night and day to me. One can predict the weather five days in advance and make long term climate predictions using thousands of variables, the other can print the word "hello" across the page and run a game of 'bat and ball'. And yet, what word do we give to the thing that makes them do these things - a 'programme', some 'software'. We have not felt the need to create a new set of words to define just how immensely more capable the Cray XC40 is from it's predecessors. It still runs on 'hardware', 'processors', 'RAM'. I'm not a computer expert, but I bet some of it is still programmed in C+.
Why the linguistic consistency? Because there is no functional difference between the the two computers, one is just mind-blowingly better than the other at computing.
So it is with Humans and other animals. We are not unique in out use of language (loads of other animals communicate), we are not unique in our use of symbols (some other animals use them). Deception, abstraction, artistic expression, referencing, all have their representation in animals. We are just mind-blowingly better at it than all other animals. We can communicate stuff with language that is entire worlds away from anything other animals can do, whilst apes are struggling to learn how to ask for food, we can be discussing Aristotle. But how is that any different from the BBC Microcomputer crashing when you ask it to print "hello" and play 'Bat and Ball' at the same time, whilst the Cray XC40 predicts a snowfall next week whilst beating Gary Kasparov at chess? None of this difference requires that we possess something animals do not, it is sufficient that we are just better at it.
The principle of parsimony, therefore, should steer us toward the theory that all the processes in a human brain probably have their equivalent in animal brains unless the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates otherwise.
Thus with beliefs. We know we have thoughts that we identify as beliefs and that they can be very complex ones, like the Cray XC40's current processor state. So it follows, by parsimony, that animals probably have beliefs too, but much more simple ones, like the BBC Microcomputer's. Animals certainly seem to behave as if they have beliefs (the dog runs to where it 'believes' the stick is, even if the owner has in fact only mimicked throwing it). So no evidence presents itself to demonstrate that animals don't have private beliefs. I just cant see how any other conclusion isn't just anthropocentric wishful thinking.
Hi. So that 'it' continues, what is it for something to be metaphorical? Could we not ask if 'mind' itself is clear term? Perhaps you would agree here. You would like to avoid 'mind.' But you need 'proposition.' If I ask you what a proposition is, you'll probably give me yet other words.
Can we make completely explicit what it is to share a language? If we have not done so already and yet want to do so, will we not need this inexplicit understanding of a language to get started?
Last point is that philosophers seem unlikely to gain control the use of 'belief.' Even if a few philosophers agree on the elegance of a definition, they'll still need to understand its use among everyone else. (I don't think we can be perfectly explicit about this understanding.)
I read this and thought: consciousness [among other things] is knowing. And the knowing is something like the known itself with an added distance effect. We add a sort of zooming-out and call this the 'I'? or 'consciousness'?
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. You're just begging the question. I have no more reason to accept your assertion than to accept the assertion that there cannot be the belief that the sky is blue without a cat wearing a poncho and playing a keyboard.
The word is not the thing. The concept is not the thing. The belief requires neither. Why would it? The belief requires that the guy has seen the thing; and that, given his abilities and the circumstances, is sufficient grounds to conclude that it's highly likely that he believes what he does. This is already known. We know it by what we know of human nature and of the circumstances in the scenario under discussion. It's not some big controversy. It's down to yourself and the others to bring forward a real challenge.
Likewise human language is different in being an articulate and syntactical code. It is capable of unlimited expression from limited means due to its infinite combinational possibilities.
Language in that sense exists in no other species. Fact.
You don't get to dictate terms. See here and here. Better for you to quit our discussion than to send it round in circles.
It almost inevitably leads to it, which is what I've argued. In reality, there are very few exceptions, and none which are relevant to this debate. Exceptions might include paying a lack of attention to what you're looking at, or some sort of physical alteration to your perception, like seeing yellow as a result of jaundice.
There are a number of steps which I've acknowledged. To break it down a bit and examine the basics, we have that someone sees something. But they don't [i]just[/I] see something. They see that it's the sky, and not, e.g. an elephant. They see that it's blue, and not, e.g. pink. I don't see how you could plausibly deny that. Are you suggesting that a primitive human lacking language would lack these abilities? If so, you're going to have to back up such a controversial suggestion which flies in the face of what we know about human perception.
Quoting Janus
He would have that. Why wouldn't he? Not an issue.
Quoting Janus
No, that disregards what I've said about belief. I said that to believe is to be convinced, not to hold a conviction. To be convinced of something does not require the abstractive ability to consider that it might not have been the case, and this can be effectively argued by bringing up plausible counterexamples, including beliefs which naturally arise as a result of seeing the blue sky, feeling the cold weather, drinking from a river, being stung by a bee, and many, many more.
Quoting Janus
Nonsense. That it is so obvious and practically inevitable that certain beliefs will follow from certain experiences does not mean that it's redundant. It's a truism. It's a very strong point in favour of my case, not against it.
You're attempting to define belief as something more intellectually advanced than it actually is. You've mentioned or described abstraction, self-reflection, holding a conviction, counterfactual reasoning, speculation, and perhaps more. Yet none of these are foundational to belief. And, saliently, by making the mistake of including such aspects associated with belief in the foundations of belief, you end up with the absurd consequence of having a human with lived experience, yet no beliefs relating to this lived experience, simply because he has yet to develop a language.
Quoting Janus
This kind of belief - the one which you describe - is indeed different. I accept that. You're throwing in factors for belief formation which are nonessential in the scenario that we've been discussing. We can call your needlessly advanced concept of belief, "Belief 2.0".
Now, tell me, what has Belief 2.0 got to do with belief?
Like the example I just raised of being stung by a bee for the first time, having no prior experience or foresight about what would happen.
We know that bees have been around for at least approximately 100 million years, and that our ancestors have been around for about six million years, with the modern form of humans only having evolved about 200,000 years ago. And, according to one source, human language probably started to develop around 100,000 years ago. So, this may be no mere hypothetical. It's quite possible, if not likely, that this has actually happened.
If you're stung by a bee, that's damn well gonna form a belief in a being sufficiently like us, language or no language. How [i]could[/I] it not? Why [i]would[/I] it not? Here's a counterexample defeating the assertion that language is necessary to obtain belief.
No, that wouldn't be better, since they - pre-linguistic humans, at least - do [I]believe[/I]. (Unless you're talking about Belief 2.0). And they believe as a result of associations and expectations, much like us. It's in our nature.
What would be better is if you broadened your notion of belief, and untied it from the strings that you've attached, so that it better matches the reality.
I don't think we're going to make any progress here. We agree that human language is worlds away from other animals, you think that distance is so significant as to affect our thought process and requires a whole new language to describe its effects, I don't. It seems to me that evidence for the extent to which human language differs from that of other animals is redundant in this. It is a pragmatic argument about whether the knowledge that our 'beliefs' are fundamentally different from anything other animals have is useful in any sense.
Im arguing that the only use to which I've ever seen that kind of theory put is to denigrate animals in such a way as to justify their mistreatment. That is the reason why I'm opposed to it.
Ethically, I think that if there's even a chance that other animals think somewhat similarly to us (even if a much smaller version), then we owe them the benefit of the doubt, because the harm done by presuming a thinking creature is nothing but an automaton, is considerably worse than the harm done by mistaking an automaton for a thinking creature.
Quoting apokrisis
I agree with apokrisis. That it's wordplay kills any further point he had. And that it's wordplay could be put to the test. I think that many people would interpret the first quote to be contradictory, and I further think that it's not such a good idea to attempt to dictate meaning to language, instead of going with the flow.
Yes a word is a thing. That's my evidence, the word itself, as a thing. By denying that the word is the thing, you are simply denying the evidence. But the evidence is clear, words are all around us. They clearly exist and are clear evidence.
So, there is no such thing as what a word refers to, without the word. There is no such thing as what "sky" refers to, or what "blue" refers to without those words. In order for there to be a thing which is referred to by "sky", there must be the word "sky". Your ridiculous argument is like insisting that there is something which Bob is doing when there is no Bob.
That doesn't address what I said. I said that the word is not the thing. I didn't say that a word is not a thing.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Evidence for what? That's either a non sequitur or a red herring.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It is self-evident that the word, "blue", is not the colour blue. But if anyone were stupid enough to fail to realise that, then one could simply point out that words are composed of letters and colours are not. Or do you deny that as well?
I refuse to be drawn into a debate over something so silly.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is why I don't like debating you. I certainly don't deny that words exist, but that demonstrates nothing of relevance to my point.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I've already explained your misunderstanding. I refuse to do so repeatedly until it finally sinks in, if it ever does. Please pay close attention to what I'm about to say, because it will be the second time that I will have said it: we are not in the thought experiment, and my use of terms such as "blue" and "sky" is for sake of convenience only. There are no words in the thought experiment, as there's no language in the thought experiment. I am of course using language, but I am not in the thought experiment. There is a blue sky in the thought experiment, but in the thought experiment, it's not a referent, since there are no words in the thought experiment. The words I'm using to refer are outside of the thought experiment. My act of reference takes place from outside of the thought experiment. If you claim to lack the ability to imagine the scenario in the thought experiment, then all I can say in reply is that I do not share your defect.
The word is the thing. Words are the subject of this discussion. And, from looking at words we are trying to determine whether there is such a thing as a "belief", which is separate from the words, and if so, what is the nature of that thing, the "belief".
By assuming that there is a thing other than the word, which is referred to by "belief", you are just begging the question.
Quoting Sapientia
You now recognize the ridiculousness of your argument? How do you derive your presupposition that there would be something which the word "sky" refers to without the word "sky"?
Quoting Sapientia
OK, I'm ready for your thought experiment. There's a blue sky in your thought experiment. What next?
Address my refutation.
Where's your thought experiment?
It's curious that you quoted large parts of my post, and even a statement directly below the part to which I'm referring, yet you left out that crucial part.
Here it is again, even though all you had to do was look up above at my post and what you left out in your reply:
Quoting Sapientia
Where's the refutation?
Where's the thought experiment?
Let's go, get on with it,. I haven't got all day.
Stop trolling. If you read the discussion, what I'm referring to should be clear.
You're not really saying anything here. What you term "beliefs", and cite as "plausible counterexamples" would, in my view, be better termed 'believings' or 'expectations', to distinguish them from beliefs proper, which are linguistically formed (or at least formable) propositions. Really all we are arguing over is which would be the better, clearer terminology. The way I see it, to be convinced that something is the case just is to hold a conviction, and naturally entails that you are convinced that the negation of the "something" is not the case, and even, in extremis, could not be the case. An animal or pre-linguistic human would probably be, for example, surprised if one day the sky was red in the middle of the day, because habit would have caused them to expect it to be either blue with or without more or less clouds, or grey and overcast with or without more or less rain. But they would quickly accept it and move on. How do you think a linguistically cultivated human would react?
That's not right, I asked how we could know.
So, you want to lose a perfectly valid distinction between believing and knowing? If you see something there is no doubt, and consequently no need for belief, that you see it, unless you start to question whether what you are seeing is really what you think it is, and this questioning requires language, I would say. I can give an account of how such questioning, in the context of the questioner using language, is done; I cannot give any account of how such questioning could be done, in the context of a percipient not using language to do it. Can you?
If you read carefully you will see that I have already made a distinction, and much earlier in previous exchanges with others in this thread as well, between the non-linguistic or non-conceptual activity of believing and linguistic or conceptual state of holding beliefs. Earlier you were denying the validity of even this distinction. Now apparently you are allowing it, but arguing that my proposal that "expecting" would be a better term than "believing" for any non-propositional cognition doesn't match the "reality". What "reality" would that be, then?
This is nonsense. They see the sky and not an elephant, but they don't see that it is the sky and not an elephant because that would entail consciously noticing the distinction between the sky and an elephant. If you want to say that they see that it is the sky and not anything else, then they would have to notice the distinction between the sky and every other possible thing in that moment of perception which is obviously impossible.
Alternatively, they could notice that the sky is not 'anything else', taking 'anything else' in abstracto; but that would require language. A pre-linguistic percipient could associate the sky with something more or less similar like, for example the sea, as mental images, but to think, to believe, that one is not the other arguably requires language capability. It seems obvious to me that you are anthropocentrically projecting your linguistically enabled abilities back onto pre-linguistic beings. Think about your own experience; why do you think it is that you have so few memories from your own pre-linguistic past? I would say it is precisely because you were not able to draw the kinds of clear distinctions between things that language enables, distinctions that form the basis of memories of specific events.
No, you're not really saying anything here. It's just more wordplay on your part. You're just inventing a new term for the beliefs I'm talking about, creating a superficial distinction, and then dismissing what I'm talking about as inapplicable. Belief (which is what I'm talking about) is not merely expectation. The belief that something has happened, for example - that, say, a tree has just fallen nearby - cannot rightly be categorised as an expectation. Expectations are [i]related to[/I] belief, but they are [i]distinct from[/I] belief. Your attempt to conflate the two will not succeed.
Furthermore, you're begging the question once again by defining beliefs as linguistically formed. The whole debate hinges on whether or not language is necessary for belief, so merely defining it as such defeats the purpose of having this debate and grants you only a hollow victory.
Quoting Janus
Mine, clearly. Yours can be shown to lead to absurd, counterintuitive consequences. A human with lived experience, yet no beliefs relating to this lived experience, simply because he has yet to develop a language? He has seen rivers, the blue sky, trees, other animals, has smelt, tasted, eaten and drunk all kinds of things. He has lived through night and day, hot weather and cold weather. He has experienced pain, gone hungry, injured himself. Yet, despite all of this - despite being a human, with human capabilities, and not an ant or a thermostat which obviously lacks the necessary capabilities - astonishingly, he has no beliefs whatsoever!
And your solution? Let's just call them "believings" instead! :lol:
Quoting Janus
No, that would be to confuse belief and logical consequence. That one must commit to the logical consequences of a belief in order to maintain consistency does not mean that one must believe each and every logical consequence of said-belief. For, if it is so that in order to believe that something is the case (e.g. that it is cold), one must also believe that the negation is not the case (e.g. that it is not the case that it is not cold), then why not also that the negation of the negation of the negation is not the case, and so on ad infinitum? That would be absurd: a psychological impossibility. No, on the contrary, it is far more simple than that. To believe that something is the case, one must be convinced that it is. That's all there is to it.
Quoting Janus
Relevance? That doesn't make these experience-derived beliefs anything other than what they are.
Hmm. So you have adopted a moral position and you demand the science must find a way to support it?
I don't believe that is how it works.
Quoting Pseudonym
Well I flatter myself that I go beyond the usual lumper vs splitter dichotomies. My aim is to be accurate about the continuities, and accurate about the discontinuities. And I don't operate with a preconceived notion of what the "right answers" ought to be.
As I say, this area was also my specialist subject about 30 years ago (while oddly enough, computer science was where I was focused just before that).
No, that's an erroneous inference. I want to maintain the distinction, as well as the relation. They're distinct, but not mutually exclusive. Not only are they not mutually exclusive, belief is a prerequisite to knowledge. And the same is true of the relation between belief and certainty, which is what was actually being addressed. To be certain entails belief, as is understood in common parlance, as can be put to the test.
Quoting Janus
What are you talking about? It's not about necessity, or, as I think you mean, perceived utility. It is a matter of fact. If you see something, and there is no doubt in your mind, then, certainly, it is the case that you have a belief to that effect! Or else the whole situation would make not an iota of sense. Certainty is a concept [i]applicable to[/I] belief. Whether or not you consider this instance of belief to be redundant is neither here nor there.
Quoting Janus
You're straying off course here, I think. I don't agree that doubt requires language. It requires language no more than does belief. But what would be the relevance in pursuing this additional line of thinking that you've introduced to the discussion?
You make the oddest assertions Sapientia. I really don't see how seeing is the same thing as believing.
Okay, let's get the basics straight:
There is no believing without belief. You either believe or you do not believe. And, if you believe, then you have a belief.
Now, nonlinguistic believing is, tautologically, a kind of belief, so why have you been denying that throughout our exchange? The realisation has just dawned on me that this whole disagreement between us is down to your confusing distinctions and lack of clarity. Are you telling me that when you deny that the pre-linguistic human obtains belief, you actually mean something else: that the [i]pre-linguistic[/I] human does not obtain [i]linguistic[/I] belief? That is bloody obvious.
Do you have anything [i]meaningful[/I] to say? Anything which doesn't amount to a tautology?
Quoting Janus
I told you multiple times that I did not make a distinction in those terms, and that I did not properly understand your meaning. That was a signal for you to clarify your meaning, but you never did so in a way that I could easily grasp until just now. You mentioned something about a disposition to act which is different from belief-that, and when I queried this, you just kind of repeated the point instead of explaining it in plainer terms. I remember I replied that what I was talking about [i]was[/I] belief-that, and I stand by that claim.
Quoting Janus
Well, nonlinguistic belief is of course a type of belief. So, yes, calling it "belief" is more appropriate than calling it "expectation". Why are you even making this distinction between different types of belief to begin with? You're just needlessly complicating things, and that has resulted in confusion. All that matters is that it's belief.
If we take this back to where it began, at least for me, it stems back to Banno's claims that (1) the individual must understand the meaning of the proposition in order to correctly be said to believe that proposition, and (2) the individual thinks the proposition is true.
I have argued that (1) is false, and you should agree with me on that point because of your acceptance of nonlinguistic belief.
That’s not just probable, but certain.
How is it a type of belief? It just seems like a highly probably true belief as you're using the term. "I am eating sardines" is a different type of belief than is "Cogito ergo sum" for example.
Sounds legit.
Either your comprehension is bad or you are disingenuously distorting what I've written and responding to straw instead of argument. Either way, this and your vacuous posts above are not worthy of any further response.
Sounds legit.
What's your problem with that?
It is that you can't do truth, nor certainty.
And that means that the vast commonplace background of truth that we take for granted is beyond your account.
But, Quoting apokrisis
Come on, a cursory glance over my argument will show that's not the case, you're just being disingenuous for effect. If it's come to that I've really no interest in the discussion any more. If there's one thing we've pretty firmly established in our exchange it's that the 'science' does not yet 'support' any one way of looking at it. It rules out several possible ways, but does not support one. We are therefore left with a choice as to what theory to hold, and to test, until it is refuted. That theory should be parsimonious, it should be based on existing theories, but beyond that the choice is ours as to which one we hold, and test first.
I may have met quite a few Muslims, I may have found them all to be aloof and rude, I may be tempted to form the theory that all Muslims are aloof and rude until such time as it is proven wrong, but aloofness and rudeness are difficult to judge in one meeting, they're complex contextual responses, so I could easily have been wrong. So I have a genuine choice of theory, I could hold that Muslims are aloof and rude, or that Muslims are just like all other cultures, a mixed bag. My choice of theory can then be guided by morality, the costs of being wrong, or the virtues cultivated by my beliefs.
At no point does one belief 'demand' anything of the science, if the science disproves it, then so be it, we move on, make another belief, but the science most definitely has not dis-proven the idea that the belief 'software' in animal's brains is just the same as ours, that our ability with language does not confer some categorical new way of thinking.
So it is entirely reasonable to hold to a theory that has been prompted by a moral sense of duty.
Quoting apokrisis
That's the first time I've seen an appeal to authority fallacy where the authority is the person making the claim. Firstly, 30 years is a long time, most of the studies I've cited have been carried out in the last 30 years. Secondly, none of this relates to any area of expertise. As I said, this is not about whether animal language is different from human language, we both agree it is. This is about whether that difference causes a significant enough difference in our thought processes that the very holding of a belief is a different experience for a human. No amount of research in linguistics is going to tell you that. In fact, no research in the current literature on any subject is going to tell you that. Psychology might one day give us enough evidence to be forced to reject either one of our theories, but today, it's a philosophical discussion (hence the forum) about the merits of each theory, hence the moral dimension.
Sounds like the epistemology of a solipsist.
Quoting Pseudonym
Disingenuous? Moi?
But I said nothing of the sort. Again and again rather than honest discussion you disparage those with whom you disagree. This thread had some decent philosophical themes in it, shoved aside by your insistence that we listen to your shit.
Quoting mrcoffee
Thanks for the questions. Metaphor is a whole new subject; but I think it clear that the mind does not have places. The brain, on the other hand, can provide some interesting material. One will not find a belief by dissecting a brain - but could it be found in an MRI? Sam Harris did some curious stuff relating to this, which I am browsing through at the moment.
My initial stance would be that while an MRI might show that certain brain parts are used when certain beliefs are being contemplated or used, this does not show that a belief has a place in the brain.
I’m interested in discussion, not preaching.
So for you, at the moment, the question is why shouldn’t I be certain I am in Femantle?
And you are stuck. Again.
Anyway, I’m certain you’re not in Femantle.
I have edited my last reply if you're interested. You'll see at the start that I've picked apart your superficial distinction. The collapse of that distinction ought to make it easier to take in what follows.
Can you at least confirm to me whether or not you agree with me that:
(1) [i]The individual must understand the meaning of the proposition in order to correctly be said to believe that proposition[/I]
is false
On account of your acceptance of nonlinguistic belief? Or, do you reject that it is false on the superficial basis that it is "believing", not belief?
Sorry, but I'm more interested in getting to the heart of the issue than in humouring your semantic gymnastics.
Because you could be confused.
What is "certainty" to you other than stubborn insistence? Do you concede that one may be certain yet be wrong? If so, all you've identified is a belief with a certain tinge of smugness. Of what philosophical significance is such a subcatagory of belief?
Well, there's a few books about it.
Sure you can play the game of pedant and claim confusion or evil daemon or whatever you like. There is no reason hereabouts to think I am confused - apart from Hanover wanting to suport an aesthetic that says we ought not be certain.
Calling it smugness is not presenting an argument and does not further the discussion. I might reply by saying that those who refuse to say they are certain are afraid to commit; that the lie inherent in their words is shown by their actions - for example they do not habitually check that they have legs before attempting to stand up, because contrary to their claims they are certain that they have legs.
Here's a basis for an epistemology: Some statements are true. And there are some statements which it is unreasonable to doubt.
I'm sure there are.Quoting Banno
Pragmatically, it's irrelevant whether you're 99.99% sure or 100%. I don't think that's denied.Quoting Banno
Very well, we now have a new definition, which is "reasonable doubt." I would agree it is unreasonable to believe your feet you fell asleep with are not beneath you the next morning. Could they be removed? Could you be hallucinating? Sure. What are the chances, very close to 0% but not 0%, right? That's what I mean by certainty.
But the question is why any of this matters. Surely we are agreeing with one another to the basic fact that I can be wrong about most any observed fact, including whether my feet remain beneath me. Our dispute then is whether we wish to attach the word "certainty" to certain items of belief. If I agree to call those facts I'm 98% sure about "certainty," and you are willing to call those facts you're 100% sure about "certainity," are we now in agreement? That is, would you be agreeable to saying that you have certainty your legs are beneath you, but you lack certainity?
And this could matter in some context. A jury is charged they can find a defendant guilty if there is no reasonable doubt as to their guilt. However, they cannot be charged that they can only convict if they find beyond a shadow of doubt that the defendant is guilty, as that is an impossible standard. http://www.yourdictionary.com/beyond-a-reasonable-doubt. I'd think that very few people would be convicted if the charge were " You shall not find the Defendant guilty unless you are certain of his guilt."
You are confusing habit with certainty. Behaving in a habitual way, in no way indicates that one is certain about one's action. If you take that approach you have no argument against the assumption that doing something by instinct indicates certainty. And clearly it's not true that instinctual actions indicate certainty concerning one's actions. So we must allow a separation between proceeding into an action by instinct or habit, and proceeding into an action with certainty. The former is more of the unconscious, and the latter is of the conscious.
Edit: Does breathing indicate that you are certain that you have lungs?
Is it pedantic to say one is reasonably certain, or justifiably certain, but never absolutely certain, or certain without qualification?
On what argument?
Nah. Still doesn't work.
Can any statement be known to be true as opposed to being asserted as true, or defined as true, or believed and acted upon as if true?
Tell us how a statement can be known to be true.
And then what exactly do you mean to claim by slipping into the objective register when talking about something that is subjective in requiring a subject?
You are trying to avoid any locution which admits that for there to be knowledge, there must be a knower. For there to be belief, a believer. For there to be certainty, someone for whom doubt is at least a possibility. Etc.
So as usual you are trying to resolve the basic epistemic issues by using words in a fashion to talk past them. You simply say the statements are true, ignoring that statements need staters - who then have reasons and beliefs and doubts and all the rest.
In the same fashion you flip=flop between the subjective and objective framing to avoid the obvious epistemic elephants in the room.
That you are in Fremantle guzzling sprats is something certain - from your subjective point of view. As a statement you publicly make, why wouldn't other minds doubt that?
No. When it comes to the public issue, you switch to the objective phrasing. It is simply an objective and mind-independent truth to say "Banno is guzzling sprats in Fremantle" is true IFF Banno is guzzling sprats in Fremantle. Anyone of us could get on a plane and assure ourselves of this recalcitrant fact.
It's comical really. You seem to have started out with a decent philosophical education. Yet at some point you have become convinced by some very silly rhetorical positions on epistemology. Perhaps you love the scandal they cause?
But they do seem to infect all your views - such as when you go on to assert various moral positions as unquestionable and objective truths.
Modern life is so full of ambiguity and subtlety. Yet despite a training in critical thinking, you just want a pre-modern simplicity when it comes to any epistemological discussion.
Curious.
Can't you image a scenario, however unlikely it is, that might prove the contrary to be true? Yesterday the municipal council ceded the parcel of land where you stand to the next city. Someone is playing a ridiculously overcomplicated practical joke on you. Etc...
Not saying you might not hold certain things to be certain, but your location, your perceptions, those a probably not the best things to hold as certain.
This is ridiculous.
Well fuck that. You are here to preach, not discuss.
I agree that it doesn't make much sense to speak of the mind having physical places. But are you familiar with the expression 'on the tip of my tongue'? I think that's a spatial metaphor for a place right beneath the threshold of consciousness. This threshhold is arguably another metaphor. I say 'arugably' because metaphors tend to become literalized. If the mind does not have places, then perhaps rivers do not have mouths? And this is where I was coming from, the places in the mind are like the mouths of a river, which is to say largely literalized metaphors.
I think it's reasonable to think in terms of a continuum that runs from fresh metaphor (the kind a poet might be applauded for) to metaphor so old and dead that it functions literally. Of course there are structural words in the language and words like 'hand' that I would not call dead metaphors, but I think lots of important words are dead metaphors. Apparently 'spirit' comes from a word meaning 'breathe.' Perhaps breathing or breath functioned as a metaphor for the soul. Perhaps it became so popular, this metaphor, that a new public abstract entity was thereby created. Then philosophers could debate the properties of this entity.
Quoting Banno
I haven't looked into this, but I can currently only imagine some correlate of belief (some quantitative pattern reliably associated with beliefs or purported beliefs determined through language.) I can imagine a fiercely accurate lie detector, for instance. In short, I think we agree on this particular issue.
But I still think that 'the mind has places' is true when interpreted charitably in the proper context. I'm not too concerned with defending that statement, but rather with giving ordinary language its due. Even philosophers leave their studies and use/understand these kinds of statements fluently.
How about we go back to this, then?
Quoting Banno
Remind me, what was the supporting argument for it? Some here have tried, but it has amounted to an informal fallacy each time (begging the question, bare assertion, irrelevant conclusion...) or it has amounted to trivial wordplay.
