It's unusual to see my and Banno's considerations dovetail to a similar conclusion. It's significant that they do. Philosophy is about understanding what not to waste time on. :smile:
What Creative put into propositional form is not Jack's belief.
Agent SmithJanuary 26, 2022 at 06:14#6478040 likes
I took this short course on so-called SuperLearning and it recommends that we translate (key) words into pictures/images. It seems that we remember pictures/images far better than text. Evidence? As a rule we remember faces, but forget names. Link these pictures into a story, a memorable one, and hey presto, perfect recall!
Animals, since they lack human-like languages, may think in pictures/images. Picture theory of meaning?
de re belief ascriptions can be less ambiguously rendered in the following form:
S believes of X that p
E.g. Jack believes of that broken clock that is working
The reason being that in this form, the reference to X is put within the semantic scope of the one who is making the belief ascription instead of the scope of Jack's beliefs themselves.
Other examples to consider:
a1) Jack believes that Alice loves Jim
a2) Jack believes that Jim is loved by Alice
b1) Jack believes that Alice is the sister of Jim
b2) Jack believes that Jim is the brother of Alice
Do a1 and a2 express the same belief?
Do b1 and b2 express the same belief?
creativesoul's reminder of "rigid designators" is misleading. Kripke's theory of rigid designators was supposed to address the logic distinction between proper names and decriptions, and to argue against the Russellian's analysis of proper names in terms of descriptions: now, "broken clock" is a description not a proper name.
Besides we shouldn't take Kripke's theory for granted. And indeed I don't.
Harry HinduJanuary 26, 2022 at 12:50#6478650 likes
CS is obviously being purposely obtuse regarding your rebuttal (and mine), yet you continue with wasting your time trying to restate it, when there are more pertinent points in this thread to address. :roll:
The philosophical debate about propositions starts (or should start) from some strong intuitions that should be readily acknowledged by all competent speakers.
Agreed. But that is difficult to do when people maintain their grip on their understanding of propositions with their emotions and don't respond to questions about what propositions are when the questions get tough.
1. All the following statements say “the same” in different languages:
That apple is on the table (in English)
La pomme est sur la table (in French)
Der Apfel ist auf dem Tisch (in German)
Yes, how can three different strings of scribbles mean the same thing?
As far as I’ve understood, Moore initially takes propositions to be mind-independent abstract entities (a view that was probably inspired by Frege’s views) that constitute the objects of our thoughts and the meanings of our statements.
Mind independent abstract entities seems to be a contradiction. Abstractions are defined as existing as an idea and not as physical or concrete. So how can something that is abstract be mind independent?
My understanding of meaning (in semantics) is highly influenced by Wittgenstein’s views (as reported in his “Philosophical Investigations”), so for me meanings are not mind-independent abstract entities, but rules that present themselves in the course of actual and contextual linguistic practices: this implies that meanings are neither mind-independent, nor practice independent, besides they are not “objects” of thought since they regulate how we think about “objects”, they kind of operate in our thinking when we think more than being things that we consult in order to think.
What form does a language you don't know take? How does that change when you learn the language? Do the scribbles and sounds cease to be scribbles and sounds, or is it that you now know the rules to use those scribbles and sounds?
In what form do the rules present themselves if not the visual and auditory experiences you have when learning how others use language? This is no different than learning the rules of anything else, like object permanence - the realistic notion that entities continue to exist even when they do not exist in the mind - like the mouse that ran behind the tree.
Deleted UserJanuary 26, 2022 at 13:10#6478710 likes
I'm not wasting my time. I'm trying to help creative see he's wasting his time. And also enjoying the puzzle. This kind of philosophy is just a popcorn exercise to me. Great exercise, though.
Harry HinduJanuary 26, 2022 at 13:14#6478740 likes
I'm not wasting my time. I'm trying to help creative see he's wasting his time. And also enjoying the puzzle. This kind of philosophy is just a popcorn exercise to me. Great exercise, though.
My point was that it is a waste of your time when it's obvious CS doesn't care about wasting his. That was obvious several pages ago. Yet you avoided the the tough exercises and the tastiest popcorn.
Deleted UserJanuary 26, 2022 at 13:22#6478830 likes
they've have an emotional attachment to their beliefs about beliefs.
You're view here is odd to me. I have no attachment or commitment to a single thing that comes out of this branch of philosophy (analytic). I'm just here to make my brain feel good. I'm an existentialist at heart, to whom this sort of wordplay "twaddle" has a ludicrous ring.
When I think about belief, I think about a psychology of belief. That's where my heart is.
Your posts seem highly biased and emotionalized. That's why I don't engage with them fully.
Deleted UserJanuary 26, 2022 at 13:23#6478850 likes
CS was even more odd as you even admitted that he was wasting his time, yet you spent more time addressing his waste of time than my "odd" view. :roll:
Mind independent abstract entities seems to be a contradiction. Abstractions are defined as existing as an idea and not as physical or concrete. So how can something that is abstract be mind independent?
Many philosophers take the technical notion “abstract entity” to mean something that is not the result of some mental operation (“abstraction”). According to them “abstract entities” are to be contrasted to “concrete entities”: indeed both of them are real (i.e. mind-independent) entities , the difference (at least according to many) is that abstract entities are not located in space and time, and they are causally inert, while concrete entities are located in space and time (or at least, in time) and are not causally inert. Propositions, numbers, sets are often taken to be some common cases of abstract entities by those who believe in their existence. So for example, while a sentence is a concrete entity, the proposition that the sentence is meant to represent would be an abstract entity of the sort I’ve just described. Frege seems to have proposed this view.
What form does a language you don't know take? How does that change when you learn the language? Do the scribbles and sounds cease to be scribbles and sounds, or is it that you now know the rules to use those scribbles and sounds? — Harry Hindu
Yes it does.
Harry HinduJanuary 26, 2022 at 13:54#6479000 likes
I engaged them up to a point. Until further engagement seemed futile and there was no fun puzzle to solve.
I didn't see a fun, interesting puzzle in your post. Just your insistence and insistence is no fun.
:lol: What was CS doing if not insisting? You keep contradicting yourself.
Sure, difficult questions that, when answered, point out your contradictions can't be much fun. That's why you don't answer the question. And not being fun isn't an argument against anything that I've said. It's just a thinly veiled ad hominem.
All this time you've spent with me now could have been more constructive if you just answer the question.
Many philosophers take the technical notion “abstract entity” to mean something that is not the result of some mental operation (“abstraction”). According to them “abstract entities” are to be contrasted to “concrete entities”: indeed both of them are real (i.e. mind-independent) entities , the difference (at least according to many) is that abstract entities are not located in space and time, and they are causally inert, while concrete entities are located in space and time (or at least, in time) and are not causally inert. Propositions, numbers, sets are often taken to be some common cases of abstract entities by those who believe in their existence. So for example, while a sentence is a concrete entity, the proposition that the sentence is meant to represent would be an abstract entity of the sort I’ve just described. Frege seems to have proposed this view.
Thank you for the example.
So in the example, the sentence would be the written scribbles or spoken sounds and the proposition would be the state-of-affairs the scribbles/sounds are meant to represent? To me, the proposition and sentence are one and the same.
A sentence/proposition is a string of scribbles that refers to some state-of-affairs that is not just another string of scribbles. The reference, or the mental act of referencing, scribble with state-of-affairs would be abstract in the sense that we could use any scribble to refer to the same state-of-affairs as you showed when using three different languages to mean the same thing. When translating languages, that is what is translated - the state-of-affairs the scribbles refer to. The scribbles/sounds we use are arbitrary, which is why there must be an agreement to the rules on what scribbles and sounds to use and how to use them.
This is also what it means for some proposition/sentence to be true in that the string of scribbles is true if what it refers to is the case.
Meaning, however, is not arbitrary. It is the relationship between cause and effect. What some scribble means is what caused it to exist on the paper or on the screen. It is caused by a mind that possesses an idea and the will to communicate it, or else the scribbles would not exist. "Hello" refers to the idea and intent of someone to begin a conversation with someone else.
Since propositions are the arbitrary scribbles we use to refer to what is the case and scribbles are experienced visually just like most other things, like houses, hammers, grass and fish, then learning a language is not much different than learning how to use houses, hammers, grass and fish, which is done without language and done simply by observing the behavior of others around such items. This is no different than animals, just a different degree.
So non-language creatures have beliefs in that they learn by making observations and what they learn is what they believe to be the case in other similar states-of-affairs. Their beliefs are not in the form of propositions, but the visual experiences they had. The same goes for scribble-using humans, and is how they learned a language in the first place by believing that scribbles can be used to refer to what is the case or not. You have to believe that before you can begin using scribbles.
Deleted UserJanuary 26, 2022 at 14:26#6479070 likes
What was CS doing if not insisting? You keep contradicting yourself.
Sure, difficult questions that, when answered, point out your contradictions can't be much fun. That's why you don't answer the question. And not being fun isn't an argument against anything that I've said. It's just a thinly veiled ad hominem.
All this time you've spent with me now could have been more constructive if you just answer the question.
This is why I don't engage. You have no sense of charity and your posts are unpleasant.
Deleted UserJanuary 26, 2022 at 14:29#6479090 likes
Good question. Here is another one: if all propositions can be rendered in linguistic form, then what proposition would correspond to the following image?
Deleted UserJanuary 26, 2022 at 15:12#6479180 likes
CS is obviously being purposely obtuse regarding your rebuttal (and mine)
That's shallow, knee-jerk psychology.
His heart is in it. He feels he's created or uncovered something devastating or catalytic to the history of philosophy. That foments a profound experience of life-meaning: wakefulness, inspiration, excitement, a superior feeling,* a sense of domination - of philosophical material and of philosophical opponents.
Nietzsche**:
What is happiness? — The feeling that power increases — that a resistance is overcome.
To abandon his position is to abandon his happiness. His sense of newfound power and that heady sense of overcoming.
Some Gunneddown Gunless Johnny**:
To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.
To my view creative's mindset is a great distance from purposeful obtuseness. He's having an invigorating emotional experience and to abandon his position is to shut down that enjoyment and obliterate that purposefulness. I was doing a bit of coaxing. That's why wisdom is so important in philosophy. Philosophy is an emotional game and our emotions can easily and quickly hoodwink us and walk us...
* See Adler's writings on the ramifications of a universal native experience of inferiority.
** Nietzsche and Saint John of Revelation are - strangely enough - soul-brothers united in the word 'overcome'.
When translating languages, that is what is translated - the state-of-affairs the scribbles refer to.
Not sure about that. Take a couple of English sentences with their relative translations in French:
A1) Alice loves Jim
A2) Jim is loved by Alice
B1) Alice aime Jim
B2) Jim est aimé par Alice
I would take all 4 statements to be about the same state-of-affairs (and you?). Yet B1 is a correct translation of A1 only, and B2 of A2 only. If it was true that the translation is based on reference to the same state-of-affairs then both B1 and B2 would be equally good translations of A1 or A2 indifferently.
Meaning, however, is not arbitrary. It is the relationship between cause and effect. What some scribble means is what caused it to exist on the paper or on the screen. It is caused by a mind
The idea that “a mind” is causing “scribble means” doesn’t sound right to me.
“Scribbles” may be the kind of entities that can be caused, but “means” are not caused, nor can be rendered in causal terms.
So non-language creatures have beliefs in that they learn by making observations and what they learn is what they believe to be the case in other similar states-of-affairs. Their beliefs are not in the form of propositions, but the visual experiences they had. The same goes for scribble-using humans, and is how they learned a language in the first place by believing that scribbles can be used to refer to what is the case or not. You have to believe that before you can begin using scribbles.
I’m inclined to agree with you in general, but the devil is in the details. So, I agree that animal cognitive skills and consequent behavior are much more constrained by their experience than human cognitive skills are. Yet it doesn’t sound right to me to claim that animals’ beliefs are “in the form of their visual experiences”. The problem is that experience (visual or other) doesn’t seem to be enough to grant belief (see the case of optical illusions like the Müller-Lyer illusion [1]: the 2 arrows keep looking different in length even if one correctly believes that they have the same size), therefore animals’ beliefs too are not necessarily nor tightly coupled with their experiences.
Besides the claim that human’s beliefs are “in the form of propositions” does sound right, at least in part. However I would complement it by saying that a belief in propositional form is just a belief that is expressed through a declarative sentence, i.e. through a specific linguistic behavior, that doesn’t imply that humans are equipped only of propositional beliefs.
[1]
creativesoulJanuary 27, 2022 at 03:15#6481530 likes
I'm genuinely confused by your hesitance to agree.
Russell, Gettier, and Moore all took JTB to task. It's not survived very well. No one seems to have figured out what the problem was because those who've been convinced by those critics still hold on to the same conventional notions that gave all three their foothold. Rendering human belief as propositional attitude has remained as a structural ledger. That's quite unfortunate, because that rendering was, and it remains to be a structural problem. It's not entirely wrong. It's just that not all belief are equivalent to propositional attitudes, and thus those exceptions cannot be sensibly rendered in those terms. That's what my broken clock example shows us, and quite clearly it seems to me.
We can and do know that at that particular time, and in that particular situation, they most certainly had to have believed that that particular clock was working, for [i]there is no other way to come away believing what it said.
Jack - mistakenly - believed that a broken clock was dependable; read true; was running; was trustworthy; was where he ought look to find out what time it was; etc. Hid did not know that it was broken, but he most certainly believed it!
Jack - mistakenly - believed that a broken clock was dependable; read true; was running; was trustworthy; was where he ought look to find out what time it was; etc. Hid did not know that it was broken, but he most certainly believed it!
But you want to say more than just this, don't you? Somehow this is supposed to show the be;eifs are not propositional.
Fill in the gap.
creativesoulJanuary 27, 2022 at 03:29#6481600 likes
1. The fact that you're using propositions to, in a way, denounce propositions: (some) beliefs are nonpropositional.
2. There's a difference between a sentence (in a language) and the proposition it's about. I hope you're not confusing the two. Propositions are about reality and the sentences that state them are about language. How can a belief, necessarily concerning reality, be nonpropositional?
creativesoulJanuary 27, 2022 at 05:08#6481880 likes
Jack - mistakenly - believed that a broken clock was dependable; read true; was running; was trustworthy; was where he ought look to find out what time it was; etc. Hid did not know that it was broken, but he most certainly believed it!
Are you objecting to the above quote?
creativesoulJanuary 27, 2022 at 05:12#6481900 likes
It was a broken clock that he believed to be working.
creativesoulJanuary 27, 2022 at 05:22#6481940 likes
If we were in Jack's room...
We could show Jack the error. Jack would readily agree that he had indeed believed that that particular broken clock was working. How else does one get lucky about what time it is after looking at a broken clock, if not by virtue believing that the broken clock was working?
This goes to prove my point. We can have belief that we are unaware of. Believing that a broken clock is working is one such belief.
It makes no sense to render that belief as a propositional attitude.
He does not - cannot - believe that "the broken clock is working" is true while believing that the broken clock is working, because he does not know it is broken.
Jack believed a broken clock was working. While holding such a belief, Jack cannot have an attitude towards the proposition "a broken clock was working" such that he believed it to be true. It could be rightfully rendered as such - but only in hindsight after becoming aware of his error. At that point in time, he would no longer believe that a broken clock was working.
He never believed "a broken clock is working" was true.
creativesoulJanuary 27, 2022 at 06:11#6482140 likes
Take a couple of English sentences with their relative translations in French:
A1) Alice loves Jim
A2) Jim is loved by Alice
B1) Alice aime Jim
B2) Jim est aimé par Alice
I would take all 4 statements to be about the same state-of-affairs (and you?). Yet B1 is a correct translation of A1 only, and B2 of A2 only. If it was true that the translation is based on reference to the same state-of-affairs then both B1 and B2 would be equally good translations of A1 or A2 indifferently.
The all share the same set of truth conditions. So, in that sense they're about the same things...
Sure. But jack did no believe that: a broken clock was working. All you have done is to stuff up the parsing of Jack's belief.
That is, "Jack believed a broken clock was working" is not an accurate rendering of Jack's belief, since you have substituted "a broken clock" into the belief, and Jack did not believe the clock to be broken.
Hmmm...my mind is involuntarily thrown to Descartes, doubting the validity of his senses, even as he constructs propositional statements about the reality he seems to experience via the senses. Is it not implicit in the proposition 'the mouse ran behind the tree' - if my senses are not decieving me? Is not belief - different from knowledge in this regard, that belief is at the same time, supposed to be true, but uncertain? And does not the propositional nature of belief exist in this uncertainty? That so, the question devolves to one of, what is a proposition and what is a justified true belief; resolved by a series of scientifically controlled experiments to determine, beyond all reasonable doubt, if in fact the mouse is behind the tree. Then saying the mouse is behind the tree is not a proposition - it's a statement of fact.
Agent SmithJanuary 27, 2022 at 08:07#6482290 likes
@creativesoul. Jack's mistaken belief that the clock is working when it actually isn't doesn't imply that beliefs are nonpropositional. Am I missing something here?
It's just that not all belief are equivalent to propositional attitudes, and thus those exceptions cannot be sensibly rendered in those terms. That's what my broken clock example shows us, and quite clearly it seems to me.
Your understanding of belief ascriptions is biased by your philosophical understanding of propositional attitudes. While de dicto/de re belief ascriptions have an appropriate usage and make sanse to competent speakers independently from your ideas about propositional attitudes.
And there is a strong reason to prefer de dicto belief ascriptions over de re ascriptions b/c the former ones generally explain better believers’ intentional behavior, than the latter (assumed they are both correct).
Jack - mistakenly - believed that a broken clock was dependable; read true; was running; was trustworthy; was where he ought look to find out what time it was; etc. Hid did not know that it was broken, but he most certainly believed it!
Your claim is misleading for 2 reasons: 1. De re belief ascriptions make absolutely sense in some cases (e.g. when we try to solve belief ascriptions ambiguities wrt other subjects’ contextual and shared background understanding of the situation [1]), yet it’s not correctness the ground for de-re belief ascriptions! 2. Your de re belief ascription about Jack is based on a de-contextualised assumption that the description “that brocken clock” is correct by hypothesis (an assumption that nobody would take for granted in controversial real cases b/c even your belief ascriptions are beliefs after all!).
[1]
A toddler runs toward a woman walking with her partner in a park, the toddler’s father runs after him, and, knowing that couple from the neighbourhood, explains to the surprised partner: “my son believes that your wife is his mum”. Of course the toddler knows nothing about the marital relationship between the partner and the woman, he doesn’t even have the concept of “marriage”, nor “motherhood” for that matter, as shared by adults, therefore the father’s belief ascription is not de dicto (what would be a de dicto rendering of that toddler’s belief?), yet this de re belief ascription is epistemologically plausible to the father and the couple based on their background and shared understanding of the situation.
Harry HinduJanuary 27, 2022 at 13:15#6482930 likes
This is why I don't engage. You have no sense of charity and your posts are unpleasant.
Yet look at all of the posts you have created since my last post. You're willing to engage but only if you dictate the topic, which is off the topic of this thread that you want to avoid so that you don't have to address my points.
It's the tone of your insistence. It's off-putting.
You engaged me up to the point where I asked my question then abandoned it and would now rather waste thread space with your ranting. Your behavior is off-putting by not being intellectually honest.
His heart is in it. He feels he's created or uncovered something devastating or catalytic to the history of philosophy. That foments a profound experience of life-meaning: wakefulness, inspiration, excitement, a superior feeling,* a sense of domination - of philosophical material and of philosophical opponents.
Sounds like you're describing an emotional attachment to me. My only goal in being here is to learn from others by asking them questions and to subject some of my own ideas to criticism. You aren't willing to do either and only seem to be willing in entertaining the ideas of someone with delusions of grandeur. Good luck.
Harry HinduJanuary 27, 2022 at 13:20#6482970 likes
Good question. Here is another one: if all propositions can be rendered in linguistic form, then what proposition would correspond to the following image?
What are propositions if not images of scribbles? So to think in propositions is to think in visual images, or sounds if you're talking to yourself in your head.
What form does a language you don't know take if not visual scribbles and sounds? In hearing a language you don't know are you able to distinguish subjects from predicates, or even just the ending of one word from the beginning of the next?
"This is a picture of a duck or a rabbit, depending on how you look at it." The picture would be an example of "ambiguity".
Harry HinduJanuary 27, 2022 at 13:48#6483040 likes
Not sure about that. Take a couple of English sentences with their relative translations in French:
A1) Alice loves Jim
A2) Jim is loved by Alice
B1) Alice aime Jim
B2) Jim est aimé par Alice
I would take all 4 statements to be about the same state-of-affairs (and you?). Yet B1 is a correct translation of A1 only, and B2 of A2 only. If it was true that the translation is based on reference to the same state-of-affairs then both B1 and B2 would be equally good translations of A1 or A2 indifferently.
I agree that all 4 statements to be about the same state-of-affairs so we are agreeing that all four statements are translatable with the other. In saying that all 4 statements are about the same state-of-affairs you are saying that they are all translatable with each other. You can even have two different sentences in the same language that mean the same thing (A1 and A2), meaning that translating isn't necessarily between two or more languages. It is between two or more symbols (scribbles).
Synonyms are different words that mean the same thing. So you can create two different sentences in one language that mean the same thing and when translated to another language that also has synonyms that mean the same thing as the other two sentences. You can say the same thing different ways. The point is what you are saying, not how you are saying it. In other words none of these statements used is an example of people talking past each other.
The idea that “a mind” is causing “scribble means” doesn’t sound right to me.
“Scribbles” may be the kind of entities that can be caused, but “means” are not caused, nor can be rendered in causal terms.
I didn't say means are caused. I said meaning is the relationship between cause and effect. Causes leave effects and when we look for the meaning of the effect, we are looking for the cause. Examples would be a criminal investigator using the crime scene (effect) to find the identity of the criminal (cause) so this fingerprint means Crooked Joe Smith committed this crime, or tree rings in a tree stump where the rings (effect) are caused by how the tree grows throughout the year (cause) so tree rings means the number of years the tree has existed.
Scribbles are the effect. What they mean is the relationship between the scribbles existing and what caused them, which is an idea and the intent to communicate them and then the act of typing them and clicking Post Comment. If none of those things happened, scribbles would not appear on this screen.
What are you asking for when you ask what does X mean?
I’m inclined to agree with you in general, but the devil is in the details. So, I agree that animal cognitive skills and consequent behavior are much more constrained by their experience than human cognitive skills are. Yet it doesn’t sound right to me to claim that animals’ beliefs are “in the form of their visual experiences”. The problem is that experience (visual or other) doesn’t seem to be enough to grant belief (see the case of optical illusions like the Müller-Lyer illusion [1]: the 2 arrows keep looking different in length even if one correctly believes that they have the same size), therefore animals’ beliefs too are not necessarily nor tightly coupled with their experiences.
Besides the claim that human’s beliefs are “in the form of propositions” does sound right, at least in part. However I would complement it by saying that a belief in propositional form is just a belief that is expressed through a declarative sentence, i.e. through a specific linguistic behavior, that doesn’t imply that humans are equipped only of propositional beliefs.
Thank you for the detailed response which is more than I can say about many veteran members on this site.
Beliefs are not necessarily true. Someone that holds a belief may have some degree of certainty in maintaining their belief, which is to say that they have some reason or justification, but usually isn't logically justified, only justified by observation. A bent straw in a glass of water is a good example. When observing a bent straw in a glass of water one might believe the straw is bent with their reasoning being their own observation for believing it. But when you integrate it with other observations (like taking the straw out of the water and integrating the knowledge that we see light and not objects) and logic then beliefs can be disbelieved or justified even further into knowledge. The straw is not bent. The light is bent.
In the example of your lines, one may believe that one line is longer until you get out the ruler.
So beliefs would be an idea that something is true based on one observation, while knowledge would be something is true based on multiple observations that are integrated with logic.
creativesoulJanuary 27, 2022 at 16:03#6483420 likes
We know that substituting within the scope of a propositional attitude need not preserve truth value...
That is one of the places where convention goes wrong. That's Gettier's foothold as well. Jack believed that a broken clock was working. Smith believed that he would get the job. The substitutions made changed the truth conditions and thus the meaning of the beliefs. In both cases, as explained earlier, when we make such substitutions, we are no longer talking about Jack's or Smith's belief.
creativesoulJanuary 27, 2022 at 16:05#6483430 likes
You're willing to engage but only if you dictate the topic
"Dictate" is a bit overblown. Just following my muse. My attitude toward analytic philosophy is decidedly lighthearted. To my view, there's wisdom in that. Do you have an interest in wisdom?
You engaged me up to the point where I asked my question
I told you I was muddling through and following along. I considered that a confession of ignorance. Yet you continued your imperious questioning.
I don't have clear answers to the bulk of the questions that came to light in this thread. Your off-putting tone made it easy (and likely wise) to ignore you.
At any rate, I'm ready to move on if you are. :smile:
Deleted UserJanuary 27, 2022 at 16:20#6483470 likes
Should the formulation of Jack's belief include information about the clock beyond Jack's ken?
You say yes.
Analytic convention apparently says no. It seems to fall under the rubric: substitution.
Banno seems to be saying that the puzzle you've brought to light has already been acknowledged and addressed in the analytic canon. They apparently call it substitution and know it "need not preserve truth value." In other words, other folks have come across this tricky conundrum and have set a rule in place to remedy the specific confusion you're wrestling with.
Jack believed that: the clock is working.
The clock = the broken clock
Substituting,
Jack believed that: the broken clock is working.
We know that substituting within the scope of a propositional attitude need not preserve truth value, and hence that the conclusion is invalid.
Maybe Banno has a reference for this info so that we can read about the history of substitution in analytic philosophy.
"This is a picture of a duck or a rabbit, depending on how you look at it." The picture would be an example of "ambiguity".
That is the problem of putting visual content into propositional form. Images can be ambiguous in a way that is not captured by any related descriptions.
Besides one and the same image can correspond to many possible descriptions, whose number is arguably higher than any limited mind can conceive of.
The point is what you are saying, not how you are saying it.
When we translate, we take into account precisely how things are said, otherwise it wouldn’t be a translation.
So you can not use an active form in your native language to translate a foreign sentence in passive form, if you want to translate literally the foreign sentence of course.
That is why, in the examples I listed, B2 is a correct translation of A2, and not of A1, despite the fact that all 3 statements are about the same state of affaires.
I said meaning is the relationship between cause and effect. (...) What they mean is the relationship between the scribbles existing and what caused them.
Still I disagree on this. My conviction is that linguistic meaning presupposes intentionality and intentionality can not be understood in causal terms for several reasons.
Here I limit myself to 3 and will leave it at that:
1. Causes and effects form an indefinitely long sequence of events, so in this chain of events start and end of a meaningful correlation (say between a sign and its referent) are identifiable only by presupposing the constitutive correlates of intentional states: namely subject (who would produce linguistic signs ) and object (which would be the referent of the linguistic sign).
2. “reference” between signs and referents is grounded on rule-based behavior that presupposes intentionality with its direction of fit, while causality has no direction of fit at all.
3. a sign can refer to things that do not exist, and things that do not exist can not cause anything
So beliefs would be an idea that something is true based on one observation, while knowledge would be something is true based on multiple observations that are integrated with logic.
Belief can be based on one or multiple observations, agreed. But this seems to contradict instead of supporting the idea that belief can be taken “in the form of their visual experiences”. Perceptual beliefs exceed the related visual experience: they are attitudes, but visual experiences are not attitudes. This should be true for both men and animals, to my understanding.
Maybe Banno has a reference for this info so that we can read about the history of substitution in analytic philosophy.
It's found in Frege. I mistakenly assumed familiarity, given that it is so common. I've mentioned it a few times before in this very thread.
Here's an invalid inference mentioned earlier:
Louis believes Superman has x-ray vision.
Superman = Kent
Therefore Louis believes Kent has x-ray vision.
It's part of the reason for Frege's separation of sense and reference. His response is roughly that "Superman" in "Superman has x-ray vision" refers to superman; but that "Superman" in "Louis believes Superman has x-ray vision" doesn't; instead it refers to the way Louis represents Superman - the sense. There are issues with that explanation - see Davidson's "On saying that..."
I've been tacitly adopting Davidson's sentential response. Roughly, "Superman has x-ray vision" is a different sentence to "Kent has x-ray vision". Louis believes the former but not the latter. There are technical issues with this approach, too, of course, but it works as a rule of thumb.
More relevant to our present discussion is that these are puzzles of belief attribution, and not of belief as such. That is, they do not show a problem with treating beliefs as propositional attitudes, but rather with reporting those beliefs. Those who are working on these problems accept that beliefs can be parsed as attitudes towards statements, sentences or propositions.
There are interesting issues here. But now unfortunately folk here will again get hung upon the irrelevancy of the distinction between a proposition and a statement, or mistake issues of belief reports for issues of belief.
Reply to creativesoul It was once believed the Earth was flat. It was not believed that the spherical Earth is flat, because for those people the Earth was not spherical. The belief in propositional terms was " The Earth is flat " is true, not "The spherical Earth is flat" is true. This is analogous to your "broken clock" example.You are conflating actuality with belief and producing a fatally incoherent admixture.
Those who are working on these problems accept that beliefs can be parsed as attitudes towards statements, sentences or propositions.
Sure and propositions statements sentences (and whatever else you have in your menu) can be parsed in sequences of electric impulses with different electric voltages, therefore - by transitivity - beliefs are attitudes toward sequences of impulses with different electric voltage.
Reply to neomac There's a difference between a statement and an utterance. Austin's locution vs. illocution. Electric impulses as a locution, and as an illocution. Plenty of room for oddities.
There's a difference between a statement and an utterance
How is this relevant? Instead, give me an example of a proposition, sentence, statement (or whatever else you don't care to distinguish from propositions) that can not be parsed into sequences of electric impulses of different voltage!
Deleted UserJanuary 27, 2022 at 23:51#6484520 likes
Jack believed a broken clock was working. While holding such a belief, Jack cannot have an attitude towards the proposition "a broken clock was working" such that he believed it to be true. It could be rightfully rendered as such - but only in hindsight after becoming aware of his error. At that point in time, he would no longer believe that a broken clock was working.
He never believed "a broken clock is working" was true.
Jack believed a broken clock was working.
— creativesoul
Sure. But jack did no believe that: a broken clock was working. All you have done is to stuff up the parsing of Jack's belief.
First you agree with my saying that Jack believed a broken clock was working, then you add a colon and claim he did not believe a broken clock was working...
Is that a magic colon? I mean, does it somehow change Jack's belief?
Help me out here. I think we agree, based upon your "Sure..." answer.
It seems that we both agree that although he believed a broken clock was working, during the time he did, that he would not assent to that belief if rendered in propositional form. In other words, while believing that a broken clock was working, he would not have an attitude towards "a broken clock is working" such that he believed it to be true. Furthermore, that after becoming aware of his error, he would no longer hold the belief, but would readily acknowledge that he had indeed believed that a broken clock was working.
Are we in agreement here?
creativesoulJanuary 28, 2022 at 02:08#6484870 likes
Your understanding of belief ascriptions is biased by your philosophical understanding of propositional attitudes. While de dicto/de re belief ascriptions have an appropriate usage and make sanse to competent speakers independently from your ideas about propositional attitudes.
And there is a strong reason to prefer de dicto belief ascriptions over de re ascriptions b/c the former ones generally explain better believers’ intentional behavior, than the latter (assumed they are both correct).
My understanding of belief ascriptions is based upon my understanding of belief; how it is formed. how it becomes meaningful to the creature, what it consists of, what it is existentially dependent upon, and so forth...
Are you of the position that Jack cannot believe that a broken clock is working when he looks at it to find out what time it is?
creativesoulJanuary 28, 2022 at 02:13#6484920 likes
Your claim is misleading for 2 reasons: 1. De re belief ascriptions make absolutely sense in some cases (e.g. when we try to solve belief ascriptions ambiguities wrt other subjects’ contextual and shared background understanding of the situation [1]), yet it’s not correctness the ground for de-re belief ascriptions! 2. Your de re belief ascription about Jack is based on a de-contextualised assumption that the description “that brocken clock” is correct by hypothesis (an assumption that nobody would take for granted in controversial real cases b/c even your belief ascriptions are beliefs after all!).
Is that supposed to be clearer and more accurate somehow than just admitting that we can mistakenly believe that a broken clock is working?
creativesoulJanuary 28, 2022 at 02:20#6484950 likes
A toddler runs toward a woman walking with her partner in a park, the toddler’s father runs after him, and, knowing that couple from the neighbourhood, explains to the surprised partner: “my sun believes that your wife is his mum”. Of course the toddler knows nothing about the marital relationship between the partner and the woman, he doesn’t even have the concept of “marriage”, nor “motherhood” for that matter, as shared by adults, therefore the father’s belief ascription is not de dicto (what would be a de dicto rendering of that toddler’s belief?), yet this de re belief ascription is epistemologically plausible to the father and the couple based on their background and shared understanding of the situation.
You're the one invoking the dichotomy. I'm guessing it's an utterly inadequate one, like most other historically philosophical ones.
You tell me...
What would be a de dicto rendering of that toddler's belief? I mean, ought we not all do our own work?
:wink:
creativesoulJanuary 28, 2022 at 02:26#6484980 likes
In other words, other folks have come across this tricky conundrum and have set a rule in place to remedy the specific confusion you're wrestling with.
To the best of my knowledge, the broken clock belief has yet to have been properly accounted for in Russell's example. In the defense of convention, the point being made was not about the way that Russell took the man's belief into account. Rather, it was about whether or not we're justified in believing clocks. The fact that it was broken wasn't considered, as a result of the man's ignorance of the fact that it was, and thus his ignorance of the fact that he believed a broken clock.
creativesoulJanuary 28, 2022 at 02:27#6484990 likes
More relevant to our present discussion is that these are puzzles of belief attribution, and not of belief as such. That is, they do not show a problem with treating beliefs as propositional attitudes, but rather with reporting those beliefs. Those who are working on these problems accept that beliefs can be parsed as attitudes towards statements, sentences or propositions.
There are interesting issues here.
They show interesting issues with our reports, that's true. However, I find that those problematic reports are based - sometimes at least - upon a misconception of belief, as a propositional attitude notwithstanding. Jack believed a broken clock was working, but never did he believe that "the broken clock is working" was true. That's a big problem for the practice of rendering belief as a propositional attitude. Anamoly? Perhaps. Nonetheless, it shows something is wrong with the practice.
Not to mention the issues with language less belief as propositional attitude.
Deleted UserJanuary 28, 2022 at 03:22#6485090 likes
It was once believed the Earth was flat. It was not believed that the spherical Earth is flat, because for those people the Earth was not spherical. The belief in propositional terms was " The Earth is flat " is true, not "The spherical Earth is flat" is true. This is analogous to your "broken clock" example.You are conflating actuality with belief and producing a fatally incoherent admixture.
I don't think anything can sway creative at this point but this seems spot-on.
It has everything to do with it, for it is the basis of belief as propositional attitude.
Why? What are the reasons? Where are the arguments to support your claim that JTB is the basis for belief as propositional attitude? I mean, ought we not all do our own work?
Are you of the position that Jack cannot believe that a broken clock is working when he looks at it to find out what time it is?
Yep that would be my presupposition (and not only mine apparently) wrt your hypothetical case. The point is that I’m capable of de dicto/de re rendering/understanding of belief ascriptions as any other competent speaker in the right circumstances and prior to any philosophical debate. Your revisionist approach about this distinction based on your philosophical assumptions still looks unjustified for 2 reasons: 1. de dicto rendering is usually more accurate than de re rendering when we want to explain behavior 2. The success of de re ascriptions is not based on correctness but on shared assumptions between the one who makes the belief ascription and her audience on the situation at hand. If I don’t know enough Jack, I might find appropriate to make a de re ascription like this: Jack believes of that broken clock that is working.
Indeed de re belief ascriptions would still be effective if the shared assumptions were completely wrong: e.g. flat Earth believers could claim of me “he believes that our flat Earth is round” or, better, “he believes of our flat Earth that is round”.
Is that supposed to be clearer and more accurate somehow than just admitting that we can mistakenly believe that a broken clock is working?
Here my answer:
1. My claim is that “Jack believes that the broken clock is working” can be read in 2 ways, de dicto or de re. And de dicto ascription would be preferred over a de re ascription, when possible and based on shared understanding, because it’s more informative, more explanatory of believers’ behavior. But possibility and shareability assessments depend on the contextual assumptions of the involved parties: the one who states the belief ascription and her audience wrt the believer in the situation at hand.
2. The claim that “Jack mistakenly believes that the broken clock is working” out-of-context is more ambiguous about a de re and de dicto reading: with a de dicto reading Jack would simply be irrational (since it’s a contradictory belief), with a de re reading Jack could be either irrational or ignorant about the fact that the clock is not working. In other words, the de dicto belief ascription is more specific than de re belief ascription, therefore - if accurate - more explanatory or useful in guiding our expectations about Jack.
What would be a de dicto rendering of that toddler's belief? I mean, ought we not all do our own work?
Mine was indeed a rhetoric question! The example of the toddler was meant to show a common case where a de re belief ascription makes sense, since we may have at best an approximate idea of what a toddler’s understanding of the situation is (i.e. we would be much less confident in any de dicto belief ascription in this specific case). The same goes for belief ascriptions to animals. The better we understand the believer’s view of the situation, the more we would rely on her understanding of the situation to explain her behavior (or assess her rationality), and share it with others with de dicto belief ascriptions in the appropriate circumstances.
Harry HinduJanuary 28, 2022 at 12:42#6485930 likes
I had a compassionate feeling for creative
— ZzzoneiroCosm
You engaged me up to the point where I asked my question
— Harry Hindu
I told you I was muddling through and following along. I considered that a confession of ignorance. Yet you continued your imperious questioning.
I don't have clear answers to the bulk of the questions that came to light in this thread. Your off-putting tone made it easy (and likely wise) to ignore you.
At any rate, I'm ready to move on if you are.
My tone hasn't changed yet here you are not ignoring me.
It was a simple question, much simpler than the other questions in this thread that you attempted to muddle through in answering. The only way to move on is for you to muddle through answering my question, if you can stop contradicting yourself long enough so that I might actually take you seriously.
Harry HinduJanuary 28, 2022 at 13:06#6485980 likes
That is the problem of putting visual content into propositional form. Images can be ambiguous in a way that is not captured by any related descriptions.
Besides one and the same image can correspond to many possible descriptions, whose number is arguably higher than any limited mind can conceive of.
Were you asking me to describe the image, or what the image is about? The image isn't about anything because it is ambiguous. The image is ambiguous, therefore it's not about anything, but the words, "this image is ambiguous" is about the image. One might say that art is intentionally ambiguous - meaning that art isn't about anything itself, rather it is meant to play games with images, or words in the way of poems or music. Also the image isn't about tigers and bears, only rabbits and ducks. So it's limited in its ambiguity.