If all these people are trying to convince you of this, perhaps you ought to consider that it's you who is being ridiculous.
So let's set that aside for a bit and work on what we can make sense of.
I hope not. People do lie.
Hence my greater interest in the other questions now in the OP; especially certainty, dynamism and beliefs as explanations for actions. Answer these first then come back to the scope of belief statements. My suspicion is that we will then be able to identify the difference between beliefs that are linguistic and those that are not; that is, between human and animal beliefs.
Except that I, for one, was never talking about nonhuman animals, which was always a secondary, nonessential consideration related to my argument. However, the beliefs of a pre-linguistic human would be similarly restricted in scope, and, if you want to exclude this from your discussion here, in order to focus on other aspects, then that's fine... so long as you acknowledge that excluding these arguable counterexamples doesn't justify your premise, but merely grants it immunity for argument's sake.
Setting that aside, I would have to look harder to try to find any potential disagreement with what you've set out.
Consider this approach to explaining Rover's actions:
Given that Rover is hungry, and that Rover believes eating a bowl of slop will remove his hunger, we have a sufficient causal explanation for why Rover ate the bowl of slop.
Compared with an explanation without a belief:
Rover was hungry, which caused Rover to eat the bowl of slop.
Does the explanation work without the belief?
I would say that without that understanding of "to be", we are only seeing instinctive behavior.
Rover is hungry,
Rover believes eating a bowl of slop will remove his hunger,
Therefore Rover ate the bowl of slop.
The hidden assumption is perhaps that one will act on one's beliefs.
as against:
Rover was hungry,
Therefore Rover ate the bowl of slop.
You might of course add an assumption: hungry Rovers always eat bowls of slop.
The question - and it's not a small one - is what one ought believe.
An obvious answer is that one ought believe what is justified; but of course this leaves open what counts as a justification. And if justification is to serve us here, we must set it up without reference to belief... to avoid the circularity of saying no more than that one ought believe what one ought believe.
One might be tempted to say that one ought believe what is useful; but there are various arguments around pragmatism.
Or that one ought believe what fits in with one's other beliefs; but there are various arguments around coherentism.
If asked to explain why you turned on the heater, it would be sufficient for you to say you were cold, together with the assumption that you believed turning on the heater would make you warm.
If asked to explain why the thermostat turned on the heater, it would be absurd to say it were cold, together with the assumption that the thermostat believed turning on the heater would make it warm. WE would instead talk perhaps about bimetallic strips bending as temperatures drop or whatever the electronic equivalent is today; our explanation would not be in terms of the belief of the thermostat but in terms of the physics of the thermostat.
Perhaps Rover fits somewhere in between.
OK, I can go along with this. But let's keep it in mind ( :cool: ) by remembering that it is metaphorical nd checking to see if we have pushed the metaphor too far.
Which circles the issue back around to defining this "one" that might ought to be doing anything at all.
Truth is a point of view. So that requires the two things which a theory of truth needs to account for. The facts of the matter, but also the imagined entity that would have some reason to care.
Despite being asked a gazillion times, you always go silent about this other side of the truth equation. And this seems tied into your desire simply to be able to assert truth without having to justify your "self". ;)
Rover is conscious. That doesn't mean he has truth-apt beliefs.
No, Apo - belief is a point of view.
Sure. "Truth" falls out of the picture as we realise there is only actually belief and its justification. We've established that already.
But then justification - why we ought to believe - brings us to the embodiment of some reason. We have to account for the "self" that is having the "point of view".
However carry on deflecting. Let's pretend truth hasn't dropped out of the picture as a transcendent presence which is "truly out there" - freely existent and detached from any point of view.
Well, there is a problem here.
"X is hungry" restricts X to objects that can have the attribute hungry. This includes both humans and dogs. This isn't controversial.
But if we then ask why being hungry leads to eating certain things and not others, we look for explanatory principles. What motivates us turn towards "belief" when we talk about humans, but "instinct" when we talk about dogs?
There are quite complex discussions on that with regards to leaning and coming equipped with the knowledge; it's not the details that matter here. Rather: for our purposes,what we're doing is to position "belief" and "instinct" as rival explanations. So what is the relationship? If "hunger" is roughly the same humans and dogs, why would the underpinnings for eating be so very different?
That is: can we assume belief in human actions, when the behaviour is learned, automatic, uncontroversial, and usually not formulated? My default assumption is that when chosing what to eat, we're not that different from dogs, where it doesn't actually matter whether we had to learn what is "good to eat" or came equipped with it.
I think guessing at beliefs from behaviour, we might actually be overextending the reference for "belief". Or differently put, I'd probably reverse this: "I am hungry. I believe eating X will satiate my hunger. Therefor I eat X." to "I usually eat X to satiate my hunger. Therefore I believe X satiates my hunger."
What makes us do things? Instinct, habit, etc. Belief is a factor, but usually only when we actually contemplate our actions. My hunch is that the belief gets activated only when someone or something casts doubt on the things "we usually do". (Under quotes because I consider thought-habits a form of doing, and I'm not quite sure of the range of referential objects I'd associate with that.)
This would also solve the question of taste, here: if you set an apple and a banana before me when I'm hungry, I'll always go for the apple, because I don't like bananas. No belief comes into it, but there's no significant thought going into that decision either. If you replace the banana with a brick, my mind's not going to be busy thinking "Well, I'll have trouble digesting the brick, so I go for the apple." My mind's going to be busy questioning your motives for offering me a brick. Is this a Monty Python's skit? If I take human agency out of the equation, I'll just ignore the brick completely and take the apple. Basically, my semantic register doesn't tag the brick as food, and doesn't tag the banana as "good", and there's a decision hierarchy in place that makes me pick the apple. Belief might come into it with "brick vs. apple", while taste might come into with "banana vs. apple". But it's essentially the same process of elimination.
I think beliefs are attached to actions, and may sway decisions in the presence of doubt, but they don't motivate decisions. I think it makes more sense to place "belief" into a sort of feedback-control system rather than a motivating system.
Whether or not it's a category error to place "instinct" and "belief" as rival explanations for action depends a lot on how we define things. But my default reaction is to treat it as a category error. In simple terms: I don't think "belief" is something as basic as "instinct"; they operate on different levels.
I think humans eat due to instinct, not belief. But a human can assert the proposition that eating relieves hunger. Belief is often in the realm of reflection.
Clarification question: Are "Belief X causes action A," and "Instinct causes action A," two mutually exclusive propositions?
I'm asking because different definitions of words lead to different slots in a causal explanation: under some definitions "belief" and "instinct" can occupy the same slot.
I have this little narrative in my head:
A: I'm hungry. There's an apple on the table. I eat the apple. I'm no longer hungry.
B: I'm hungry. There's something on the table that looks edible, but I'm unsure. I either choose to take a risk, or I form an ad-hoc belief that surely this is edible (to avoid paralysation from anxiety).
But that would result in it's own definition that has something to do with the bracketing of risk. You might - under such a scenario - model belief as the deciding factor in a battle of basic emtions (e.g. fear of starving vs. fear of poison). It's not that you think A or B is true: if you're completely honest you have no idea. You've just decided to chose A over B, because inaction is disastrous either way and psychologically unable to face the risk head-on. Belief mitigates the risk of inaction and drives you to act. (In a slightly different take, the ability to form believes might keep Burridan's Ass from starving.)
If you think that blief is something more basic, though, this won't work - for example, what decides which "belief" you form? The belief that what you see is nutritious? The belief that what you see is poisonous? Certain learned cognitive preconditions might come into it (in addition to the relative strength of the respective fears), and you might want to call those part of "belief". But in that case, they wouldn't be just "propositional attitudes".
Am I making any sense?
I've considerable sympathy for that. Perhaps we only need express our belief when there is room for doubt.
There's an aspect of belief that is post hoc. We go back to our desire and our belief in order to explain what we did.
Wouldn't we distinguish instinct by the fact that it doesn't link up to any proposition? Or would you say that it actually does?
That is, there is a sense of choice in believing one thing rather than another, that is absent in instinct. We might have believed something else.
No, I agree. Instinct is just an impulse to execute a specific behaviour. I think belief is more complex than that.
It's just when I go back to the edited original post and read:
Quoting Banno
I personally run into a problem, because I think both eating and believing are component actions that branch off the same development. We recognise a sandwich as edible the moment we see it; it's not an instinct, because a sandwich is an artefact we create. That is, if I follow the section about action I end up with belief as an internal modelling of the world (a concept already brought up in this thread) rather than with belief as a propositional attitude. But at that point it's not much more complex than an instinct, sort of the flip-side of one: if the instinct is to eat food, the associated belief would be simply the ability to recognise food. That precedes any proposition, though.
There are apparently two opposing views in the literature at present. The first has it that belief is a part of the language of thought (LOT), such that there are literally representations in the mind of the sort described in the OP. Such a language would treat beliefs in a logical fashion something akin to first order predicate language. The second is that there is a map of the world in the mind that somehow models one's beliefs. Beliefs here would be treated more holistically.
I think there are great problems with both these theories of belief, and am wondering if there is another possibility. Both LOT and Maps treat beliefs as a part of, and hence internal to, the mind. From earlier discussions it may be clear that I do not think this a good approach. I have developed some sympathy for eternal approaches, in which the belief is treated not as part of the mind but as to some extent involving things outside the mind.
Yes, I think we generally operate in a space of knowledge rather than belief. This is the working knowledge of familiarity, of knowing-how, not knowledge-as-infallibility or deductively certain knowledge. It is when, in the context of critical reflection, our unreflective faith in our knowledge is questioned in terms of demanding deductively certain criteria to justify it, and we realize that our knowledge is not infallible, that we begin to think of ourselves as holding beliefs rather than as possessing knowledge.
Think about Dawn's 'sandwich' example. In the everyday context it is more accurate to say that I know the sandwich is edible rather than to say I believe it is edible. It is only when we start raising objection such as that the sandwich might be a fake made of plastic or whatever scenario, that we start to think of ourselves in the context of believing rather than knowing.
Quoting Janus
Are you juxtaposing these two?
My own view is to reject knowledge as justified true belief, in favour of a different picture. I would differentiate knowing-how from knowing-that, as is commonly done, but add that knowing-that is not opposed to knowing-how, but a subset of it. To know that something is the case is to know how to act, given that it is the case.
So to know that the cat is on the mat is to know how to step over the mat to avoid disturbing it, how to pick the cat up form the mat, how to clean the mat, feed the cat, and other related activities.
This seems to me to be a corollary of accepting that meaning is use, al la Wittgenstein. To know that the cat is on the mat is to participate in a way of life that takes it as granted that the cat is on the mat.
Perhaps beliefs result from an evolution of sense and reflex. If so, which came first: belief complex or language?
An epiphany! Recognizing the Platonism inherent within your own mind. That's rich!
Quoting apokrisis
LSD flashback. Banno meets Timothy Leary.
Yes, that's pretty much just what I have been saying. First is the knowing of familiarity, which builds into knowing-how, which makes possible the reflective formulation of knowings-that. We only think of ourselves in terms of believing when we become critically aware that at least some kinds of what we think of as knowings-that are patently falliblistic. This category of patently fallibilistic knowledge has greatly increased with the rise of theoretical science.
Why would you insist that belief is present in instinctive behavior? What evidence is there for this?
Hah no. Just a flashback to undergrad cognitive science.
Even then it was astounding that Fodorian language of thought nonsense was such a bandwagon. An embodied or semiotic view - what Banno seems to be calling externalism - was already obvious.
But you did have to scratch around to connect the dots on that.
But it is not the whole of knowledge, nor of belief.
I don't. Not sure why you think I did.
That's right, it's only a part of knowledge. But is there any belief apart from fallabilistic knowledge? Or to put it another way, don't we say that we believe rather than say that we know, only where there is some doubt? And is it not the case that doubt is relevant only in the context of fallibilistic knowledge?
Language takes belief and doubt to another (semiotic) level.
It is personal and unvoiced in animals. It may be there as part of cognition, but it not present in some depersonalised and metacognitive sense.
Then along comes language and belief~doubt can be socially constructed to achieve cultural purposes. There is a medium to make its cognitive mechanism something explicit and communal.
So as usual in any debate, views founder on accounting for the emergent discontinuity while maintaining also the underlying continuity. Once we were animals. And now we are still animals - but linguistically structured all the way down in a fashion that makes a big psychological difference.
I agree with this, but I think that what is at issue is how we should talk about the differences between animals and ourselves. That is why I have come to favour talking about animals in terms of expectation and frustration of expectation rather than belief and doubt. I think it just makes the non-linguistic/non-propositional// linguistic/ propositional distinction clearer. I mean it's not as though there are empirically observable things: beliefs and doubts, out there that we could discover to be had, or not to be had, by animals.
Every time?
What we can't sensibly do is to say that we believe something that is not true.
What do you mean by "fallibilistic knowledge'? Falsifiable statements? Doubtful statements?
Because you said:Quoting Banno
It seemed that you were saying belief is present in instinct, but without choice.
If you agree that instinctive action is action that has no belief as its cause, then you agree that animal behavior could be explained without mentioning belief.
It's quite possible for people to believe things that are not true. It doesn't make sense to say that we believe something that we do not believe to be true, if that is what you meant.
Quoting Banno
Knowledge that could be wrong. According to the theory of JTB there is no such thing. But if you define knowledge as familiarity and know-how then fallibility doesn't come into it. If I know how to do something, it makes no sense to say that I might not know how to do it. It is only in the context of thinking about deductive certainty, where it is logically possible that I am dreaming that I know how to do something when I really don't, or whatever other silly, logically possible scenario could be imagined, that it becomes possible to doubt such things.
That makes sense.
And this kind of thread only goes 1000 posts as it is designed not to accept that kind of sense. :)
I agree that animal behaviour might be explained without mentioning belief.
I made the point that belief implies a choice; it involves believing one thing rather than some other. Instinct does not involve choice.
Hm. Verging on certainty. I am pleased. :wink:
Yes. Perhaps the choice is between possible worlds.
He could always fail to do it even if he knows how to do it.
Sufficient but not necessary
And you know the difference between dreaming and wakefulness.
So it would be odd to allow your dreams to instil doubt.
Some "learning" takes place by natural selection. Those who act inappropriately die. The survivors don't know why they behave as they do. There is no belief.
Maybe belief is kin to this, but the ability to learn is no longer a matter of selection. A single individual can learn, but it's key that this individual is capable of understanding what it means to be wrong. Belief is an aspect of that.
See?
If belief requires choice, then beliefs cannot be caused in such a fashion.
Similarly, that beliefs require choice will serve to differentiate belief from instinct.
In effect, Sam may have been proposing that our certainties are instincts.
And I'm not talking about instincts. :smirk:
Right, no genuine doubt; just the faux-doubt attendant upon the logical possibility that I might be dreaming that I am not dreaming. :grin:
It's reason enough to be faux-uncertain. :cool:
So when you go to watch the cricket, you complain that all the bloody chaps on the field are not playing rugby?
Really, could this thread have less point?
But for W, to identify a belief is not to identify a thing in the head. To call it a proposition, and to say, "she believes she has legs", is not to suggest that she has a matching thought, an internal statement, "I believe I have legs" or "I have legs". A belief may be pre-linguistic in your sense, or in W's appeal to forms of life, but also linguistic in the sense that it can be stated (later). It becomes linguistic when we talk about it, and it is as a propositional attitude that we must talk about it--she believes that...
This makes belief an odd kind of post hoc thematisation.
Or it simply lifts things into an importantly different register.
At the animal level, we are embedded and embodied in our habits of understanding. Language turns that into the someone who is believing some state of affairs. It translates the biological situation into one that is displaced from some actual place and time, some unalterable history, into one that now lacks those constraints and so gains new freedoms.
So it in about there being a troubling lack of secure foundations for theories of truth. The whole bleeding point of the language turn - in Homo sapiens history - is to create a foundation for rational thought.
And a big part of that is the social construction of the self as the believer, doubter, or whatever-er.
If we have to build this fiction too, this idealised observer and knower, then that is central to any epistemic discussion.
Do the same sorts of justifications come to bear in a meta-belief discussion that hold for beliefs on the ground in real life?
It's really here in the realm of justification that externalism and internalism appear as opposing paths. But the externalist approach will falter in the meta-discussion simply because there is no settled answer.
I've more thoughts on that but it continues to percolate.
No. In assessing the nature of belief we're attempting to pull ourselves free of our time and place to occupy a vantage point on who and what we are.
My assessment is that the little of apokrisis' posts that I read are on point. The issue is: what is the believer?
You will find that Banno will never answer you on this. He is trying to arrive at naive realism via Witgensteinian quietism. So the pretence is that the question of who has the point of view is essentially idealistic and to be summarily dismissed.
If it is illegitimate to even mention the believer as the issue, then we can all get on talking with naive realism about all the incontrovertible truth we see just looking around with our open eyes in our everyday world.
You are dealing with high level sophistry here. It’s quite entertaining to watch. Just don’t expect a productive engagement.
And what do you think might be the answer?
Quoting frank
And for me. See the OP.
For me, having a belief about believing is motived directly from social interaction, where different people are comfortable with different levels of certainty, and if you can only take one course of action some people might prefer to minimise risk while others might prefer to maximise (potential) reward, and this in turn is dependant who feels what outcome the most. So "belief" might be a factor that gives people advantages through various avenues: less anxiety, less time spent thinking...
Now, the degree to which belief needs to be justified in the first place is a matter of social negotiation, too. I'm not quick to make up my mind. The result is that not only do I not often get my way, by the time I get any way I'm usually not sure what my way would have been, and in a sense this means I always have to deal with other people's decisions. This can lead to frustration and motivate a world view that suggests that "all belief is unjustified". But I'm not sure I actually belief that, see?
But I do see a continuity here: belief about belief is not that different from the belief that the sky is blue or that sandwiches are nutritious. It's just that the more abstract terms become, the harder it is to describe and circumscribe the referential objects as well as the concepts in our minds. And this is why we have this thread to begin with. What is belief?
So, if we talk about animals in terms of expectation and frustration of expectation, as Janus suggests, then I have to ask why we don't do the same for humans? Do we reach limits? Is there something we can't express? And if so, is the same true for animals, but in different ways? It's very hard to imagine what human language use would like from a different system, perhaps one we can't understand. When we hear a word, we hear a word. When we hear a language we don't understand and whose prosody we're not used to, we may not know where one word ends and another begins, but we still recognise language. The less "like us" things become, the more meaning disappears, but how do we deal with it?
When we talk in terms of expectations for animals but belief for humans, what becomes difficult is comparison. In a sense, making that distinction is a comparison in itself - but what it means isn't clear other than that humans are different from all other animals, which is trivial (and true for all other animals as well).
So when we move away from humans towards thermostats on belief-similarity slide, how do we map the journey semantically? What about belief do we share with apes? With mammals? Vertebrates? Life? Inorganic Matter? At what point does the comparison stop yielding results.
One thing about the thermostat discussion that's drawn my interest is the formulation "The thermostat believes it is cold." What struck me here is the word "cold". The thermostat activates at any temperature we set; the distinction between warm/cold doesn't come into it. This is a judgement that goes away from the very specific temperature. It's an abstraction, and one that has different implications. There's a hidden should-proposition in that word: the thermostat should activate because it is cold. And it's not a should-proposition we can lay at the thermostat, because it's us who set the temperature. All the thermostat can "belief" is that it is time to activate (according to its setting).
But if we set activity pairs (activate/don't activate in this case) as an indicator for belief (and the thermostat has two belief settings: it's time to activate/it's not time to activate) - then what does that mean for the distinction between value judgements and facts. Theoretically, the thermostat can be wrong about the specific temperature, but to what extent can it be wrong about "when to activate"? Does the origin of the setting matter?
When a dog who misses its previous owner refuses to eat, have the should-settings changed? When *I* refuse to eat, because I miss someone I can directly detect whether my should settings have changed: I should eat, but I can't bring myself to. When it's you, I can ask. With a dog? There is no shared language, but does that mean there is no dog-internal language whatsoever? How would we know?
What I wonder is whether we need an inside-view to talk about belief, and if so, when we stop granting an inside-view. I'd say the gradiant is one of similarity with the only inside-view we know directly (our own) as the initial point of comparison.
I believe the answer, as it relates to belief, is twofold.
1. Man is the measure of all things. We're limited in the ways we believe we are. We're free in the ways we believe we are.
2. We're just bits of dust clinging to a little blue globe. An eternal Truth resides beyond us. Our beliefs are imperfect attempts to capture that Truth.
Indeed, this seems to be so. I take this as being pretty much the same as that the limits of our language are the limits of our world.
But note that it is a plural, not an individual, man, not a man. This is how we move past solipsism, private languages, relativism and the worst sort of phenomenalism.
While I have sympathy for this feeling, I'm not very keen on this wording. After all, some of our beliefs are true.
Well, if any belief can be parsed in the form B(a,p) where p is a proposition, then yes, our beliefs are all of them statable. All that is being said here is that any belief can be stated.
The word "limit" seems to put folk off - perhaps it should be "The extent of our world is the extent of our language".
But even that is not quite right. Perhaps "The extent of our world is the extent of what we can do with words".
Which is just to say that our world and our words are knitted together.
I would treat this question in the same way as any requests for definitions - as a discussion of how we use the words involved; this is as opposed to a search for an "essence" of believer that allows us to decide what things are believers and what are not.
So I'm not so sure there is a believer, if that is conceived of as a "self'. The self is perhaps constructed out of our interactions with the world. A post-hoc excuse for saying you are the same as the Frank I spoke to last year.
The notion of a view from nowhere.
What about the view from anywhere? Can't there be propositions that are true regardless of where you stand?
Yep. A belief must be statable, if not stated.
Quoting Sam26
That's the question: is it legitimate to cal something a belief if it is caused - if there is no choice involved?
While it's true that some beliefs are a matter of choice, it's also true that some beliefs have nothing to do with choice. For example, let's suppose that I walk into a room and observe certain objects in the room, do I make a choice to believe there are pens, paper, clothing, pillows, etc, or do I just believe it without a choice being made at all. In fact, this may support the idea that the belief is causally formed quite apart from any decision. My sensory observations about what's in the room have become part of what I believe, quite apart from a choice to believe.
Should be simple enough to demonstrate. Just give us an example.
Seeing the pens, papers and so on justifies the belief.
In much the same way as "Here is a hand" justifies belief in hands.
Think about it this way: You walk in the room and see the objects, as a result of seeing the objects you have the belief, there is no choice, and there is no justification needed. Do you justify the belief to yourself? No. The only time a justification would be needed is if a discourse takes place between you and someone else, i.e., you are asked, "How do you know...?" Also note that this e.g. is different (in terms of justification) from Moore's e.g., in that everyone sees Moore's hand, Moore holds up his hand to the audience and says, "Here is a hand." "Here is a hand" is bedrock, there is no need to justify this belief to the audience. Wittgenstein's point is that these statements are bedrock, they are the hinge on which justification occurs. The epistemological door wouldn't swing without these beliefs.
There is also something that is the same in my e.g. and Moore's example. Everyone in the room with Moore is having the same sensory experience that you have when you walk into the room (my e.g.) and see the objects I mentioned in my e.g. Where Moore goes wrong is that he is using a justification where no justification is needed, just as in my room e.g. Do all the people in the room need a justification that that is a hand? No. Do you need a justification when walking into a room that has x, y, and z objects? No.
You need a justification where a doubt might arise. So if I'm not in the room, where either e.g. is taking place, I might ask, "How do you know?" This is perfectly legitimate, and it's within your epistemic rights to ask "How do you know?" Then, of course you can give your justification, "I saw..." The justification is a sensory justification, which is one of the ways we justify some of our beliefs. Thus it would be a piece of knowledge.
There is a further point however that seems to be confusing, viz., that there are two kinds of bedrock beliefs. First, there are those that take place within language, as in Moore's statements. Second, there are bedrock beliefs, which I'm identifying, and which Wittgenstein alludes to in On Certainty, that occur quite apart from language. These bedrock beliefs are the ones I've given when talking about pre-linguistic man, but also note that they do occur in my e.g. above, viz., if Banno walks into a room and sees x,y, and z objects, then you have these beliefs; and although Banno can state the belief (something pre-linguistic man cannot do), they are not stated until they are stated. They are not stated in your mind, you have them quite apart from any statement, a statement is not required in order to have these beliefs. If you want to share the belief, or justify the belief, you can, but that's not a necessary ingredient to having the belief. This is why pre-linguistic man can also have the belief quite apart from language. He could walk into the room and see the same objects you see, and as a result have the same beliefs you have. The only difference is that he cannot share the belief, he doesn't have the linguistic ability, the same is true of an animal.
Quoting Banno
I prefer to say that belief and knowledge are compatible with doubt, though it seems a psychological "state" or "feeling" of certainty is not compatible with a psychological "state" or "feeling" of doubt.
Belief does not entail certainty. Knowledge does not entail certainty.
Quoting Banno
I agree that the explanation is satisfying in a wide range of cases, but strictly speaking I wouldn't call it sufficient.
Consider the infinite range of counterexamples including the following. John is hungry, believes eating a sandwich will remove this hunger, but:
---prefers fish and chips....
---wants to lose weight....
---has been blindfolded and tied to a chair....
I doubt we could ever give a description of an agent's states along these lines, in anything like traditional folk-psychological terms, that would be sufficient to predict the agent's subsequent action in all cases. There's just too much to specify in concrete cases. One may never fill in the gap papered over with a phrase like "all else equal...."
We might say more modestly: In appropriate circumstances and all else equal, an agent who is hungry and believes eating a sandwich will remove this hunger, is likely disposed to eat a sandwich; though there may be countervailing dispositions at work in the same agent on the same occasion.
Quoting Banno
Some but not all beliefs seem well-suited to this form. Though many more beliefs have practical implications. In ordinary circumstances and all else equal, if S believes p then S is disposed to actions (a1, a2, ..., an).
In fact, we tend to ascribe beliefs to other agents -- including nonhuman animals -- given observation that they perform or are disposed to perform some of a relevant range of actions.
Quoting Banno
Of course there is a wide variety of ways to "believe in God", and I expect there's no single set of actions correlated in the relevant way with all such beliefs.
Nevertheless, some ways of believing in God will dispose the believer to perform or affirm a conjunction of actions or beliefs-about-action of the sort you've indicated.
The problem I have with this way of looking at it is that I think the notion of belief is completely inappropriate in these kinds of cases.
When I enter the room and see the pens and papers I know there are pens and papers. Once I start thinking in terms of belief, then doubt enters. If, on the basis of critical doubt, I come to believe that I can no longer justify taking my seeing of pens and papers as knowing of pens and papers, then it follows that I can no longer justify any belief at all.
Under the aegis of JTB, you may indeed have knowledge, but you can never know that you have knowledge, or even know whether you are justified in believing that you have knowledge. This is very problematic; it is like disappearing up your own arse. No wonder they call it analytic philosophy! :rofl:
Really, we do not have to justify any beliefs at all; all we have to do is accept and understand our knowing of the world, and realize that the extension of that knowing into 'knowing-that' is ineluctably fallabilistic.
Cheers.
Quoting Cabbage Farmer
Yes - I agree. Certainty, however, entails belief. Knowledge - well, in the end, that's one of the results of belief; and if one accepts JBT, knowledge entails belief.