When we translate, we take into account precisely how things are said, otherwise it wouldn’t be a translation.
So you can not use an active form in your native language to translate a foreign sentence in passive form, if you want to translate literally the foreign sentence of course.
That is why, in the examples I listed, B2 is a correct translation of A2, and not of A1, despite the fact that all 3 statements are about the same state of affaires.
But using a different language is itself a difference in how things are said from how it is said in another language. Different symbols and rules are used to refer to the same thing. This is what I meant when I said that symbol use is arbitrary. I can use different symbols, even in the same language, to mean the same thing.
Still I disagree on this. My conviction is that linguistic meaning presupposes intentionality and intentionality can not be understood in causal terms for several reasons.
Here I limit myself to 3 and will leave it at that:
1. Causes and effects form an indefinitely long sequence of events, so in this chain of events start and end of a meaningful correlation (say between a sign and its referent) are identifiable only by presupposing the constitutive correlates of intentional states: namely subject (who would produce linguistic signs ) and object (which would be the referent of the linguistic sign).
2. “reference” between signs and referents is grounded on rule-based behavior that presupposes intentionality with its direction of fit, while causality has no direction of fit at all.
3. a sign can refer to things that do not exist, and things that do not exist can not cause anything
I agree that causes and effects form an indefinitely long sequence of events. All of these prior events can be discovered by correctly interpreting the effect. Your use of words not only informs me that you have an idea and the intent to communicate it, but also your level of education in English and what part of the world you are from based on your accent and dialect. So, it all depends on what the goal of the mind is at any moment (intent). Is it to know where you are from, or to know what you intend to say? If I really wanted to I could use the effect of your scribbles to even show that it is evidence of the Big Bang, as you would not be here putting scribbles on a screen if the Big Bang did not occur, nor if stars did not fuse heavier elements together and then scatter them across the galaxy in a supernova.
A sign never refers to things that do not exist. The question is where it exists - out in the world, or in your head. Imaginary concepts have causal power. Just go visit the Sci-Fi / Fantasy section of your favorite book store and think about some of the movies made from some if those books and you will see what I'm talking about.
In reading the book, The Lord of the Rings and watching the film trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, both are different ways of telling the same story. The narrator's words in the book has been replaced by images of non-verbal behaviors and events in the movie, and the latter is what you think about, or picture in your mind, when reading the narrator's words in the book.
Unlike Banno, I believe that language use is not a game, but games can be played with words, which is what art typically does in the form of poems and musical lyrics. Language was initially used for relaying information in the same way as observing others' behaviors relays information, but once humans had enough time on their hands from not having to worry about where the next meal is coming from, they began to play games with their words (write poems and do philosophy).
Belief can be based on one or multiple observations, agreed. But this seems to contradict instead of supporting the idea that belief can be taken “in the form of their visual experiences”. Perceptual beliefs exceed the related visual experience: they are attitudes, but visual experiences are not attitudes. This should be true for both men and animals, to my understanding.
I think I understand what you are saying is that the justification (observation) is not the belief. The attitude seems to occur with the initial observation as useful observations are remembered. Why remember something that isn't useful? The act of memorizing an experience is the act of believing it so that you may recall it later (use the belief).
creativesoulJanuary 28, 2022 at 16:21#6486660 likes
A sentence is semantically de re just in case it permits substitution of co-designating terms salva veritate. Otherwise, it is semantically de dicto.
Jack believes that a broken clock is working.
Jack believes that that particular clock is working.
Jack mistakenly believes that a broken clock is working.
Jack mistakenly believes that that particular clock is working.
I just do not see how this distinction helps anything at all here, particularly with those who object to saying Jack believes that a broken clock is working. I employ Leibniz and salva veritate in my own substitution rules.
Are you of the position that Jack cannot believe that a broken clock is working when he looks at it to find out what time it is?
— creativesoul
Yep that would be my presupposition
Do you not see the absurdity in this? Can Jack look at a broken clock? Surely. Can Jack believe what the clock says? Surely. Why then, can he not believe that a broken clock is working?
The point of this exercise, on my end anyway, is to show how the consequences of conventional accounting practices are absurd, like saying that we cannot look at a broken clock and believe what it says.
creativesoulJanuary 28, 2022 at 16:28#6486680 likes
It was once believed the Earth was flat. It was not believed that the spherical Earth is flat, because for those people the Earth was not spherical. The belief in propositional terms was " The Earth is flat " is true, not "The spherical Earth is flat" is true. This is analogous to your "broken clock" example. You are conflating actuality with belief and producing a fatally incoherent admixture.
This is the best yet. Well done. Then again...
So, we cannot say of those people that they believe that a spherical object is flat(there are still flat-earthers, you know).
And yet they most certainly do!
creativesoulJanuary 28, 2022 at 16:52#6486760 likes
The common denominator between the problematic beliefs in question seems to be that they are all false, unbeknownst to the believer.
The oddest part of all this is that despite the objections to my renderings here, the believers themselves would readily admit that they did indeed hold such belief, but could do so only after becoming aware of their errors, at which point in time, they would no longer believe.
Are the objectors here going to object to that as well?
The interesting part is that they never believed the propositional rendering was true.
A sentence is semantically de re just in case it permits substitution of co-designating terms salva veritate. Otherwise, it is semantically de dicto.
All right, but pragmatic considerations should be taken into account to get the full picture of our communicative practices concerning de re/de dicto belief ascriptions (what terms are taken to co-refere, when substitution is allowed, etc.).
Besides also co-reference is matter of belief!
Can Jack look at a broken clock? Surely. Can Jack believe what the clock says? Surely. Why then, can he not believe that a broken clock is working?
Simply because belief ascriptions are not based on such a math out-of-context, but on their explanatory power wrt to believers’ behavior in a given context.
BTW, once more, you didn’t clarify why JTB is the basis for belief as propositional attitude.
@Harry Hindu (bear with me for the non-standard quotation style)
> Were you asking me to describe the image, or what the image is about?
I was more brainstorming about Agent Smith’s question: “Are pictures/images propositions?”
The problem is that propositions are not supposed to be ambiguous, while images are.
Sentences can be ambiguous, but (not surprisingly) there are rules to systematically disambiguate them wrt to the propositions that they are supposed to represent (at least in the case of declarative sentences), that’s not the case for images.
> So A1 is said differently than B1, but you say that they are translatable and mean the same thing.
Because B1 not only matches with what A1 says (about Alice’s love for Jim) but also with how it is said by A1 (passive form)
> So, it all depends on what the goal of the mind is at any moment (intent).
That is the point I’m making as well: what enables us to single out semantic relations between signs and referents out of a causal chain of events is “a mind” with intentionality. If we talked only in terms of causality and effects, we would end up having a situation where, in a causal chain, any subsequent effect be "a sign of” any preceding cause.
> Imaginary concepts have causal power.
That is a very problematic statement to me: we should clarify the notions of “concept” and “causality” before investigating their relationship. But it’s a heavy task on its own, so I will not engage it in this thread.
> Why remember something that isn't useful? The act of memorizing an experience is the act of believing it so that you may recall it later (use the belief).
Not sure about that: e.g. we may remember things without believing in them (e.g. dreams). To my understanding, belief can interact with experience and memory in many ways, yet the latter cognitive skills come ontogenetically and phylogenetically prior to any doxastic attitude.
So, we cannot say of those people that they believe that a spherical object is flat
We can say of those people not "that they believe that a spherical object is flat", but 'that they believe of a spherical object that it is flat'. The former is ambiguous, and could mean either that they, absurdly contradicting themselves, believe that an object is both spherical and flat, or it could simply mean that they mistakenly believe that an object that is actually spherical is flat. Apart from it's being mistaken, the latter interpretation is unproblematic, and says nothing about beliefs being able to be rendered in propositional form.
On another tack, let's say a fox believes a rabbit is behind a tree; we say that can be rendered in propositional form, but what if the fox is simply visualizing the rabbit being behind the tree, and following that image, and goes to look? Would we call that believing? If so, would we say that it is in any sense, in its 'raw' condition, propositional? I think we might say it is a kind of believing, but not that is it is in the form of 'believing that'. So, as I have argued before, in other similar conversations with you, I think it makes sense to say that animals believe, but not that they hold beliefs.
On yet again another tack, I think the phenomenological point of distinguishing between the feeling of believing and what is believed is important to keep in mind. The latter is intentional (in the phenomenological sense) and the former is not. So, there is no simple, unambiguous, 'yes or no', 'one size fits all' answer to the question as to whether the act of believing, as distinct from beliefs themselves, in the abstract as it were, can be rendered in propositional form.
...'that they believe of a spherical object that it is flat'...
So, are you saying here that it seems to you that the above is not self-contradictory, but "they believe a spherical object is flat", somehow is? And that your objection is based upon this purported self-contradiction?
creativesoulJanuary 29, 2022 at 03:16#6488510 likes
I think we might say it is a kind of believing, but not that is it is in the form of 'believing that'. So, as I have argued before, in other similar conversations with you, I think it makes sense to say that animals believe, but not that they hold beliefs.
Yes, indeed we have had similar conversations about this in past. I remember that. You may find it interesting to know that there is a distinction to be drawn between holding a belief(according to the position I'm arguing for/from) and believing that something or other is true.
creativesoulJanuary 29, 2022 at 03:27#6488530 likes
you didn’t clarify why JTB is the basis for belief as propositional attitude.
That's where the idea that knowledge claims consist of propositions believed to be true by those justified in doing so came from. It's the whole S knows that P... parsing. Apparently Frege played a major role as well regarding the attitude part. It also makes sense as to how it became the case that false belief, such as the broken clock and both Gettier cases became such a problem for the notion. I could be wrong, but not completely.
creativesoulJanuary 29, 2022 at 03:36#6488570 likes
Believing is far more complex a process than this thread shows, that's for sure.
The content of belief can be very different than what the belief is about. The content is - strictly speaking - underdetermined by any and all of our accounting practices, but I do think that there are common forms and/or different versions that we can glean a bit of knowledge regarding their basic 'outline' as it were.
An attitude towards some proposition, such that it is true, is but one.
AS I said this is prone to equivocation. The incoherent interpretation would be equivalent to they believe that "a spherical object is flat" is true. It doesn't seem to me that you are willing to engage with the (sensible) objections that others are raising.
What are you ascribing to another prior to having an understanding of belief?
I lost you. I’m talking about your theoretical understanding of the belief ascription practice wrt to the notion of “belief”. A theory of belief should fit into a theory of belief ascription not the other way around, the reason being that you as any body else learned the word “belief” and its proper usage in the context of specific linguistic practices about belief ascriptions, prior to any philosophical debate. So the nature of belief should be such that it makes such a practice possible. Such practices tell us that we can provide de re/de dicto ascriptions, that they are appropriate in some circumstances not in others, that those belief ascriptions guide our understanding and expectations about other people’s behavior, that we can attribute beliefs even to non-linguistic creatures, etc. So based on these practices what can we claim about the nature of belief? That's the philosophical task that makes sense to me.
As far as I can tell, Frege published "Sense and reference" in 1892, while Gettier published his "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" in 1963, besides the JTB analysis of "knowledge" challenged by Gettier presupposes (or so it seems) the notion of "belief" as propositional attitude not the other way around. So, unless you have something more convincing to support your claim ("JTB is the basis for belief as propositional attitude"), b/c that is what I asked, then it is fair to say that you are completely wrong.
creativesoulJanuary 29, 2022 at 14:58#6489720 likes
AS I said this is prone to equivocation. The incoherent interpretation would be equivalent to they believe that "a spherical object is flat" is true.
There is usually more than one interpretation for any report. That is not a problem, especially when the author painstakingly details what is meant with subsequent explanation as to avoid any confusion.
Equivocation is a charge that the author is using two different senses of the same term in the same argument.
You did not answer the question I asked about the charge you're levying.
creativesoulJanuary 29, 2022 at 15:28#6489770 likes
...the JTB analysis of "knowledge" challenged by Gettier presupposes (or so it seems) the notion of "belief" as propositional attitude not the other way around. So, unless you have something more convincing to support your claim ("JTB is the basis for belief as propositional attitude"), b/c that is what I asked, then it is fair to say that you are completely wrong
:meh:
creativesoulJanuary 29, 2022 at 15:40#6489790 likes
A theory of belief should fit into a theory of belief ascription not the other way around, the reason being that you as any body else learned the word “belief” and its proper usage in the context of specific linguistic practices about belief ascriptions, prior to any philosophical debate.
We've been using the term belief for thousands of years. We've been attributing beliefs to ourselves and others for at least that long. Some attribute beliefs to the simplest of animals, such as slugs.
According to what you've said here, we ought make our theory of belief fit such usage.
creativesoulJanuary 29, 2022 at 15:49#6489830 likes
( 1 ) Beliefs are dispositions (Assumption)
( 2 ) Every disposition is a mental state (Assumption)
( 3 ) Beliefs are mental states. (1,2 modus ponens)
( 4 ) Beliefs are mental states in which a statement is held to be true. ( Assumption )
( 5 ) The content of a belief is a statement. ( Seems to follow from 4 by how content is used )
( 6 ) If X is a state, the content of X is part of that state. (Assumption)
( 7 ) A belief's statement is part of that belief's mental state. (5, 6, instantiation)
( 8 ) A statement's semantic content is part of that statement ( 6 )
( 9 ) If X has content Y, and Y has content Z, then Z is part of X'd content. (assumption)
( 10 ) "This snow is white"'s semantic content is external (assumption).
( 11 ) "This snow is white's" semantic content is part of a mental state (if someone believes it and 8)
( 12 ) The semantic content of "This snow is white" is equivalent to the white snow. (assumption)
( 13 ) The white snow is part of a mental state.
( 13 ) is absurd.
Therefore 1,2,4,6,9, or 12 is false.
( 1 ) is easiest to assume true I think, ( 2 ) is granted by the discussion, ( 4 ) is @Banno 's thingy (up to wrangling regarding distinctions between propositions and statements), ( 6 ) seems hard to argue against, ( 9 ) holds true for pies and parthood so it looks like an uphill battle to claim it doesn't apply to content, ( 12 ) is close to a thesis of direct realism.
My picks are either ( 2 ) is false or ( 12 ) is too ambiguous to use as a premise (equivalent in what sense?).
creativesoulJanuary 29, 2022 at 16:59#6489920 likes
The notion of "mental" is problematic for it rests upon dichotomous frameworks, none of which are capable of taking proper account of that which consists of both mental and non-mental things.
Belief is one such thing. As are dispositions.
The white snow is one part of belief and/or dispositions about it.
That is false on it's face.
We learned to use the word "belief" in the context of specific linguistic practices, but those practices were not about belief ascriptions.
I lost you again. It doesn’t really matter how you phrase it based on your questionable philosophical assumptions. All I meant was simply that you as anybody else learned the word “belief” when other speaking people around you were saying things such: I/you/he/she/we/they believe or not believe this or that etc. This is a linguistic fact. There is no possible contention on this. And that, only that, is the point I care making.
So if you are happier to write “We learned to use the word "belief" in the context of specific linguistic practices”, just go for it. The point I made still holds.
We've been using the term belief for thousands of years. We've been attributing beliefs to ourselves and others for at least that long. Some attribute beliefs to the simplest 'minded' of animals, such as slugs.
According to what you've said here, we ought make our theory of belief fit such usage.
Sure, why not? But our practices admit figurative and literal usages, normal and fringe cases, shared and non-shared background beliefs, successful and unsuccessful belief attributions, etc. When you were a kid you learned the word "belief" also in playful contexts and stories about fictional characters, if you had a religious education you also learned the word “belief” as applied to invisible divine beings or disembodied souls, etc.
In any case, I must confess in all honesty that I don’t know and never even heard of any example in any culture in the entire known human history where people learned the word “belief” predominantly as applied to slugs, do you? And if you don't, then this shows not only how weak your objection is, of course, but also an interesting linguistic fact that our theory of belief should take into account!
FYI I prefer arguments to emoticons.
creativesoulJanuary 29, 2022 at 17:59#6490030 likes
When we say that S holds a belief, has a belief, or forms a belief, what exactly is it that we are claiming that S holds, has, or has formed? When we ascribe belief to another, what exactly are we ascribing? If we do not have an understanding of what belief is, what it consists of, etc., then on what grounds are we to determine which sorts of beliefs can be formed and/or held by which sort of creatures?
There is a common practice of personifying animals. If we follow your advice here, anthropomorphism is acceptable.
You are arguing that because our use of the term predates our thinking about that use that our understanding of what belief is ought somehow fit that use. I'm not disagreeing with that on it's face. What I'm saying is that some belief existed in it's entirety prior to our talking about it, and as such, our common practices could very well be wrong, particularly regarding language less ones as well as ones that are formed and/or held prior to thinking about them as a subject matter in their own right.
Be all this as it may...
My aim currently is to shine a bit of much needed light upon the current failings of our accounting practices. Russell's clock, both Gettier cases, and Moore's paradox all stem from belief as propositional attitude.
My attitude towards your position is clear befuddlement. It is about as preposterous as it can be for us to deny that it is possible to believe that a broken clock is working, or object to the reporting of that simply because your accounting practice cannot make sense of it, because not only is it possible to believe that a broken clock is working, it happens on a regular basis to someone... somewhere. It's happened to me.
creativesoulJanuary 29, 2022 at 18:08#6490060 likes
Then I suggest you peruse the last couple of weeks worth of posts by yours truly here in this thread, because you seem to have either ignored or missed the arguments that have been given.
:meh:
I too prefer arguments to rhetoric, handwaving, and gratuitous assertions. So far, you've offered the latter three. Got any of the former?
( 4 ) Beliefs are mental states in which a statement is held to be true. ( Assumption )
I'd not put too much emphasis on "mental state", so much as on explanations for behaviours. It is not that there is always a thing in the mind that is a belief. Your belief that folk in Darwin can sometimes buy shoes is not a discrete state of your mind. So it's not quite my view.
( 6 ) If X is a state, the content of X is part of that state. (Assumption)
I think this needs cleaning up. Belief is a relation between someone and a statement such that the statement is held to be true. We can loosely call the statement the content of the belief. But in (9) you want to have some sort of transitivity relation here. I can't see how it would work.
Perhaps you are poking at "Snow is white" being extensional but not "Fdrake believes that snow is white".
( 12 ) The semantic content of "This snow is white" is equivalent to the white snow. (assumption)
What is being held equal? "Snow is white" is not the same as snow is white, obviously. "Snow is white" is true IFF snow is white, but that's a truth functional equivalence, not an equivalence of identity. Puzzling.
You did not answer the question I asked about the charge you're levying.
I did. To repeat: to say that X believed a stopped clock was working is ambiguous; it could mean that X believed the clock was both stopped and working, which is obviously absurd, and is the real reason to reject the propositional equivalent: "X did not believe 'A stopped clock is working' is true".
Anyway I and several others have pointed this out to you, and you refuse to hear apparently.
Your belief that folk in Darwin can sometimes buy shoes is not a discrete state of your mind. So it's not quite my view.
If someone believes that folk in Darwin can sometimes buy shoes then there must be a mental state (or probably better, process) correlated with that belief. It need not be a conscious state or process, just as the belief need not be explicit.
That said, would any belief be " a discrete state of your mind"? Would the idea that beliefs are discrete states not be an illusion fostered by the apparently discrete character of the sentences in which they are expressed?
Harry HinduJanuary 29, 2022 at 21:54#6490700 likes
I was more brainstorming about Agent Smith’s question: “Are pictures/images propositions?”
The problem is that propositions are not supposed to be ambiguous, while images are.
Sentences can be ambiguous, but (not surprisingly) there are rules to systematically disambiguate them wrt to the propositions that they are supposed to represent (at least in the case of declarative sentences), that’s not the case for images.
In what way are images suppose to be ambiguous? The only images and words that are suppose to be ambiguous is art. By describing your images and words as "art" you are informing others that the images and words are intended to be ambiguous. If not, then it is assumed that the images and words you make refer to real states-of-affairs, or are meant to inform others of real states-of-affairs.
If what we need are rules for images to not be ambiguous, what rules would they be?
> So A1 is said differently than B1, but you say that they are translatable and mean the same thing.
Because B1 not only matches with what A1 says (about Alice’s love for Jim) but also with how it is said by A1 (passive form)
When I say "how it is said", I'm referring to the scribbles used. Using different scribbles to say the same thing is saying the same thing differently.
> So, it all depends on what the goal of the mind is at any moment (intent).
That is the point I’m making as well: what enables us to single out semantic relations between signs and referents out of a causal chain of events is “a mind” with intentionality. If we talked only in terms of causality and effects, we would end up having a situation where, in a causal chain, any subsequent effect be "a sign of” any preceding cause.
I'm not clear of where we are agreeing or disagreeing here. There are a probably an infinite number of causal relations any of which could be useful to single out depending on our goal. This is simply saying that not all meanings (causal relations) are useful in every given moment. Meaning is everywhere causes leave effects and the time between some cause and effect is a product of our own minds, and what meanings are useful are also a product of our goals.
That is a very problematic statement to me: we should clarify the notions of “concept” and “causality” before investigating their relationship. But it’s a heavy task on its own, so I will not engage it in this thread.
I can only say that would there not be books about Hobbits (effect) if someone did not imagine them (the cause) prior.
> Why remember something that isn't useful? The act of memorizing an experience is the act of believing it so that you may recall it later (use the belief).
Not sure about that: e.g. we may remember things without believing in them (e.g. dreams). To my understanding, belief can interact with experience and memory in many ways, yet the latter cognitive skills come ontogenetically and phylogenetically prior to any doxastic attitude.
We're clearly talking past each other. It's not useful to remember/believe that you dream, or to remember/believe you know the difference between dream and reality?
I'd not put too much emphasis on "mental state", so much as on explanations for behaviours. It is not that there is always a thing in the mind that is a belief. Your belief that folk in Darwin can sometimes buy shoes is not a discrete state of your mind. So it's not quite my view.
Aye. I don't think you like 'mental furniture'. I wanted to bring that out with the argument.
I think this needs cleaning up. Belief is a relation between someone and a statement such that the statement is held to be true. We can loosely call the statement the content of the belief. But in (9) you want to have some sort of transitivity relation here. I can't see how it would work.
The first relationship might be called intentional content, the second might be called semantic content. The belief is in relation with the statement (statement is intentional content of belief), the statement is in relation toward the world (the world forms some part of the semantic content of the statement). It seems necessary that there is some transitivity condition implied. If X believes that the snow they are seeing is white, then it would be strange if the semantic content of "snow is white" was consistent with the intentional content of non-white snow. If you believe snow is white, that places constraints on whether you can mean something black when referring to snow in a usual context.
If a person is holding the statement P true, they are also committed to P's semantic content in a manner that a person would be surprised if the world wasn't consistent with the semantic content of P. I believe thats snow is white, I'm not just committed to the statement, I'm committed to its truth, and what that truth says about the state of things.
Perhaps you are poking at "Snow is white" being extensional but not "Fdrake believes that snow is white".
I think that's a related issue, yeah. What kind of event fleshes out the truth of the claim "fdrake believes that snow is white" - I know you can disquote it, can you give me a disquotation which isn't a redundant one? I want to know what the belief means, not just that I was accurately said to believe snow is white.
If someone believes that folk in Darwin can sometimes buy shoes then there must be a mental state (or probably better, process) correlated with that belief.
I disagree.
Folk talk about mental states as if it were clear what they are and as if they helped explain stuff.
I chose the obscurity of Darwinian shoes specifically because, before you read my post, you had probably never contemplated them; and yet it was perhaps at that time true that you nevertheless believed that folk in Darwin can buy shoes. At least, you did not disbelieve it...
SO before I mentioned it, did you somehow nevertheless have a latent mental state concerning Darwinian shoes?
I think this brings renders somewhat dubious the whole notion of beliefs as mental states.
> There is a common practice of personifying animals. If we follow your advice here, anthropomorphism is acceptable.
Not necessarily. First of all, I find acceptable as a linguistic datum the cases that you may qualify as anthropomorphic along with those that you do not qualify as anthropomorphic based on your assumptions, precisely to assess your own assumptions. Secondly, belief attribution practices evolve over time, so we can’t ignore this fact either, and I don’t assume that they do it arbitrarily.
> What I'm saying is that some belief existed in it's entirety prior to our talking about it, and as such, our common practices could very well be wrong, particularly regarding language less ones as well as ones that are formed and/or held prior to thinking about them as a subject matter in their own right.
One way to revise the practice is to fix ambiguities/indeterminacies internal to the practice itself (here the need to distinguish e.g. different logical functions of “to be”). Your approach about belief ascriptions however doesn’t seem to solve ambiguities/indeterminacies of ordinary belief ascriptions, instead - depending on the pragmatic context - introduces them as I already argued.
> My aim currently is to shine a bit of much needed light upon the current failings of our accounting practices. Russell's clock, both Gettier cases, and Moore's paradox all stem from belief as propositional attitude.
Not sure how I am supposed to understand such a claim. Also because I’m not sure that Russell, Moore, Gettier, and you share the same idea of “belief as propositional attitude”, nor that their arguments rely on a specific way of understanding “belief as propositional attitude”. Anyways, how can your way of understanding belief ascriptions “shine a bit of much needed light upon” these three cases? If you explained it already elsewhere and can provide the links, I’m willing to read it of course.
> My attitude towards your position is clear befuddlement. It is about as preposterous as it can be for us to deny that it is possible to believe that a broken clock is working, or object to the reporting of that simply because your accounting practice cannot make sense of it, because not only is it possible to believe that a broken clock is working, it happens on a regular basis to someone... somewhere. It's happened to me.
Sure, you are right, if you frame the problem in the way you believe it should be handled, how on earth can I possibly question it? Unfortunately it’s just a sophism.
Besides since the question for me, it’s not if it is possible, but under what conditions it is permissible to make such claims, there is a way I could make sense of it, after all. And I also told you that in this case, to avoid ambiguities, instead of saying “Jack believes that a broken clock is working” I would say “Jack believes of that broken clock that is working”, is there any substantial reason why you wouldn’t?
> Then I suggest you peruse the last couple of weeks worth of posts by yours truly here in this thread, because you seem to have either ignored or missed the arguments that have been given.
And I suggest you to do the same, because I addressed many of them when they were available.
But in the following comment I couldn’t find any, unless you consider emoticons as arguments: Quoting creativesoul
...the JTB analysis of "knowledge" challenged by Gettier presupposes (or so it seems) the notion of "belief" as propositional attitude not the other way around. So, unless you have something more convincing to support your claim ("JTB is the basis for belief as propositional attitude"), b/c that is what I asked, then it is fair to say that you are completely wrong
:meh:
> I too prefer arguments to rhetoric, handwaving, and gratuitous assertions. So far, you've offered the latter three [1]. Got any of the former?
I wish I could help, but unfortunately, I don’t take emoticons to be arguments. Sorry.
[1]
Maybe you have that impression b/c you are the one to be challenged now. When I was challenging Banno you used to write things like: "I'd be honored to offer my feedback to such a carefully well-crafted post". Not to mention all the moments you agreed with my points against Banno. You even re-used an argument I made against Banno without mentioning me. Quoting neomac
Indeed this is what I already [quote="neomac;643755"]creativesoul
If "The present King of France is bald" is not a proposition, and yet it can be believed nonetheless, then it cannot be the case that either all belief has propositional content or all belief is an attitude towards some proposition or other. — creativesoul
Indeed this is what I already remarked in my previous comment:
You mean your pointless challenge: " If there are beliefs that cannot be presented in propositional form, give us an example".
What about this example: X believes that the present King of France is bald. Did I win anything? — neomac
The first relationship might be called intentional content, the second might be called semantic content. The belief is in relation with the statement (statement is intentional content of belief), the statement is in relation toward the world (the world forms some part of the semantic content of the statement). It seems necessary that there is some transitivity condition implied. If X believes that the snow they are seeing is white, then it would be strange if the semantic content of "snow is white" was consistent with the intentional content of non-white snow. If a person is holding the statement P true, they are also committed to P's semantic content in a manner that a person would be surprised if the world wasn't consistent with the semantic content of P. I believe thats snow is white, I'm not just committed to the statement, I'm committed to its truth, and what that truth says about the state of things.
I don't think we have a substantive point of disagreement. The language here becomes so clumsy. SO not too sure.
What kind of event fleshes out the truth of the claim "fdrake believes that snow is white"
Pretty much everything you do that relates to snow...?
In a strong sense, the entire enterprise of this thread and surrounds is a mess; As if we could squeeze the entire form of life of belief through the sphincter of predication. What should have been a simple grammatical observation - that we can state beliefs - has been made into a vast, pointless diatribe.
Deleted UserJanuary 30, 2022 at 05:16#6492100 likes
> In what way are images suppose to be ambiguous? The only images and words that are suppose to be ambiguous is art.
My point was that images are ambiguous in 2 senses: 1. they can match different descriptive sentences that do no share the same proposition. 2. Propositions - differently from sentences - are supposed to be unambiguous, however images can be not only ambiguous but also be ambiguous in ways that no descriptive sentence can render (image ambiguity does not match sentence ambiguity).
These observations are relevant b/c if we are supposed to take propositions as correlates that different sentences, different languages, different propositional attitude can share, we can wonder if propositions can be shared across different media (images vs linguistic expressions)
> When I say "how it is said", I'm referring to the scribbles used. Using different scribbles to say the same thing is saying the same thing differently.
OK let’s start again. I remember you claiming “When translating languages, that is what is translated - the state-of-affairs the scribbles refer to”. Now, I understand your comment as implying the truth of the following conditional: if translation consists in replacing statements from at least 2 different languages co-referring the same state-of-affairs, then the French translations (I provided in my example) could translate the English sentences indifferently, because they all are referring to the same state of affaires (at least to me). But the consequent of that conditional is false, so it should be false also the conditional.
> I'm not clear of where we are agreeing or disagreeing here.
My central claim is that semantic relations can not be reduced to sequences of mind-independent causal chains. You seem to do the same (due to the relevance of the notion of “mind” in your argument), but you are also developing your discourse over aspects that simply widen the scope of that central claim (e.g. with the reference to art works), which is fine but I'm more interested in arguments that support or question the claim: semantic correlations (between sign and referent) can not be reduced to causal chains. To support that central claim, one could for example argue that while art works are ambiguous in some sense, any causal chain involved in the intentional production/experience/understanding of a piece of art work can not be qualified as "ambiguous". While to question that main claim one could argue that indeed ambiguity can be reduced to some probabilistic feature of causal chains involving psychological states, etc.
In any case, I'm not interested to deal with this specific task in this thread. So I'll leave it at that.
> It's not useful to remember/believe that you dream, or to remember/believe you know the difference between dream and reality?
In your past comment, you wrote “The act of memorizing an experience is the act of believing it”. This looks as an identity claim to me, and I don’t support such identity claim. For me belief exceeds both experience and episodic memory. Maybe you wanted to say that an act of memorizing a given experience always results from believing in that experience. Even if this was true, it would be just an empirical fact, namely something that doesn’t exclude the logical possibility of believing a given experience without memorizing it and memorizing a given experience without believing in that experience. Besides there are actual counter-examples: I remember a dream but I do not believe in that dream, I do not take whatever seemed to happen in that dream to be the case. Maybe you want to claim that while dreaming I was believing whatever was experiencing, and that resulted in me memorizing it. But that we believe in our dreams while dreaming can be acknowledged for all our most common dreams, yet we do not seem to remember all of them either.
The correlation between usefulness, memory, experience and belief you are pointing at, again looks empirical to me, not logical (which is the part I’m more interested in), and even more slippery because what counts as useful is no less controversial than what counts as memory, experience, and belief.
We know it isn't a sentence because multiple sentences can be used to express the same proposition.
It's not an utterance (sounds or marks) for the same reason. Distinct utterances, same proportion.
It's not a mental object because...same thing. You and I can think of the same proposition, but my mental state can't be identical to yours.
It wouldn't be a specific sentence, or specific scribbles, or specific mental objects. It would be sentences in general, or scribbles in general, or mental objects in general. Just as the content of a computer's hard drive is data, even though you and I have different data on our hard drives.
Different propositions tell different truths depending on their contents (symbols) and what they refer to (what is the case).
Different propositions tell different truths depending on their contents (symbols) and what they refer to (what is the case).
Two is a prime number.
The above is an utterance of a sentence. It expresses a proposition, specifically that two is a prime number.
Jim, pointing to a 2 written on a white board, said "It's a prime number."
Jim expressed the proposition that two is a prime number.
What this example (straight from a famous philosopher) shows is that discerning the proposition expressed by the utterance of a sentence is context dependent.
The above is an utterance of a sentence. It expresses a proposition, specifically that two is a prime number.
Jim, pointing to a 2 written on a white board, said "It's a prime number."
Jim expressed the proposition that two is a prime number.
What this example (straight from a famous philosopher) shows is that discerning the proposition expressed by the utterance of a sentence is context dependent.
A lot of famous people say stuff. It doesn't make it true, or useful, because they are famous.
All your example shows is that we can substitute hand motions (pointing) and scribbles (different symbols) in creating some proposition (symbols and what it refers to - in this case another scribble, 2). Your example still helps my case, not yours.
My point was that images are ambiguous in 2 senses: 1. they can match different descriptive sentences that do no share the same proposition. 2. Propositions - differently from sentences - are supposed to be unambiguous, however images can be not only ambiguous but also be ambiguous in ways that no descriptive sentence can render (image ambiguity does not match sentence ambiguity).
These observations are relevant b/c if we are supposed to take propositions as correlates that different sentences, different languages, different propositional attitude can share, we can wonder if propositions can be shared across different media (images vs linguistic expressions)
Here we are talking past each other again. In 1 and 2 you are talking about the some string of scribbles (descriptive sentences that do not share the same proposition). You're talking about words, not images. You're explaining how words, not images, are ambiguous. I want to know how a wordless image can be ambiguous without using language to describe it. I'm thinking the image is a description of something - either ambiguous or concrete - and words - either ambiguous or concrete - can describe the image (but that would only be useful to someone who can't see the image), or what the image is about (what someone who is just looking at some image believes it to be informing them of). I wish you would be more clear about which one you are talking about.
OK let’s start again. I remember you claiming “When translating languages, that is what is translated - the state-of-affairs the scribbles refer to”. Now, I understand your comment as implying the truth of the following conditional: if translation consists in replacing statements from at least 2 different languages co-referring the same state-of-affairs, then the French translations (I provided in my example) could translate the English sentences indifferently, because they all are referring to the same state of affaires (at least to me). But the consequent of that conditional is false, so it should be false also the conditional.
Huh? How is it false? I also said that you can translate different words in the same language (synonyms). What if I were to say that instead of translating the scribbles, we were translating the rules by which the scribbles are used.
My central claim is that semantic relations can not be reduced to sequences of mind-independent causal chains. You seem to do the same (due to the relevance of the notion of “mind” in your argument), but you are also developing your discourse over aspects that simply widen the scope of that central claim (e.g. with the reference to art works), which is fine but I'm more interested in arguments that support or question the claim: semantic correlations (between sign and referent) can not be reduced to causal chains. To support that central claim, one could for example argue that while art works are ambiguous in some sense, any causal chain involved in the intentional production/experience/understanding of a piece of art work can not be qualified as "ambiguous". While to question that main claim one could argue that indeed ambiguity can be reduced to some probabilistic feature of causal chains involving psychological states, etc.
In any case, I'm not interested to deal with this specific task in this thread. So I'll leave it at that.
You seem to be reading more into what I've been saying than what I've actually been saying. Semantic correlations are themselves effects of prior causes as correlating some symbol and what it refers to is dependent upon the experience and education that one has in establishing those correlations. We interpret what some visual or auditory experience means based upon prior experiences. Sometimes we get it wrong like in the case of seeing a mirage. When we understand that what we see isn't objects (like puddles of water), we see light, then we interpret the causal relationships more accurately - like there is a "middle-man" called light in the causal sequence that we call "seeing", and that we don't see objects directly, or else we could see objects in the dark - without any light.
In your past comment, you wrote “The act of memorizing an experience is the act of believing it”. This looks as an identity claim to me, and I don’t support such identity claim. For me belief exceeds both experience and episodic memory. Maybe you wanted to say that an act of memorizing a given experience always results from believing in that experience. Even if this was true, it would be just an empirical fact, namely something that doesn’t exclude the logical possibility of believing a given experience without memorizing it and memorizing a given experience without believing in that experience. Besides there are actual counter-examples: I remember a dream but I do not believe in that dream, I do not take whatever seemed to happen in that dream to be the case. Maybe you want to claim that while dreaming I was believing whatever was experiencing, and that resulted in me memorizing it. But that we believe in our dreams while dreaming can be acknowledged for all our most common dreams, yet we do not seem to remember all of them either.
The correlation between usefulness, memory, experience and belief you are pointing at, again looks empirical to me, not logical (which is the part I’m more interested in), and even more slippery because what counts as useful is no less controversial than what counts as memory, experience, and belief.
What else would belief include if not just experience and episodic memory? In the moment of your dream, you are remembering what is happening and therefore believing it is happening. What happened in the beginning of the dream is useful to remember in the middle of the dream, or else how would you know you're still in the same dream? After you wake up you still have the memories because they were stored when you were believing, not when you aren't. Because they aren't useful memories they will eventually be forgotten.
.
What is logic if not the manipulation, or the processing, of symbols?
That's fair enough. It's the end of the road, and doesn't itself refer to anything and isn't about anything?
Right. It doesn't refer anymore than the world refers to something else. Russell wanted to picture it as: a proposition is a state of affairs. The snag there is that there are false propositions.
Harry HinduJanuary 30, 2022 at 16:04#6493570 likes
Right. It doesn't refer anymore than the world refers to something else. Russell wanted to picture it as: a proposition is a state of affairs. The snag there is that there are false propositions.
What would it mean for there to be false propositions if not that the proposition doesn't refer to some state-of-affairs that isn't just another proposition being stated?
The world refers to the state-of-affairs that existed prior to the world existing. Meaning is the relationship between cause and effect. What is someone asking when they ask, "what is the meaning of my life?", if not how or why did I come to exist?
Meaning is the relationship between cause and effect.
An all too common error; the conflation of meaning and causality. The former requires being meaningful to something or someone, whereas the latter does not. The conflation is the basis for many who claim that clouds mean rain even when there is noone around to take notice...
creativesoulJanuary 30, 2022 at 16:46#6493770 likes
Earlier you mentioned that one interpretation of believing that a broken clock is working would lead to what seems to be Jack holding self-contradictory belief, and that that was ground for changing the report to something similar to neomac's rendering.
I pose the same questions to you that I just posed to them...
If we say that Jack believes of that broken clock that it is working, what is the content of Jack's belief and what is Jack's belief about?