What might be interesting to discuss is whether certainty entails knowledge. If Moore's "here is a hand" does not present a justification for believing in an external reality, but instead shows a certainty in an external reality, then belief in an external reality is certain and yet not known.
Odd.
Indeed! Further evidence, perhaps, that using belief to explain an act has a post-hoc character. John ate a sandwich. That he was hungry and believed eating the sandwich would cure his hunger is sufficient to explain why he ate the sandwich, but not to predict that he will act in the same way next time.
Make it a conjunction of disjunctions. Someone who believes in god is disposed to (go to church on Sunday and say their prayers at night) or (go to a mosque on Friday and give money to charity) or...
The question then is can any belief be reduced to such a conjunction of actions?
And what is certainty? Is it logical: deductive certainty or psychological:feeling certain; or is there some other kind of certainty?
If you know how to do something is it a coherent question to ask yourself whether you are certain that you know how to do it? Or is it an appropriate question to ask yourself whether you believe that you know how to do it? Or that you know that you know how to do it?
Are these all not just conceptual elaborations upon that which is obvious, rendering that which was obvious to be no longer obvious, or even uncontroversially believable?
So an animal could have beliefs, but not beliefs about beliefs.
This lines up with Wittgenstein's remark that a dog can believe his master is coming home, but not that his master is coming home next Wednesday.
Better to simply say the dog expects to see his master. It's less subject to confusion that way.
If so, then we have a web of beliefs. A justification must, after all, be held to be true.
And is it better to say Janus expects to see his paycheque? :grin:
Does he, @Sam26?
Or is Janus certain, but since lacking in justification, not knowledgeable?
So much of this is about the limits and gradients between belief, knowledge, certainty, justification, expectation...
Is expecting to see the paycheck the same as believing the proposition: 'I will receive my paycheck', or is it the same as 'I will most likely receive my paycheck'?
It could be equated with either or neither. I don't believe the dog can think in terms of 'will' or 'will most likely', so no equation is possible in her case.
Quoting Banno
I would say that Janus simply knows, and certainty does not come into it: but that once doubt enters, he can no longer be certain that he knows, or that he is even justified in believing. It's all context dependent in other words.
There are at least two kinds of certainty going on in Wittgenstein's notes, a subjective certainty reflected in the way we emphasize or gesticulate; and there is the certainty that is used as a synonym for knowledge. We tend to confuse these two uses of the word certainty. The confusions lies in equating our feelings about pens, pillows, clothes, with having knowledge. Knowledge is JTB, so does one justify to oneself that one is seeing pens, pillows, etc? Of course not, it's a basic belief that is part of the background information, like the chess board and chess pieces are the background to the game of chess.
Another problem with trying to explain this, is that some of you have a strange view of what knowledge is. I'm sticking with the definition of knowledge as justified true belief. It's a good working definition that I find invaluable. I find no good reasons to give up this definition.
[i]I'm not aware of too many things
I know what I know if you know what I mean
Philosophy is a talk on cereal box religion
Is a smile on a dog
I'm not aware of too many things
I know what I know if you know what I mean
Choke me in the shallow water before I get too deep
What I am is what I am are you what you are or what?
I'm not aware of too many things I know what I know if you know what I mean
Philosophy is a walk on slippery rocks religion
Is a light in the fog
I'm not aware of too many things I know what I know if you know what I mean
Choke me in the shallow water before I get too deep
What I am is what I am are you what you are or what[/i]
Not that I agree with all of the sentiments expressed in the song. :yikes:
No it's a basic understanding or knowledge. To call it a belief suggests that it could somehow be wrong; and of course it *can*, but only in an elaborated, artificial 'faux' sense. It could only be 'wrong' if the whole way that we understand the world were somehow wrong, for example, but then one could ask: 'what *more real and true* context could it be wrong in relation to, and how could we know it was wrong in relation to that purportedly "more real and true" context?.
Is it really worth considering such *possibilities*, or just a waste of time and effort; not to mention knowledge and understanding?
But one can't know something without also believing it; nor can one know something that is not true.
Long ago. I added this diagram to the epistemology page on Wiki:
It's survived quite a few updates, so it must say something useful.
I would say not, i.e., these beliefs can't be wrong in the epistemological sense. In what sense could Moore be wrong about having hands, especially in the context of the statement? If one makes a genuine knowledge claim, doubt plays a role against such knowledge claims. Otherwise we could infer the truth of a knowledge claim simply by making the statement. But with Moore's propositions, note that it doesn't make sense to doubt the statement "Here is a hand." This lack of sensible doubt tells us something about that particular belief, viz., that it has a special role in our belief system, outside, apart, and quite separate from our epistemological language-games.
So if I understand Janus, the correct grammar would be that if one knows, one is certain; when one doubts, one no longer knows nor is justified in believing.
And If I have@Sam26 correct, we can be certain but since this entails there being no doubt, and hence no need for a justification, we do not know what it is we are certain of.
That's not quite what I'm saying Banno. :wink:
OK, so in order to know some proposition, it must be true, believed and justified.
TO be justified is to be implied by or consistent with the other propositions one believes.
Moore showing his hand does not count as a justification because it is not a proposition.
So we do not know that Moore has a hand.
IS that OK?
To be justified in believing X is varied, i.e., there are various language-games in which it is appropriate to to state that we are justified in believing X. We can be justified in various ways, viz., argument, inference, and proof; by the testimony of others; by linguistic training; and by sensory experience; to name a few.
And yes given the context of Moore's statement, it is not a piece of knowledge, which is Wittgenstein's point.
This comes about because there are untrue beliefs. I see.
For my purposes in this thread I'd like to sort out what this justification might be. Sam suggests argument, inference, and proof as a start.
Will mere implication do? I think not, since any true proposition is implied by any other proposition, true or false.
I'm being a curmudgeon here - why is waiving ones hand around and saying "here is a hand" one of those language games?
And yet, putting the pieces on the board in the correct place is part of the game.
Suppose Jeff is anti-Semitic. He believes P where P is that Jews are evil. Would we be following your theory of belief to say that belief in P is the same as knowing how to behave in view of P? But where and when is Jeff? Is he in NYC? Jerusalem? 1940 Berlin?
There is no generic behavior here. It's setting dependent. Does your theory account for this?
Why call them "beliefs" then, when the word 'belief' is usually understood to have a propositional sense, when beliefs are generally truth apt, and thus right or wrong? It seems all the more odd in that you have stated a few times that you don't like Wittgenstein's term "hinge proposition" for this very reason.
Why not call these "hinge propositions" or "bedrock beliefs" 'hinge understandings' or 'bedrock understandings'. I anticipate you might say that understandings can be wrong too; but I think generally it is more the case that they are adequate or inadequate, rather than right or wrong. The understanding that I have hands seems to be eminently useful and not at all inadequate.
I wonder is that is true. Since we do not know how deep into our psychology reaches, it might be that the same brain activity which keeps a dog going back to his bowl might be much the same mechanism by which we are similarly draw to things that we 'know' without a consciously acknowledgement.
You could put it that way, I suppose, but I prefer to leave the notion of certainty out of the picture, because when the idea of certainty comes into play belief and doubt follow.
Say I see a car accident and look at my watch the instant it happens. Someone asks me later what time it happened, and I say it happened at precisely 3.04 by my watch, and I know this because I remember looking at my watch at the precise moment the accident occurred. It wouldn't seem right for me to say that I believe the accident occurred at 3.04 by my watch; that is something I might say if someone else had told me the accident occurred at that time.
If someone asks me if I am certain about it, then I might reflect and begin to doubt my memory. Maybe I looked at my watch a minute later and misremembered that I had looked at it at the very moment of the accident, or maybe I misremember the time displayed by the watch when I looked at it, and so on.
Generally, though, given that don't doubt my memory (since that is all I have to go on in regards to my own past experiences) it seems right to say that when i have seen something with my own eyes that I know it occurred. The old saying should be "seeing is knowing", not "seeing is believing". Hearing is believing. I have all sorts of beliefs about what occurred historically, or today on the other side of the world based on what I have heard or read from others. And even here we generally count this knowledge, given that we trust the testimony of others. It is all context dependent, but generally I will take what I have witnessed to be more reliable than any testimony from others.
I'm mostly just watching from the sidelines, but I think you slipped up a bit here Banno.
A contextually relevant sense of implication might. I don't think it's so easy to substitute material implication into an arbitrary language game involving justification. Will give an example.
One of the things that hinted the energies of electrons in orbit around a nucleus came in discrete jumps was the mismatch between the Coulomb force law and empirical observation. Coulomb force predicts an elliptical orbit of electrons around a nucleus - since they're in an ellipse they're accelerating, and accelerating electrons were known to emit light. When they emit light, they lost energy, and thus were predicted to spiral towards the nucleus; thus all atoms would collapse. Scientists at the time had the theory of electromagnetism on one hand, and it predicted P="the electrons will spiral towards the atom", however they knew that ~P. If justification worked here like material implication, all scientists who knew the experimental results and the predictions of electromagnetism would have immediately believed everything through explosion*. Nevertheless, the scientists did not, despite accepting the general applicability of the Coulomb force law and the experimental results.
(1) B(P)
(2) B(~P)
(3) B(P)&B(~P)
(4)B(P&~P)
(5)B(P&~P->Q)
(6)B(Q)
I think, what is more likely, is that the scientists concluded that there was some flaw in the Coulomb law (and Maxwell's equations) despite being generally correct, since they trusted both the experimentation and the theory, but allowed the extent of their trust to dynamically limit the applicability - it was found to be an incomplete description, and thus beliefs in some predictions made by the theory (insofar as they contradicted experiment and good sense) were suspended. Until a more complete description, and a reason for the flaws, was found.
This is to say that the language game of justification and belief in science, at least at this point and in this topic, is poorly modelled by a doxastic logic featuring material implication. It is more a history of trust, flaw finding, and the discovery of scope-limitations of previously 'universal' laws.
edit: * assuming they are rational in the sense of a doxastic logic with material implication, which I'm making a reductio of here.
It's true that we philosophers talk about beliefs in terms of language, and in terms of being either true or false. However, Wittgenstein's hinge-propositions are not propositions in the normal sense, he seems to be speaking of these kinds of propositions (basic beliefs) as outside our epistemological constructs. And he talks about these beliefs as being separate from language, which I think is important to the understanding of what they are. The reason I do not like Wittgenstein's term hinge-proposition, is that this term still carries with it the idea of being true or false (because proposition is still part of the name).
He has talked about these Moorean statements in many different ways. He is searching for a way to talk about them, which is why he talked about them as being bedrock, foundational, hinge, etc. Also I would not characterize them as understandings, for me at least, this does not capture Wittgenstein's intent.
I've talked before about the idea of these beliefs being prelinguistic, and Wittgenstein hints at this when says that they tend to be animalistic in their function (paraphrasing), which I take to be basic, and it is why my tendency is to think they are causally formed quite apart from reason or linguistics. They seem to be subsumed or absorbed as part of the functioning of our minds, i.e., in many cases we do not even think about it, we just find ourselves with the belief when the need arises. This comes out in my example of walking into a room and noticing pens, paper, clothing, etc., we do not even think about much of what we see, but our sensory impressions simply imprint (for lack of a better word) the information upon the mind. There seems to be a causal relationship between the world and the mind, which is linked by our sensory inputs. It is almost like a video camera which picks up information and then stores it on a disk or other device.
Wittgenstein characterized the use of "I know..." in terms of Moore's statements as "...[a] comfortable certainty, not the certainty that is still struggling (OC 357)." And still further he states, "Now I would like to regard this certainty, not as something akin to hastiness or superficiality, but as a form of life. But that means I want to conceive it as something that lies beyond being justified or unjustified [outside epistemology]; as it were, as something animal (OC 358, 359)"
If they are not understanding, not beliefs (propositions) and not knowledge, then what can we say they are?
I think Wittgenstein's ideas of background and form of life are similar to Heidegger's notion of understanding, and if I remember correctly Heidegger's idea is that understanding is our pre-explicit or pre-thematic, and in a certain sense, even pre-linguistic, way of dealing with the world, which is prior to, and grounds, all interpretation and belief; it is simply our way of being in the world.
I don't know enough about Heidegger's philosophy to comment intelligently on what he was saying. Maybe one can say that these beliefs reflect a kind of understanding of the world, but I think, at least for me, they are better understood as bedrock, basic, or foundational. You're correct, "...it is simply our way of being in the world." These beliefs are like the chess board and pieces, the chess game is played with the board and pieces, which show our foundational beliefs about the game, viz., that we believe there is a board and pieces. We don't have to state our beliefs about the board and pieces, but our actions show our beliefs without ever taking on the form of a statement.
Note though, how weird it would be if we were playing a game of chess and I stated "This is a bishop," as if there could be a doubt in such a context. We don't doubt these kinds of beliefs generally because of their fundamental nature, and if we don't doubt them, then they are not pieces of knowledge. Doubt plays an important role within the language-game of knowing.
These beliefs do reflect our subjective certainty about the world though, but this certainty is not epistemological certainty.
How would this differ from instinct, other than the fact that we commonly doubt our instincts, and there is an unsubstantiated claim that "hinge-propositions" are beyond doubt?
Quoting Sam26
So, why not allow that such "subjective certainty", which "is not epistemological certainty", be subject to the skeptic's doubt?
Otherwise you have a foundation whose strength and stability is dependent on deception. The hinge-propositions cannot be doubted, because it is asserted that they cannot be doubted. And that is deception because in reality they are no better than instincts which ought to be doubted.
I agree with most of what you say here, I think our only point of disagreement is over whether these 'hinge propositions' are beliefs. What is it that makes something a belief? Analytical philosophy and/ or philosophy of language seems to be concerned with determining the meaning of terms by establishing consistency and coherency within a network of their actual usages.
Are there any other criteria that can be used to establish whether something is or is not a belief, beyond whether or not calling it a belief is consistent and coherent with common usage of the term 'belief'? If not, then I would say "hinge propositions" are not beliefs on account of the fact that the term is most commonly, perhaps even universally, used to refer to truth apt propositions. Perhaps you can offer some counterexamples of common usage to support your case for thinking that "the background" or "a form of life" consists in networks of beliefs, rather than in webs of understanding.
It only follows that there are no pre-linguistic and/or non-linguistic belief unless propositions existed prior to language. That alone is more than enough ground to warrant our dismissing the above belief statement, because there most certainly are such things.
That depends on how we organise the semantic field, though. In an experimental set-up, for example, I could see "A belief is a relation between an individual and a proposition," as an operational definition derived from a theoretical definition - you'd need a well-founded theory of how the linguistic faculties connect to the pre-linguistic faculties of the mind. That is: we believe a lot of things we never formulate, but it is possible to formulate them and test them this way.
That there are different ways to organise the semantic field is a key problem in this thread. If we're interested in a semantic field that we might describe as "taking things for true", we may come up with different words: knowledge, belief, assumption... But even if we have the same words, they don't necessarily relate the same way in different people's usage.
JTB for example sees "knowledge" as a subtype of "belief", but it's equally possible to see them as distinct cognitive behaviour - two flags planted on a continuum so that one either knows or believes, even if there are cases where it's hard to tell which applies.
The more I read this thread and think about it, I lean towards a definition that keeps knowledge and belief separate and that has us generate "belief" to the extent that knowledge becomes problematic. What got me thinking more along these lines is ' specific example:
Quoting Janus
I tried to think about this in terms of 's diagram of JTB, and failed, precisely because of a basic difference in the way the terms are used. If we see "belief" and "knowledge" as distinct cognitive behaviour, with belief arising out of problematised knowledge, I think we need to broaden the context.
One of the things I think is important is the relationship between meaning, truth, reality, and motivation:
I walk into a room, and there's an apple on the table. It's not a fruit, but a wax-simulacrum. If I never found out that fact, did I "know" that there is an apple on the table. Rather, if I notice the apple in passing, but it's not in anyway relevant to me in the situation, then the proposition "There's an apple on the table," might be true on the abstraction level relevant to me: that is the differentiation between a fruit and the wax simulacrum of one is irrelevant to what the proposition means to me.
But that means that all knowledge, belief, and truth - as it occurs in the world - is context bound. And since contexts can change, truth is not a stable thing, and it gets complicated to figure out whether "There is an apple on the table," is true or not. Complicated, but not impossible. What we have is an intricate truth system attached to a proposition.
And this is where the linguistic nature of propositions come in: the sign body of the proposition "There is an apple on the table," remains a constant, even if context changes. In real life, we re-contextualise all the time. Socially, we negotiate meanings, and as our own motivational structure changes, so might the elements of the truth system "There's an apple on the table," that we pick out as relevant. That is a photographer might be fine with a wax simulacrum in a way a hungry person decidedly will not.
Now, as soon as we topicalise the proposition "There is an apple on the table," we enter the meta realm. We might be arguing just for the sake of being right, or we might have motivations that make it important that the proposition be true (e.g. I might win a game, if it is, and the rules haven't foreseen the ambiguity). That is: "belief" can, in situations like this, rescue a proposition from being false, by ordering the semantic field in a way that makes it true. (Side note: This is only hypocritical if the semantic field was ordered in a different way, not if you differentiate from an unspecified level of abstraction.)
So, basically, "belief" has two general meanings:
a) Belief that facilitates action in the face of uncertainty: Belief in P to interact with the reality that P represents, or
b) Belief that takes P as symbolic for some related goal: deciding the outcome of a game, group membership...
I think (a) can reasonably be pre-linguistic; (b) can't.
Yes, there are other criteria, and I've been talking about it all along. It's our actions that show our beliefs quite apart from language. The simple act of opening a door shows your belief that there is a door there, and there are many actions like this that we do on a daily basis that show or demonstrate what we believe.
But I still want to object that considered in a non-propositional context these actions can better be accounted as simply showing what we expect, reflecting a basic understanding or orientation to the world, just as the actions of animals do in their case.
Quoting Dawnstorm
Well, we can say whatever we want. We can call things whatever we choose. We can define our terms...
I'm not sure what a 'semantic field' is supposed to be. I take it to mean something akin to a linguistic framework. A taxonomy, as it were...
To that notion, I'll say this...
Contrary to many, if not most, I most certainly believe that definitions can be wrong. Sensible, as in following from common usage, but wrong, as in mistakenly attributing meaning to that which is not existentially contingent upon our awareness of it's existence.
Belief is one such thing. Banno defines belief as follows...
So, he has set out the semantic field as such that belief is existentially dependent upon propositions.
Either...
Propositions require language. Thus, it follows that belief requires language. It further follows that there are no such thing as non-linguistic or pre-linguistic belief.
Or...
Propositions are prior to language and there are such relationships between non-linguistic creatures and non-linguistic propositions.
Neither is acceptable. The latter is indefensible. The former cannot admit of pre-linguistic belief. Thus, cannot admit that animals without language can believe anything at all...
That is wrong.
Hey Janus...
It's all about the method of approach.
We can look at every example of belief and we will certainly find an agent that is drawing mental correlations between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or itself. None are immune. The only variance is in the sheer complexity of the correlations. In fact, until an agent begins to doubt, there is no difference between their thought and their belief. That is, the only difference between thought and belief is that one can think about stuff without necessarily believing it, but only after having become aware of truth/falsity. Prior to that, there is no difference at all. Thus, it only follows that all belief(and thought too for that matter) consists entirely of such correlations...
The problem here is that I have some idea what "agents" and "mental correlations" could be as considered in a linguistic context, but outside that context I have no idea.
Ummm. I'm not sure I understand the problem. Are you having trouble with the idea that neither agents nor mental correlations are existentially dependent upon language?
No I'm saying that considered outside of a linguistic context, I don't know what an agent or a mental correlation could be.
There are non-linguistic agents. There are mental correlations drawn by such agents.
Do you agree?
How can I agree when I don't know what you are talking about?
In one sense, we cannot consider anything outside of a linguistic context. In another equally germane sense, we consider all sorts of things that are not existentially dependent upon our considerations(upon our linguistic context)...
That is, we can become aware of that which exists, in it's entirety, prior to our discovery of it.
No, that's what I've been trying to tell you.
I'm not talking about us considering from within a linguistic context, something we can hardly avoid doing, but about considering agents and mental correlations as being outside a linguistic context. The latter I don't believe can coherently be done because we can't say what a non-linguistic agent or mental correlation could be.
"Semantic field" is a term used in structural linguistics and anthropology, and it's simply the range of meaning associated with a word or a set of closely related words. It's not the most precise concept out there, and it's theoretical in the sense that you cannot meet a pure semantic field "in the wild", because it's always already organised (say into a word, a set of words, a taxonomy...). It's a useful concept, I think, when comparing things like languages. I found it personally useful when figuring out the technical terminology of linguistics and sociology, since the same "sign body" (say "adverb", or "social role") doesn't always cover the same things (i.e. it depends on who uses the term).
You say a definition can be wrong, but before you can determine whether or not a defintion is wrong, you'd need to know what it is you're talking about, and that's sort of the problem in a thread titled "What is belief?" What I also meant to say, but what I probably buried a bit too much in excess verbiage, is that I think "A belief is an attitude towards a proposition," is an operational definition - not a theoretic one. It drives at methodology rather than meaning. Normally, such a line is connected to a theory that sheds light on all the short cuts in the operational defition. For example, the question of whether a belief needs to be linguistic or if it can be pre-linguistic would have been addressed in the theory. When I first replied to the thread, I probably took it to be a shortcut something like "A belief is an attitude towards something that's expressable as a proposition," but I didn't properly think this through until you brought it up (even though other people have been talking about pre-linguistic beliefs and I nodded in appreciation when I read 's post, here).
It's a bit premature to say a definition is "wrong", when we can't even be sure yet, whether we're talking about the same thing. Some people might indeed only use "belief" for propositional attitudes in its most literal sense, and whether that's sound or not depends on what other words they use and when and how. It's not like we can encounter unmediated beliefs and ask what they are: we encounter things that imply belief - behaviour, linguistic and otherwise. Or artefacts that represent language (like a forum post).
Cannot make sense of the above...
Quoting Janus
I disagree. That would make a fantastic topic of debate. Care to join me in the appropriate section of this forum?
This thread is not specifically a discussion of Wittgenstein. All I have asked is why you think the term 'belief' is more useful in the context of this discussion than 'expectation', and why you believe that using the same term in both linguistic and non-linguistic contexts does not do more to obscure the differences between animal and human, and between human propositional and non-propositional dispositions to action, by making it more difficult to see the very distinctions that might lead to greater understanding and clarity.
OK, in my view an agent is someone who acts deliberatively by considering counterfactually the various courses of action available. Mental correlations are associations of concepts. You say believing is a mental correlation between the believer and "'objects' of physiological sensory perception".
Now, leaving aside the fact that believing can be of non-sensory 'objects', we have no way of saying what a non-conceptual mental correlation or belief could be, and since concepts would seem to be possible only in the context of language, we have no idea how to apply the concepts 'belief' or 'mental correlation' in the case of animals or pre-linguistic humans. If you think you do have a coherent account of how such concepts could be applied, then please have at it.
I know it's not a discussion of Wittgenstein, but Wittgenstein has some important ideas that are relevant. The term belief is what the thread is about, is it not? Not expectations. The uses of these words are just different. I don't think "mental correlation is helpful either. To unravel some of the confusion would take a while.
Sure, the thread is about the term 'belief' and what would be its most useful ambit of application. And you have provided no argument as to why you seem to think that 'expectation' is not a better substitute term in the context of the non-linguistic human or animal. It might "take a while" to "unravel some of the confusion" (your own or others' I wonder); the question is whether you can be bothered or not.
What I'm probably going to do is confine my posts to a blog.
OK, I get it: it's beneath you. The irony is that if you have a good argument or objection to make it should only take a handful of sentences to present it. I agree with you about "mental correlations' at least.
Seems an unnecessarily complex way to talk about linguistic frameworks(conceptual schemes, taxonomies, etc.).
To say that a definition of a term is not theoretical but rather operational is simply to say that it is chosen to be put to use despite the fact that it is not universally applicable. It's a pragmatic move to get things going...
On my view, there are things that exist, in their entirety prior to our awareness of them. There are no examples of any usage regarding any sense of "belief" including the ones being put forth here that do not consist entirely in/of mental correlations.
All mental correlation attributes meaning by virtue of drawing a connection; association; and/or correlation between that which becomes sign/symbol and that which becomes signified/symbolized. This basic description serves as an accurate outline of each and every case of anything meaningful, including but not limited to all terminological usage.
So...
Linguistics is quite useful for lots of things... setting out itself isn't one of them. It consists entirely of thought and belief about meaningful language(s).
Ah, I see. It is clear to me now why my account could be troublesome for you.
An agent in the sense I'm using the term here is simply a creature that is capable of attributing meaning by virtue of drawing mental correlations between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or itself. The scarequotes are intentional, for as you say believing can be of non-sensory 'objects'. These, however are more complex beliefs and I'm aiming at the more rudimentary for those are the only ones that could possibly be formed by a non-linguistic agent.
It would be worth mentioning here that on my view concepts are existentially dependent upon language. No language, no concept of any kind whatsoever. However, some of our concepts aim to, point towards, and/or take an account of that which exists in it's entirety prior to our becoming aware of them.
So...
The concepts "belief", "imagination", "thought", "meaning", and "truth" all consist entirely of mental correlations... all concepts do. The correlations are facilitated by language use, and language use greatly expands the complexity of an agent's mental 'faculty'...
So, I'll leave it here for now. We're pretty far apart.
I find it odd when someone claims that something isn't helpful when it has the strongest justifcatory ground possible combined with explanatory power that is otherwise unmatched by any of the notions that are combined within and/or exhausted by this purportedly 'unhelpful' one...
Does it then make sense to say that ultimately all knowledge is predicated on a belief in the physical universe. Therefore knowledge requires belief?
(As for the label - 'physicalism' is a slightly updated term for 'materialism'. A dedicated physicalist I used to know used the expression 'matter-energy-space-time' (M-E-S-T) as being the descriptor of everything there is; Carl Sagan used to say in a similar vein that 'cosmos is all there is'. But perhaps the reason 'physicalism' has displaced 'materialism' as a label, is because matter itself seems a lot less solid than it used to - after all atoms are nearly all empty space - and also Einstein's discovery of matter-energy equivalence expressed in his famous equation e=mc[sup]2[/sup]. So perhaps 'physicalism' seems to reflect these developments more accurately than the rather older 'materialism', although they're pretty well the same.)
As far as religious belief is concerned - that is obviously the belief in some form of unseen order, or being, or laws, of a different kind to those understood by purely physical means. But on that topic, I would encourage a read of this OP by religious studies scholar Karen Armstrong, whom I think identifies something problematical about the way 'belief' is generally understood in the modern world.
It harks to what is state-able, and works from the long held view that all belief content is propositional. That vein of thought, however, can lead one astray when s/he begins to attempt to put a non-linguistic creatures belief into words/propositions. I mean, clearly an animal who does not speak English cannot have an attitude towards a proposition written in English. If we attempt to claim that the creature has a belief, and belief is a relation between the creature and a proposition, then we are saying that the creature has a relation to something that it doesn't understand. If it doesn't understand the proposition, then the only relation between it and the proposition is one that we draw. That would be meaningful to us, not the creature. It makes no sense to claim that a creature has a belief if that belief is not meaningful to the creature...