What is the content of a sentential utterance? And is it sentential?
I would say the the utterance of a sentence expresses a proposition. I don't know what the second question means exactly. We might use sentences to identify propositions, or it's the object of a that clause: "It's true that..."
Do you know anything about the data/information idea?
Plus, if you want to talk to a reliable source, Nagase is a good teacher. Haven't seen him lately tho.
creativesoulJanuary 30, 2022 at 18:15#6494030 likes
An all too common error; the conflation of meaning and causality.The former requires being meaningful to something or someone, whereas the latter does not.
Huh? Meaning requires being meaningful to something or someone? This is circular logic. What does it mean for something to be meaningful to someone?
The conflation is the basis for many who claim that clouds mean rain even when there is noone around to take notice...
You're conflating causal relationships between clouds and rain and someone taking notice that clouds mean rain. Are you saying the act of taking notice is meaning? Observations are meanings?
Harry HinduJanuary 30, 2022 at 19:19#6494220 likes
I would say the the utterance of a sentence expresses a proposition. I don't know what the second question means exactly. We might use sentences to identify propositions, or it's the object of a that clause: "It's true that..."
What form does a sentence take? What form does a proposition take? How can you tell the difference between a sentence and a proposition? Can propositions exist independently of sentences? If so, how? How do you know you're thinking of a sentence as opposed to a proposition?
Can propositions exist independently of sentences? If so, how?
Did you see that movie Arrival? If you haven't, I won't spoil it, but it's related to this question.
“the limits of my language mean the limits of my world”. What does this mean to you?
creativesoulJanuary 30, 2022 at 19:41#6494280 likes
Gettier. Russell. Moore.
Both Gettier cases, Russell's clock, and Moore's paradox all directly involve and/or include false belief, but none of the three address that aspect as a subject matter in it's own right.
The stopped clock example shows how Russell left out a key consideration; Russell is correct to question whether or not the belief about what time it is counted as a justified belief. It's certainly true, but are we to claim that a false belief counts as good justificatory ground?
Gettier's first case shows how an accounting malpractice of a false belief can lead us astray when taking account of that false belief by virtue of using the rules of entailment. Smith believed that he would get the job and that he had ten coins in his pocket. Entailment allows us to say that he is justified in believing that the man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job, and he is. The issue here is that - when it comes to Smith's belief - "the man" has one referent and one referent only. He's talking about himself and no one else... after-all. So, because Smith's belief is about himself, and because "the man" refers to himself, the only way for Smith's belief to become true is if he got the job. He did not. Therefore, his belief about what would happen was false. This case shows us that the belief and the statement thereof have different sets of truth conditions.
It only follows that the two are not always equivalent.
Gettier's second case shows us the same as above, except it's a bit more complex. Smith believes Jones owns a Ford, and because Smith believes that he also believes that either Smith owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona, but he only believes that the disjunction is true because he believes Smith owns a Ford. He cannot believe it to be any other way. He does not believe that that disjunction is true as a result of the second disjunct. Rather, to quite the contrary, Smith believes the disjunction is true because he believes the first disjunct is true. So, while either disjunct can be true, and that alone makes the disjunction true as a result of either one's being so, Smith's belief is only true if Brown owns a Ford. His belief is that the disjunct is true as a result of the first disjunct being so. It is not. It is true as a result of the second. Smith's belief is false. Again, this example shows us that the belief and the statement thereof have different sets of truth conditions.
It only follows that the two are not always equivalent.
Moore's paradox shows us that we can say of another that they are in error, that they have some false belief or another, but we cannot say the same about ourselves, at least not while still believing the falsehood. That last part is what I've found to be lacking in the explanations of the problem. There are all sorts of reasons for this, self-contradiction being one. However, after becoming aware of our error, there's nothing at all stopping us from admitting that it was once raining outside and we did not believe it, or that we once believed a broken clock was working, or that we once believed that we would get the job, or that we once believed that "Either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona" was true because we believed that Jones owned a Ford.
All of this seems to show some inherent issues with the accounting practices...
Harry HinduJanuary 30, 2022 at 19:46#6494300 likes
Harry HinduJanuary 30, 2022 at 19:59#6494340 likes
Reply to frank It's nonsensical. But if you're going to twist my arm, then I'll say that what it means is a strange form of solipsism where reality is only the use of some language. So the contents of this solipsistic reality would be only scribbles and spoken sounds.
> Here we are talking past each other again. In 1 and 2 you are talking about the some string of scribbles (descriptive sentences that do not share the same proposition). You're talking about words, not images. You're explaining how words, not images, are ambiguous.
No, I’m talking about images. Images are visual entities like strings of letters written on a paper, yet we can take images and strings to represent something (again intentionality is a presupposition here for understanding images and textual strings as representational). If we were to describe with sentences what images can represent, we would notice that there can be many descriptions that could correspond to the same image (this is particularly evident in the case of so called “ambiguous images” - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiguous_image), yet they do not share the same proposition. And so on with the other remarks I made. Don’t forget that my brainstorming was about the propositional nature of images.
> Huh? How is it false?
That’s basic propositional calculus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional_proof): if you claim that conditional that I reported in the previous comment, it can not be true that the consequent is false and the antecedent is true. I gave an unquestionable counter-example to prove the falsity of the consequent, so the antecedent must be false.
> I also said that you can translate different words in the same language (synonyms).
Besides the fact that synonymity is grounded on semantics, while passive and active forms are grounded on syntax, the point is that translation has to take into account all the relevant semiotic dimensions of a text for a proper translation, and the co-reference to the same state of affairs is only one semiotic dimension.
> What else would belief include if not just experience and episodic memory?
To my terminology, experience includes perception, memory, imagination. Belief can not be reduced to experience. Belief is a cognitive attitude based on experience or other beliefs.
> In the moment of your dream, you are remembering what is happening and therefore believing it is happening. What happened in the beginning of the dream is useful to remember in the middle of the dream, or else how would you know you're still in the same dream?
After you wake up you still have the memories because they were stored when you were believing, not when you aren't. Because they aren't useful memories they will eventually be forgotten.
I don’t follow you here: first it seems to me you are talking about different types of memory (working and episodic memory) and I don’t know if you are taking this in due account, secondly your statements concern empirical regularities (while I’m more interested in broadly logic analysis and reasoning), thirdly they do not seem to be always true (I doubt that while dreaming at any given time I know that I am in the same dream, also because normally I’m not aware of dreaming when I dream), forth you talk about usefulness which is a term to be clarified and then empirically proved.
In conclusion, I’m not sure how to understand your claim, if I understood it, it doesn’t seem to be right, and even if you were right, I don’t know what to do with it.
> What is logic if not the manipulation, or the processing, of symbols?
This seems again an identity claim, but I wouldn’t talk about logic as identical to manipulation or symbolic processing. However, I’m not going to open another front of contention, before converging on the many ones that we already have at hand.
creativesoulJanuary 30, 2022 at 21:26#6494620 likes
...besides the JTB analysis of "knowledge" challenged by Gettier presupposes (or so it seems) the notion of "belief" as propositional attitude not the other way around. So, unless you have something more convincing to support your claim ("JTB is the basis for belief as propositional attitude"), b/c that is what I asked, then it is fair to say that you are completely wrong.
Plato is perhaps best attributed with the original conception of JTB. Nonetheless, JTB presupposes belief as propositional attitude, as you yourself have acknowledged. My claim was that JTB was the basis of the rendering.
It's never a good sign when someone simultaneously does both, confirms and denies, something I've written all while denouncing something I'd not. Hence...
> However, after becoming aware of our error, there's nothing at all stopping us from admitting that it was raining outside and we did not believe it, or that we believed a broken clock was working.
Still, I don’t see anything problematic in the claim “that it was raining outside and we did not believe it”, while “that we believed a broken clock was working” still looks problematic. If you tried to put the second claim into the same form of the former, you would obtain: that broken clock was working and I didn’t believe it. Does it make sense? Hell, no.
P.S. you re-edited your post, fine. But my comment still holds
creativesoulJanuary 30, 2022 at 21:51#6494770 likes
Plato is perhaps best attributed with the original conception of JTB. Nonetheless, JTB presupposes belief as propositional attitude, as you yourself have acknowledged. My claim was that JTB was the basis of the rendering.
You claimed that JTB was the basis of belief as propositional attitude. I took you to mean either that the notion of belief as propositional attitude is grounded on the notion of knowledge as JTB, and this is false, because it's at best the opposite. Or that the contemporary debate on belief as propositional is originally inspired by the debate between Russell, Moore and Gettier over the notion of knowledge as JTB. But that's not true b/c the contemporary debate about belief as propositional attitude was heavily inspired by Frege "Sense and Reference" which doesn't address the notion and the problems of knowledge as JTB. That is why I asked you to give me something else to support your claim, which it seems you tried to do, but I don't understand what you mean.
creativesoulJanuary 30, 2022 at 21:55#6494790 likes
If we say that Jack believes of that broken clock that it is working, what is the content of Jack's belief and what is Jack's belief about?
It's very simple; the belief is simply that the clock is working. If he was asked whether he thinks 'the clock is working' is true, he might say 'yes' or he might say, as I said before 'give me a minute and I'll tell you'. Or he might say 'I had assumed that, but on reflection I realize that was a baseless assumption'.
All right, as I wrote in the P.S. you re-edited the text, after I picked it up. I realised it too late. Apologies, sir. Let me repay you by denouncing the shit that you wrote (unless you change it again):
there's nothing at all stopping us from admitting that it was once raining outside and we did not believe it, or that we once believed a broken clock was working,
Now, admitting that it was once raining outside and we did not believe it, makes sense. While admitting that we once believed a broken clock was working, still looks problematic and a way to see it is by rendering it in the same form as the former statement: once a broken clock was working and I did not believe it. Does it make sense? Hell, no.
creativesoulJanuary 30, 2022 at 22:11#6494860 likes
If we say that Jack believes of that broken clock that it is working, what is the content of Jack's belief and what is Jack's belief about?
— creativesoul
It's very simple; the belief is simply that the clock is working. If he was asked whether he thinks 'the clock is working' is true, he might say 'yes' or he might say, as I said before 'give me a minute and I'll tell you'. Or he might say 'I had assumed that, but on reflection I realize that was a baseless assumption'.
That does not answer the question I asked. The discussion is all about what counts as the content of some belief or another. So, again...
If we say that Jack believes of that broken clock that it is working, what is the content of Jack's belief, and what is Jack's belief about?
creativesoulJanuary 30, 2022 at 22:14#6494870 likes
I write something that you agree with. You change what I write. You disagree with and denounce the change, not what I wrote. Evidently, you cannot see.
If we say that Jack believes of that broken clock that it is working, what is the content of Jack's belief, and what is Jack's belief about?
The content of the belief (if you want to characterize it as a definite belief, rather than a mere passing assumption) would be "That clock is working".
creativesoulJanuary 31, 2022 at 00:05#6495430 likes
Reply to creativesoul Again you introduce the ambiguity. For Jack, he does not believe of a broken clock that it is working, because that would be an absurdity. There is nothing more to be gleaned form this than that Jack does not realize the clock is not working. That is, it has no implications for whether or not beliefs can be expressed in propositional form.
creativesoulJanuary 31, 2022 at 00:47#6495590 likes
No. I repeated what neomac said and you seemed to agree with. Evidently I was wrong, and you do not agree with neo's rendering either.
So, I am asking you to clearly state Jack's belief and then proceed to tell me what Jack's belief is about as well as what the content of that belief is...
So, I am asking you to clearly state Jack's belief and then proceed to tell me what Jack's belief is about and what the content of that belief is...
I already have:
"The content of the belief (if you want to characterize it as a definite belief, rather than a mere passing assumption) would be "That clock is working". "
Jack's belief is obviously about a clock that he doesn't realize is not working. If he did realize it wasn't working his belief would be "That clock is not working".
creativesoulJanuary 31, 2022 at 00:54#6495630 likes
Jack's belief is that the clock is working.
The content of Jack's belief is "that the clock is working".
Jack's belief is about a clock that he does not realize is not working.
So, is it safe to say that - on your view - the content of Jack's belief is equivalent to Jack's belief and that Jack's belief is about something other than it's content?
So, is it safe to say that - on your view - the content of Jack's belief is equivalent to Jack's belief and that Jack's belief is about something other than it's content?
I haven't thought about those specifics. Off the top of my head I'd say that Jack's belief is about a clock and it's condition of working, which begs the question as to whether the clock and its condition of working together form the content of the belief. What else could Jack's belief be about?
Agent SmithJanuary 31, 2022 at 05:33#6496780 likes
Mary's room is based upon the dubious presupposition that we can learn anything about seeing red without seeing red.
In other words, qualia is ineffable. Why else can't Mary learn everything about red without seeing red? That sensation of redness couldn't/ can't be put into words.
Language is more than scribbles and sounds, ya know.
Really? What does a language that you don't know look like? And when describing what a language you know looks like, are you describing the language or your knowledge of the language?
I write something that you agree with. You change what I write. You disagree with and denounce the change, not what I wrote. Evidently, you cannot see.
All right sir, let’s talk about what I did and why I did it.
First of all, I already made my objections to your theoretical assumptions wrt a more common understanding of belief ascriptions (as others did). Those objections still hold, independently from the following additional remarks.
Secondly, this time I tried something different, namely I’m questioning the internal coherence of your theoretical approach on its own (de)merit. How?
Let’s recapitulate:
Once you wrote: “Can Jack look at a broken clock? Surely. Can Jack believe what the clock says? Surely. Why then, can he not believe that a broken clock is working?”. What this line of reasoning shows to me is that the prospect of some propositional operation based on sheer co-reference, indifferent to any contextual pragmatic considerations, is enough for you to do your propositional math accordingly and grant legitimacy to the resulting belief ascription “Jack believes that a broken clock is working”.
In a more recent comment you wrote: “there's nothing at all stopping us from admitting that it was once raining outside and we did not believe it, or that we once believed a broken clock was working”. This shows that you take the admission “that we once believed a broken clock was working” at least as plausible as the admission that “it was once raining outside and we did not believe it”.
Now to my argument: if we pretend that both these 2 points hold, then at the prospect of some propositional operation based on sheer co-reference that I spotted, I too did my propositional math accordingly in order to show you its dumb result.
Of course, you too disapprove of such a dumb propositional math, otherwise you would try to defend it. The problem however is: can you explain why your propositional math is acceptable while mine isn’t, based on your own assumptions? Again, if I can plausibly render “we did not believe that it was once raining outside” as “it was once raining outside and we did not believe it” based on sheer co-reference, why can’t we plausibly render “we once believed a broken clock was working” as “a broken clock was working and we once believed it” ? Or to put it into more formal terms: if one can render “I did/did not believed that p” as “p and I did/did not believe it” and vice versa, why can’t we do the same with your type of belief ascriptions?
If you can not provide an explanation on that case that is coherent with your own assumptions and doesn’t look ad-hoc, then your theoretical approach appears incoherent and your propositional math as dumb as mine. In other words, we have one more reason to question your theoretical approach along with what results out of it (your rendering of belief ascriptions).
If the limits of my language mean the limits of my world, it means I do not have freedom of thought. It means there are things I'm bound to believe simply because that's how my language structures my world.
If all that is true, what is a philosophical debate? What's actually happening with philosophy?
Harry HinduJanuary 31, 2022 at 12:44#6497310 likes
What is the content of a proposition? And is it propositional?
— bongo fury
What is the colour of a proposition?
How are propositions made? if they are made by writing or typing then they are the color of the ink or font you choose to write or type with. If they are spoken then they don't have color - they have volume, pitch, etc.
When thinking of a proposition, what is it that you're thinking of? What is your mind grasping when you think of "proposition"? Is it just the string of scribbles, "proposition", the sound of the spoken word, "proposition", or what the string of scribbles refers to? How do you know when you're thinking of a proposition and when you're not, or all we always thinking in propositions (ie propositions and thinking are one and the same)?
Harry HinduJanuary 31, 2022 at 12:45#6497320 likes
Really? What does a language that you don't know look like? And when describing what a language you know looks like, are you describing the language or your knowledge of the language?
If the limits of my language mean the limits of my world, it means I do not have freedom of thought. It means there are things I'm bound to believe simply because that's how my language structures my world.
If all that is true, what is a philosophical debate? What's actually happening with philosophy?
I don't see how this answers my question. I entertained you with your silly question, so I'm waiting on you to return the favor.
When you say that your language limits your thoughts, are you saying that you don't have the freedom to learn new words and new ways of expressing yourself? Are you saying that pre-language babies are more free than you are?
Learning to ride a bike involves learning the structure of the bike and your body, how to pedal and stay balanced. Once you learn it, you no longer have to focus on balancing and pedaling. It can be done on auto-pilot.
The same is done with learning a language. Once we learn the language, we don't focus on the rules so much. It's automatic in the way we reference what is the case with scribbles and sounds to the point where we start to believe that we think only in words. We find that we only need to go back and reference the rules when something goes wrong in communicating.
To say that scribbles and sounds structure your world, are you saying that your world is made up of scribbles and sounds? Scribbles and sounds are visual and auditory experiences and there are many other types of visual and auditory experiences, not to mention olfactory, gustatory and tactile experiences. So if you only experience the visual of scribbles, or the auditory experience of spoken words, then I can definitely see why you would say that your world is limited.
If we say that Jack believes of that broken clock that it is working, what is the content of Jack's belief, and what is Jack's belief about?
As I said, this is the kind of de re belief ascription that we can use when we are not sure about a de dicto belief ascription (i.e. we don’t know what someone else’s beliefs are really about, see the case of the kid in the park). In the case of Jack, I would prefer that form of rendering, if e.g. I’m not sure whether Jack is holding contradictory beliefs or he simply ignores that that clock is not working. Certainly, if I knew that Jack ignores that clock is not working, I would prefer to say “Jack believes that clock is working” or “Jack mistakenly believes that clock is working” instead of “Jack believes of that broken clock that is working”, or worse, “Jack believes that broken clock is working”.
Now imagine another case: Jack and everybody else believes that clock is working, except me who hacked the clock to show whatever time I wanted it to show. If I decided to confess this to everybody, would I still say “you all guys believe of that broken clock that is working”? Nope, because given everybody else’s default understanding of the situation (the shared assumptions), people would reply “what?! That clock?!” being unsure that I’m referring to the same clock or what exactly I’m claiming about that clock, etc. (i.e. what shared assumption they need to revise). So what I would prefer to say, is “you all guys believe that clock is working, but you are wrong”.
Now imagine another case: I and Jim hacked the clock, so we both know that is not working, but Jim doesn’t know if Jack was told about the hack, what could I say to assure him? I could say indifferently “Jack believes that broken clock is working” or “Jack believes of that broken clock that is working” sure that - given our shared assumptions about the clock and Jack’s rationality - Jim wouldn’t possibly interpret my belief ascription as de dicto. Unless, of course, Jim has a philosophical attitude and will start questioning me about it!
What's your view regarding Russell's clock, Gettier's cases, and Moore's paradox?
Not sure about it, also because knowledge is a wider issue. What I can say now is that, concerning belief ascription practices, I'm strongly against a "propositional calculus" kind of approach.
Harry HinduJanuary 31, 2022 at 13:46#6497460 likes
No, I’m talking about images. Images are visual entities like strings of letters written on a paper, yet we can take images and strings to represent something (again intentionality is a presupposition here for understanding images and textual strings as representational). If we were to describe with sentences what images can represent, we would notice that there can be many descriptions that could correspond to the same image (this is particularly evident in the case of so called “ambiguous images” - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiguous_image), yet they do not share the same proposition. And so on with the other remarks I made. Don’t forget that my brainstorming was about the propositional nature of images.
If you are agreeing with me that strings of scribbles is an image then there could be many descriptions that could correspond to the same image of strings of scribbles, meaning that words (as an image of strings of scribbles) would be subject to the same ambiguity that you are ascribing to images that are not scribbles.
You mentioned before that there are rules that we use that removed the ambiguity of what some scribble means and that we don't have rules for interpreting images that are not scribbles. I asked you what rules would we need to remove the ambiguity of images that are not scribbles?
Harry HinduJanuary 31, 2022 at 13:56#6497470 likes
I don't see how this answers my question. I entertained you with your silly question, so I'm waiting on you to return the favor.
When you say that your language limits your thoughts, are you saying that you don't have the freedom to learn new words and new ways of expressing yourself? Are you saying that pre-language babies are more free than you are?
First of all, I'm neutral on the question. I'm just exploring the implications.
I'm starting with the assumption that my beliefs are limited by the limits of my language.
Why some fucker would assert that is a different topic. Maybe we could start a thread:
Why do some fuckers believe the limits of their languages are the limits of their worlds?
> If you are agreeing with me that strings of scribbles is an image then there could be many descriptions that could correspond to the same image of strings of scribbles, meaning that words (as an image of strings of scribbles) would be subject to the same ambiguity that you are ascribing to images that are not scribbles.
Yep, this is correct if we take strings of characters, independently from any pre-defined linguistic codification. The difference is that with words (notice that the term “word” is already framing its referent, like an image, as a linguistic entity!) we readily have different codified systems of linguistic rules that help us identify the propositional content of declarative sentences and solve ambiguities internal to that practice.
> I asked you what rules would we need to remove the ambiguity of images that are not scribbles?
You can have all kinds of sets of rules (e.g. the codification of traffic signs). Concerning the problem at hand, one thing that really matters is to understand if/what systems of visual codifications disambiguate an image always wrt a specific proposition: think about the codified images of a deck of cards. Does e.g. the following card have a propositional content that card game rules can help us identify? What would this be?
creativesoulJanuary 31, 2022 at 15:38#6497620 likes
I haven't thought about those specifics. Off the top of my head I'd say that Jack's belief is about a clock and it's condition of working, which begs the question as to whether the clock and its condition of working together form the content of the belief. What else could Jack's belief be about?
A broken clock.
creativesoulJanuary 31, 2022 at 15:45#6497640 likes
What's your view regarding Russell's clock, Gettier's cases, and Moore's paradox?
— creativesoul
Not sure about it, also because knowledge is a wider issue.
We're not discussing knowledge. What's your view wrt belief? Do you agree that in the Russell and Gettier cases that the belief was properly accounted for?
If you wish to see how they could be rendered similarly...
It was raining outside and I did not believe it. The clock was broken, and I did not believe it.
No sir. the problem I have is with "Jack believed that a broken clock was working" since your are insisting on it.
You came up with this rendering based on the propositional calculus suggested here: “Can Jack look at a broken clock? Surely. Can Jack believe what the clock says? Surely. Why then, can he not believe that a broken clock is working?”.
So I proposed you the following propositional calculus: if one can render “I did/did not believed that p” as “p and I did/did not believe it” and vice versa. And asked you: why can’t we do the same with p="a broken clock was working" [1]?
So I'm challenging you to explain why your propositional calculus is correct, and mine is wrong based on your own assumptions. This is the problem you should address, hopefully in a non ad-hoc way.
[1] I re-edited because the value of p that I had in mind was "a broken clock was working" but by copy-and-pasting I made a mistake.
Do you agree that in the Russell and Gettier cases that the belief was properly accounted for?
I don't see them as presupposing a specific account of belief as such, in their treatment of JTB. They are reasoning about the idea that JTB (formulated in some way) provides all necessary and sufficient conditions to have a case of knowledge.
Why do some fuckers believe the limits of their languages are the limits of their worlds?
Why would anyone make an attempt to explain this to you when you already nailed you flag to the mast? You've misunderstood the remark, which is from the Tractatus. You are "unavailable for learning", as they say about the kinder child who is having a tantrum.
As I said, I'm neutral on the issue. I'd discuss it with Harry if he's interested.
I'm presently working in a team situation. My partner, who uses the word "fuck" pretty continuously, calls all the patients "fuckers", including an infant burn victim we had the fun of stabilizing. Fucker!
But yes, I don't expect to learn anything from you.
From Jack's point of view he doesn't believe anything about a broken clock, obviously, since he thinks the clock is not broken. Of course we can say that he believes of a broken clock that it is working. But so what; people entertain mistaken beliefs all the time?
creativesoulFebruary 01, 2022 at 01:49#6500020 likes
From Jack's point of view he doesn't believe anything about a broken clock, obviously, since he thinks the clock is not broken. Of course we can say that he believes of a broken clock that it is working. But so what; people entertain mistaken beliefs all the time?
Which clock does he think is not broken?
The broken one. Clearly, he does believe something about a broken clock. He believes that the broken clock is working.
I'm not sure what possesses you to see this as problematic.
creativesoulFebruary 01, 2022 at 02:02#6500060 likes
...the problem I have is with "Jack believed that a broken clock was working" since your are insisting on it.
Indeed. That is at issue. I'm waiting for a valid objection.
You came up with this rendering based on the propositional calculus suggested here: “Can Jack look at a broken clock? Surely. Can Jack believe what the clock says? Surely. Why then, can he not believe that a broken clock is working?”.
So I proposed you the following propositional calculus: if one can render “I did/did not believed that p” as “p and I did/did not believe it” and vice versa. And asked you: why can’t we do the same with p="Jack believed that a broken clock was working"?
So I'm challenging you to explain why your propositional calculus is correct, and mine is wrong based on your own assumptions. This is the problem you should address, hopefully in a non ad-hoc way.
Rather than propose something I've not, would it not just be easier to answer the question following from the simple understanding set out with common language use? I've no issue at all accounting for Jack's belief.
Do you not find it odd that Jack would agree, if and when he figured out that the clock was broken? He would have no issue saying that he had believed that a broken clock was working. So, what's your problem with it?
creativesoulFebruary 01, 2022 at 02:09#6500100 likes
I'm not sure what possesses you to see this as problematic.
I am not saying it is problematic; you are. You were claiming that it had some problematic implication for the idea that beliefs can be expressed in propositional form.
creativesoulFebruary 01, 2022 at 02:30#6500160 likes
As I said, this is the kind of de re belief ascription that we can use when we are not sure about a de dicto belief ascription (i.e. we don’t know what someone else’s beliefs are really about, see the case of the kid in the park). In the case of Jack, I would prefer that form of rendering, if e.g. I’m not sure whether Jack is holding contradictory beliefs or he simply ignores that that clock is not working. Certainly, if I knew that Jack ignores that clock is not working, I would prefer to say “Jack believes that clock is working” or “Jack mistakenly believes that clock is working” instead of “Jack believes of that broken clock that is working”, or worse, “Jack believes that broken clock is working”.
Jack cannot believe both simultaneously, that the clock is broken, and that a broken clock is working. There is no possibility of misunderstanding what is meant by "Jack believes a broken clock is working" unless one has already bewitched their own thinking skills by virtue of arriving at a gross misunderstanding of what belief is as a result of working from a misconception thereof.
All belief as propositional attitude is one such misconception.
Interesting thing here to me is that on the one hand you're railing against propositional calculus(as you call it), and yet again on the other your unknowingly objecting based upon the fact that Jack would not assent to his own belief if it were put into propositional form and he was asked if he believed the statement. At least, not while he still believed it.
Agent SmithFebruary 01, 2022 at 02:31#6500180 likes
You're either forgetful or dishonest. You have been levying charges against the claim. That's not something one does unless the claim is problematic, or they are not arguing in good faith.
As far as the charges I'm levying against convention...
The belief under our consideration is problematic for the conventional rendering of belief as a propositional attitude. It is not problematic for rendering it in propositional form.
The belief under our consideration is problematic for the conventional rendering of belief as a propositional attitude. It is not problematic for rendering it in propositional form
So, Banno, I'm wondering what you think of this? It seems to be not at all problematic for being rendered in propositional form, but Jack never believes the statement is true. Do you not find that both odd and interesting?
Reply to creativesoul No, I have acknowledged there is a sense in which we can say that. But the content of his belief is not that a broken clock is working. That's all I've been pointing out.
creativesoulFebruary 01, 2022 at 02:53#6500240 likes
Is there a point? I don't understand how it is that you don't understand.
(Jack believed that a broken clock was working) is ambiguous.
Is (the clock is broken) within the scope of Jack's belief? Then you have Jack believed that: ((The clock is broken) & (the clock is working)); Poor old Jack needs help.
Or is it outside the scope? Then you have: The clock is broken and (Jack believed that: (the clock is working))
No problem. In both cases the belief is presented as a propositional attitude.
“a broken clock was working and we once believed it” ?
By definition, a broken clock doesn't work, so your proposition makes no sense. A proposition equivalent to "it was raining and we thought otherwise," would be more like: "the clock was broken but we didn't know it, and we wrongly assumed it was working."
Harry HinduFebruary 01, 2022 at 13:07#6501210 likes
Yep, this is correct if we take strings of characters, independently from any pre-defined linguistic codification. The difference is that with words (notice that the term “word” is already framing its referent, like an image, as a linguistic entity!)
, but only after you learned that is what the scribbles are labeled as. I've been using the term scribble, not word, because they are scribbles without rules and words when rules are applied to scribbles.
You can have all kinds of sets of rules (e.g. the codification of traffic signs). Concerning the problem at hand, one thing that really matters is to understand if/what systems of visual codifications disambiguate an image always wrt a specific proposition: think about the codified images of a deck of cards. Does e.g. the following card have a propositional content that card game rules can help us identify? What would this be?
Isn't it a seven of diamonds regardless of what card game that we are playing? We don't even need a game to define the image as a seven of diamonds, because we have rules about what scribble refers to which shapes (diamonds, spades, hearts, or clubs).
In your example of street signs, we have signs with no words, and yet they are properly interpreted by most people as to what they are saying. The rules we establish are arbitrary and we have to spend time learning what some symbol (imagery, audible, etc.,) refers to. The rules themselves are language-less as each individual has their own unique experiences, starting from a pre-language (pre-symbol-using) state, in learning how the symbols are used to refer to what, or was, or potentially is the case.
Harry HinduFebruary 01, 2022 at 13:17#6501230 likes
First of all, I'm neutral on the question. I'm just exploring the implications.
I'm starting with the assumption that my beliefs are limited by the limits of my language.
Why some fucker would assert that is a different topic. Maybe we could start a thread:
Why do some fuckers believe the limits of their languages are the limits of their worlds?
Lame. Wtf does it mean to be neutral on a question, if not "I don't want to answer it because the answer would contradict other things that I've said."?
You're starting with an incoherent assumption. You need to define "language" and in a way that acknowledges that there are languages that we don't know and some that we do, and what the noticeable (visual) difference is.
Why some fucker would assert that is a different topic. Maybe we could start a thread:
Why do some fuckers believe the limits of their languages are the limits of their worlds?
So you can assert something, but when the assertion is questioned we need to start another thread? The ways in which people on this forum try to avoid answering valid questions grows stranger by the day.
If someone says "the limits of my language mean the limits of my world" is this assertion self contradictory?
What is the pov of the assertion? I'm asking you because you're mentally flexible. You could probably see it better than me.
Wait, I thought we were suppose to start another thread on this topic?
I don't say such things, you are, so it is incumbent upon you to explain what you mean, because I have no idea.
The question I asked above is much simpler and can move us forward in our conversation, yet you'd rather waste time trying to interpret some nonsensical string of scribbles.
The question I asked above is much simpler and can move us forward in our conversation, yet you'd rather waste time trying to interpret some nonsensical string of scribbles.
What question?
Harry HinduFebruary 01, 2022 at 13:36#6501290 likes
What does a language that you don't know look like? And when describing what a language you know looks like, are you describing the language or your knowledge of the language?
Oh really? This is what you wrote: “Can Jack look at a broken clock? Surely. Can Jack believe what the clock says? Surely. Why then, can he not believe that a broken clock is working?”.
To obtain “Jack believes that broken clock was working” you simply replaced the term “broken clock” from “Jack looks at a broken clock” with the term “the clock” from “Jack believe what the clock says”. This is a substitution operation applied to two propositions (one reporting a belief ascription), to obtain a third proposition (reporting a belief ascription) based on the sheer co-reference of some terms involved. That is why I call it propositional calculus. Indeed a propositional calculus that is supposed to work independently from any other pragmatic and contextual considerations. Hence: you proposed something by applying some propositional calculus that I find quite preposterous.
Since you didn’t perceive how preposterous your argumentative approach is, then I gave you another case where your type of reasoning (i.e. propositional calculus applied to belief ascriptions, based on sheer co-reference, and indifferent to any pragmatic/contextual considerations) looks more evidently preposterous: if one can render “S did/did not believed that p” as “p and S did/did not believe it” and vice versa, and one can take p="that broken clock was working”, why can’t I justifiably render “Jack did believe that broken clock was working” as “that broken clock was working and Jack did believe it”?
> would it not just be easier to answer the question following from the simple understanding set out with common language use?
That’s what I and others did, unless you think you are a more competent speaker than all of those who objected your rendering, you should take this as a linguistic datum and infer that your account is not that common language usage, after all. And indeed you did that already when you claimed to be questioning the “conventional” belief account.
Let me repeat once more: I don’t feel intellectually compelled to answer questions based on preposterous assumptions, like this one:“Can Jack look at a broken clock? Surely. Can Jack believe what the clock says? Surely. Why then, can he not believe that a broken clock is working?”. But I can certainly show you why I find them preposterous (which I did). BTW, as far as I read from your posts [1], this is the only argument you made to justify your belief ascription rendering (besides your thought experiment with a fictional character that — surprise surprise — agrees with you!).
Anyways, I now question this justification not simply because its conclusion is wrong (which is), but also because itself is flawed by design (even if your conclusion was correct)!
> Do you not find it odd that Jack would agree, if and when he figured out that the clock was broken?
Seriously?! By “Jack” you mean a fictional character in a story that you just invented? Oh no, that’s not odd at all, it would be indeed much more odd if you invented stories where fictional characters explicitly contradict your theories, and despite that you used those stories to prove your theory.
OK let me help you with your case. Indeed, I think there might be a way out for you but only if you reject this line of reasoning: “Can Jack look at a broken clock? Surely. Can Jack believe what the clock says? Surely. Why then, can he not believe that a broken clock is working?” (along with the idea that de re belief ascriptions are appropriate independently from pragmatic and contextual considerations, or a better rendering than de dicto belief ascriptions). Indeed if you rejected that line of reasoning, then you could explain the situation in your thought experiment based on pragmatic considerations and shared assumptions, much better. How? Here you go: since at moment t2, you and Jack share the same assumptions about the reliability of that clock, the belief of Jack about that clock at t1, and the rationality of you and Jack, then between you two it would be easier to disambiguate the claim “Jack believed that broken clock was working”, and this is why you two would not find it so problematic to use that belief ascription (BTW that is also why we can't exclude a non-literal or ironic reading of this belief ascription either). However, as soon as we add to the story another interlocutor who doesn’t share all the same assumptions relevant to disambiguate “Jack believed that broken clock was working” then this rendering would be again inappropriate or less appropriate than de dicto rendering “Jack believed that clock was working”.
> Interesting thing here to me is that on the one hand you're railing against propositional calculus(as you call it), and yet again on the other your unknowingly objecting based upon the fact that Jack would not assent to his own belief if it were put into propositional form and he was asked if he believed the statement. At least, not while he still believed it.
There are 2 problems in your comment:
It can be misleading to claim that I’m “railing against propositional calculus”. I’m more precisely railing about the propositional calculus you applied to belief ascription rendering in order to justify the claim that “Jack believes that broken clock is working” is not only fine independently from any pragmatic and contextual considerations, but even better than the de dicto rendering “Jack believes that clock is working”.
I didn’t make the claim you denounce here “your unknowingly objecting based upon the fact that Jack would not assent to his own belief if it were put into propositional form and he was asked if he believed the statement.” (ironically, you were the one repeatedly suggesting me to stick to what you write), nor my line of reasoning requires the claim “Jack would not assent to his own belief if it were put into propositional form and he was asked if he believed the statement. At least, not while he still believed it.” to be true, independently from pragmatic and contextual considerations (see the way out I suggested you previously).
[1] If you have others and can provide links, I’d like to read them.
By definition, a broken clock doesn't work, so your proposition makes no sense.
Of course, but if you follow my exchange with Creative Soul with due attention, you should understand why I made it up. That crazy sentence is the result of some unjustified propositional calculus that I applied to the belief ascription rendering "Jack believes that broken clock is working" (proposed by CreativeSoul). Why did I do that? To show CreativeSoul that my unjustified propositional calculus is very much the same type of propositional calculus CreativeSoul used to justify his belief ascription rendering (e.g. "Jack believes that broken clock is working")
Harry HinduFebruary 01, 2022 at 14:23#6501440 likes
Jack believed that a broken clock was working.
— creativesoul
Is there a point? I don't understand how it is that you don't understand.
(Jack believed that a broken clock was working) is ambiguous.
Is (the clock is broken) within the scope of Jack's belief? Then you have Jack believed that: ((The clock is broken) & (the clock is working)); Poor old Jack needs help.
Or is it outside the scope? Then you have: The clock is broken and (Jack believed that: (the clock is working))
No problem. In both cases the belief is presented as a propositional attitude.
We're still on this? CS doesn't yet realize that the proposition, "Jack believed that a broken clock was working." isn't something Jack is saying (believing), but what someone else is saying (believing) about Jack and the clock? Who is making this statement? It certainly can't be Jack.
but only after you learned that is what the scribbles are labeled as. I've been using the term scribble, not word, because they are scribbles without rules and words when rules are applied to scribbles.
Agreed, indeed I was backing up the part where you wrote “meaning that words (as an image of strings of scribbles)”
Isn't it a seven of diamonds regardless of what card game that we are playing? We don't even need a game to define the image as a seven of diamonds, because we have rules about what scribble refers to which shapes (diamonds, spades, hearts, or clubs).
Maybe regardless of any specific card game, but the challenge here is to express the propositional content of that image (something that an image can share with sentences, different propositional attitudes, different languages): so is the propositional content of that image rendered by “this is a seven of diamonds” or “this is a seven of diamonds in standard 52-card deck” or “this is a card of diamonds different from a 1 to 6 or 8 to 13 of diamonds” or “this is a seven of a suit different from clubs, hearts, spades” or “this is a card with seven red diamond-shaped figures and red shaped number seven arranged so and so” or any combination of these propositions? All of them are different propositions which one is the right one? BTW “this” is an indexical, and shouldn’t be part of the content of an unambiguous proposition: so maybe the propositional content is “something is a seven of diamonds” or “some image is a seven of diamonds”? And so on.