Still, it makes perfect sense to talk about belief in propositional terms, especially when it is the case that someone is claiming knowledge. That is the background for all this...
With that in mind, if my account is to have any 'bite', I must be able to frame all the different kinds of belief in terms of correlation... quite the task seeing how it hasn't ever been done to my knowledge...
...just a note here Jeep. That is not actually true. The 'empty' space is filled by the electron cloud, according to quantum mechanics. The electron is everywhere it can possibly be... all at once. The physical model is mostly empty space because it cannot represent this. There's a name for this. I can't recall off the top of my head. Superposition of states... maybe???
From here.
I could most certainly be trusting my memory of another who was wrong. I do not have a source, nor do I feel compelled to dispute it. I'll go with what you've offered.
:up:
Thanks!
But we keep repeating this discussion. It seems that you will not move away from the notion of a belief as a thing in a mind. But for me that view makes no sense. What counts is not a thing in Jack's minds, but what he does: meowing and staring at the bowl and following me around and so on, which all stops when I fill the bowl. These actions are not mental tables and chairs; they are Jack's interactions with the world.
So does Jack have a mind?
If not, really?
If so, what is it for?
Interesting that Moore's paradox is in the first person.
"John believes the world is flat, but the world is not flat" is not paradoxical - John is just wrong.
"John believes both that the world is flat and that the world is not flat" - that's a clear contradiction.
The perforative paradox comes about only when expressed in the first person.
State 1 - I believe my cat is hungry, yet I do nothing to show it.
State 2 - I believe my cat is hungry, so I feed her.
State 3 - I do not believe my cat is hungry, so I do not feed her.
State 4 - I do not believe my cat is hungry, but I feed her anyway.
In what States do I truly believe my cat hungry? I say 1 and 2. Do you say 2 and 4?
As usual, your responses are an insult to all Riesling. :razz:
Quoting Banno
Again, you thus need to provide a theory of what makes for a point of view.
So does Jack have a mind? Curious how you avoid answering.
Quoting Banno
Clarify. My question called for a yes or no.
My bolding.
Hmm. That's not at all a loaded question.
1 & 2.
Now what?
So it seems you accept that there is at least a para-linguistic translation going on here. There is something communicable between two states of mind.
If Jack is smart like my cat, he would also stand expectantly at the door to the garage, or scratch on my office door to get some attention.
It is not so unrieslingable to consider that states of mind or points of view are in play.
And thus any theory of truth needs to include a model of the “self” said to be the subject of a belief. Naive realism does not suffice.
I agree that there are beliefs that are existentially dependent upon language, viz., beliefs that are linguistic (statements/propositions). Thus, if I say, "The Earth has one moon," by definition that is a statement of belief. I think we all agree with you on this.
Quoting creativesoul
I also agree that what's leads us astray is that we are using language to talk about the beliefs on non-linguistic animals, including pre-linguistic man. However, I'm not sure what you mean by "...having a belief that is not meaningful to the creature," i.e., maybe you mean in terms of language, it's not meaningful to the creature?
You seem to be saying what I was saying a while back, i.e., that people seem to be confusing beliefs, the linguistic expression of beliefs, with an act that shows the belief apart from language. There is no way for these creatures to understand the belief as we understand the belief, since the belief as we are expressing them are necessarily linguistic. They have no concept called belief. So part of the problem is that our talk of these beliefs is a necessary function of language, which in turn leads to the assumption that the belief itself, as shown in the animal/human, is a necessary function of language. It is a necessary function of language if we are to express beliefs using language, but that doesn't mean that an act cannot show a belief apart from a linguistic understanding.
Another way to think of this, is when we talk about the Earth having one moon, we can only do this in language, i.e., the concept has an instance in reality. So the concept has a referent (i.e., the object Earth) quite apart from the concept and the linguistic use. In the same way, there is a referent to the word belief, viz., particular actions that an animal expresses in life. We see these same actions (a kind of referent) in us, i.e., in our daily actions. I open the door, shows the belief that a door is there, regardless of any expression of the belief in language. So the action is the referent, granted, it is different from the referent Earth, but it's still part of reality as something that is instantiated. Thus, these acts are referred to in language by the concept belief/s. Just as we use the concept Earth to refer to the object. Maybe this helps, not sure.
But this is not a very good argument; there may well be other things that would explain the oddities of belief.
Something else that needs exposition is the dynamics of belief. Beliefs are in a state of flux. They change over time, merge with each other, divide, become more or less distinct.
That's a great deal of similarity to the beetle in the box.
I'm increasingly convinced that beliefs are a folk-psychological back-construct; that they are an invention that serves, however poorly, our attempts to explain what we do; but which does not correspond to anything real.
Yes - that's right. I agree, so long as we note that giving a linguistic expression to a belief is also an act that shows the belief.
Quoting Sam26
Again, yes.
The recursive capacity of language allows us to derive very complex sentences, and hence more complex beliefs. Jack can believe that i will feed him, not that I will feed him next Thursday.
Yes; the link between justification and belief is unwieldy. The philosophical brush and pan will not help us much here. And the issue applies as much outside the sciences as within. Basically folk can believe whatever they like. Our task has to be working out what it is that we ought believe.
THat's the other direction I might try to lead this thread.
The mental reality is of course often much vaguer or more indeterminate than the words called forth to account for it.
That just is a consequence of the human mind being composed of two levels of semiosis - the neural and the linguistic. Language imposes it’s more definite structure on the inherently less definite neurological goings on.
So a belief described to another in words takes the form of some overly concrete set of reasons.
And that linguistic sharpening shows here in your own post. You - due to linguistic habit - reject vagueness as an option. It has to be a case of either/or. Hence if you can’t believe that our words describe some actual mental object, the only dialectical possibility is that there are no mental objects in any sense.
Yet ambiguity is part of the whole business, as we know. In practice, we have the art to navigate the gap and talk about our beliefs as if they were communicable objects while also retaining their individually experienced ineffability.
So you are imposing a false dichotomy on the situation. We regularly navigate the difficulties involved in using language to sharpen cognition. Our actual thinking copes well with ambiguity of reference.
I'm not going to agree to this.
Firstly, it does not follow from the fact that we use a given word, that there is a something to which the word refers. For example, "red".
Secondly, there is the issue of the link between a belief and an action. Beliefs do not happen on their own, and given a suitable set of auxiliary beliefs, any action can be made compatible with any belief. (@Hanover's point?)
I understand that not all words refer to objects, but some words are used in this very way. Think of how we teach certain words to children. We teach some words by ostensive definition, but not all words, as Wittgenstein pointed out, but he never denied that some words are used in this way. In fact, Wittgenstein very first example of a language-game at the beginning of the PI reflects the fact that some words have a direct correlation between the concept and an object.
I don't see the connection between your second point and my comments.
:monkey:
Behaviors are in a state of flux and change over time and become ambiguous and whatnot. But just like beliefs, at any specific time, they are not in flux, but are a specific something.Quoting Banno
Let's work off that thought experiment because I'm not sure it means to me what it means to you. I would concede you cannot know what my pain is or what any internal state of my consciousness actually is. It is the hidden beetle in the box. All we can talk about it is what we talk about. You cannot know my beliefs by looking into my head, and while I can see my beetle and talk all about it, and you can talk about your beetle and talk all about it, the beetle itself is irrelevant to our discussion because we've conceded the inability to see one another's actual beetles.
The crux of my argument is that irrelevance does not equate to non-existence. For the purposes of our discussion, should I agree entirely that it helps us none to talk among each other about belief in terms of it providing you any explanatory power, that hardly means I don't have a mental state called a belief that I can know intimately because I have the ability to see into my box.
It's like any sort of behavioristic theory. Skinner says psychology will never be a real science unless it limits itself to the study of the measurable and quantifiable. Your depression will therefore be measured in terms of the behaviors you engage in, including your own declarations of sadness. However, none of that is to suggest your depression is at all your sad behaviors, but it's simply to declare irrelevant for psychological study that depression is an ineffable, unlocatable phenomenal state hovering around somewhere in your mind. That is to say, it is irrelevant to the psychologist that he cannot identify your qualia, but that doesn't mean his true aim is anything less than altering that qualitative state. The psychologist is limited to seeing you in the third person and he must treat you that way, but his aim is to correct your first person account of yourself.
Maybe a philosopher (of a certain bent perhaps) finds talk of internal beliefs wasteful talk about beetles that advance the discussion no where. That hardly means I don't have beliefs entirely without language.
There is a critical difference between saying the actual beetle is irrelevant to us and that it is irrelevant to me. There is an even more critical difference between saying the actual beetle is irrelevant and the actual beetle does not exist.
Not every word has an objective referent, but every meaningful word has a subjective referent, namely its subjective meaning. The subjective referent oftentimes preexists the word, and I'd suppose often occurs without a word ever being designated to attach to that referent.
My point is that they have no concepts because concepts are a necessary feature of language. What is a concept apart from language? I have no idea what that would be.
Quoting Hanover
I'm making a distinction between concepts and beliefs, in the sense that beliefs can be shown in our actions apart from language, but concepts not. It's clear to me that animals have understanding apart from language, but what that entails I don't know. I think this brings up the question, "What is consciousness apart from language?" What does it entail? I definitely don't know the answer to this question.
"Jack believes his bowl is empty" is a report of Jack's belief.
We've returned to this discussion repeatedly. I've shown several issues with the account your offering. You've directly addressed none of those. I'm also unsure why it is that you keep insisting that I'm arguing for a notion of "belief" that is a thing in the mind. That isn't true. The nuance is left out in the cold. The nuance is where understanding is found.
Can you—or anyone else for that matter—find any difference between the semantics of “a maintained trust that [such and such is the case]” and “a belief that [such and such is the case]”?
If yes, I so far haven’t, and would like to hear about it.
If no, then do you still feel the same about “a maintained trust that” (given that it means the same thing as “belief that”)?
I'm not convinced, and neither should you be. However believable such an account might appear, to believe it would obviously be self-defeating. That ought to bring to a halt your increase, or at least make clear its futility.
What is a concept other than an abstract idea? I can only speak for myself, but I do arrive at concepts prior to articulating them into language. Couldn't I know nothing of baseball, but be able to derive the concepts of the game from the behavior even though I at no time create an inner dialog explaining to myself those concepts?Quoting Sam26
I guess I don't fully follow the distinction. The pre-lingual man leaves food for his prey to entice him near his arrow. Is that not an understanding of the concept of hunger?
The way I think of concepts is in relation to words, but you seem to want to say that concepts are much broader in scope. How do we normally use the word concept? I think there is an understanding apart from language, we see this in the behavior of animals and pre-linguistic man, but I'm not sure that that is in relation to concepts. Maybe the difference has to do with concepts verses being conceptual, there is a difference. I'm not sure Hanover. Moreover, what's the difference between understanding something and conceptualizing something? I haven't clearly thought through some of this, but it's interesting.
The other problem I see in this thread and in other threads, is the idea that we can come up with some clear cut definition that's going to explain all of this. There are a variety of uses of the word belief, but there is not going to be some definitive definition that's going to straighten this issue out. All I want to say is that I believe the word believe is wider is scope than what we express in language, that's my only point.
If so, what?
If not, then our talk is all there is to concepts.
Normally it means an idea - particularly an abstract idea or an idea that is a mental picture of a set of relations.
For example, a "right angle" is a concept. Giving it a name, and even that name a definition, doesn't seem to be enough. You would need go draw it, measure it, experience it in enough contexts, to really get the idea involved.
Now pigeons can be taught to recognise the concept of right angles. They can indicate which of two images is of a more "right angled world".
And certainly in cognitive psychology, a concept or schema is understood as the abstract or general structure that we impose to create organisation in our states of impression. It is standard linguistic practice within the relevant science to think that animals are conceptual in that fashion.
I suspect you have some idea as to what that might be.
Quoting Banno
That's as absurd as saying that our concepts are all there is to talk. These are two distinct, albeit related, things. They cannot reasonably be reduced in this kind of way.
I tried to be clear at the outgo that the purpose of this thread is to investigate belief; I agree with you that we will not come up wiht a clear cut definition. Perhaps we will come up with a better understanding.
You didn't get the clue? Our use in language is an expression which represents the referent, which, for sake of argument, we can assume is a concept or an idea. It's not the referent itself. If you examine language, then that's what you'll find, whereas if you examine understanding, then you might find an idea.
I think it's likely that animal minds are capable of similar activity and directed mind-states to humans in a lot of respects.
Animals typically have much reduced episodic memory capabilities when compared to humans, so it is likely that an animal's 'self concept' isn't sufficiently stable across time to coagulate experiences into an interwoven network of memories which involve them as an agent which has expressible beliefs. Put another way, cognitive heuristics and methods of thinking in animals are more limited.
Humans also learn a much broader variety of cognitive heuristics and exploratory tools than most animals - things like representational heuristics of quantitative aspects of phenomena which I'll reference if anyone actually cares. There's also the capacity to allow a representative to stand in for an object or abstract object/memory in general, the manifestation of a semiotic freedom @apokrisis usually brings up. This latter capacity, along with the reality of animal cognition and substantial family resemblances between the flesh of our forms of life and theirs' vouchsafe the possibility for sense in this endeavour.
Animals can learn complicated tasks; dealing with chains of events and experiment with causes. If animal belief is seen as something close to a category error, there is still the problem of providing an analytic framework that gives animals a sufficiently rich and temporally extended mode of being for complex problem solving and experimentation with an environment.
A start of this approach is the idea of ecological affordances, in which the functions of familiar aspects of the environment are habitually endowed to them through an interplay of memory and exploratory tools; this occurs largely involuntarily when functioning in its usual way, and is part of our perceptual post-processing too (and can also be trained in humans, will give examples if anyone cares).
That there is a discourse about animal ability to do this, and forms of life studying animal cognition should serve as a Wittgensteinian demonstration that such practices need not be thrown away with the supposedly disavowed ladder - conspicuous in its absence but here behaving as if it was always-already discarded, and not simply chosen to be as such.
With Banno I agree that no language, no concept. Think of a concept as a container. The container is akin to a name/identity. The conceptual understanding is everything falling under that name/identity. As before, our concepts point towards something, so they're abstract understanding. I would argue against any notion of anything close to that when/where there has been and/or is no language.
The difficulty, it seems, is in our parsing all this out with language. I still strongly believe that there is a common thread underwriting all of this talk of ours.
When we attempt to figure out what non-linguistic thought and belief is, we must put it into words. That is our report/account of it. Our reports are not equivalent to what we're reporting upon. That is true of our own belief as well.
Earlier Sam mentioned confusion between our linguistic representation(reports) and what we're reporting upon. If we are to make progress in the endeavor of properly and accurately taking account of non-linguistic thought and/or belief, we must first know it's content, and the necessary and sufficient conditions for it's emergence onto the world stage. I think that fdrake is leaning that way...
The beast would have the belief even if we didn't report upon it. However, the statement/proposition wouldn't be there. It only follows that either there are non-linguistic propositions/statements or non-linguistic beasts do not have what it takes for belief.
Neither is acceptable. That account is found wanting, lacking, begging for truth...
They know nothing of right angles.
They make an association, draw a correlation, make a connection between their own behaviour and what happens afterwards...
Cuckoo. :eyes:
That's like saying "no juicer, no fruit". A juicer is a tool that is used to express fruit juice, just as language is a tool that is used to express concepts.
Quoting creativesoul
You're making no sense. A concept can't be both a name and an abstract understanding, and the one is not like the other in notable respects. Make your mind up.
The proper distinction is between a concept and its expression in language. You appear to be confusing the two.
Concepts precede language. Therefore it's not true that there has never been the one without the other.
Quoting creativesoul
Ah, so I'm neither the only one, nor the first one, to raise the issue. You seem to be suffering from this very confusion.
I agree with this Creative. So it appears that you agree with the idea (extrapolating from what you stated) that we can observe beliefs in animals and in pre-linguuistic man, and even in our own actions on a daily basis. This is what I believe Wittgenstein was saying in some of my early quotes, i.e., we can show our beliefs in our actions apart from language. Language is just another medium of expression, and I'm here equating expression as being twofold, in that it also includes one's actions apart from language.
I think you first have to show that concepts even partially reduce to language use (before you ask what else?)
:up:
They know what they look like in a general enough fashion to agree with us about particular instances.
Their behaviour demonstrates a concept. And an ambiguous scene will test the degree of their belief.
Yep. And for those pushing a tight identification of thought/belief :) with the human-only power of grammatical speech, that question usually leads to the argument that there is a further hidden level of mentalese - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_of_thought_hypothesis
But the alternative - some kind of Hebbian or Behaviourist associationism - has its own serious problems. The "nonlinguistic" part of your searching for words has to have some flavour of a Hebbian network competition. And that we would have completely in common with animals.
Yet neither extreme could get it right all on its own. Hence why a semiotic approach is needed which can marry the two halves of the puzzle.
I'm deeply sympathetic to this view, Banno. I'm not sure though that I'd want to say beliefs are not real, or that concepts aren't real. They're just not, you know, objects. I think they're more in the space of habits or rules, the sort of thing Ryle leaned on with all his talk of dispositions.
If you like, you can say that I believed the chair I was about to sit in would not disappear, and that as I sit here typing I continue to believe it. I've been believing it all day. There's just no call for saying this. It's an explanation in search of a problem, but otherwise not different in kind from belief ascriptions that do serve a purpose.
[Edited, left out "no".]
If there is no semantic difference between a maintained trust that and a belief that then, as per common experience, trust precedes linguistic expression. Much as Bonno hates the topic of perception, trust, for example, is inherent to all perception—trust that what we seem to smell, taste, hear, touch, and (the ever so popular) see is as we perceive it to be. If you see a red cup, you believe that there is a red cup you see. No language is required for this; indeed, to require that instances of language precedes all such instances of belief would be to push the limits of credibility, imo.
Our pets maintain trust that we are not out to kill them as would their natural predators or adversaries—a more complex, conceptual trust than that inherent to perception. (This being an example I find glaring, though numerous other examples can also be argued.) In measure to their degree of intellect, animals can become surprised or bewildered—these being reactions to when that which is trusted to be is not as one trusted it to be.
Acknowledgedly, defining belief in terms of maintained trust (again, both in terms of “that” and not in terms of “in”) then pushes the philosophical question further back into what trust is. Though in my view not the easiest of topics to tackle, I take it that no one would argue that trust, as linguistic concept, has no ontically present referent within cognition. Nevertheless, so defining does evidence that beliefs (and if beliefs are thoughts, then thoughts as well) are not necessarily contingent upon language … as others here have also mentioned.
And again, if you disagree with belief-that being nothing more, and nothing less, than a maintained trust-that, be direct about your reasons for disagreement.
"Trust that ..." sounds pretty close to "expectation that ..." I think this is all to the good, Javra. Fits comfortably with my ridiculous chair that I continually trust will not disappear whilst I sit upon it. I think this is the right place to look for belief.
Hey, thank you for the feedback. Yea, that belief is a form of trust has been my working hypothesis for a while now, and I can’t so far find anything wrong with it.
To stir up the waters a bit on this issue of trust: Yes, to trust-that is to hold some form of expectation, I agree. Interesting to me is that expectations also seem intimately related to forethought, at least in more intelligent animals. While trust and forethought don’t to me appear to be synonymous (rather, forethought appears to me to occur with a foundation of multiple beliefs (improperly stated, "trusts")), putting my behavioral evolution hat on, I could maintain an argument that something from which our trust and expectation descends can also be found in some pre-linguistic form in at least some unicellular organisms; for example, in trusting/expecting that that is prey and not predator, or vice versa.
This ties into a more philosophically biological approach to trust/belief that I’m also working with as a hypothesis: some trust is genetically inherited in our behavioral phenotype (perceptual trust would be one example), some is acquired via experience (i.e., learned), and some is enactive (as in actively choosing to trust/believe this rather than that … which can subsequently become learned and, eventually, habitual).
Still curious, though, to see if there something I’m mistaking in the “a maintained trust that” – “belief that” equivalency. For example, this understanding of belief doesn’t seem to sit well with Ancient Greek notions of belief … but not knowing my Ancient Greek, I haven’t yet discerned what might be missing, this when it comes to terms such as “dogma” (a stubbornly held belief/trust?).
But in terms of this thread, yes, I too uphold that beliefs can be non-linguistic.
How do you tell that someone has understood that concept?
"Ah, sure, he uses a proper lift on heavy objects, keeping his back straight; and he asks for help when things are too heavy for him. And he uses the word properly. But does he understand the concept?"
Yes, because there is nothing more to understanding the concept than using a proper lift on heavy objects, keeping your back straight; asking for help when things are too heavy. And using the word properly.
"No, Banno - there is in addition an irreducible, invisible thing-in-the-mind had by those who understand 'heavy' - the concept of heavy."
And when you and I both understand "heavy", we have the same concept in our minds? Is there one concept, shared, or is there one concept each?
And if there is one concept that we all share, what sort of thing could it be?
But if we have one concept each, how can it be the same concept? How is "heavy" for me the same as "heavy" for you?
You forgot to mention the "irreducible, invisible thing-in-the-mind" which is a sense of things being surprising or unsurprising in relation to "heaviness" revealing behaviour.
If someone is asked to lift a fake weight, will they show they had a belief in terms of a state of trust not being maintained? (As @javra very astutely points out.) And if the weight is as heavy as it naively looks from experience, will there instead be a sense that things are just how they were conceived?
Why the question mark? :smile:
Yea, that's how I've been thinking about it so far.
No it isn't.
Grasping the concept is the concept? Somebody isn't using the word "concept" correctly.
Quoting Banno
A student told Socrates, "I can't imagine what the moon might be other than a giant ball of cheese. Therefore, it is a giant ball of cheese." Socrates is said to have claimed that it was the best argument he had ever heard.
There needs to be a fair amount of proper quantification/qualification in these... our accounts. Some belief is prior to language. Some not. Some trust is prior to language. Some not.
It all depends upon the content. That is, it all depends upon what, exactly, the agent in question is drawing correlations, connections, and/or associations between.
Banno...
If you think that my notion of belief is some thing in the mind, you've gotten me wrong. The mind is necessary but terribly insufficient. The content of thought and belief(mind) is neither objective nor subjective, external nor internal, mind nor body....
It is all of these things, either as necessary preconditions or actual content...
Only if one falls for false analogies...
A better one would be no fruit, no fruit juice...
Whether or not I am making sense is determined by the framework I'm using, not yours.
Name a concept that is prior to language. I would say that unless all concepts are prior to language, your assertion needs to be properly quantified/qualified.
Fairness. That's a concept. Justice, yet another. Love, yet one more. Much like belief and thought and all sorts of other names, some of them point towards that which exists in it's entirety prior to our discovery/awareness of it. Causality is one such thing.
Appearances can be deceiving.
Some of our conceptual understanding is of that which exists in it's entirety prior to our awareness of it. Causality. Physiological sensory perception. Meaning(some). The presupposition of truth. Thought and belief(some)... etc.
I'm telling you that I comprehend concepts nonlinguistically, so it's sort of silly for you to tell me I'm not, don't you think?
If I told you there were no computers, should it matter to me that you report to me you're using a computer?
If the content of belief is propositional, then the content of non-linguistic creatures belief is meaningless to them. That is also assuming that propositions are prior to language. They must be if belief content is propositional and non-linguistic creatures have belief. At any rate, such a position finds itself in quite a jam, for it claims that non-linguistic creature's belief content is meaningless to the creature or that propositional content is prior to language...
We agree here. The difficulty is parsing out what exactly is the content of the belief. It must be something meaningful to the believer. No doubt about that. None whatsoever. Jack's belief must be meaningful to Jack.
I don't think that I would agree with this bit. Referents are about one 'kind' of meaning. While all thought and belief must be meaningful to the believer(otherwise how does it possibly count as such), I'm not too keen upon referents being prior to language.
Name them, and we can parse this out...
My position doesn't require mentalese...
Yes. It doesn't seem to require or involve an explanation in any form.
lol You don't like referent, and I don't like the phrase "meaningful to the believer." It's interesting, at points I think there is agreement, then someone will spell in more detail what they mean, and I'm again confused about what their talking about.
All I'm going to say is there are beliefs that refer to actions apart from statements/propositions, and leave it at that.
Sam, I am fairly certain that you and I agree upon much.
I'm having trouble understanding why you don't like the phrase "meaningful to the believer"...
The believer is the creature who we are claiming believes something or other. I think it seems to be basic common sense that whatever we claim that that creature believes, the belief itself belongs to the creature, and we are simply reporting upon it. Thus, if we are correct, then what we set out as the creatures belief ought be something that is meaningful to that creature.
This is not to say that our discourse can be. However, our discourse must set out something that can, lest we're just pissin in the wind...
We're wrong.
The content of non-linguistic belief cannot be propositional.
I agree.
All beliefs are meaningful to the one who has them, but I don't see how this adds anything to the discussion.
Imagination is prior to language.
That's a big "if"...
The point I'm attempting to make here, with you, is that some things that we call "concepts" are prior to language. Others not.
Do you agree?
If so, then not all concepts are prior to language.
Well, that's what the conventional historical notion of belief claims... that the content of belief is propositional. That's also what the conventional historical notion of JTB calls for as well...
Well Sam...
Given that Witty worked from the conventional notion of JTB, and that notion claims that the content of belief is propositional, then what I've been arguing ought add some understanding with regard to that...
In the bigger picture, one in which we're all attempting to take proper account of non-linguistic thought and belief, it would seem to me to be of vital importance to understand what that kind of belief consists in/of.
So, by my lights, it adds quite a bit...
In short, it helps us to set the bounds; help determine what can and cannot be said with regard to what Jack believes...
Ask a relevant question, and as always... I'm more than happy to bear any burden. Aside from that, I'm not interested in your typical rhetorical drivel. I cannot possibly compete with you in that regard, nor do I want any practice...
You avoid talking about mind like the plague... and yet began a topic in the forum section dedicated to philosophy of mind... funny that.
A playful one you are.
Not without good reason. I don't consider fairness, justice, love or casualty to be examples of concepts that were dependent on language to arise. If you do, then please explain why. The first three require thought and feeling, and the fourth requires thought. Your additional posit of language requires justification, and the burden is on you.
And there's historical precedent going against that, cf. the British Empiricists.
I don't think it's accurate to say that W. worked from the conventional notion of JTB. He examined the notion of knowing using a variety of language-games, and not all of them can be neatly fit into JTB, some can, but some not. I use JTB because it generally works.
Well no. I have no burden in this thread regarding that. It's not about the differences between our notion of "concepts". It's about belief. If you want to say that it is a concept that does not require language, then we agree in part at least. Some belief requires language, some not.
I'll take your word for this Sam.
I'm not aiming at Witt. There's many a book about and/or of his writing that I have in my possession but have yet to have taken the time to study.
Do you agree that we need to determine as precisely as possible what non-linguistic belief contains and/or consists of; the content?
For my purposes I don't see the need. This discussion, if I remember correctly, started in my thread on epistemology, and one of my points was that there are beliefs that are pre-linguistic. I was trying to establish that there are beliefs that are basic or foundational and outside the need for justification.
Ha, funny. It was your point, so if it lacks relevance, then you know who to blame. Although it actually precedes you and leads back to Banno. I'm not going to trace it any further back than that. Not sure how it ended up being about concepts.
Yes, we agree that at least some - if not all - belief does not require language.
Quoting Banno
It has been suggested that animal and other non-linguistic beliefs are a falsification of this suggestion. The argument is that non-linguistic creatures can have beliefs and yet cannot express these beliefs as propositions, and that hence beliefs cannot be propositional attitudes.
But that is a misreading of what is going on here. Any belief, including that of creatures that cannot speak, can be placed in the form of a propositional attitude, but those who can speak. A cat, for example, can believe that its bowl is empty, but cannot put that belief in the form B(a,p).
Beliefs are used to explain actions. Further, such explanations are causal and sufficient. So if we have appropriate desires and a beliefs we can explain an action.
So, given that John is hungry, and that John believes eating a sandwich will remove his hunger, we have a sufficient causal explanation for why John ate the sandwich.
One may act in ways that are contrary to one's beliefs. A dissident may comply in order to protect herself and her family.
So given that John is hungry, and has a sandwich at hand, it does not follow that John will eat the sandwich.
But I did not say that. And I failed to follow your comments about the moon.
The argument is that the belief of a non-linguistic creature must be meaningful to the creature. "The bowl is empty" is not meaningful to Jack, it's meaningful to us. You are conflating your report of Jack's belief with Jack's belief.
It's all about the content of belief. If there is such a thing as non-linguistic belief, then at it's core, it must be the same as linguistic belief, otherwise why call it belief?
That content cannot be propositional, for non-linguistic creatures do not have language and propositions require language.
All propositions consist of correlations.
Any belief, including the beliefs of creatures that do not have the capacity for language, can be placed in the form of a relation between an individual and a proposition, by a creature with the capacity for language.
How then can you claim to know what you're saying about it?
OK. We have agreement.
Yes. We can report upon non-linguistic creature's belief.
Rubbish. This whole thread is about mind.
Make an argument for it. I could easily make one against it. "The bowl is empty" is a statement in English. Jack doesn't know English. Therefore...
Good. My apologies.
What does Jack's mind consist of? Ah, nevermind. Belief is adequate. Nevermind "mind"...
This seemed to go unaddressed, so I will continue my line of thought.
If we follow Wittgenstein's injunction to look to the use rather than the meaning, the dilemma I set up here dissipates.
You and I both use the word "heavy"; The concept, so far as there is one, is not one thing in your head and another thing in my head, but our shared use of the word.
Conceiving of a concept as an item in one;s mind, or a pattern in the firing of one's neurones, or in any other way that makes it a thing inside the head, is ill-conceived.
If concepts are to be anything, they must be shared.
And that means that what we thought was in our heads, isn't.
Quoting Sam26
Quoting creativesoul
For me it's simple, and not as complicated as most people are making it. We see the actions of animals and humans, and based on these actions we can reasonably infer that they have beliefs apart from statements/propositions. When we communicate these beliefs with one another we use language, but beliefs aren't necessarily dependent on language. Beliefs are only dependent upon language if we want to communicate that belief.
Another way to put it is the following: Pain behavior is not dependent on language, but our talk of pain behavior is. Pain can be observed apart from language, and so can beliefs, both are shown in the acts of both humans and animals.
So to answer your question, "How can I claim to know...?" - I can claim to know based on observation. I don't need to know every aspect of what a belief consists of to draw this conclusion. If you want to be more precise about it that's fine, but just remember that it's not necessary to have a precise definition to be able to talk about these concepts, we do it all the time. The word belief spans a wide array of language-games, so precision, although important, may escape you.
I agree Banno.
Uhum … (strictly propositional) beliefs explain but do not (always) determine actions
A person might act in ways contradictory to their propositional and abstract beliefs if she holds vying and less abstract beliefs that doing so is to her benefit … otherwise her behaviors would be ontically random (?).
To hold a motive upon which one acts is to hold a belief-that upon which one acts, even if this belief is non-propositional, i.e. not linguistically experienced at the time held. So too with choices made; e.g. choosing A rather than B given motive X.
Doubt this will get a reply … but, just in case, please be so kind as to explain why the just stated is incorrect in your reply. Generally speaking …
Quoting Banno
I fully grant there being interpersonally shared concepts. What of those non-interpersonal concepts experienced and sometimes newly gained via dreams?
You are correct, any concept, which by necessity is based on a language, and the shared rules of that language, is social in nature. This social nature necessitates that the concepts are not some phantasm based in the head, but live and breathe in the social nature of language.
I don't think you're denying that nothing is going on in the head, only that when it comes to language, it's not dependent on what's going in the head. Is that correct?
Dependent...
I'm increasingly inclined to think of mind as the interaction between brain and world. It depends on what goes on in the head, but occurs in both head and world.
This is wrong.
The meaning of a word - so far as there can be such a thing - cannot be its "subjective referent" - whatever that might be - because you and I can mean the very same thing with the same word; that would imply that the subjective referent in your head was the very same subjective referent as in my head, thus contradicting the very idea of it being subjective.
The notion that the meaning of a word is a piece of mind-furniture is incoherent.
What's that, then?
A belief that cannot be placed in the canonical form B(a,p)?
Or just an unstated belief?
Obviously describing what a non-propostional belief is via linguistic concepts could not evidence such belief being possible, since it would be here linguistic in all cases. So we need to point our fingers at examples, so to speak.
My example was that of motives, such as in our motives for partaking of this forum, or this discussion, or for the words we use to express ourselves. Not all these motives are propositional at the moments first held and acted upon ... though most if not all can be expressed to varying degrees of accuracy after the fact.
Animals, for example, have motives in what they do.
B(a,p) can, to my mind, of course be used to express all non-propositional beliefs--just as you've previously mentioned. But this is conditional on our suppositions of what an animal's beliefs, for example, are being in fact true; i.e. correlating to the actual non-propositional belief of the animal.
As to "unstated beliefs" I find it possible that some beliefs might not be state-able, at least not in mean that comprehensively express the belief in total. I'm preferential to beliefs concerning the aesthetics of artistic works. A less fuzzy example might well be people's belief of what "God" entails (regardless of whether they are religious or atheistic).
Give us an example... :wink:
An unstatable belief could not be used to effectively explain an action. "Why did you do it?" is not answered by hand-waving.
But I am not claiming that nothing is going on in people's brains. Some people, anyway.
But I'm not clear on where you stand. Do you disagree with motives being beliefs-that?
... been procrastinating on doing, well, what I've got to do. Will get back eventually if replied to.
That doesn't work. One might be inspired by art to believe this or that; the this or that is expressible, especially if you want it to lead to revolution.
What is a motive? A desire, or a belief in a way to bring about that desire? Or both?
No, it would imply that it's likely we both are referencing a similar subjective impression of a beetle when we said "beetle," but we couldn't be sure.
I can't be sure your utterance of "beetle" is heard the same for me as you. It too is a beetle. Language is only assumed public.
:up:
So, it seems that the only significant difference between our views is the importance being placed upon what belief consists of...
How to choose between the equally valid explanations?
What is the relation between Jack and "The food bowl is empty"?
Are you saying that the relation is Jack's belief?
(Saw creativesoul's post just recently; all the same:) I didn’t use the word “expression” but “state-able”, i.e. being expressible via language. Communication/expression is not limited to language. Lesser animals communicate/express things to themselves all the time, both intra-species and inter-species (as in a pet cat’s meowing a human for its lunch).
I by definition take art—even linguistic art such as poetry and to a lesser extent literature—to express things otherwise not expressible via language (via ordinary language when it comes to language based art)—thereby making what art expresses non-propositional at root, but only partially expressible via language subsequent to its non-propositional expressions having been picked up on. A picture tells a thousand words, but those thousand words will not perfectly depict the picture.
That that perspective aside, I’ve already acknowledged that the topic of aesthetics is a fuzzy example. One person’s aesthetics is another person’s urinal—and the first most often finds it impossible to express the aesthetics to the second.
Why pick on an easy target and not address the issue of belief concerning what God is? The word is meaningful even to an atheist—though maybe not ever to two atheists/theist in exactly the same way. Yet the concept as belief causes actions.
Quoting Banno
Without heading into philosophy of mind/self issues, a motive is tmk defined as “a reason for sentient behavior”. If one holds motive X one will trust/believe that X is beneficial to obtain or else realize—thereby (teleologically, I'd argue) causing one’s actions of obtaining or else realizing X.
A desire can most commonly be defined as a drive that holds a motive—and, thereby, a belief-that some X is beneficial—for its impetus. Otherwise, the desire is enactive, i.e. is one with (perfectly unified with) who one momentarily is … “I am desiring to whistle,” rather than something along the lines of, “I feel tempted to whistle (this later instance being an inward drive one feels in some way, akin to how one would physiologically feel an object, rather than a drive which one momentarily is actively being). [Yes, a contentious proposition, but again, I’ll shy away from philosophy of mind/self. Still, you asked, and this is my best current reply.]
That said: Do you disagree with motives being beliefs-that?
If yes, give your own understanding of what a motive is ... such that it does not consist of believing that some given is beneficial to obtain or realize.
But hey, if you don’t want to interact by not overlooking significant portions of what I post, no gripe on my part. We can just leave it here.
Quoting Hanover
Care to reconcile this?
All communication IS language.
WTF???
Try expressing this to all the research that goes into non-verbal communication, ya know, facial expressions and the like. Whistling down the wind.
What's that got to do with all behavior being communicative to any other being that has a even a remote similarity of behaviors?
Since when is language limited to only verbal?
Whistle a true tune...
So a person's smile, a dog's growl, and a snakes rattle are all linguistic? Some might disagree, such as those who uphold that language is properly speaking the conveyance of words, be these auditory, tactile, written, or via sign-language ... So next question: what is language?
Quoting Hanover
Knowing is not equivalent to interpreting.
(palm to the face emoticon) Got it. Wasn't being sarcastic, though. I really did like the post's contents; "thumbs up". :smile:
... I'm off the the night.
You agree that understanding a concept is not what we mean by "concept." I misunderstood then.
In regard to beliefs, think of the statement: The slug believes it's better to be in the shade.
I think most people wouldn't take this statement seriously. If you agree we should stick to ordinary language use, how do you handle this statement?
I'm asking about how you distinguish a conscious being capable of belief from one that doesn't have that capacity.
Forget about meaning and look to use. Understanding a concept is being able to use it.
I've said all I thing is interesting here - a thermostat does not have beliefs, an adult does; there is a gradation of cases in which we would attribute belief. Slugs are up to you.
We do not need to have a clear cut off; a gradation will suffice.
At the least, we ought strive for consistency. One's beliefs ought not be contradictory.
I completely agree with this.
We weren't talking about meaning. Note:
Quoting Banno
This is ontological talk. Then you go on to lay out the issue Frege addressed. Why not accept his approach?
Quoting Banno
Gradation would conflict with ordinary language use, wouldn't it? Who speaks of slight belief or mostly but not completely? I think it's either/or. Am I right in thinking you're leaving it up to ordinary language use to sort out this fairly significant question regarding belief? And if so, how far does that go? Are you willing to diverge from ordinary use in any way?
If contradictory belief gets you a million bucks, you should definitely embrace it whole-heartedly.
Quoting Hanover
I gather that you, Sam, would agree with me that this is at best muddled. If we followed Hanover here and agreed that the meaning of our words is a subjective item of some sort, we would have no basis for claiming that you, I and Hanover meant the same thing, as Hanover says. But if we reject private meanings - that's what subjective referents would be - then there is no problem in seeing that the use of a word is fluid, and depends on what we are doing with that word.
Hanover might see beliefs as things in the head that we can reference. But you and I see them as tools used in producing explanations, and various other activities.
How is that?
OVer here is not over there. But we do not need a sharp line drawn at an exact point in order to know this.
We should look to use when we're talking about the meaning of speech or writing (although it's easy to show that there can be meaning without any actual use). What does that have to do with the ontology of concepts (which is the issue you raised)? If you're not interested in pursuing that, that's fine.
Quoting Banno
It is?
How?
This is like pulling teeth.
The problem, and it's something that Wittgenstein only dealt with on the periphery, is that we know that something is going on in the mind/brain, i.e., we have conscious awareness. However, this has to be separated from how language (concepts, words, statements, etc.) are learned. The learning of a language is a social thing, and it follows that the rules of grammar, etc., are also social. I learn pain behavior by using it correctly within a linguistic setting. I don't learn pain behavior from my own pains, or by somehow pointing to some internal thing that is associated with the pain. This is hard for some people to grasp, and it has to do with several of Wittgenstein's ideas, viz., the problem of a private language, and the idea of rule-following and making a mistake.
To tackle the problem and the confusions that result is a monumental task, unraveling linguistic confusions is not easy to do. Even if you explain it, which I've done many times, people will not see it; and even those of us who claim to have insight are subject to the same problems. We are also subject to taking some of Wittgenstein's ideas and carrying them too far.
There's only so much you can say Banno, which is why I tend to disengage with some people. What happens is that you end up just repeating yourself over and over. It's not personal, it's just sometimes a waste of time.
:up:
This isn't as precise as I would like it to be, viz., the phrase "...it's not dependent on what's going on in the head." This may be where Banno and I disagree, I'm not sure. There is a sense where language is dependent on minds, i.e., without minds/brains there would be no language. This however, has to be separated from the mistaken idea that language points to something internal, or that the concepts, words, and statements, are internal. So there is a dependence on the internal nature of one's mind/brain to get the ball rolling, but once language starts to roll it's nature is almost entirely social.
A little reflection reveals that concepts (think math) have to be something more than mental objects.
And to your comment that language is learned socially, do you disagree with Chomsky's view on that?
Quoting Sam26
I'm tempted to say that while the brain might be in the head, the mind isn't - at least not entirely.
In a way that is an (extreme?) outcome of Wittgenstein's view.
1. When I pushed that pawn, I was kicking myself because I knew I had to move my king first.
2. When I pushed that pawn, I was thinking you had to capture. Totally missed that check in-between.
3. When I pushed that pawn, I was thinking about that girl I saw at the bookstore today.
In chess, there's a strong sense in which these are all the same move and the differences are only a matter of curiosity. Interesting maybe, but irrelevant to the game itself. I lose in every case.
Is talking like this? How much or how little like this?
I don't understand your points here. Banno, one or two sentences aren't going to explain these ideas. :nerd:
Indeed; but that's all there is. They are as yet only half-composed, hinted at and ill-defended. THis thread is a doing, not an expounding, of philosophy. :smile:
Of course we'd have a basis for claiming that we were using the words to refer to the same things. I'd see that when I saw a beetle run by, you would say, "hey, there goes a beetle." I would infer that your phenomenal impression was just as mine was based upon your behavior. And you needn't say "hey, there goes a beetle." Maybe you'd scream, flinch, or whatever. I would draw a conclusion as to what your internal mental impression was based upon your behavior, linguistic or otherwise. As to the question of whether my phenomenal impression of the beetle was similar to yours, I could not know that for sure, but that is simply the inherent limitation of a first person account - it can't be placed into the second person. My guess is that you see beetle as I do, simply because we're all humans of similar structure and we seem to similar reactions to the beetle.Quoting BannoI see a belief as a thing in my head I can reference, yet you see it as a tool that you can use. So, that thing you call a belief you reference is a tool. I presume you acknowledge the belief is in your head. It's not on the table, right? So, this means that you see a belief as a thing in your head that you can reference and you call this thing a tool. I'm not sure what the distinction is you wish to make, except you wish to call beliefs tools.
We both see the beetle.
We do not both see your mental furniture.
We both have phenomenal states. I experience mine, you yours. How the beetle looks without reference to how it looks to someone is incoherent.
Suppose that your belief changes over time, but that you do not notice.
It what sense can your belief be said to be the very same, over time? It ceases to have any individuality.
Funny thing is, ofttimes when we both look at the same thing, we agree as to the details.
It's the privacy of your imagined "phenomenal states" that leads you astray here.
And suppose this empirical declaration is wrong? This really isn't philosophy anymore. It's just a strange claim about how people learn. I do in fact know that you're in pain when your behavior is consistent with my own, and it all happens outside a linguistic setting.
Is the phenomenal state the belief itself? When you see the beetle scuttle under the porch, is your belief that he's there identical to your phenomenal state of imagining the beetle there in the dark?
Suppose the paint on your house fades over time yet you do not notice? In what sense can the paint be said to be the very same over time?
My belief is a phenomenal state I suppose. Believing there's a beetle under the porch differs from seeing the beetle.
This is the question. A belief is truth apt. It's a proposition. What sort of thing is a proposition? We don't know that anymore than we know what matter fundamentally is. It can't be a mental object though.
Hmmm.
That's introspection, surely. Doesn't your belief that you live in the great state of Georgia persist when you happen not to be thinking about it?
It exists in a different sense when I am thinking about than when I'm not, but to the extent the same data and rationality exists over time that causes me to believe I live in Georgia, I continue to have that same belief in some sense even when I'm not actually presently experiencing that belief.
I'm not following this at all.
It drops out of the discussion; and in so doing, drops out of any rational discourse. It is irrelevant.
Ok, I'll try again.
I'm currently thinking about my belief that I live in the state of Georgia. We'll call this Phenomenal State 1.
I'm sitting around eating popcorn and watching cartoons, not thinking about where I live. We'll call this Phenomenal State 2.
Do I believe that I live in Georgia while in State 2? Sure, I guess, only because I have the same reasons to believe it when I'm thinking about it even when I'm not, but State 1 is different from State 2.
SO you accept a reality external to your phenomenal experience. Not all hope is lost, then.
Sure, you can go back and compare your current house to some old paint samples you kept in your basement to see if it faded, unless of course the samples faded too, much like my memory might have faded. We should have kept better care of our measuring sticks I suppose, but I very well might be convinced that all our measuring sticks had been altered if they were inconsistent with how I remembered them to be. Quoting Banno
What drops out and what's irrelevant?
I've not argued idealism. I've just insisted there are phenomenal states, a claim you seem to deny.
Even if you're not thinking about those reasons? And is holding a belief the same as having reasons for holding it? Are you still talking about the belief existing in different senses, some phenomenal some not?
If I never had the present moment phenomenal state (State 1), then I could never be said to have believed that I lived in Georgia. It is required that at some point I have held the belief to say that I currently hold the belief. To say I have the belief now even when not thinking about it is simply to claim I previously held the belief and haven't changed my mind. And it's doubtful I'll change my mind if I have no basis.
The term "subjective" adds nothing but unnecessary confusion. All interpretation is such. We can get it wrong. That tells us something important.
What are we interpreting? That which is already meaningful.
So, what are you saying here anyway?
What does interpretation have to do with non-linguistic belief? There are different explanations. These are all based upon interpretation. Interpretation is the attribution of meaning. If we correctly attribute meaning, the explanation is true. If we mis-attribute meaning, the explanation is not.
So what?
How do we further discriminate between competing explanations of non-linguistic creatures' belief?
I posit that a good place to start would be to examine how we do it with competing explanations of other peoples' belief. The problem, of course, is that we cannot expect Jack to correct us if we get it wrong, whereas some people are quite capable of letting us know when we get their belief wrong...
Well said Sam. But I fear you've missed the importance of it all.
Sure, we can observe non-linguistic creatures and infer that they hold belief. If that wets your whistle enough, far be it for me to suggest otherwise.
But that is just plain utterly inadequate for any in depth discourse about that belief.
Do not confuse yourself.
When one communicates, it is done intentionally. It requires shared meaning. Shared meaning is language.
All communication requires shared meaning.
All shared meaning is language.
All communication requires language.
What part are you both denying and prepared to validly argue against? More importantly, what does this have to do with belief?
I'm going to indulge in labeling for once and call this empiricism. Would you be cool with that?
What puzzles me a little though is that you want to call those foundational phenomenal experiences beliefs. How do you see the connection between sense experience and belief?
So then belief is not a phenomenal state.
A taste...
All examples of belief consist, in part at least, of sense perception(physiological sensory perception).
Not all examples of sense perception include belief.
Sense perception is not existentially dependent upon belief.
Belief is existentially dependent upon sense perception.
Sense perception is a necessary elemental constituent of all belief.
Witt says "Look!".
In looking we draw one connection(a block). In hearing the word "block" spoken aloud, yet another.
It's not that difficult for one to draw a mental correlation between the two.
My cat does the same thing with certain sounds of certain plastics and getting treats.
When animals express themselves—such as a rattlesnake’s rattle—they do so without intention? If someone answers yes, a large bias is showing—if only in terms of the evolution of the CNS/brain and its associated behaviors. I’ll leave the philosophy of mind component out of this. But I’d be interested to hear of the argument for animals behaving unintentionally, if there is one that doesn’t by its own standards then equally apply to other humans.
The bear to which the rattlesnake rattles does not share the meaning of what the rattle signifies with the snake? Takes a philosopher to argue that there is no shared meaning between the two, typically via the argument of “if I cannot explain it in my own terms then it must not exist even though all empirical indications present it as so”. The bear would be dead otherwise—leading to only those animals being alive that can share the meaning with the snake. That stated, the bear can understand the snake's intentions just as well as the snake in this one regard, and the snake can understand the bear’s intention (to attack or to leave it alone) just as well as the bear. This is a shared meaning between species.
So we answer “no” to both these questions: animals behave intentionally and animals can share meaning across species via their behaviors. Given this:
Therefore, the rattlesnake’s rattle is linguistic???
Personally, I’m OK with all information (of which sentient beings are in any way informed) being conceived of as language in a very broad and poetic sense, as in the Ancient Greek concept of Heraclitian Logos, but even I acknowledge that so upholding is not in keeping with common standards.
Have a look at communication (exchanging information between entities; this definition coming right after that of things such as the communication of smallpox) and language (words and ways of combining them) ... granting that there is significant overlap in subsequent definitions, notably in definitions 4-8 of "language".
Quoting creativesoul
Well, I was replying to a “WTF???” comment made by you know who in relation to what I intended by the term “state-able”.
That being said, this issue of language and communication might well have significant implications on what propositions are. A dog’s and a cat’s moving of the tail hold different meanings (at minimum to dogs, to cats, and to humans); are their tail movements conveying different propositions held by each animal type when so moving their tails? Were the behaviors linguistic, the answer would seem to be a necessary "yes". Were the behaviors only communicational, it would remain an open-ended issue contingent on how one first defines propositions.
Poisoning the well as an opening doesn't warrant further consideration...
Throwing a bunch of shit against the wall makes a mess. Clean up your thought and get back to me with something short, sweet, valid, and true.
Notice all of the question marks in javra's reply to me above. Those aren't questions regarding what I've claimed. I am being reminded of Plato's 'dialogues'.
Notice as well that the argument wasn't addressed.
It's not inadequate, inadequate to whom? And what is inadequate here? You seem to want to get to the essence of the belief. Here's how I see what we're talking about: Let's again use Wittgenstein's example of a game. I'm looking at baseball, chess, patience, monopoly, children playing catch, etc., as examples of games, which is the same as looking at people and animals doing a variety of things apart from language that are examples of beliefs. One can say, but there's much more to the game than these examples, the intentions of people, the correlations being made, the poor gamesmanship, the coach, but, I don't need to know all of this to properly use the word game. It seems to me that you are over-analyzing the word as if you're trying to find some precise definition that gives the word belief some final meaning, or some meaning that is special to your idea of belief. It doesn't exist. You also seem to be making the mistake that Wittgenstein said was one of the cardinal problems of philosophical analysis (viz., definitions and theories), i.e., that there is some final analysis that explains these concepts, but that's like looking at a family and thinking that there's some final analysis that will explain the many family resemblances there are between family members.
So your response that my use of the word belief is inadequate as I use it to say this or that example IS an example of a belief, is like saying that the word game is inadequate as I use it to say this or that IS an example of a game. Moreover, even your use of the word inadequate is improper. All you're saying is that it's inadequate to you. Can I use the word chair, without completely analyzing what the chair is composed of, or what examples of things we sit on are really examples of chairs? And how is the statement "That's a chair," as simplistic in it's use as it is, inadequate? It's not. The same is true of my contentions about beliefs.
As Wittgenstein pointed out in PI 66, "And the result of this examination is: we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail." And in PI 67, "But if someone wished to say: 'There is something common to all these constructions - I should reply: Now you are only playing with words. One might as well say: 'Something runs through the whole thread - namely the continuous overlapping of those fibers'.
I don't think Hanover meant his mental states can't in principle be communicated. It's hard to argue that there can be belief without some accompanying mental state. Its the object of belief: the proposition that is the same across believers, not the experience of believing.
I wouldn't deny that there is mental activity going on in all language users, what I would deny is that how we use words in language, and the associated rules of use, is done in the open (socially); and there is nothing in your head, i.e., any mental activity that's going to give the word it's meaning other than how we use it in different statements. Correct usage is not mental, but linguistic, so as you express what's going on in your mind, it's governed by the correct usage of words within a rule governed activity.
Think of playing a game of chess, you think about the moves in your head, but what governs those moves (brings them into the open) is not some internal mental activity, but the rules of chess as it's played with others. What's going on in the head is governed by rules so that we can share our private mental activity. Without language, and the rules of use, you wouldn't be able to share your thoughts. So language has a use quite separate from what's going on in the mind/brain, there is nothing in the head, that gives meaning to the words you use. You simply use language to get the mental activity out in the open.
A bit wordy, but I think you get the idea.
The this portion is a proposition. A proposition contains that special verb [i]to be[/I].
What we have is logical or honorific actions that are no doubt bounded by linguistic rules, but are not strictly linguistic objects.
Maybe i can say that more clearly later.
Your attempt here is to catagorize qualia, and I'm just resistent to it because it's not how the internal state works. I don't just experience a bird as a single raw image, devoid of beliefs, ideas, anxiety about work, hunger from not having breakfast, etc. A phenomenal qualitative state is an entire experience presenting however it does. It's my internal state at a given time.
I'm not sure what your background is, but when philosophers use the term proposition, they're referring to a particular kind of statement, viz., one that can be said to be true or false. You seem to be using this term differently.
A proposition is a statement (unless we're operating with Austin's altered wording). The same statement can be expressed by multiple sentences and diverse utterances, demonstating that a statement is not identical to any particular sentence or utterance. Its something else.
In PI 304 Wittgenstein replies to the following: "But you will surely admit that there is a difference between pain-behaviour accompanied by pain and pain-behaviour without any pain" - Admit it? What greater difference could there be? "And yet you again and again reach the conclusion that the sensation itself is nothing." Here is Wittgenstein's response that I think is important - he continues with..."Not at all. It is not a something, but not a nothing either! The conclusion was only that a nothing would serve just as well as a something about which nothing could be said. We have only rejected the grammar which tries to force itself on us here.
"The paradox disappears only if we make a radical break with the idea that language always functions in one way, always serves the same purpose to convey thoughts - which may be about houses, pains, good and evil, or anything else you please."
Note that Wittgenstein does not deny the mental goings on, but denies how our grammar forces us to think about the mental goings on, in the same way as thinking the word chair applies to the object we are pointing at. It's not the same, but the grammar fools us into thinking it is.
A command: Stand there!
A question: What is that?
These are statements, but not propositions.
Just a note: Questions aren't statements or propositions. This was an error.