At least this is how I understand the philosophical task of proving that images have propositional content, but I'm neither sure that others understand this philosophical task in the same way I just drafted, nor that this task can be accomplished successfully.
creativesoulFebruary 01, 2022 at 15:49#6501640 likes
I understand that and most of what others are objecting to. The rendering of the belief as (a broken clock is working) is said to be problematic. On my end, it would be better put as (that broken clock is working), but the objections would remain. What I do not understand is the move to set (that broken clock) outside of the scope of Jack's belief and replace it with (that clock) when the example hinges upon the fact that the clock is broken but Jack believes what it says. Jack does not know it is broken, so he cannot believe that it is broken. I grant that much entirely, but there's no reason to say that he cannot believe that that broken clock is working.
creativesoulFebruary 01, 2022 at 15:54#6501650 likes
I'm going to postpone any further replies to you for now. You seem to be taking things personally. Mea culpa on a few of those things you said in the last long reply...
creativesoulFebruary 01, 2022 at 15:59#6501690 likes
The example is akin to believing that a facade is a barn, or a sheet is a sheep. These could all be broken down into two propositions as Moore did with (it is raining and I do not believe it).
Reply to creativesoul
Fine with me, I don’t want to waste your time and energies. And you already have many other interlocutors. In any case, I'm more playful than you might think. Just I can play it tougher depending on other peoples' replies.
Harry HinduFebruary 01, 2022 at 16:58#6501830 likes
What I do not understand is the move to set (that broken clock) outside of the scope of Jack's belief and replace it with (that clock) when the example hinges upon the fact that the clock is broken but Jack believes what it says. Jack does not know it is broken, so he cannot believe that it is broken. I grant that much entirely, but there's no reason to say that he cannot believe that broken clock.
The move to set it outside the scope of Jack's belief is due to the fact that it would be impossible for Jack to make such a statement based on his belief. It would be what someone else is stating about their own beliefs about Jack and the clock. After all, Jack could be tricking the observer (his boss) into thinking he doesn't really know what time it was as an excuse for being late.
Harry HinduFebruary 01, 2022 at 17:01#6501850 likes
Maybe regardless of any specific card game, but the challenge here is to express the propositional content of that image (something that an image can share with sentences, different propositional attitudes, different languages): so is the propositional content of that image rendered by “this is a seven of diamonds” or “this is a seven of diamonds in standard 52-card deck” or “this is a card of diamonds different from a 1 to 6 or 8 to 13 of diamonds” or “this is a seven of a suit different from clubs, hearts, spades” or “this is a card with seven red diamond-shaped figures and red shaped number seven arranged so and so” or any combination of these propositions? All of them are different propositions which one is the right one? BTW “this” is an indexical, and shouldn’t be part of the content of an unambiguous proposition: so maybe the propositional content is “something is a seven of diamonds”? And so on.
At least this is how I understand the philosophical task of proving that images have propositional content, but I'm neither sure that others understand this philosophical task in the same way I just drafted, nor that this task can be accomplished successfully.
What do you mean by "propositional content"? What are you pointing at when you use the string of scribbles, "propositional content"?
You seem to be confusing the card with the deck. I don't need to know it's relationship with other things to know that it is a sheet of paper with red ink in shape of diamonds and a "7". If you want me to know the relationship it has with other things, then I would need to see the image of those things as well. The propositions you propose cannot be discerned by merely looking at a 7 of diamonds. I would have to observe it in a box with the rest of the cards, or used with the other cards.
> What do you mean by "propositional content"? What are you pointing at when you use the string of scribbles, "propositional content”?
I take it to mean, something that at least can be shared by different sentences (e.g. “Jim loves Alice” and “that guy called Jim loves Alice” ), by different propositional attitudes (e.g. I believe that Jim loves Alice, I hope that Jim loves Alice), by different languages (e.g. “Jim loves Alice” and “Jim aime Alice”) and determines their usage/fitness conditions. Those who theorize about propositions have richer answers than this of course (e.g. Frege’s propositions, Russell’s propositions, unstructured propositions, etc.). But I’m not a fan of these theories, so I’ll let others do the job.
Anyways, I hear people wondering about images as propositions or as having propositional content, without elaborating or clarifying, so this was my piece of brainstorming about this subject.
> You seem to be confusing the card with the deck. I don't need to know it's relationship with other things to know that it is a sheet of paper with red ink in shape of diamonds and a “7".
To know that I’m confusing the propositional content of that image, presupposes that you know what the propositional content of that image is. But I’m not convinced it’s that simple, see what you just wrote about that image: while you previously wrote something like: . Is it essential for the propositional content of that image the mention of ink or paper? A seven of diamonds tattooed on the the body doesn’t share the same propositional content of the image on paper? How about the arrangement of the diamonds on the surface of the card? How about the shade of red? How about the change of light condition under which the image is seen? If I warped that image with an image editor to make it hardly recognisable but still recognisable after some time as a 7 of diamonds, shouldn’t we include in the propositional content of that image all the features that allowed me to recognise it as a 7 of diamonds, despite the warping? And so on…
Again, I’m just brainstorming, so no strong opinion on any of that. Indeed I was hoping to get some feedback from those who talk about propositional content of images, or images as propositions.
What I do not understand is the move to set (that broken clock) outside of the scope of Jack's belief and replace it with (that clock) when the example hinges upon the fact that the clock is broken but Jack believes what it says. Jack does not know it is broken, so he cannot believe that it is broken.
SO you do not understand that "the broken clock" is not a description Jack could correctly make? That "The broken clock" could not be within the scope of Jack's belief?
Don't make me cry. I've made that point, indeed in detail and with a history of it's origin before Frege, over the course of this damnable thread, and elsewhere.
Yes, it's an impossibly long thread and doubtless you may have not seen it. Let's move on.
There are some interesting aspects to some of your objections. However, we seem to be having difficulty focusing upon what I think is of importance. That's on me.
creativesoulFebruary 02, 2022 at 03:13#6503900 likes
The move to set it outside the scope of Jack's belief is due to the fact that it would be impossible for Jack to make such a statement based on his belief.
Well, yes and no.
While believing that that broken clock was working, it would be impossible.
However, after becoming aware of the fact that he believed that a broken clock was working, by showing him that clock had stopped, after becoming aware of exctly how he had come to believe that it was 3 o'clock, he could no longer believe that that clock was working. At this point in time, Jack could readliy admit to having once believed that that particular clock was working, and that that particular clock was broken at that time, so he had once believed that that particular broken clock was working.
So, no, it is not always impossible to make such a statement based upon his belief.
Here's the interesting part...
Never did he have an attitude towards that particular proposition(that broken clock is working) such that he believed it to be the case, or true. Thus, he cannot be sensibly said to have an attitude towards that proposition such that he takes it to be the case, or takes it to be true. If an accurate rendering of Jack's belief were put into belief statement form, he would not assent. That is not a problem at all for what I'm saying here. He did not know he was wrong. He believed that that broken clock was working nonetheless.
That example stands in direct opposition to underlying false presuppositions pervading some of the objections to the simple account I'm offering here. Namely, 1.that we must be aware of everything we believe, and 2.all belief can be rendered into propositional form such that the individual to whom the belief belongs would assent.
Neither of those are true. I'm offering an everyday example that warrants our tempering our confidence in those two notions. A bit more carefully well-placed skepticism is appropriate.
creativesoulFebruary 02, 2022 at 04:43#6504060 likes
"The broken clock" could not be within the scope of Jack's belief?
I would agree if what counts as being within the scope of our belief are only what we would assent to if asked. Jack would assent if asked after becoming aware of the relevant facts.
However, if the scope was broadened a bit so as to include what we all actually believe rather than what we know, and/or would admit to, we would surely see that the scope of Jack's belief is beyond his own knowledge.
I don't think you have understood this scope thing. A bit of formal logic would do you no harm.
creativesoulFebruary 02, 2022 at 05:07#6504130 likes
Your notion of what counts as being within the scope of our belief includes only what we would assent to if asked.
Jack would assent to once believing that that particular broken clock was working if asked after having become aware of the relevant facts. Not before.
So, the scope of Jack's belief ought be broadened a bit so as to include what he believed rather than what he would admit to believing. The scope of Jack's belief ought include all of Jack's belief. He was totally unaware of his false belief that that particular broken clock was working while he believed it. He believed what the clock said, and would readily admit to this all after having become aware of the relevant facts. After becoming aware of the broken clock, he would have become aware of his own mistake. At this point in time he would readily agree if asked "Did you believe that that broken clock was working?"...
He would have never agreed if ever asked if the proposition/statement "That broken clock is working" were true. He never held an attitude towards the proposition (that broken clock is working) such that he believed it true.
Seems to me that this is clearly a belief that does not allow itself to be rendered in propositional form such that the believer would hold it to be true, or as true.
creativesoulFebruary 02, 2022 at 05:24#6504160 likes
Seems to me that this is clearly a belief that does not allow itself to be rendered in propositional form such that the believer would hold it to be true, or as true.
Here I'm extending this to barn facades and sheets in fields that resemble sheep...
creativesoulFebruary 02, 2022 at 06:36#6504250 likes
Belief that that barn facade was a barn. Belief that that sheet hanging from a clothesline was a sheep. Belief that that man dressed in a sheep suit was a sheep. Etc.
Belief that does not permit itself to be rendered as a propositional attitude.
However, after becoming aware of the fact that he believed that a broken clock was working, by showing him that clock had stopped, after becoming aware of exctly how he had come to believe that it was 3 o'clock, he could no longer believe that that clock was working. At this point in time, Jack could readliy admit to having once believed that that particular clock was working, and that that particular clock was broken at that time, so he had once believed that that particular broken clock was working.
You're moving goal posts. Jack's beliefs can change, sure, but which belief is the statement about - before or after he became aware? You're being purposely obtuse, such that I don't believe your goal here is to reach any common ground with anyone, rather you seem to have too much time on your hands and a need to waste other people's time.
Harry HinduFebruary 02, 2022 at 12:25#6504710 likes
I take it to mean, something that at least can be shared by different sentences (e.g. “Jim loves Alice” and “that guy called Jim loves Alice” ), by different propositional attitudes (e.g. I believe that Jim loves Alice, I hope that Jim loves Alice), by different languages (e.g. “Jim loves Alice” and “Jim aime Alice”) and determines their usage/fitness conditions. Those who theorize about propositions have richer answers than this of course (e.g. Frege’s propositions, Russell’s propositions, unstructured propositions, etc.). But I’m not a fan of these theories, so I’ll let others do the job.
Anyways, I hear people wondering about images as propositions or as having propositional content, without elaborating or clarifying, so this was my piece of brainstorming about this subject.
"Something" that is shared by different sentences is too vague. What specifically do they share and is there a categorical term that can be used to refer to what is shared that allows us to group all propositional content under the the term, "propositional content"? What makes something propositional content? What allows us to say that different sentences that have different propositional content? There must be something that sentences share that allows us to say that they all have propositional content. If not, then how can we say that different sentences share things?
To know that I’m confusing the propositional content of that image, presupposes that you know what the propositional content of that image is. But I’m not convinced it’s that simple, see what you just wrote about that image: while you previously wrote something like: . Is it essential for the propositional content of that image the mention of ink or paper? A seven of diamonds tattooed on the the body doesn’t share the same propositional content of the image on paper? How about the arrangement of the diamonds on the surface of the card? How about the shade of red? How about the change of light condition under which the image is seen? If I warped that image with an image editor to make it hardly recognisable but still recognisable after some time as a 7 of diamonds, shouldn’t we include in the propositional content of that image all the features that allowed me to recognise it as a 7 of diamonds, despite the warping? And so on…
Again, I’m just brainstorming, so no strong opinion on any of that. Indeed I was hoping to get some feedback from those who talk about propositional content of images, or images as propositions.
Well, again, it depends on our goals in communicating. What are we trying to talk about? How was a 52 deck of cards invented? What is the history of the 52-deck of cards? There had to either be an idea for a 52-deck of cards in someone's head that evolved from pre-existing ideas about games with cards that did not include 7 of diamonds. So it isn't likely that someone just created a 7 of diamonds card without also creating the rest of the deck, hence the 7 of diamonds is only meaningful with the rest of the deck. With that I can agree, but it still is possible for someone to find a card with the number 7 and 7 diamonds on it that has never seen playing cards. How would they go about determining the meaning of the card, or could they use it for something else, like a bookmark, or as an object for bringing luck (lucky 7)? When using it as a bookmark are they misusing the card, or are they simply co-opting an object (scribbles and images) for other uses?
I think that it would be helpful to show how the objection is inapplicable to what I'm arguing here. Your example is one of switching referents. Mine is not.
creativesoulFebruary 02, 2022 at 16:10#6505300 likes
(That broken clock is working) has been proposed as the belief from the beginning. Any change was for elucidation only, not as a way to avoid valid objection. Evidently you do not understand what's being argued. That reply was meant more for others anyway...
> "Something" that is shared by different sentences is too vague. […] If not, then how can we say that different sentences share things?
Right. But I left it vague on purpose b/c otherwise I should have taken position wrt what propositions are, which is not my intention. Yet a major intuition pump that is inspiring the philosophical theory of propositions lies in that kind of examples I provided.
> So it isn't likely that someone just created a 7 of diamonds card without also creating the rest of the deck, hence the 7 of diamonds is only meaningful with the rest of the deck. With that I can agree, but it still is possible for someone to find a card with the number 7 and 7 diamonds on it that has never seen playing cards.
Your last point is going back to where we started: images (taken as a representational kind of things) can match different descriptions that do not share the same proposition. Then, if you remember, you asked me “what rules would we need to remove the ambiguity of images that are not scribbles?”. So, I proposed you to consider the codification systems that we have to interpret images (traffic signs, deck of cards, national flags, emoticons, brand logos, etc.). These codification rules are certainly helping us identify and understand images, but the issue at hand is more specific: can they help us determine the right propositional content of an image? I’m inclined to think that the correct answer is no. Unless, say, images are trivially coupled with sentences by stipulation (but what if the problem is deeper than this?).
> How would they go about determining the meaning of the card?
Good question, but your question should be more demanding than this, and look for a meaning that has an intrinsic propositional form (that sentences can share etc.). So the question should be: how would they go about determining the [s]meaning[/s] propositional content of the card?
I understand what you are arguing. You're just wrong.
That's not at all convincing to an astute audience. Gratuitous assertions such as these may convince some, but not I. We'll see if I'm wrong. That has yet to have been determined and/or established. I'm not even finished yet. Time constraints.
creativesoulFebruary 03, 2022 at 04:17#6506910 likes
SO now I am wondering if you have a clear grasp of what a proposition is.
There's a certain bit of irony here. I could say "pots and kettles" too...
Need I remind you of the absolute mess you made of the notion during the debate? There is more than one accepted use of that term. On my view, all propositions are proposed. It follows that having an attitude towards some proposition such that one believes it to be the case requires an individual capable of proposing and an individual capable of understanding that proposal and subsequently taking it to be true.
creativesoulFebruary 03, 2022 at 05:06#6507080 likes
That barn facade is a barn, therefore there is at least one barn on that land.
That sheet hanging from a clothesline is a sheep, therefore there is at least one sheep in that field.
That man dressed in a sheep suit is a sheep, therefore there is at least one sheep in that field.
That stopped clock is working, therefore what it says about the time is accurate.
Jones owns a Ford and disjunctions are true if either disjunct is. Therefore, 'either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona' is true because Jones owns a Ford.
Harry HinduFebruary 03, 2022 at 14:04#6508480 likes
That broken clock is working) has been proposed as the belief from the beginning. Any change was for elucidation only, not as a way to avoid valid objection. Evidently you do not understand what's being argued.
Yeah but now you're talking about Jack having different beliefs after becoming aware of something that CONTRADICTS his prior belief. Quoting creativesoul
However, after becoming aware of the fact that he believed that a broken clock was working, by showing him that clock had stopped, after becoming aware of exctly how he had come to believe that it was 3 o'clock, he could no longer believe that that clock was working.
creativesoulFebruary 03, 2022 at 16:00#6508940 likes
That is a barn, therefore there is at least one barn on that land.
That is a sheep, therefore there is at least one sheep in that field.
That clock is working, therefore what it says about the time is accurate.
That barn facade is a barn, therefore there is at least one barn on that land.
That sheet hanging from a clothesline is a sheep, therefore there is at least one sheep in that field.
That man dressed in a sheep suit is a sheep, therefore there is at least one sheep in that field.
That stopped clock is working, therefore what it says about the time is accurate.
So, above are two different ways to describe some of the beliefs under consideration. It seems that I am the only one around here who finds the bottom set to be more accurate and/or acceptable than the first. Most of the objections are based upon the idea that the believer needs to assent to their belief when put into propositional form. That the scope of one's belief needs to be limited to only what they would say of themselves at that time.
It seems that I am the only one around here who finds the bottom set to be more accurate and/or acceptable than the first.
Accuracy with respect to what? All I can say is that the most accurate report of someone’s belief at time t1 is the one that best matches the point of view of the believer at time t1. Why would I pick the point of view of some person P at time t2 (or some other person Q at time t1) as a criterium of accuracy for reporting P's belief at time t1?
Let me reformulate your proposal without mentioning all wrong hints I think you provided (and still provide) and in terms that I find less equivocal, in order to make it look better (at least, to me).
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[i]We commonly take a believer’s perspective on a given situation as a fundamental accuracy condition for belief ascriptions about him, and intensional belief ascriptions are designed for expressing this understanding. This is why we reject extensional belief ascriptions, at least, when intensional belief ascriptions are available.
Yet one can wonder if all intensional belief ascriptions can be in principle replaced by extensional belief ascriptions without omitting the believer’s perspective. How? By rendering the believer’s perspective in terms of metalinguistic belief ascriptions (belief about the truth-value of some propositions).
This is why one can claim as valid both (extensional belief ascription) and (extensional belief ascription rendering the believer’s perspective in metalinguistic terms).
Where is the benefit? At least, in preserving truth-value through substitution of co-referent terms, even for belief ascriptions, and without giving up on the believer’s perspective. [I’ll let you integrate with other benefits][/i]
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Before commenting further, would you find this re-formulation enough acceptable? And if not, why not?
So, above are two different ways to describe some of the beliefs under consideration. It seems that I am the only one around here who finds the bottom set to be more accurate and/or acceptable than the first.
Neither way of describing the beliefs is more accurate other than from their different appropriate perspectives.
creativesoulFebruary 04, 2022 at 02:29#6510930 likes
In your rendering of my contentions here, you've placed far too much importance on the notions of intentional, intensional, and extensional. One in my position could be easily flattered by such misattribution. I mean, it looks like a very intelligent viewpoint is being described.
creativesoulFebruary 04, 2022 at 03:08#6511130 likes
We commonly take a believer’s perspective on a given situation as a fundamental accuracy condition for belief ascriptions about him, and intensional belief ascriptions are designed for expressing this understanding
Is the practice of using "intensional" to ensure that our ascriptions are somehow congruent and/or otherwise amenable to the believer's perspective at the time? Given what I've quoted below, it would seem so.
All I can say is that the most accurate report of someone’s belief at time t1 is the one that best matches the point of view of the believer at time t1. Why would I pick the point of view of some person P at time t2 (or some other person Q at time t1) as a criterium of accuracy for reporting P's belief at time t1?
One great reason to deny the need for a match between our report and the person's own perspective and/or point of view at that time is when they believe that a man in a sheep suit is a sheep, but they've no idea that they believe that. That man in that suit is a very large part of the meaningful content of any belief that he is a sheep. That man in that suit is both, unknown and influential to the believer.
The believer does not know at the time that they believe a man in a sheep suit is a sheep.
One great reason to pick the same person at another time is when we find ourselves discussing another's belief that they themselves do not know that they have. We can ask them later after they become aware of the relevant facts. It seems to me that that part of what I'm saying here honors and satisfies your standard of matching the individual's perspective concerning what exactly they believed at time t1. Moreso even than the alternative.
creativesoulFebruary 04, 2022 at 03:10#6511140 likes
Yet one can wonder if all intensional belief ascriptions can be in principle replaced by extensional belief ascriptions without omitting the believer’s perspective. How? By rendering the believer’s perspective in terms of metalinguistic belief ascriptions (belief about the truth-value of some propositions).