But here you're agreeing with me, so either you've shifted or we've talked past each other. A claim of irrelevance simply claims that the issue is unimportant for your purposes. If you're trying to figure out what words mean to someone other than yourself, you are necessarily limited to observing how they are used, considering we all concede that you aren't capable of reading the internal workings of my mind. This is just a basic behavioristic claim, claiming that you cannot bother with reading minds, but none of this is suggestive that the phenomenal state is not what gives rise to my behavior and that my beliefs are not mental furniture, as you say.
It seems you're saying (and I might be reinterpreting you to make you comport to my views, so please do correct me if I'm misstating) all that you know of my belief is what you see, so you wish to label that "belief" for your purposes, and the fact that I know my belief to encompass far more than what you see and what you've labeled is irrelevant to you because there's nothing you can do with what you're unable to see.
And so what have we now? I have this internal belief with all its uncommunicated elements that I shall call X and you have these observations of my beliefs you shall call Y, and yet we both run in circles calling them both "beliefs"? I can only say that X <> Y, that X causes Y, and that Y is a limited and very rough estimate of X. But to the extent your linguistic science must disregard as irrelevant that which cannot be publically seen and measured, fine.
I can have all the phenomenal states I like, and you can measure all the events you like.
"'But you surely cannot deny that, for example, in remembering, an inner process takes place.' - What gives the impression that we want to deny anything [important point]? When one says 'Still, an inner process does take place here' - one want to go on: 'After all, you see it.' And it is this inner process that one means by the word 'remembering'. - The impression that we wanted to deny something arises from our setting our faces against the picture of the 'inner process'. What we deny is that the picture of the inner process gives us the correct idea of the use of the word "to remember". We say that this picture with its ramifications stands in the way of our seeing the use of the word as it is (PI 305).'"
So the point again is not that there is no inner process, is that the use of words are not objects in the mind. As Banno likes to say, "They're not mental furniture."
Also keep in mind the Tractatus, which associated words with things or objects, and here Wittgenstein is showing us that it's not the case, especially in reference to the mental.
You just have to make sure you know how the words are being used. I think the closer you get to the roots of AP the more "statement" is used in a mathematical way.
Were you concerned about the way I was using "proposition"?
Yes, that's another way to word it.
Quoting frank
Ya, this seemed inaccurate to me.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but no, a command is not a statement under this definition of "statement." The IEP did not provide alterative wording to what you said, it directly conflicts. As I said, you have to pay attention to what a particular author means by "statement."
For reasons related to an attitude you recently expressed, I'd like you to acknowledge that.
Quoting Sam26
I was trying to express something about propositions as they relate to belief. You can have various verbs in an eternal sentence, but the fact that it's declarative seems to me to draw in the issue of existence.
Sure, but here you're not saying the phenomenal state is the belief, or that having a certain belief means being in or having been in a certain phenomenal state.
Taking a step back here: phenomenal states are complex and fleeting; beliefs on the other hand can be simple and persistent. They don't look like the same sort of thing, do they? It's one thing to say that our phenomenal experience is generally accompanied by beliefs, but quite another to say our beliefs are those experiences.
A belief is an experience and I suppose there are differing sorts of experiences. Me seeing the computer screen before me is one, but it is accompanied by all sorts of beliefs, some not even articulated but just as much a part of the present experience as anything else. If attempting to replicate this exact phenomenal state I'm having this exact second in five years from now, I would need to be sure that my current worldview, opinions, and beliefs were duplicated without change in five years so that my experience at T-1 and T-1 plus five years was the same.
I'm just not following the need to create categories within the phenomenal state, with some being more vivid and others more vague, others being fleeting and others being constant. I could say the same of physical objects: smoke floats off into the sky and the rock of Gibraltar doesn't. They don't seem like the same sort of thing, and I guess they're not at a superficial level, but metaphysically they are both physical objects.
Is it? Where's the argument for this?
When you're done eating popcorn the experience is over, but the belief that you were eating popcorn persists indefinitely. Recalling that you were eating popcorn is also an experience, but not the same as eating popcorn, and neither is the belief that you were eating popcorn.
The process of acquiring a belief may be an experience, or it may be something you can have an experience of, but really the differences between beliefs and experiences are so numerous, I can't imagine why you you'd think beliefs are experiences (rather than, say, like a good empiricist, thinking they have their origin in experience) except that you think they are both mental somethings.
Your experience is a single event, tied together by all sorts of things, like sensations, beliefs, emotions, and it occurs all at once. Let us suppose a Vietnam war vet and a 12 year old child who knows nothing of the war watched a movie glorifying the war, do you suppose their experience of the movie would be at all the same during any frame of the movie? The background, education, beliefs, emotions, ideologies (or lack thereof) will have a profound effect on every moment of the experience. My point is that all those things are part of the unity of the indivisible experience.
You then ask what about the permanency of the belief because it continues to exist even when unexperienced. That is simply a question of memory in that we store sensations, emotions, beliefs and everything else in our memory and we can bring them up when we need them, but is the smell I remember of a rose not an experience because it sits in my memory bank waiting to be thought about?
So what is this public state but the belief that the private state is sufficiently shared?
Is there a public state unless you have phenomenology in play? It you talk to the wall, is that a conversation? If you talk to the cat, is that some kind of conversation? If you talk to yourself, is that not a kind of public act too?
So the I or the we doesn’t fall out of the picture. The whole point of the deal is this tricky relation between what you call the private and the public.
Our beliefs, in part, shape our experience. Sure. Why do you think that's the same thing as saying beliefs are experiences, or are an aspect of experience?
My height, in part, shapes my experience. But my height is a physical fact about me. I experience being the height that I am, sure, but that doesn't make my height just an aspect of my phenomenal mental life.
A question is not a statement.
And now I want to ask the further question, after that conversation is done: How much of the belief is found in real situation one finds oneself in, and how much is mentation?
See Sam. We use grammar in a way that seems to point to mental furniture; but that is an artifice of our grammar.
Could you state your question again? :rofl:
Wat?
Quoting Sam26
You would have been correct in that case, but 1) that was in no way in contention, and 2) this explanation conflicts with what you actually wrote:
Quoting Sam26
You also suggested that the IEP's definition was just different wording, leading me to wonder if you even know what truth-aptness is. None of this is at all advanced. For someone who has immersed themselves in Witt, it should be second nature to speak about the philosophical issues he was addressing and to also make quick work of the criticisms (occasionally devastating) of his views.
None of this would be a concern to me if it weren't for your history of raising the smug quotient on this forum. Just say it. You were wrong.
Tink, baby, tink...
Huh. So you can't distinguish anything from anything else, there's just the endless unified flow of Hanover's experience. Nothing special about beliefs-- they're part of your stream of consciousness like everything else, like me, and rocks.
Bored now. If I had known this is where we were headed, I wouldn't have bothered.
Of course they will be. They will be seeing the same images. That's rather the point of the thought experiment you set up.
But further, they can talk about the film. They can share their reactions.
If your argument is founded on the pretence that they share nothing, it fails.
I genuinely can't tell if you're laughing at the incongruity of the wording, due to bad grammar, or whether you actually think that it's a counterexample, which it's not.
I didn't ask a question, so I can't ask it again. But I could restate my statement.
Our beliefs change over time.
How do we tell?
I actually asked a friend: should I be a dick? My friend said considering the story, absolutely. So I did. If I invited bad karma by doing that, well, I'm a dick. Not like it really makes much difference.
Your statement was a questioning of Sam's statement....
No, it wasn't a questioning. I simply corrected him.
Yes, yes, the wording was wrong. I often make mistakes. I've made plenty of them, believe me. Besides I love raising the smug quotient it's fun, and just for you I'll continue.
Very questionable...
Congratulations, you want a star. :razz: If you look, I'm sure you can find others, I've been known to make others too.
Banno, didn't you say it was your job to be a dick?
Sam. You didn't mis-speak. Your wording wasn't wrong. You were wrong.
You backing down so easy?
That's great. What are they?
There's a super easy three word answer. What is it?
Was that a statement or a question? :lol:
Propositions are statements that can be true or false.
Try this: Propositions are usually considered to be the
Primary
Truth
Bearer
Beliefs were once in the running for the role of truth-bearer, but that's not widely accepted now. Why is that?
Ok. Honestly, I really don't care that you were wrong. It happens to most of us sooner or later. There was something you were sure about and: Damn! You were wrong. I would just rather you wouldn't moan about how uninformed people are on this forum and how sometimes you just have to abandon trying to explain anything to them.
I now officially pass my role of dick over to Banno.
BTW: the issue of why beliefs shouldn't be considered to be primary truth-bearers is pretty interesting.
Oh no, definitely not, and you're one of those who definitely fits that description. I'll continue moaning about people who think they know something, and act as though they do, when they clearly are ignorant. Especially if they want to press the point.
Now if you want to translate my confidence as arrogance, that's your choice. I stop talking to people when I can't make headway, or I'll take a break from the subject matter, or from them for a while. There are people on this forum that I've argued with for years. Some of them I can't even make sense of what they're saying. Moreover, they would never admit they're wrong.
I've made plenty of mistakes, with typos, and also I've misunderstood facts. Hell, even the greatest of philosophers have done that, and considering the fact that I'm not near their level, I should also expect to make mistakes, even grave ones.
How's that for moaning. :groan:
Back to front. We use the structure of language to constrain our phenomenological state so that it has “mental content”.
That is, the way to avoid the dualism of idealism vs realism is to recognise that language creates the self that has the point of view along with the mental furniture it now appears to be observing.
A relation that starts in an embodied or enactive fashion - out in the world as a habit of interpretance or behaviour - is internalised as a meta model of a self that is in interaction with the world.
The human mind comes to experience the world as a place with ourselves in it. The animal mind only experiences the world, with any selfhood as merely a running intentional context, not a further “mental object”.
So language use and truth telling rely on this semiotic displacement. There has to be a model of the modeller. We have to form a (social) concept of “our self” - the self whom experiences the observable facts - to be public creatures having private states.
That’s what’s funny about your naive realism here. It has to combine a naive realism about the mental furniture - pretending it doesn’t exist, the facts just are - with a naive realism about the self. You argue the self has to drop out of the picture because it is private, yet the self is the socially constructed bit, the necessary creation of the public discourse.
Check out symbolic interactionism or Vygotskian psychology. The pragmatist cleared all this up ages ago.
Access memory?
Please continue.
I'm beginning to think you are better at it than I. Sam made a mistake; move on.
I thought Banno made a mistake once, but--
No, wait, I told it wrong.
Suppose that our beliefs change over time. But we don't notice.
They share their observation of the film, but you're committed to the idea that a Vietnam vet's experience of watching a film reminding him of the horrors of the war is the same as a 12 year old child's?
Suppose our collective use of a term changes over time and we don't notice it to where we now mean dog when we used to mean cat and all our old books confuse us and we start trying to teach our cats to fetch. It'd be a crazy topsy turvy world. Hopefully someone would remember the mistake and beat it down our throat, like Frank.
This view is just a basic recitation of indirect realism, and it's correct. Making a claim about what truly exists outside of your interpretation is incoherent. My position was not that I could not distinguish between beliefs and visual impressions of objects, but only that they all formed part of the experience and were all just as much part of the phenomenal state, a claim you seem to be denying and are trying to put the mental objects of beliefs and visual impressions into different categories.Quoting Srap Tasmaner
If your time was important and you limited it to things that had some impact on your life, you wouldn't post in a philosophy forum, so get over yourself.
In my view, your view is a basic recitation of what we imagine the phenomenal experience of a newborn baby is like. But our cognitive life does not remain an undifferentiated blob of sensation. We experiment and learn and form beliefs, and we continue to experiment and learn and revise our beliefs.
How do you beat something down a person's throat? With a plunger? Wait, that would make them throw up.
Anyway, as I was saying before the plunger issue came up: why not analyze belief a little more? What kind of action is believing? And what is the object of belief?
This is not an unusual situation on the forum: we seem to disagree over whether we disagree.
We have the actual words you posted, and apparently need to distinguish my interpretation of those words from what you actually intended to communicate. Perhaps you misspoke, as Sam did. Grabbed the knight when you really meant to grab the bishop. Perhaps you didn't misspeak, but I misunderstood. Perhaps we even agree on the meaning of what you posted, but draw different conclusions from what we agree on, like the aging veteran and the 12-year-old.
I would proceed by making distinctions such as these and seeing what works. I took you to have said that I cannot, for instance, distinguish your actual words, your intended meaning, and my interpretation. Am I wrong about that? How do you think we should proceed?
A cognitive action, and depends what you mean by "object of belief".
Banno has brought up this problem:
You and I may believe the same thing, but my cognitive act of belief is not your cognitive act of belief.
Some people say that the thing we both believe is a proposition. For various reasons that scenario is suboptimal. What's the alternative?
The meaning, rather than the proposition. What we both believe can be expressed or represented with a proposition, but is not the proposition itself.
Might be some trouble there, because in some quarters "proposition" is the word for the meaning of a natural language declarative sentence. (That makes propositions into sort of equivalence classes, so you can say "the same thing" in different languages, or using different indexicals: you saying, in whatever language, [you're tall] to me means the same as when I say, in whatever language [I'm tall].)
But then propositions don't get to have meanings; they are meanings.
I think in a lot of ordinary speech, there are really two steps that get compressed in a propositional account, and which make the propositional account somewhat natural until you have to say what propositions are exactly.
People largely believe stuff about things; there's predication, and there's reference fixing. Rather than rushing to "I believe the x is F," it might be fruitful to pause at "I believe, with regard to x, that it is F."
Or maybe not.
Edit: "might" for "would"
Some people don't like "proposition" and they never use it.
There could be a case where somebody says a proposition is a statement that can be true or false. I'm not familiar with that.
As long as we all know what were talking about, we're fine.
No, I'm saying that if you look at how people talk about beliefs, there are often two distinct steps that are treated differently.
We're watching a basketball game, and I say, "Man, that kid's tall." You say, "Who, Jones? He's only like 6'4"." Then I point out Smith, and you say, "Oh, wow."
The fixing reference stage is treated as a separate issue from deciding whether he's really a member of the class I suggested. All of this shows up as one claim in the propositional account, and you get puzzles over non-referring singular terms, and so on, problems that rarely arise in everyday conversation.
I don't know if there's any point to this, but I think people have different expectations, follow different norms, etc., for the two different elements of a "proposition".
Quoting Sapientia
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
To further confuse the issues:
Someone says, “I’m feeling happily excited,” and this sentence has a proposition to it such that its underlying meaning can be true or false. My dog wags its tail at assuming I’m about to take him for a walk when I pick up his leash and thereby communicates to me that he is feeling happily excited; the dog’s tail wag is not propositional because of what reason?
Its meaning can be true or false. The more intelligent the animal the more capable it is of deception. While it’s rational to assume it is nearly always a communication of what the dog is truly feeling, with a sufficient amount of intelligence what is communicated could also be false. A human’s smile will illustrate this. And some dogs have been known to at least try to intentionally deceive—thereby holding a meta-awareness of what their behaviors convey … and with this, beliefs of what their behaviors impart in the understanding of the other.
(See for example: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2124087-dogs-use-deception-to-get-what-they-want-from-humans-a-sausage/)
More likely it is not propositional because the tail wag is not an underlying meaning to word-based concepts, I presume. But this would imply that propositions, while being the underlying meaning to word-based languages, are all the same contingent upon words. And prioritizing signs over their meaning to me doesn’t yet make sense; a sign that bares no meaning will be little more than white noise.
I’m among those who try to avoid the term “propositions” for reasons such as this, but then maybe a proper noncontradictory denotation for the term could be arrived at.
Of course not.
It seems it is eaither what we say and do with our beliefs, or it is nothing.
It is. It's two elements of the context.
?
Maybe I can make my point, if I have one, more clearly: maybe it's hard to figure out what someone is doing when they utter a statement that expresses a proposition because they're not doing one thing, they're doing two. That would make capturing the essence of the one thing they're supposedly doing a fool's errand.
Alright, everyone recognizes that propositions are articulated in this subject-predicate way, but consider that the rules and norms that govern establishing reference are quite different from the rules and norms that govern establishing class membership, and it begins to look more like two completely different activities rather than parts of one.
Still, I'm just speculating. Maybe there's nothing to it, or maybe this ground is already well-trodden...
I suppose the shared referent distiction is relevant for this analysis because it offers verification of consistent use over time whereas internal beliefs do not?
If I've got that right, I don't see where community usage is necessarily more reliable for consistency's sake than a single individual's recollection. In either case, we're relying upon memory, and if I've got the best memory in a community of fools, my memory of my private thoughts will exceed the collective memory of fools.
One might suspect that it's impossible to actually question that assumption because language speaks us, not the other way around, and that assumption is intrinsic to language. What I'm trying to express is that we may be stuck with the mind-boggling.
So it shouldn't be said casually that in a proposition the processes you mention have been completed (or that these processes select a proposition). It shouldn't be said as if we have any idea whatsoever what's actually going on. From our point of view it's magic.
Nevertheless, I think we're stuck with it. Or are we?
...and written material and video and so on. It's external, analysable. Unlike your private mentation.
Are you suggesting that there were no books in his time? Of course not. The point is the quite simple one that if something is shared we can check it, if it isn't, we can't. Despite your protestation, your reply look quite disingenuous.
Where does the distinction between what can be shared and what cannot be shared come from? Is there any way to tell if a thing can be shared other than sharing it?
A less than generous read of my post, but understandable based on my specific comments. Simply put, the shared, objective, publically analyzable data need not be of superior quality than the personal recollection of a single person. In many instances it will be, as in a video, but where no such data is available, we often turn to individual witnesses who are left with nothing but the contents of their minds to recite their recollections from. That information might be considered more reliable than the recollection of a group or various writings that might not fully be trusted.
In my example of dogs and cats, there is a public referent, but the meaning of that referent still rests within the private thoughts of individuals. It is for that reason that we could insist that cats fetch and dogs purr if our internal belief of such things changed. The public event doesn't fix anything, especially if it's not ongoing, as the case may be if we were separated from cats and dogs for a long while.
So they saw the same movie, but had different experiences, meaning they had distinctly different phenomenal states as the result of observing the same object. Whose phenomenal state best represented reality?
So the only way I can establish that I am sitting here is to ask someone else?
From my perspective, unraveling the confusion, my own as well, has to do with understanding the Philosophical Investigations. The problem is that sometimes what we share, say, communicate is senseless. What confuses us is the grammar of what's said, i.e., the grammar is similar to statements that do make sense. So I say, for example, "I understand what pain is, based on my own pain," i.e., by looking at something internal, or focusing on something internal, and we think we've said something meaningful. In terms of this thread, we might be tempted to think that to understand what a belief is, we need to examine the internal mechanism of belief, i.e., what's going on in the mind when we say, "I believe..."
These same issues arise in reference to consciousness, soul, time, thinking, etc. To get clear on these problems one needs to have a good understanding of how language works, i.e., how we learn language. There are many examples that Wittgenstein gives to try to clear up some of the muddle. First, it's important to understand some of his ideas in reference to having a private language. Second, Wittgenstein uses the beetle in the box to show how nonsensical it is to talk about meaning in reference to something private. Third, and this is connected to the idea of private language, viz., the logical connection of rule-following and making mistakes in a social linguistic context, as opposed to something private.
What's your criterion for what makes sense? Grammar? And what is it to be the object of belief? Must it be limited to what would render the sentence grammatical?
That's part of grammar, though.
Can you clarify what it is to be the object of belief? Is that just [i]what it is[/I] that's believed?
Exactly.
Quoting Sapientia
I'm not sure. The previous discussion seemed to center around paint.
What I would say, is that belief has to have an object just like knowledge always does. Knowledge is always of something. Belief is always in something. That something is not a physical object like a brick, or paint. At the same time, the object of belief is something people share. The situation tempts the philosopher to come up with some alternative to endorsing a non-physical sharable object like a flaming objective idealist.
But I think any alternative will collapse into behaviorism, which is actually worse. What's your perspective?
I'm a bit befuddled here Sam.
I find it quite problematic to look at every conception of the term belief as a means for 'understanding the concept'(scare-quoted intentionally). It's almost as if you're planting the seeds of equivocation. Sure, all the different uses need to be looked at in order to understand all the different accepted usages(sensible conceptions; language games; linguistic constructs; conceptual schemes).
If we look at every conception of the term, it makes no sense whatsoever to say that we understand 'the' concept(again, the scare-quotes are intentional). That's understanding each and every conception thereof. A good thing to strive for.
We then look at each conception in order to assess whether or not it's content is existentially dependent upon language, or not. Any notion which cannot take account of this cannot be trusted to take proper account of non-linguistic belief. Ought not.
Quoting Sapientia
I'll start from here, because it's easiest for me.
Whether or not a physical object can be the object of belief cannot be determined by saying that "I believe that brick," makes no sense. "I believe that brick," is ungrammatical and has no immediate meaning (though you might guess at any itended meaning depending on the context of the utterance). It's ungrammatical because the pattern is "I believe that [clause]", but here you have "I believe that [noun]". A noun doesn't always describe a physical object. ("I believe that justice," is equally meaningless.)
The usual phrasing when you make a single entity the object of believe is with "in": "I believe in bricks," or "I believe in a/the/this/some brick." These result in grammatical sentences. What remains is a question of meaning. What would I be saying, if I said "I believe in bricks?"
If you say something like "I believe in bricks," do you have to be able to analytically detail what it is that you believe in? If we take the definition of this thread of believe as a propositional attitude, "I believe in bricks," would be a blanket formulation that references but does not spell out a bundle of propositions. But do you have to be able to provide an exhaustive list, before you can be said to believe in "bricks"?
In my first post, I used the example "I believe that God exists," rather than "I believe in God," precisely to avoid this problem. But it's sort of important.
If you can believe in single entities without being able to detail an exhaustive list of implied propositions, what does this mean for the act of believing. Is "believing" this way the commitmental equivelant of blank checque?
Once again, the question is whether a proposition is a sentence, or a special type of meaning expressable in varying degrees of success by varying sentences. If it's the latter, you might well "believe that brick" (a non-native speaker, for example, or a very small child might not know better), but you'd be advised to actually come up with a better formulation. If a proposition is a sentence, rather than simply being expressed by one, "I believe that brick," is ungrammatical nonsense, and not a proposition at all.
This is also the tie-in with belief in non-human entities (from dogs to thermostats). If a proposition is not a sentence, but expressed by one, then maybe propositions can be expressed also by actions, or maybe even by mere behaviour.
And finally, there's a problem with treating a brick as merely a physical object. When you see a brick and recognise it as a brick, you activate knowledge about bricks you have. The knowledge about bricks that you have also prevents from seeing the brick as it is: brick-naively, so to say. What you see is always already an object-subject relation. This is especially the case with human artefacts, like bricks, which are made to purpose. Seeing a brick as a brick is not so different from understanding the meaning of a word, or not understanding the meaning of a word but recognising it as a word whose meaning you don't understand. So in that sense believing "that brick" could be affirming your learned world view, while centering your attention on a brick. Whether or not it's useful to stretch the term "belief" this far, again, is a question of what you're intending to do with the word. I could designate that sort of meaning to "I believe that brick," using an ungrammatical and thus unintutive phrasing to highlight an unintuitive concept.
If that's too long and confusing, my central point here is this: You can't just assume that a proposition is identical with its phrasing. Saying that a proposition has stable meaning, no matter how you formulate it, and saying that proposition is identical with its phrasing has different implications.
Physical objects are out there in the world and can be perceived by anyone (capable of perceiving physical objects), but you can only perceive them as a specific type of object (say, as a brick), if you have that type already in your mind. If you come to an object naively, you'll still have a world view, and your attempt to deal with an object will eventually create a type. As soon as we have a type, there's potential for calling that belief. I wouldn't, but it's not absurd.
That's correct. No one uses the way we speak as an argument for the way things are. I wasn't doing that. :)
I asked earlier what the alternative to the standard scheme might be with the standard scheme being that propositions are the objects of belief. I think the outcome of rejecting the standard scheme is behaviorism.
I wonder about this because I'm not sure whether you're making an epistemological claim about what you can believe in or whether you're just making a claim about English sentence structure and grammar. The sentence structure as it relates to a knowledge based claim (as you've submitted) would be "I know there are bricks" or something similar ("I know bricks exist), but I would think that in order for you to say you know something of bricks existing, you will necessarily have to use the existence verb "to be" or explicitly use the word "exists."
You really wouldn't say "I know bricks" in regular discourse. You'd say you know there are bricks. By the same token, you wouldn't say "I believe bricks," but you'd say "I believe there are bricks," which demands the same reliance on the "to be" verb as when speaking of knowledge.
Keep in mind too that English has largely abandoned the subjunctive mood, but the antiquated "I believe there be bricks" is correct because you change the "to be" verb when you're speaking about something that exists in a subjective capacity like beliefs, wishes, and the like (e.g. "I wish I were there," not "I wish I was there."). Anyway, as noted, this is turning into a grammar lesson as opposed to an epistemological or metaphysical one, but it is a well established notion in Western languages that statements of belief receive different grammatical treatment than indicative statements.
It's never occurred to me that philosophers who stated that propositions are the objects of belief were making metaphysical claims. It's really more along the lines of drawing out a schematic.
To believe is a verb that has to have a receiving object (something that receives the action of believing). That is a grammatical fact. I suppose we could try out the scenario that all we're really doing here is drawing schematics based on language use and we should refrain from imagining that our schematics thus drawn have anything to do with reality.
Let's just stop for a second and soak in the implications of that. Wow. Philosophy can close up shop and go home. Take up teaching kindergarten, maybe.
Maybe I could back up and just put it this way: there is a standard scenario. What is the alternative to it? And is that alternative not behaviorism or something equally science-fictiony?
Even though "believe" is a verb, it's not obvious to me that believing is an action. Say you believe that X. That looks to me more like a partial description of your mental state than a description of something you're mentally doing.
I suspect a belief is even more like a rule that guides your thought and behavior. If you believe Trump is a good man, among other things when asked if you think he's a good man, you'll answer "yes" (if speaking candidly). If you believe a knife is sharp, you'll handle it carefully, and so on.
Not an action, and not just behavior, but a way of thinking and acting.
A report is not equivalent to what's being reported upon. A belief is not equivalent to a report thereof. The above seems to neglect this.
Of course not.
If that is a rule which sets forth how to sensibly, correctly, and/or properly use the term "belief", then it is itself based upon an emaciated understanding of what belief is and/or how it is formed and held.
Belief is a yes. Works for me.
Good.
Focusing upon how we report upon our belief aims at the wrong target.
The word "slap" is a verb that has to have an object. If I say, "John slapped.", it's just assumed that he slapped something or somebody.
Belief is just such a verb. It just has to have an object. If we abandon this scenario, I think it would be necessary to stop using the word belief and make up a new word. Sneag. Let's discuss sneag.
If you say "John believed" then your report must have an object... John believed what? You state what you claim John believed.
Your report is not John's belief.
I'm not sure if there is agreement, given the fact that you do not always seem to believe what you write...
Have a wonderful day. Take a long look at my avatar before you take a walk in the sprung spring. :)
Given your belief that DJT is a good man, you might also vote for him, campaign for him, give him money, etc.
Btw, grammatical form isn't necessarily logical form. Classic example:
vs.
"Black" is a type of horse, in some sense, but "four" isn't.
If John had fleas, he flead something.
If John had bad hair, he bad haired something.
If John had apple pie, he apple pied something.
If John had smarts, he smarted something.
If John had belief, he has drawn correlation(s) between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or himself. We correctly report upon John's belief by virtue of setting out these meaningful connections...
But aren't those more the consequences of belief? How do you arrive at saying the consequences of the thing are the thing?
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Could you tell me why you're pointing this out? I'm afraid I'm getting a little lost.
Can I imagine belief without consequences? Try this:
John is an atheist who lives in a world where atheism is a lethal diagnosis if it's discovered. He lives out his life throwing himself into the role of believer so thoroughly, that even he occasionally forgets that he believes there is no God.
Were there consequences of John's belief?
What about during language acquisition?
The student must first believe that something is there prior to believing that it is(called) a brick, and then(called) a red one at that.
Two words: Noam Chomsky.
You'll have to do better than that.
Sorry-- you suggested an analogy between believing and slapping. I think there is only a surface, grammatical similarity there.
Quoting frank
I don't have a full-blown theory to offer, but I think this is the right stuff to look at.
When you walk down the sidewalk in a big city, you're behaving as if the buildings you walk by won't fall on you, as if the cars you walk by won't explode, and so on. We could you say you behave as if you hold such beliefs. Do you? If asked, you might assent. Would we say such beliefs cause you to walk down the sidewalk, or even that they are reasons for doing so? Doesn't sound quite right. And yet attributing such beliefs to you makes sense. And if you did not hold beliefs such as these, would you behave the way you do?
There is a certain rooster which I throw rocks towards. I do not aim to hit him, and haven't yet. I intend to keep him from bullying another younger rooster whom I'm more fond of. That younger one eats out of my hand. The older rooster remembers having rocks thrown at him. In fact, most times anymore, I need not even actually throw one. The movement itself is enough.
A person can believe without believing anything in particular? ?
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
So answer this: John was an atheist, but there never was any behavior that followed from that. Would you say it's unreasonable to say that John actually was an atheist due to the lack of behavioral consequence?
That's just plain false.
He acted otherwise.
This is similar to many an account of belief being expressed here in this thread.
To believe that this or that will not happen, one must first believe that it could, and then decide that it won't...
A cat walks down the same street as one who was in New York City on 9/11. It doesn't make sense to say that both the cat and the person believe that the buildings won't be the target of an airliner. They both display the same behaviour...
It's all about the content.
The same holds true of my cat and the bird that it just lost...
Belief that something is there is rudimentary. It is unquestioned trust in physiological sensory perception. Correlation presupposes the existence of it's own content, no matter how that is later qualified(imaginary, real, or otherwise)...
Oh I see no reason not to include what he thinks. There may be no outward behavior, if that's what you mean, but I wouldn't demand that. You can keep a belief secret.
OK. Imagine that Tom is also an atheist. Like John, he keeps it secret. We'd say Tom and John believe the same thing. Should we think of this as merely a figure of speech? Is there really anything Tom and John hold in common?
Of course there is something they have in common; it's pretty obvious.. There are certain ideas they both don't accept.
Sounds kind of Platonic. Is it?
I think so much wrongness flows from this view that meaning pre-exists as "content". You have the image in mind of a semantic load that has a definite existence in its own right and simply has to be shovelled into a convenient syntactic container.
The container is an a-causal structure. It simply holds the meaning for you and so becomes an arbitrary or contingent part of the equation. It doesn't affect the meaning it transports from one place, or one mind, to another.
The container might have its inadequacies. It might be leaky, too small, inconvenient in shape to handle. A word like "cat" would seem to spill over in messy fashion if we tried to shovel every possible sense of what we could mean by cat into its little box shape. But still, "catness" would be treated as something quite definite and pre-existence.
So it wouldn't be the semantics that is in question as a putative content, just whether we had a big enough syntactic box to hold enough of what we could intend to mean in some speech act or propositional statement.
But I argue for a very different (yes, Peircean) conception of the relation between semantics and syntax.
Syntax acts as a constraint on semantics. So there is no definite pre-existing content. Semantically, there is just unlimited potential meanings. Beliefs start with unbounded ambiguity, vagueness or indeterminacy. It is all just undefined possibility. The laws of thought do not yet apply.
And then syntax is what shapes up this semantic potential into something more rationally structured and definite. The box is there to stamp an organisation on whatever gets poured into it. Or rather, what gets poured into it is our radical uncertainty, and we have to decide how well it seems to fit the structure suggested. There is a further part of the story where we have to decide whether the fit is good enough to serve our purposes - and so any fine grain ill-fit becomes a difference that doesn't make a difference ... to us.
So these are two different mental pictures of what goes on. You are pushing the semantic content story, the mental object story. Words describe ideas. There is this semantic stuff floating about in the shadows of our mind in a definite pre-existent fashion. We just need to shove it in the right boxes so we make it syntactically expressible.
Alternatively, you can fail to solve the same problem with Banno's behaviourism. Our behaviour becomes the physical substitute for the mental objects. Behaviour seems nicely public and definite. That makes it suitable for treatment as a pre-existent semantic content to shovel into syntactic boxes.
But a constraints-based view of things starts with unbounded semantics. Anything could mean anything. There is just noise, no signal.
And then habits of interpretance or organisation can develop to produce a robust system of a mind in a pragmatic semiotic relation with a world. The blooming, buzzing confusion can become structured so that it a useful and regularised view.
Propositional strength statements then become an end of the line type deal.
Taking this relation to its extreme, you get the kind of universal syntax that would reduce the blooming, buzzing confusion to its theoretical minimum. The words would force the possible meanings into the most logically water-tight, or computationally constrained, formulas. They would wind up having the simplest kinds of properties - the counterfactual possibilities like being true or false, right or wrong.
So beliefs are all about a sharpening up - the imposition of syntactic limits on semantic possibility. A belief is an active reduction on our potential uncertainty. It draws the line on where - for now - we have decided to cease to doubt.
And to make that work, you have to include the pragmatist's principle of indifference. Truth becomes not something ontic of the world but ontic of our relation with the world. It is us who get to be indifferent about the truths or semantic contents being good enough to serve our purposes. And so now it becomes critical to define this "us".
Pragmatism does that in terms of the notion of the limit that would be reached by a community of like-minded rational inquirers. If the world actually does exist in any recalcitrant and mind-independent fashion, then inquiry should be able to arrive at a view of the constraints that make reality itself that way.
What do you mean "sounds kind of Platonic"?
What's an idea exactly?
Floating in a sea of doubt, are you?
I think belief is the filling in of blank created by the Cosmic First Question: Que Pasa? :D
Are you seriously suggesting you don't know what an idea is?
Yes I am. I know how to use the word properly, but I have zero confidence that I know what I'm talking about.
What's an idea? I mean, we know it's something that hypothetical atheists can jointly oppose even though nobody except the respective atheists are aware of it.
Two people, opposing the same idea. Hmm. Thoughts?
Not exactly the right metaphor.
Quoting frank
Well that is precisely the ontology I've just criticised.
You imagine a void, a blank, a generalised nothingness, and ask how could that kind of a-causal container suddenly gain a manifest content. How could the meaningful appear as creatio ex nihilo? Why anything?
That is the dominant mental image in metaphysics - the classic reductionist way of thinking about situations. And it creates all the confusion when we get down to fundamental issues.
I instead argue for a boundless potential - an everythingness that is a nothingness - which then becomes something, some structured set of things, by the emergence of constraints. Structure organises the confusion and leaves you with something substantial.
So belief is not filling in the blank of the unknown - finding what answer pre-exists the questions. It is about systematically reducing the possibility of our notions being wrong. An answer emerges as that which proves itself to eliminate the most uncertainty.
That is why you would have me floating on a sea of doubt. Instinctively, you want to find a concrete foundation on which all the other turtles can rest. And it is funny that this foundation would be "unbounded doubts". What kind of concrete foundation is that, you ask merrily?
So try imagining it the other way round. It is constraints on doubts all the way down to the point where we no longer find a reason to care. And that then is our epistemic foundation. Our own indifference.
We don't float on a sea of doubt in helpless fashion. We begin to believe where we ourselves have rendered doubt impotent and insignificant - in terms of "us" and our desires, our intentions, our purposes.
Every poster here pretty much is stuck in the bind of wanting foundations for beliefs or truths that might be given to them by reality. But even reality - according to our best quantum models of it - doesn't have that kind of foundational realism.
And yet still, despite the Universe itself floating on a sea of quantum doubt or indeterminacy, it seems to exist. Or persist. It is stabilised by emergent structural limits. It is "collapsed" or decohered so that it enjoys classical strength certainty, given a sufficiently generous spatiotemporal scale.
So the pragmatic/constraints-based view works as ontology as well as epistemology. You just need to switch up your mental metaphors for something more holistic and relational.
Some... belief is prior to language. All belief is meaningful. Some meaning is prior to language.
I'm not sure what else it is that you're going on about, for it is waaay too entrenched in your current worldview's taxonomy.
Could be. Where would you place the temporal genesis of this foundation of indifference? Homo Erectus? Neanderthals? Us? If us, when exactly? It's not like we're the result of any particular mutation we could blame it on.
Which isn't a slight towards you, personally... Rather, it shows that sensible use doesn't always equate to getting it right...
If you know how to use the word then you know what you are talking about. It seems to me that you are asking what an idea *really* is in some imagined ultimate or metaphysical sense. We don't need to know that to know that two atheists share in common the rejection of the idea of God, whatever the idea might *ultimately* consist in.
Again, you are back to a search for a "concrete foundation" as a matter of inveterate mental habit. It's getting comical now. :wink:
Why would it matter when the epistemic indifference first starts? Why wouldn't it instead be a question of when the development of a state of indifference reaches its final terminating limit?
Again, remember the Peircean answer. Truth is what a community of rationalising inquirers would converge on by the end.
So you just expect the answer to be bottom-up. Everything true would have to be anchored in something deep, basic and hard.
But instead, the alternative is that everything is only held together by a structure of habits sufficient to suppress the innate irregularities of chance and uncertainty. Reality - epistemic and ontic - has to arise in bootstrap fashion via the steadily emergent suppression of ambiguity and chaos.
It all works top-down ... by the end.
I agree. Worrying over the ontology of ideas is wasted time.
OK.
But is belief prior to syntactic structure? Is meaning prior to syntactic structure?
Forget language for the moment. I already accept that semiosis - a modelling relation - takes place at multiple levels in complex minds. We humans are modelling the world at an evolutionary/genetic level, a developmental/neural level, a social/linguistic level, and even now a rational/numeric level.
You can argue for a continuity of belief/meaning across all those levels. They are all examples of information regulating dynamics, syntax regulating semantics. The same essential semiotic mechanism or modelling relation. The genes believe something meaningful about the world. The genes propose a body organisation and learn the truth of that particular guess. Our brains form neural habits - meaningful beliefs about how to get stuff done with reliable results.
So you are showing concern about temporal priorities. Belief exists, then linguistically-structured beliefs. Meaning exists, then syntactically-structured meanings.
But this is just a faulty reductionist analysis driven by a felt need for concrete foundations to explain anything more complex.
I am arguing the holistic or systems view. There is something foundational, but it is semiosis or the modelling relation itself. So you have the same thing happening from the start. But also it undergoes such radical phase transitions as it shifts from genes, to neurons, to words, to numbers, that the disjuncts come to matter just as much.
The telling of the tale has to do equal justice to the continuity of semiosis and the discontinuities of new grades of semiotic mechanism.
You can't go back and fix all the tired old epistemic terms - belief, truth, justification, proposition - by pursuing a reductionist foundationalism.
That was the "too simplistic" mental image of how things should happen that got you into all the confusion in the first place.
That's not true. Ahem... Donald J. Trump uses all sorts of words when he has no clue...
If so, he doesn't use them, he ab-uses them. :joke:
What does syntactic structure consist of? I'm being reminded of mentalese here...
I wouldn't say that. Just for clarity.
:mask:
Cute.
But you are right. We would have to wade through the thickets of Chomskyian universal grammar to get to a proper answer on that.
It definitely ain't mentalese. But some of that structure also has to be innate genetics - the bit that isn't neural network induction, cultural idioscyncracies, or mathematico-logical education.
So yes, I would spread the syntactic load across all four levels of semiotic mechanism I just identified. And even for me, that would be some book chapter length posts.
It is not mentalese as that is a claim about a language of thought which creates a semantic content that then only needs a syntactical translation into grammatical speech. So it suggest there is some wordless flow of ideas and images that then get turned into speakable words - with reasonably content-preserving accuracy.
Again, my neurocognitive account would see something right about that. It is not absolutely wrong. But that is because all action generated by the brain is hierarchical - and constraints-based. All voluntary and attentional action starts off with a vague general idea that has to be made concrete by a cascade of firming up steps - the prefrontal cortex connects to the supplementary motor cortex, which connects to the premotor cortex, which connects to the primary cortex. As more specific constraints get added one on top of the other, a final articulated act emerges.
So the difference again is the basic one of causal expectations. The computationalists see mentalese as a way to explain how inputs become outputs. For content to be created, it already had to be there. Hence the paradoxes. Where did the input get into the story? Mentalese just claims the creation process is hidden behind a convenient firewall. And don't ask difficult questions.
My approach - the one that neural networkers take - treats output as a matter of constraints-satisfaction. The mind is alive with free possibilities. All you have to do is to become focused enough on the fact of a problem for the connecting path to pop out - given the right multi-level feedback or cybernetic structure.
Anyway, rather than write that book chapter, again I simply say that there are these two choices - a bottom-up constructive view of things vs the top-down constraints-based view. How brains think was where the switch from the one to the other first happened for me when I got into the neuroscience some 30 years ago.
The project becomes problematic when we attempt to distinguish between belief that is existentially dependent upon language and belief that is not. Belief about calculus is definitely dependent upon language. What about belief about a toaster oven?
Toaster ovens are existentially dependent upon language. I mean, when and where there has been no language, there can be no toaster oven. However, I would be hesitant to say that my cat could not believe that the bird she lost is now behind the toaster oven. She can see the oven. She can hear the bird, perhaps smell it as well. She has no conception of "toaster oven". She has no conception of "bird". She can however sense that which we call "bird" and "toaster oven", and thus draw correlations between them and herself.
So, it only follows that non-linguistic belief content can include that which is existentially dependent upon language, as long as that is perceptible.
I cannot answer your question if you do not answer mine...
On my view, with my very limited understanding, there is no syntax of any kind without language.
Revisiting Jack...
Can Jack believe that his bowl is empty if he has no conception of being empty and/or being full? Jack can see the bowl, despite his not knowing it is called a "bowl". Jack can see that it is empty. Am I speaking correctly here? Does he see that it is empty? Does he see that there is no food. Is there a difference?
The one is about the bowl. The other is about the food. I do not think that Jack thinks in terms of the bowl being full or empty or partially full or partially empty. I do not think that Jack thinks in terms at all. He is hungry. He goes to were the food is. There is no food. He wants food. He pleads to Banno by virtue of behaving in all the ways that have resulted in getting food in the past.
His belief is that that sort of behaviour results in getting fed. Banno says that Jack believes the bowl is empty.
How do we further discriminate between our reports of Jack's belief?
I say that Jack has made a connection between his own behaviour and what happened afterwards. That connection is the content of his belief. He formed it the first time he attributed causality by engaging in what can be fallacious thinking... but is not always.
Post hoc ergo prompter hoc.
When all of one's experience involving muslims has to do with terrorist acts against one's own people(those one care about), and there has been no other circumstances of any kind to show that not all muslims are terrorists or to place muslims in more positive light, then that person really has no choice but to enter into a new interaction with someone in stereotypical muslim clothes with that sort of negativity in the back of their mind.
Never-mind the particular details here, the point is broader...
Belief is accrued.
The first connections one makes between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or themselves constitute the beginnings, the origen, of one's belief system(worldview).
The aforementioned rooster, the older one...
It is of no surprise to me that only he and the hens that are with him all the time are fearful when I act like I'm throwing a rock. The others' don't pay attention to it at all, even when they're in close proximity to the ones who are scared by the action.
But now the definition of language comes into play. If neural signals are syntactic, then do neurons speak a language to each other? And if computers also operate in languages - as we say they do - then where does the semantics enter into the picture as they whir and click in a programmed blizzard of transistor gate switches?
So yes, to get anywhere, we have to get down to a deeper level of discussion. Everyday notions about language, grammar, meaning, belief, truth, etc, won't yield the answers being sought.
What is syntax and what is semantics?
I am identifying syntax with constraints - habitual structure that serves purposes. Semantics is then a material state of constraint - an actual state of interpretance where a set of signs could have a positive meaning.
For human language, the new level of constraint that made all the difference was the simple one - the evolution of an articulate vocal tract that then imposed itself on the hierarchical organisation of an intentional brain.
Once noise-making became restricted in a particular fashion - a serial concatenation of distinct phonemes, the sing-song expressive sounds that only we have the right lips, tongue, palate, throat and vocal chords to make - then already there was a syntactical choice implicit. At the level of a motor act chain, we had to decide what sound was followed by what next sound.
The attention of others was already captured by the fact we did make these chattering expressive noises to each other as the most highly social and big brained apes. We only had to stumble into the value of grammatical form. We just had to discover the trick of breaking up the holism of our thoughts into a regular subject/object/verb patterning that could be used to tell logical causal tales.
The vocal tract placed a general serial constraint on the motor holism of the brain. And then grammatical form added a further telling constraint on its conceptual holism. A limitation on the brain's freedoms became a telling improvement. We found ourselves being forced to speak of the lived complexities of our world in terms of displaced social simplicities.
"Buffalo in the next valley." "The wind gods are angry." "The camp needs firewood." The most rudimentary division of an animal level of conception into words and rules, semantic reference and syntactic order, was the breaking of a huge intellectual barrier.
Articulate speech gives you infinite possibility from finite means. And it is the very limitedness of the syntax which is crucial to the open, unbounded, nature of the semantics. Computation is what you arrive at when you get down to bare binary distinctions - a 1 and 0 - and create as complete as possible a divorce between the two sides of the equation.
The more general or universally functional the habit of structure imposed on expression, the more numerous become the specific states of intentionality or meaning that can be expressed.
So tighter constraints = more countable degrees of freedom. A sharper division between syntax and semantics = an exponentially greater space of possible expressions.
Syntax and semantics, rules and words, are both separated and connected by their being in this reciprocal, inverse or dichotomous relation.
And again, it is this essential connectedness - the fact they are two faces of the one symmetry breaking - that makes it silly to argue for hard distinctions in terms of "what came first?" - which is chicken, which egg.
If you say an animal can have semantic states - language-less beliefs - then it goes without saying that syntax has to be present as well. You just need to learn to recognise it.
And that is what psychology does. Ecological or gestalt approaches to perception are seeking out the syntax that structures thought at an animal degree of development.
Language is a big deal as it gives humans displaced thinking ability. We can think thoughts where the thought is of us in the world. Animals can't do that. They have in place thinking where they just are acting in relation to the world as it presents itself.
So there is a syntactical structure in play - just the rather embodied and unmediated one of the way the world currently imposes its own syntactic structure on the animal's store of behavioural possibilities.
What does the animal think about next? Whatever its environment, its dynamic context, might suggest.
This picture puts the semiosis, the modelling relation, at the centre of things. If the division of syntax and semantics is a thing, then we should be able to see that in the essential continuity of the semiosis that powers life and mind at its every level.
I guess this is the sticking point. It might be a surprise to think that nothing essential has in fact changed from the first bacterium. A language-like relation was at the heart of abiogenisis - the moment an organic molecule first became a message or signal.
Even propositional language is simply the same trick amplified through a series of continual displacements. Sentences seem as displaced and un-embodied as could be imagined. Universal Turing computation made the notion of information truly Platonic. But really, it is just the same semiotic breakthrough unfolding towards its ultimate limits. Nothing new under the sun.
So again, to identify syntax as strictly a property of human speech leaves you short when it comes to telling the deeper story of semiotic continuity. It sets up an explanatory hurdle where one need not be.
It seems to me that if we need to redefine the terms "language" and "syntax" in order to make sense of our viewpoints, then we are much better off coining new terms.
You seem to be looking for a structure where none exists. The same flaw with mentalese. Moreover, you also depend upon the notions of purpose where there is no agency. I'll pass.
If you find yourself in San Fransisco, go to Green Apple bookstore, head upstairs to the philosophy section and ask them to unlock the rare philosophy books cabinet... There is an entire library of Peirce. Large books. Six maybe seven volumes...
If the story of semiotic continuity requires first denying that syntax requires language, then it's wrong and not worth repeating...
That's why they've gotten so little right... epistemic luck. In my experience, from what I've seen with regard to the descriptions and/or explanations of what animals are thinking...
It is almost always chock full of anthropomorphism. The personification of beast. No different, in the flaws, than the personification of God...
There is no syntax, no such structure, to non-linguistic thought and/or belief. There are only correlations...
Quoting creativesoul
It is utterly inadequate for understanding the belief you've inferred. It's not a matter of 'inadequate to whom'. It's a matter of being inadequate for knowing what we're talking about when we say that a non-linguistic creature believes. If we do not know what non-linguistic belief is, then we cannot know what we're talking about when we claim that a non-linguistic creature has belief.
That's pretty straightforward...
Not all things sharing the same namesake have anything more in common aside from moniker. Some things do. That's just plain how it is. Some things share more than just names. Some things are precisely what they are prior to our awareness of them. Human thought and belief that is prior to language is exactly one of those things. So...
Applying Witt's argument about games is irrelevant. Wrong target.
I'm still waiting for you to explain the problem mentioned in the first sentence above. It does not follow from the fact that we have all sorts of knowledge about bricks that that knowledge is problematic for treating a brick as a physical object.
I really have difficulty with the way you're employing the notion of perception. Perception is not equivalent to understanding. We perceive a brick. We understand it as "a brick". The dog perceives the same brick. He doesn't understand it as(something called) "a brick".
All in all though, there's not much else for me to disagree with...
Naming stuff is belief formation in process.
Sorry for making you wait. I'm too slow a writer, reader and thinker - and this thread outpaces me. Also sorry that my answer's likely going to be unsatisfactory since simply catching up with the thread takes up most of my forum time.
I think percpetion is a complex mental activaty that involves understanding what we see at various steps. Every individual, whether human or dog, faces the same stimulus: a brick. But we're not perceiving something and then interpeting it; our interpretations don't come after perception; they run simultaneously to the point that by the time the brick enters our consciousness it's already a brick - fully integrated into our full perceptory state (that includes everything we see, hear, feel...). It's not that we see a physical object that is a brick, it's that we end up seeing a brick and sometimes it's relevant that it's a physical object. Our interpretations of what we see guides what we pay attention to and sometimes supplements what's not there (I'd need to find evidence in experiments for that and don't have the time) - by the time we "see" an "object" a lot of interwoven mental activity has taken place, so that you simply can't say (other than analytically) that by the time you've isolated a brick as an object what you see is merely a representation of what's there in the physical world.
Seeing isn't just "burning the image into the retina", and if it is what you're seeing is not yet "a brick". And perceiving isn't just "seeing" - integrating various input, I think, is already a meaningful activity guided by interpetation.
I don't think that's all that different for dogs either, maybe a ted less complex (but maybe not).
Well, I agree with the following:
Although, on second thought, I'd alter the last point to state that the object of belief is something that people [I]can[/I] share.
Beyond that, I'm not sure. What's wrong with behaviourism? There's certainly [i]something about it[/I] that strikes me as correct, even if I don't believe that it's [i]entirely[/I] correct.
Redefine? When did you bother to define them?
I agree with this, at face value. Our reasoning is remarkably different however...
One thing worth mention here...
All interpretation is of that which is already meaningful. All interpretation is the attribution of meaning. That's how we can get interpretation wrong.
Your notion of perception includes thought and belief, whereas I find that thought and belief require physiological sensory perception, but not the other way around. Venus flytraps come to mind. They most certainly perceive...
Belief is not always in something...
I'm good with normal use.
True, but pedantic. I gave it a more charitable reading. I doubt he meant to exclude belief-that.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
When he referred to the action of believing, I interpreted that as the cognitive action of becoming convinced. To believe is to become, or to have become, convinced. Once you've become convinced, you have a belief that persists until something happens for it to cease to be a belief. I'm not sure that it's correct to call it a mental state, either. In one respect, yes. But in others, no. It might relate to a mental state, but that doesn't mean that it is one. My beliefs don't evaporate when they're not there in the form of a mental state. But if you were to arouse in me a mental state such as consciousness of a belief, then I could affirm to you that it is indeed a belief of mine.
Quoting frank
Quoting creativesoul
Quoting frank
Quoting creativesoul
Sorry creative, but frank won that debate. You're trivially correct that "belief" is a noun, not a verb. But frank is correct that if John had belief, then he believed something - your mimicry does nothing to change that - and he's right that a discussion about the object of belief is of relevance to a general discussion about belief, which is what this seems to be, or to have become. If you don't want to talk about that here, you don't have to.
I think that this is the [I]something about it[/I] that is right within behaviourism. The only problem is the exceptions. My belief that Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, or that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides, do not generally have any effect on my behaviour.
A problem with this discussion, in my opinion, is that people have been saying stuff like this, not explicitly directed at anyone in particular, without making it clear whether or not the motivation behind bringing it up is the belief that someone here is disputing it.
If it's not being disputed, or is not likely to be disputed, then I question the relevance. Let's not get too carried away here.
Quoting creativesoul
That's nice. Please, tell me more about your roosters.
And that's another problem with behaviourism.
Yes they can. What makes you think that? It just wouldn't be reasonable, at least if you mean the belief that they won't under any circumstance. Beliefs don't have to be reasonable. There's a shitload of unreasonable beliefs out there.
Quoting creativesoul
False, for the same reason.
I agree. "How do you do?" is a good example. It's not even taken as the question it appears to be. As a result, in some places it became slurred to "Howdy!" I don't entirely understand the motive behind trying to use that example to explain all speech. Nor do I understand how any presentation of behaviorism is supposed to be taken. How am I supposed to act in case it's true?
With a good understanding of animal behaviour and cognition. Not saying I have that, but the better the knowledge, the better the discrimination. To some extent, matters such as this should be left to the experts.
What you call trivial is crucial to understanding what you later called "mimicry". His argument is about grammar/syntax. I've shown that it doesn't always make sense to add "ed" as a suffix to a noun.
Now, it is commonplace to say that one believed this or that. However, saying that John believed something is nothing more than saying that John had belief. The mimicry continues...
If John had fleas, he had fleas.
It's not so much mimicry as it is a refutation. Saying that if John had belief, he believed something is nothing more than saying the same thing differently.
John has belief.
No need to apologize. If you find yourself more in agreement with frank than I, then it's notta problem for me. It's a problem for you.
Because it's true, what frank wrote is not. Truth matters.
Reasons do not make things true/false. It's not a point about unreasonable beliefs. It's a point about what it takes in order to even be able to believe that some event or other will not happen. It's impossible to believe that X will not happen if the agent does not already believe that X can happen.
Belief is accrued.
It would be better put that a cat walking down the street acts as if it does not believe that the buildings will fall as compared/contrasted with it believes that the building will not fall. If you cannot see the difference, there's not much more I can do to help you understand what I'm saying. If you do, then we can further parse it out...
Can you show me where he claimed or implied that it always makes sense to add "-ed" as a suffix to a noun? Looks like a strawman to me.
Quoting creativesoul
You're overconfident, my friend. What it is is an [I]attempt[/I] at refutation, and a failed one at that. Can you actually [i]give a reason[/I] as to why I should accept that it's nothing more than saying the same thing differently, and that even if it is, there's something wrong with that?
A triangle is a plane figure with three straight sides and three angles, yes? Contrast that with: a triangle is a triangle.
He added "ed" to belief. He need not claim anything at all. He did it.
Irrelevant point.
Quoting creativesoul
Yes, I know that you didn't mean for it to be about that. But my point is about your point, and my point makes mention of unreasonable beliefs.
Quoting creativesoul
You don't need to repeat or explain your point. You need to deal with my criticism of it.
Quoting creativesoul
Irrelevant point.
Quoting creativesoul
That's not better put, that's saying something different.
Quoting creativesoul
What I would like is for you to address my criticism and answer my question: yes, they [i]can[/I] believe what you assert that that they cannot. What makes you think otherwise? It just wouldn't be reasonable to believe.
That's a fail. You said "always". One instance is not always.
Your criticism shows a lack of understanding and is nothing more than gratuitous assertion. A hand-waving gesture. You may as well just say that you do not agree and leave it at that, because claiming that certain things I've written are "irrelevant" shows that you do not understand the relevance of what I've been arguing here.
The thread is about belief. I suspect that you're working from an utterly inadequate notion thereof.
There's nothing more to the purported 'something' than John's belief.
Oh the irony. My criticism was in response to your bare assertion. Why can't I meet your assertion with a counter-assertion? And you're the one doing the handwaving with your repeated arrogant dismissals of, "You don't understand". Well, I do understand, and I understand why you're wrong.
All I want is for you to properly address my criticism. What lengths will you go to in order to excuse yourself or avoid doing so?
I don't know why you're having trouble following the exchange. I was referring to your assertion that one who doesn't know or believe that cars can explode, cannot believe that they won't. Or, alternatively, (although it makes no real difference), your assertion that one who doesn't know that buildings can fall down, cannot believe that they won't.
Quoting creativesoul
You're a funny guy, creative.
Quoting creativesoul
I don't understand the question. Are you talking about the object of belief? If so, we don't believe beliefs. That makes no sense. So there must be something more.
Or, if this relates to your assertion that, "John believed something", is no different to, "John had a belief", then I refer you back to [url=https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/169483]my example of a triangle[/URL], which you might not have seen, since I added it in a subsequent edit, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Quoting Sapientia
Believing an event will not happen is belief about the event.
Do you agree?
Let's assume that I do so you can get to the point.
Do you agree?
Then what's the relevance of it? How does it relate to your assertion?
What does "John believed something" say that "John has belief" does not? What more is there to this 'something' aside from John's belief?
Of course it doesn't make sense to say that John believed his belief. I mean, that's just not how we talk. That's not a flaw of my argument here. It is a flaw of common speech patterns that conflate reports of belief with belief. Being sensible doesn't always align with saying what's true.
So...
What do you propose to substitute for 'something' if not John's belief?
John believed X. X replaces 'something'. Is X not John's belief?
Once again, that's different from your original claim. Tell me whether or not this is what you're getting at. I suspect that there might be a misunderstanding because of how you originally worded it, which would mean that it's more your fault than mine if I've not understood you from the outset.
If I could not conceive or attain even a hypothetical understanding in my mind about cars exploding, then I could not believe that a car will explode. That I agree with.
But what you said was different. You said that if I don't know that cars can explode, then I can't believe that they will do. That leaves open an understanding - albeit not a full one - about cars, and explosions, and possibility. Even if I don't know that cars can explode, I might still know that it's possible that it's possible, which is enough to enable belief, even if it would be unreasonable.
Perhaps what you really meant is: if I can't know or believe that cars can explode, then I can't know or believe that they will do? But that's still not right, for the reason I gave above. I can know or believe that it's possible that it's possible, and, based on that, and some other belief - which could be virtually anything, and which doesn't have to be reasonable - I could believe that it will explode. So, we could have: I believe that it's possible that it's possible that cars are capable of exploding. I don't know one way or the other. But today feels really unlucky, so I believe that my car will explode.
You're not making any sense to me Sapientia.
I don't care who's fault a misunderstanding is.
Of course what I said recently was put differently than before. It was misunderstood the first time.
Quoting creativesoul
Quoting creativesoul
There is no conflict here, so I'm not sure what you're going on about.
Okay, now I [I]know[/I] that you've avoided my example of the triangle, given that I brought it to your attention.
What does, "A triangle is a plane figure with three straight sides and three angles", tell us that, "A triangle is a triangle", does not?
Quoting creativesoul
Quoting creativesoul
Wat? You're not making any sense to me, and seem to be contradicting yourself. You'll have to explain yourself better if you want me to understand. How can you sensibly ask me, "Is X not John's belief?", given what you've said before that?
[B]Anyway, the answer is obviously, "No". The object of belief is not belief. That makes zero sense.[/b] (We could discuss what it [i]is[/I], but that's not an option. You're not even wrong).
God, you're difficult. Forget it, chappy.
False analogy. "John believed something" is not equivalent to a definition. Nor is "John has belief" equivalent to A=A.
You'll have to do better than that.
What more is there to 'something' aside from John's belief? I agree that it doesn't make sense to say that John believed his belief. However, what I'm pointing out here is that our normal speech patterns do not always work from an adequate understanding. That is particularly true in this case. We often say "John believes something". I claim that that something is nothing more than John's belief. frank claimed that if John has belief then John believed something.
The both of you seem to want to say that there is more to this 'something' than John's belief. I say that that is just not the case. You could show me otherwise by virtue of substitution. Substitute the term "something" with what it is that you claim John believes.
It will be John's belief, or you'll be talking nonsense by saying John believes something that is not John's belief.
:heart:
Once again, you're a funny guy. Evidently, I'm better at keeping track of what you say than you are:
Quoting creativesoul
Quoting creativesoul
Let's take it from here, and bear in mind my example of the triangle. I'm not letting you slip away from this one.
That is the claim in question...
What more is there to 'something' aside from John's belief? I agree that it doesn't make sense to say that John believed his belief. However, what I'm pointing out here is that our normal speech patterns do not always work from an adequate understanding. That is particularly true in this case. We often say "John believes something". I claim that that something is nothing more than John's belief. frank claimed that if John has belief then John believed something.
The both of you seem to want to say that there is more to this 'something' than John's belief. I say that that is just not the case. You could show me otherwise by virtue of substitution. Substitute the term "something" with what it is that you claim John believes.
It will be John's belief, or you'll be talking nonsense by saying John believes something that is not John's belief.
Okay, let's go around in circles!
Quoting Sapientia
Your turn!
I say that "John believes something" says nothing more than "John has belief". You say otherwise, but fail to provide any answer at all...
What more is there to this 'something' that John believes aside from John's belief?
A pony. But, in the context of this discussion, I would like you to repeat yourself less, and instead put your energy into actually addressing what I'm saying. But I'm on the verge of giving up now. I don't need to say what it is to say what it's not.
Honestly, I do not follow your analogy...
Answer the question.
I quoted you... who quoted me... I figured that because your analogy immediately followed, that that is what it was supposed to apply to...
But I don't need to say what it is to say what it's not. Maybe I don't have a committed stance on what it is. Maybe it's a proposition. But it's not a belief.
Quoting creativesoul
Why not? You said that saying "A" is nothing more than saying "B". That it's saying the same thing differently. You also denied that it's definitional or A=A.
What other options are there? What's it like? I don't see any other option. I think that you're violating one or more of the fundamental laws of logic.
Given what you've said, either it's like:
A) A triangle is a plane figure with three straight sides and three angles.
or
B) A triangle is a triangle.
Other options could be that you don't mean what you say or maybe you'll retract what you've said. But you probably won't accept either of those options because you're stubborn, and you don't like admitting that you're wrong. I bet you'll say something different, and then claim it as the same point rephrased, like you've done before. It's your get-out-of-jail-free card.
I want to clear this up, and it looks promising form here.
You down?
First, are you willing to say that John believes something that is not his belief?
Yes.
Quoting creativesoul
:party:
John believes X. X is not John's belief.
That is self-contradictory. Nonsense. Do you see it otherwise? If so, the burden is yours. Please reconcile.
I agree. One can say whatever one wishes to say. However...
In order to know what we're talking about when we say that belief is not X, we must know what belief is, for that is the only measure by which we can know what it is not.
Sure, that's easy. It's equivocation: equivocation between [i]what's[/I] believed and the belief [i]itself[/I]. Or, put differently, the [i]object of[/I] belief and the belief [i]itself[/I]. Or, put differently, the [i]aboutness[/I] with the belief.
It's a basic error on your part. What I'm saying is not nonsense. What you're saying is nonsense, or at best unclear and misleading.
John believes that the cows will come home. That the cows will come home is not Johns belief. But John's belief is John's belief. John's belief that the cows will come home is John's belief that the cows will come home.
Nothing contradictory or nonsensical there. You're just confused, I think.
I think you mean conflation... Equivocation is when different senses of the same term are being used by the same author in the same argument/account. That's not happening on my part.
This is good though. We're getting back to the notion of the object of belief. I plead guilty to not drawing and maintaining the distinction between "belief" and "what's believed", or between "belief" and an "object of belief".
I want to be crystal clear here though... It's not that I do not realize that there is one such language game. It's that I reject it for reasons that will be explained soon enough.
So, I conflate between "belief" and "what's believed" or the "object of belief"...
Set me straight. Set out the difference(s).
Whatever. You're wrong either way, so it's no biggie.
Quoting creativesoul
John believes that the cat is on the mat. But that the cat is on the mat is not John's belief. How can you not see the distinction? That the cat is on the mat is a fact or state of affairs. John's belief that the cat is on the mat is John's belief. It's a belief [i]about[/I] that fact or state of affairs. One is a fact or state of affairs, the other his belief.
Simples.
So, let me see if I have this account of yours right. There are a few incomplete sentences, and I'm trying to be charitable.
On the one hand you say that John believes that the cat is on the mat, but on the other you say that the cat is on the mat is not John's belief.
"That the cat is on the mat" is being called John's belief, not John's belief, and a state of affairs.
Which part is John's belief? Which part is the object of John's belief?
:yikes:
No, there's only one incomplete sentence: the last one. And I think that it's fairly clear that the, "It", at the beginning of that sentence refers to John's belief.
Quoting creativesoul
Yes.
Quoting creativesoul
No. You can't just ignore essential parts of what I'm saying. [U][I]John's belief that the cat is on the mat[/I][/u] is not equivalent to [i]the cat on the mat[/I] or [i]the fact that the cat is on the mat[/I].
That there's a resemblance is not that they're equivalent. Get your thinking straight, sonny Jim.
Quoting creativesoul
Why, John's belief is John's belief, of course! His belief that the cat is on the mat is his belief. And the object of his belief is what his belief is about: the fact or state of affairs that the cat is on the mat.
You're just misinterpreting it, I suspect. Why else would you react like that: as though I'd contradicted myself?
You can emphasise and deemphasise all you like. You're still wrong. Resemblance is not equivalence. You're making a category error.
Speaking of equivocation...
Those seven terms have been called "John's belief", "not John's belief", "what John believes", "the object of belief", "the fact", and "a state of affairs". I'm just pointing that out. Anyone can go look for themselves...
"John's belief is John's belief" is equal to A=A. It is utterly meaningless.
Here you do it yet again. You claim that...
That claim negates the other you keep making...
Quoting Sapientia
Either his belief is that the cat is on the mat, or that the cat is on the mat is not his belief.
What creativesoul is missing with these supposed analogies is that believing is more of a process, a doing, than it is a having. I tried to point this out to him much earlier in this thread by arguing that animals believe, but do not have beliefs. 'Having a belief' suggests that one is the possessor of something or the holder of something; I hold a belief when I can formulate it such that I can grasp (understand) it reflectively. I say this reflective act requires language use, or at least we have no idea how it could be possible without language use, since we use language to do it.
Later on in the thread I proposed that it would be better to use the terms 'expectation' and 'frustration of expectation', rather than 'belief' and 'doubt' in relation to animals and non-linguistic humans because it does away with all the ambiguity concerning whether or not belief requires language. It is really just a terminological and locutionary issue; an issue of clarity; sometimes common usages can be equivocal, ambiguous, and create confusion that gives rise to the idea that there are genuine problems where there are none.
I find it quite incredible that this thread has so many posts, when really most of the argument is only over a terminological issue. To quote Shakespeare it is "Much ado about nothing" and " full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".
Yes, anyone can misinterpret what I'm saying. That's not unique to you.
This exchange is boring. I predict that you're just going to purposefully keep misinterpreting what I'm saying to suit your argument, as you've been doing so far, so I don't see why I should continue.
I didn't misinterpret. That's what you've done.
Set it out...
What is John's belief?
What is the object of John's belief?
What is the state of affairs?
What is the fact that John's belief is about?
A quick perusal through your recent posts will show that they all have the same answer... consisting of the same seven terms. That's not my problem.
No, it doesn't, and I've explained why. If you want to disregard that explanation, ignore the subtext, and misinterpret what I'm saying, then be my guest. But I'm out.
Your problem is that - and I say it again, though you'll probably ignore it again - resemblance is not equivalence, and different categories are not the same category.
That's your problem, and I hope you resolve it.
Let A = some state of affairs (whatever that turns out to mean)
Philosophers would usually call "that " a fact, by which it is meant that A obtains. This is a little unfortunate, because it makes the grammar of "
believes that " puzzling.
If someone S has a belief regarding A, it could be that A does or does not obtain, that A is possible or not, likely or not, etc.
It seems most natural to call the object of S's belief this obtaining or not obtaining of A (or its possibility, likelihood, etc.), rather than A itself, but a little ambiguity here might be harmless.
As I suggested a long time ago, it might be fruitful to treat A as something like the indirect object of S's belief: S believes of A that it obtains (is possible, is likely, etc). You can do this with the elements of A as well, something like, "S believes of the cat that it is on the mat."
(Two reasons to lean this way: we can separate the referential and predicative functions of the proposition; it's one simple, not overly unnatural step toward the lambda calculus -- (?x . x is on the mat)(the cat) -- and we like lambdas.)
I'm not missing it, Janus. I'm rejecting it. If we say that having a belief requires formulating it and understanding it, then we automatically set out a criterion for having belief that is existentially dependent upon language, for that criterion requires thinking about one's own thought and belief.
And yet, prior to being able to think about one's own thought and belief, there must first be something to think about. So, the criterion you suggest cannot even take account of thinking about thought and belief.
Again you are missing the distinction between pre-linguistic believing (which I think should be called 'expecting') and linguistic having of beliefs. Of course the latter is derivative of the former; the latter is a making explicit of what is merely implicit in the former.
I'm with you so far, I find it agreeable, I don't have any problem with it, and I don't think that it poses any problem for my stance.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I just don't quite follow this part because of a lack of familiarity, but it gives me something to look into and figure out.
Actually, this doesn't strike me as wrong. In fact, you're saying much the same thing as myself. The difference is that you hold that not all believing requires forming and/or holding belief. Whereas, on my view that makes no sense.
The cat's whereabouts are what John's belief is about. The 'object of belief' to some circles...
John has belief. John believes something. That something is not Johns belief. Rather, it is what John's belief is about. John's belief is about the whereabouts of the cat. So...
John believes the cat's whereabouts.
That's not right...
I could agree that pre-linguistic believing involves forming expectation(s) ("forming" in the sense that expectations could be changing), but what, over and above that would "holding" them involve, on your view? I could see the sense in saying that expectations could hold (until they change) but not they are held.
Wasn't meant to. Just chiming in. Endless one-on-one around here can get tiresome.
Yeah. I can see how the term "holding" could be problematic. However, it means nothing more and nothing less than the creature has formed a belief by virtue of drawing correlations between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or itself. When that belief begins to show it's efficacy, the behaviour will follow. Hence, the belief is held. Expectation is most certainly indicative of this...
It's a nice word. You can do a whole lot with just "expectation" and "preference" and translating everything else into those two.
Didn't mean to suggest otherwise.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
S'all good. I appreciate the distraction. It was indeed tiring. Could you tell? :grin:
:heart:
Indeed! I would like to add 'seeing' to that list, though.
My God your a bloviating bastard! :heart:
I don't think it is appropriate to talk in terms of the subject/object dichotomy when it comes to pre-reflective experience. This kind of talk is a projection of our own (linguistically enabled) reflections.
I can plausibly speak of an animals expectation, on the other hand, insofar as it is manifest in its body language.
The funny thing is that I'm not at all comfortable with that term either... I reject the objective/subjective dichotomy... For now, it's as close as I can muster to what I want to say is going on...
Hence, the scare-quotes...
Expectation is belief-based though, wouldn't you agree?
No, I would say the opposite; that belief is primordially expectation-based. With language of course it may become more elaborate and free itself from mere expectation based on habit. With the linguistic-based ability to consider the past and future, belief may become based on desire, and aspiration.
My cat hears certain rustling of certain plastics, and she comes...
She is clearly expecting to be given treats. I'm claiming that that expectation is the efficacy of her belief being put on display. The content of her belief is correlations. She has drawn a correlation between the particular sound and what happened afterwards... Thus, when she hears that sound she expects to be given treats because of the belief she has formed and held since.
How would you explain this situation if she had no belief?
I'm not sure there's any harm in adding belief talk here. But if the idea is that explicit appeal to induction will explain everything, that might not work out.
Say your cat has formed an inductive generalization that A is always followed by B, and given A concludes that B must be coming. That seems to explain the expectation of B.
But what explains your cat making the inference at all? The cat's belief that A is always followed by B, together with the appearance of A -- still gives you nothing. Either the cat makes the inference for a reason -- hard to see that working out -- or the cat is caused to make the inference. No explanation in the offing for that.
So if bare expectation is considered unsatisfactory, shifting to belief talk instead leaves bare unexplained inference. Maybe that's progress, I don't know.
The cat's belief, strictly speaking in terms of it's content, are the correlations drawn between the sound and getting treats. I would err on the side of involuntary when it comes to the 'cause' of her belief formation. Why need there be a reason in these rudimentary examples? That it happens, and we can take proper account of it suffices. I'm not even sure that I would call her drawing the correlation an inference, seeing how loaded the term is. It is certainly not unexplained, however...
What is the criterion, minimally, that counts as belief? Are there a set of necessary and sufficient conditions? Is that the best way to put it?
Again, we look to known examples, and we look for common denominators. Isolate those and see if it's enough to constitute belief.
There's a thread on this very forum entitled "Belief(not just religious belief) ought be abolished"...
That author clearly has no clue what belief is and the role that it plays in his/her own worldview...
We have refined palates and other 'tastes'(personal preferences). In order to qualify as such, the person must have an ability to discriminate between examples of a certain kind. Wines come immediately to mind. Wine tasters seek to identify the ingredients of different wines which allows them to determine the origen of that particular wine. To do this, the taster must not only have a refined palate, in order to identify any particular unique ingredients and methods, but they must also have some knowledge regarding which parts of the world, and/or which wineries uses and/or used those particular ingredients and methods in addition to the timeframe that they were in use.
It's all correlation.
Does anyone here have an example of anything ever thought, believed, written, and/or spoken that does not consist of these basic elemental constituents? Of course not. Any example would consist of language use. So, that's not very helpful. Does this set of basic elemental constituents require language? I mean, is there anything in that set that is existentially dependent upon language?
I think not.
Does our ability to acquire knowledge of this set require language?
Of course.
What's missing?
Holding/having expectation certainly warrants that conclusion.
All I'm saying is that the concept belief should be looked at in terms of how it's used in language, which include language-games, and in turn gives us a clearer picture of where we might be going wrong in our analysis of the word belief. In terms of equivocation, one could also say that of Wittgenstein's many examples of how words are used in various contexts. Some words are even used in contradictory ways, i.e., in one context they mean one thing, and in another context something quite the opposite.
We're in agreement on that Sam. Well, aside from the fact that you've implied that there is only one concept of "belief". I just wanted to avoid falling into equivocation...
One might think it so trivial that it is not worth saying: to believe some proposition is to believe that proposition to be true.
That is, talk of belief requires talk of truth.
One might be tempted, perhaps by pragmatism or by Bayesian thoughts, to replace that with measures of probability. You might think yourself only 99.99% certain that the cat is on the mat, and suppose thereby that you have banished truth. But of course, one is also thereby 99.99% certain that "the cat is on the mat" is true.
The banishment is an illusion.
There's so much here that is muddled, much of the muddle caused by equating different experiences with different phenomenal states, while trying to maintain that phenomenal states are both open for discussion and yet ineffable.
There is no such thing as a proposition, of course. It's a philosophical reification used to stand in for a bunch of other things. It would be better to talk in terms of statement, but that in itself will lead to much wandering up garden paths.
There are statements. These are things we do with words. We invent propositions so that we can talk about statements in French as expressing the same thing as statements in English, and statements in your mouth saying the same thing as statements in my mouth, and so on. Breaking that down, one is left with a bunch of statements with the same truth conditions. Any of these can be taken as the corresponding proposition.
"it's not a fake; it's real"
"it's not a mirage, it's real!"
It's not a mistake - it's real"
and so on.
Belief can be understood in a similar fashion, as gaining it's meaning from the contrast between a true belief and a false belief. That is, the important aspect of belief is that sometimes we think that something is the case, and yet it is not.
We bring belief into the discourse in order to make sense of such errors.
Oddly you say there are no propositions, and then the last two sentences assert that there are propositions ("same truth conditions").
Better: I know how to use "proposition", so I know what it is. No need for metaphysics.
Using beliefs to help explain actions is fraught with difficulties. Basically one can use a belief together with a desire in order to explain what someone has done. Such an explanation will be sufficient, but that's it. So for example knowing someone's beliefs and desires is insufficient to predict their future behaviour with much certainty; and one can be wrong about concluding that a certain belief led to a certain action.
If the world were transparent in such a way that we never made statements that are false, we would have no need for beliefs.
But different phenomenal states can - and, in at least some cases, do - result in different experiences. Right? Even if the external set up for the experience is the same, my experience and your experience can differ in certain respects, even if we both had an experience of, say, watching a film, or of eating Marmite on toast, or what have you.
I've retraced the exchange between you and Hanover to some extent, and I can't quite tell whether you have a genuine disagreement or whether you're just talking past each other. Do you both agree that it's different in some respects, but the same - or similar - in others; and that it's shared with regard to some aspects, like the film being watched, but unshared with regard other aspects, like private thoughts and feelings which have not been expressed?
If they are ineffable, how could you know this?
He said word "can," not must. He says nothing of knowing the beetle.
But, what is the evidence that my beetle is different than yours? We've already established that the Vietnam vet's experience of the movie is different from the child's.
No muddle, just your failure to analyze the phenomenal state, which is all part of the artificial limitation you place on analysis of the internal state. Your position, as far as I can tell, wishes to deny any relevance to the internal state, and so you hardly wish to embark on discussing it.
Not being so limited, I will tell you what the phenomenal state is. It is the full experience of what I am experiencing. I find incoherent the idea that there is a direct stream of data entering my conscious, unaffected by the mechanisms of my mind, which include anything from visual distortions, personal biases, mood, and perhaps even affected by what I ate for breakfast. That being the case, I have every reason to believe that my internal state varies from yours. I also fully understand that language is a very limited way of expressing oneself and what goes on in one's mind. I know this because I compare the words I speak to what I'm actually thinking and I realize that what I say is a limited sketch of my full thoughts.
It also varies from itself. If it is so unique that you cannot speak of it, then it is only because you've yet to find the words for doing so. Look to others, for despite the fact that our states vary from each other and themselves, we all have the same ones. The more refined one's ability to talk about their own thought and belief, the more refined one's thought and belief become... It's a funny thing about the affect/effects of language on thought and belief.
Quoting Hanover
It doesn't follow from the fact that we do not speak aloud all our thoughts that we could not.
If all our belief were true, there would be no need to discriminate between true/false belief. But... not all our belief is true.
Creatures with the ability to think about their own thought and belief - and those without - are capable of having true and false belief. Only the former can become aware of it.
It can be done, but it just never has been done? I could start describing my phenomenal state now, looking out the window, hearing the rain, smelling the smells, thinking various thoughts, have various stresses, etc. and after thousands and thousands of pages, I'd still have left something out and you would not experience my experience. You'd just sort of know about it.Quoting creativesoul
How do you know what their beetle looks like?Quoting creativesoul
Perhaps. Sometimes our statements of our beliefs are wrong. But I do agree that the more we think about something, the more we understand it. That's how thought works, but I'm not committed to the idea that all thought must be performed by the tool of language.Quoting creativesoul
Such is the theory that given an infinite amount of time we could precisely describe a single thought. Like I said, maybe, but I doubt it.
Well, seeing how thought and belief formation is an ongoing process, there's always something more to speak about. That's another matter altogether.
What's at stake here is whether or not our thought and belief are ineffable.
Is that the same phenomenal state all the way through those thousands of pages?
Of course, if your experience includes only your thought and belief and all that that is existentially dependent upon, then no one else could have your experience, by definition. How does this line of thinking help our understanding?
Quoting Hanover
They open their box. I look inside. Let the box be language use. Let my looking inside be my drawing the same meaningful connections.
Quoting Hanover
There's agreement, but not what you've indicated.
I would say that it is not always the case that the more one thinks about something, the more one understands it:That's not how thought works. Often, the more one thinks about something, the more confused s/he becomes. To be clear, it can be the case though. I'm just attempting to keep this appropriately tempered.
I would not say that all thought and belief must be performed by language. We agree there.
SO they are not ineffable? Then what is the problem?
Again, if that is the case then their experiences are not ineffable.
So what is the problem?
Neither can I. Hanover seems to think I deny internal experiences. I don't. I'm saying that if they can not be shared, spoken about, then they are irrelevant. Hanover seems to disagree with that, but then examples he gives are all of shared experiences. He appears to want to keep his ineffability yet speak it, too.
My beetle is red. Yours?
Yes.
Quoting creativesoul
Hence belief and language go together.
Yes - and falsehood.
Yes - but is there some particular aspect of this that cannot be written?
Quoting Hanover
There is a difference between saying everything can be spoken of and saying that anything can be spoken of.
The beetle argument shows that anything can be talked about sets out what counts as a thing. It's a consequence of the extent* of our world being the extent of our language.
Of course this does not mean that our world cannot grow - show us something new, and we will bring it into our language and hence into our world.
*Usually written as "the limits of our world are the limits of our language" - but that makes folk get hung up on the word limits.
Irrelevant to what, is the question.
Were you thinking that consciousness reduces to a bunch of statements?
And am I by any chance speaking Swahili right now? You never seem to understand me.
Belief allows us to play the language game of correcting our errors. "I believed it, but it was wrong". It does this by acknowledging a distinction between what is true and what is stated, spoken, acted on and so on.
That's why beliefs are propositional attitudes - they have to be about stuff.
That's why they involve an individual - they have to be about what an agent does.
This is the best analysis I've seen so far.
Frank, do you think that being conscious and having 'phenomenal states" are the same?
I gather you do, since you equate my negative attitude to phenomenal states as a negative attitude towards consciousness.
But being conscious and having 'phenomenal states" are not the same. One has phenomenal states during a dream, when one is not conscious.