This is why one can claim as valid both (extensional belief ascription) and (extensional belief ascription rendering the believer’s perspective in metalinguistic terms).
Where is the benefit? At least, in preserving truth-value through substitution of co-referent terms, even for belief ascriptions, and without giving up on the believer’s perspective.
The above is not half bad. That's supposed to be a compliment.
> In your rendering of my contentions here, you've placed far too much importance on the notions of intentional, intensional, and extensional..
Indeed I reported that premise (there was a typo: I wrote “intenTional” instead of “intenSional”), b/c if you want to make a philosophical proposal that is appealing to me, or those holding the conventional view of belief ascription, you should feel intellectually compelled to show understanding toward what we are concerned about (de dicto report are necessary for rendering believers' p.o.v.), and prove by that that we are not talking past each other. The burden is on you, b/c it’s you who wants to challenge the conventional view, not the other way around.
Otherwise our exchange will just end up in butting heads against the wall of our diverging intuition pumps. It’s pointless. So we can work out our different views better if we start from common grounds or at least reciprocal concessions (depending on the burden of proof).
> I mean, it looks like a very intelligent viewpoint is being described.
So, do you find my formulation good enough despite of “you've placed far too much importance etc.”, or not good enough because of “you've placed far too much importance etc.”?
> One great reason to deny the need for a match between our report and the person's own perspective and/or point of view at that time is when they believe that a man in a sheep suit is a sheep, but they've no idea. […]
One great reason to pick the same person at another time is when we find ourselves discussing another's belief that they themselves do not know that they have. We can ask them later after they become aware of the relevant facts. It seems to me thatthat part of what I'm saying here honors and satisfies your standard of matching the individual's perspective concerning what exactly they believed at time t1. Moreso even than the alternative.
Here my objections:
In my comment, I contrasted P’s belief prospective at t1 with both Q’s belief prospective at t1 and P’s belief prospective at t2 (when she understood her belief at t1 to be wrong). And I said our report is accurate when it matches P’s belief prospective at time t1. In your comment, you start denying the need for that match in case of Q’s belief ascription, and then conclude with claiming that my standard is satisfied in the case of P’s belief prospective at t2. These claims are, at least, twice contradictory: first, it seems you are distinguishing 2 cases (belief ascription by Q at t1, and belief ascription by P at t2) even though there is no such difference with respect to what is ascribed to P at time t1 in both 2 cases, according to your belief ascription report (at t1, P believes that a broken clock is working, for both Q at t1 and P at t2). Secondly, since for me there is no difference in belief ascription failure between Q at t1 and P at t2, then you are not satisfying my standard, b/c at least in case of Q at t1 - you claim - there is no need for matching. Not to mention the fact that even the belief ascription by P at t2 is not satisfying my standard either, as I intend it: P at t2 is not offering any accurate report of P at t1 if she used your belief ascription report.
My reformulation was aiming at rescuing your proposal also from the line of reasoning you just drafted, which I find simply catastrophic, even if we forget the aforementioned objections. Why? Because “accuracy” as an intrinsic fitness-condition of beliefs is what grounds our expectations about our honest reports, like the expectation that a factual report about facts at time t1 should match them, and the expectation that a belief ascription to P at time t1 should match the belief prospective of P at time t1 (i.e. the way P would express her belief at time t1). While what you are trying to do is to blend the 2 distinct expectations in a belief ascription that matches neither the prospective of the believer nor the relevant facts: a broken clock is working is neither a fact nor the perspective of P at time t1, just a blend of what you take to be a correct description of the relevant facts ("the broken clock") with P’s perspective (“is working”). The utmost preposterous consequence of your approach is that all false beliefs are equated to contradictory beliefs (since, the belief ascription subordinate clause "a broken clock is working" is a contradiction). This amounts to a categorical confusion between epistemology and logic: a false belief is not a contradictory belief (!!!), since a contradictory belief is always false, while a false belief could have been true, and this depends on the relevant facts not on its internal logic. Indeed this would also make the believers look always irrational, when they could have been simply ignorant about the relevant facts.
Why would you do such a catastrophic move? My impression is that you are misled, by your unaccounted knowledge claims (“we find ourselves discussing another's belief that they themselves do not know that they have”), into thinking that belief report accuracy is based on knowledge (track knowledge or lack thereof). This is wrong for 2 reasons: 1. belief ascriptions by S are themselves beliefs and do not warrant S’s knowledge of the relevant facts, nor need for such a warrant 2. knowledge ascriptions about P presuppose belief ascriptions about P (and not the other way around). In other words, a theory of belief ascription can not settle issues about belief and belief ascription by presupposing knowledge, b/c knowledge presupposes belief, therefore accurate belief reports should be understood in terms of intrinsic fitness-condition of belief, not in terms of extrinsic fitness-condition of belief (as knowledge is).
My reformulation of your proposal looks better because it is not based on anything I found highly controversial in your claims (wild propositional calculi, confusion between false and contradictory beliefs, confusion between knowledge and belief ascriptions) and it doesn’t evidently betray any intrinsic accuracy condition for belief ascriptions (since the believer's perspective is still preserved through metalinguistic belief ascriptions) which is at the core of conventional understanding of belief ascriptions.
creativesoulFebruary 04, 2022 at 16:28#6512300 likes
Indeed I reported that premise (there was a typo: I wrote “intenTional” instead of “intenSional”), b/c if you want to make a philosophical proposal that is appealing to me, or those holding the conventional view of belief ascription, you should feel intellectually compelled to show understanding toward what we are concerned about (de dicto report are necessary for rendering believers' p.o.v.), and prove by that that we are not talking past each other. The burden is on you, b/c it’s you who wants to challenge the conventional view, not the other way around.
Otherwise our exchange will just end up in butting heads against the wall of our diverging intuition pumps. It’s pointless. So we can work out our different views better if we start from common grounds or at least reciprocal concessions.
Very well put. I'm fairly certain that we are not talking past each other. I'll give your objections due attention as soon as time permits. There's quite a bit wrapped up in there, and again... I appreciate the due attention. You've presented what seems to be a cogent well considered reply and as such it deserves the same in response.
creativesoulFebruary 07, 2022 at 03:34#6522810 likes
There are a few things I'd like to talk about here. First, we are discussing our differing standards regarding exactly what counts as an acceptable rendition of another's belief. You've suggested that our report must match their perspective and/or their point of view at that time(time t1). You've placed emphasis upon our keeping their point of view and/or perspective in mind. You've subsequently charged that my proposal of what they believe at time t1 does not match their point of view and/or perspective at time t1. You're perfectly well within the bounds of saying so. I've said so myself. So...
I agree. That is not a problem, for I am talking about a belief that they are unaware of having at time t1. Thus, my proposal ought not match their point of view at time t1. My proposal of what they believe ought match what they believe. Sometimes we believe things that we are totally unaware of.
At time t1, if we should ask, "Hey!... Jack!... Do you realize that you believe that that broken clock is working?" they would be quite surprised that they had just believed that that particular broken clock was working.
In my comment, I contrasted P’s belief prospective at t1 with both Q’s belief prospective at t1 and P’s belief prospective at t2 (when she understood her belief at t1 to be wrong). And I said our report is accurate when it matches P’s belief prospective at time t1.
According to the standard you've put forth for what counts as an acceptable report of Jack's belief at time t1, Jack's own reporting at time t2 would not meet that standard.
creativesoulFebruary 07, 2022 at 03:55#6522860 likes
Ah shit! That's true! At time t1, I did believe that that particular broken clock was working!
> I am talking about a belief that they are unaware of having at time t1. Thus, my proposal ought not match their point of view at time t1.
First of all, the expression “unaware of” is ambiguous here: “unaware” can mean that the belief is there just implicitly/dispositionally there; or it can mean we are “unaware” of the actual truth value of a belief (b/c we will discover it later or never) or if it expresses knowledge or not.
Secondly what your proposal ought to do, depends on the accuracy condition for belief ascriptions: as I said they should be intrinsic to belief and not extrinsic to it (as knowledge is) and when we are reporting beliefs at time t1 they should ideally track the p.o.v. of the belief holder at time t1 (it doesn’t matter if the belief is implicit or explicit) which can not be contradictory just because later it is proven to be false (so if a false belief is presented as contradictory, it will be ambiguous wrt to the believer’s p.o.v. at time t1 as it is confusing logic and epistemology).
Therefore the appeal to beliefs we are unaware of, doesn’t hint at anything decisive unless you are specifically referring to the actual truth-value or knowledge-status of the belief. But in this case, there is the problem of the unwarranted knowledge claims, on top of the irrecoverable ambiguity of your belief ascriptions.
> According to the standard you've put forth for what counts as an acceptable report of Jack's belief at time t1, Jack's own reporting at time t2 would not meet that standard.
Right, this is coherent with my view and indeed this is what I explicitly claimed in my previous comment ("P at t2 is not offering any accurate report of P at t1 if she used your belief ascription report"). Yet I also pointed out to a specific situation where a belief ascription like yours (“Jack believed that a broken clock was working”) even though doesn’t meet the standard I acknowledge, it could be tolerated b/c easy to disambiguate (which also means that your “Jack” example does not necessarily support your view more than the conventional understanding of belief ascriptions!).
> Ah shit! That's true! At time t1, I did believe that that particular broken clock was working!
The philosophical task, as I understand it, consists precisely in looking for what justifies one’s intuitive assumptions and not giving them for granted, all the more if they are not shared (like in your case). This amounts to trying to strengthen one’s position or weaken alternative positions, by means of sharper analysis of our assumptions, assessments of the explanatory power of available&shared evidences, assessments of our theory internal coherence or theoretical benefits.
In other words, if you think you can advance our philosophical dispute by dramatizing an example you invented and appealing to its intuitive force, then I’m afraid we do not have the same understanding of the philosophical task and your proposal is no longer intellectually challenging to me.
creativesoulFebruary 08, 2022 at 02:12#6525160 likes
Well, if you do not wish to continue, there's not much more I can do. I am very short on time for doing this stuff, for having this discussion, but I am making time just to be able to do so. You've levied a fair amount of serious charges here, and evidently you do not feel the obligation to allow the accused to provide a defense.
Due to the depth and breadth of the charges, I was planning on going through your objections one at a time. So, I began with your objection that my report of Jack's belief at time t1 did not match Jack's point of view at time t1. That objection was based upon your own proposed standard that our report of another's belief at time t1 match the point of view and/or perspective of the believer at time t1. You further supported this idea of matching the believer's own viewpoint.
So, I raised the valid objection that, at time t2, the believer's own report of their belief at time t1 does not meet the standard you've set. Do you not find that problematic? Are we to say that, at time t2, Jack is wrong about what they believed at time t1? What ground is there for us to accept his point of view at time t1(while mistaken) and reject it at time t2 after he's become aware of and subsequently corrected the mistake?
That's absurd. Special pleading at best.
There is nothing at all wrong with our saying that they held a belief that they were unaware of at time t1, but later when they became aware of the relevant facts concerning the clock along with their belief about it, they would readily admit that they had indeed believed that that broken clock was working.
The problem of our doing so is that it goes against the conventional notions.
You also seem to want to say that I am somehow attributing a self-contradictory belief to Jack, but I've yet to see you explain how I have done so. Thus far it's been gratuitously asserted along with other charges as well. That said, granted, going by the standards you're working from and one absolute presupposition they rest upon, it would be contradictory to say that anyone believed that broken clock was working. However, if we acknowledge the fact that we can and do hold belief that we are unaware of holding at the time of holding it, it is not at all contradictory to believe that a broken clock is working.
The standard you've presented presupposes that a believer is always aware of their own belief at the time it is influencing their behaviour. That is a false presupposition.
You've also complained several times about the fact that I've been using a thought experiment and/or hypothetical scenario, as if that is a problem? Surely, you do not want me to show you how absurd that is... do you? Here's the thing, it's not just a thought experiment...
It's something that happens! It is also something that can be tested in a controlled environment. Now, I would agree that the subjects would agree to both reports; that they believed that that clock was working, and that they believed that a broken clock was working. They could do so without any self-contradiction whatsoever.
Lastly, it has become more and more apparent to me that we have mutually exclusive notions of belief at work. I'm still wondering about something you said earlier regarding whether or not our notion of belief ought match our standard for belief ascription or the other way around. I'll ask you again...
What are you attributing(ascribing) to another prior to having a standard for what exactly counts as belief?
creativesoulFebruary 08, 2022 at 03:16#6525230 likes
The philosophical task, as I understand it, consists precisely in looking for what justifies one’s intuitive assumptions and not giving them for granted, all the more if they are not shared (like in your case).
Have you never believed a clock that was not telling the right time?
:worry:
creativesoulFebruary 08, 2022 at 04:25#6525330 likes
... it seems you are distinguishing 2 cases (belief ascription by Q at t1, and belief ascription by P at t2) even though there is no such difference with respect to what is ascribed to P at time t1 in both 2 cases, according to your belief ascription report (at t1, P believes that a broken clock is working, for both Q at t1 and P at t2).[quote]
You state this as though it is a problem. My report about Jack's belief at time t1 matches Jack's own report at time t2 of his belief at time t1. If that does not count as matching Jack's point of view then nothing will.
[quote]Secondly, since for me there is no difference in belief ascription failure between Q at t1 and P at t2, then you are not satisfying my standard, b/c at least in case of Q at t1 - you claim - there is no need for matching. Not to mention the fact that even the belief ascription by P at t2 is not satisfying my standard either, as I intend it: P at t2 is not offering any accurate report of P at t1 if she used your belief ascription report.
At time t2, Jack's own report of his own belief at time t1 matches mine. Somehow, you find this to be a problem. According to the above, we're both wrong. That's an incredible claim!
Now, just to be clear, I agree that there are times that we can know another's belief better than they do, but this is not one of those times(you do not know Jack's belief at time t1 better than Jack at time t2).
If the position you hold forbids you to admit that we can do both, believe that a broken clock is working, and admit of having held that belief at a later time, then I suggest you seriously consider incorporating the fact that we can and do hold belief that we are unaware of holding at the time.
Do you also deny that it is possible for us to believe that a man in a sheep suit is a sheep, or that a barn facade is a barn?
> Well, if you do not wish to continue, there's not much more I can do. I am very short on time for doing this stuff, for having this discussion, but I am making time just to be able to do so. You've levied a fair amount of serious charges here, and evidently you do not feel the obligation to allow the accused to provide a defense.
The problem is not that you do not have time, but how you use it to respond to my “serious charges”. Even this time, you wrote a lot, but no value added. Just more of the same. And if you keep repeating the same "begging-the-question" claims and framing examples based on your questionable assumptions, I will just repeat my objections (unless you are unlucky, b/c I will add more objections on top of the ones I already made).
> I raised the valid objection that, at time t2, the believer's own report of their belief at time t1 does not meet the standard you've set. [...]
That's absurd. Special pleading at best.
It’s absurd how much trust you put in this argument.
First of all we are talking about a fictional character you invented to support your claims, while real people like us are questioning the intuitive strength of your claim. So no, my denial is not absurd at all, especially if compared to your claim.
Secondly to the perceived plausibility of “Jack believed that a broken clock was working” can be explained also by our common understanding of belief ascriptions, without supporting your idea that your belief ascription style is accurate or even more accurate than “Jack believed that a broken clock was working”. So no special pleading.
In conclusion. your objection relies on the fact that the believer's own report (in your fictitious example) is accurate and this suffices to destabilize a common understanding of belief ascriptions. I question both, and justifiably so.
> You also seem to want to say that I am somehow attributing a self-contradictory belief to Jack, but I've yet to see you explain how I have done so. […] it is not at all contradictory to believe that a broken clock is working.
Pls focus: “a broken clock is working” is a contradiction (!!!). You are attributing to Jack, in your example ("Jack believed a broken clock was working"), a contradictory belief. The consequence is that, by your standard, any false belief is equated to a contradictory belief. This shows a confusion between false belief and contradictory belief, therefore your belief ascription is inaccurate and ambiguous.
If it wasn't already enough, here you go with two other preposterous consequences of your view:
1. if a belief ascription about P at time t1 is based on P's p.o.v at time t1m, we shouldn't change the belief ascription every time P changes her mind about the relevant facts (which she can do in an unlimited number of time). While with your standard we should revise our belief ascriptions at every revision of P's beliefs about the relevant facts.
2. We (collectively) do not always know or can determine the truth-value of our beliefs (are there aliens in the universe? can we prove this mathematical conjecture?), yet that doesn't prevent us from believing and being attributed beliefs, independently from of our capacity to determine what the relevant facts are. This is perfectly compatible with a belief ascription that aims at reporting the p.o.v of the believer independently from the truth about the relevant facts and knowledge claims, while with your standard the real content of a belief would be indeterminate until we can't determine what the relevant facts are.
> Thus far it's been gratuitously asserted along with other charges as well.
Marginal observation: how you can talk about “the depth and breadth” of my “serious charges” (which I seriously doubt you grasped) and yet claim that they are gratuitous (wrt your intuitions, I guess), is a mystery to me, but at this point I can't find it surprising anymore.
> The standard you've presented presupposes that a believer is always aware of their own belief at the time it is influencing their behaviour. That is a false presupposition.
Not only I do not presuppose this but I also declared that the false belief of P is explainable in terms of her ignorance (so lack of awareness about the relevant facts). However I also clearly stated that knowledge ascription should not be presupposed by belief ascription: i.e. Jack, in your example, ignored at t1 that his belief was false or he was not aware at t1 of his mistaken belief until t2. And an accurate way to express this is "at t1, Jack mistakenly believed that a clock was working", so there is no need to mention at all the "broken clock" within the scope of Jack's belief, even after he becomes aware that his belief was false. Replacing "clock" with "broken clock" would mess up the belief report, not make it more accurate.
> What are you attributing(ascribing) to another prior to having a standard for what exactly counts as belief?
I don't get the sense of this question. I exposed my understanding of belief ascriptions when I talked about intrinsic/extrinsic fitness conditions of beliefs, did you read and understand the point I made there? If you do not agree, what would be the reasons?
Have you never believed a clock that was not telling the right time?
Pls, focus: "to believe a clock that is not working" is as fine as "to believe a broken clock that is working", these are a kind of de re ascriptions that can be legitimately, accurately and unambiguously used in certain contexts, and that possibility is grounded on the fact that "the (broken) clock" is within the cognitive scope of the one who makes the belief ascription, not within the scope of the believer . And I already discussed about this kind of belief reports before you did, so don't look for disagreements where there are none.
My problem is only with the claim that this belief report “P (mistakenly) believed that a broken clock was working” is not only accurate, but even more accurate than “P (mistakenly) believed that a clock was working”. So I’m challenging you to explain why, and in particular, accurate with respect to what. Your belief attribution report is not accurate wrt to the relevant facts ("a broken clock is working" is not a fact), nor it is an accurate report of P's p.o.v at time t1 (since at time t1, P doesn't know his belief is wrong and would express this by saying "I do not believe that a broken clock is working" or "I do believe that 'a broken clock is working' is false"), so what else? Even if you claimed that it matches P's p.o.v at time t2, there is big problem: why should we take P's p.o.v at time t2 as an accuracy condition for belief ascriptions about P at t1, instead of P's p.o.v at time t1? Here is where you need to feel in your defensive arguments without "begging the question".
It still seems to me we have a different understanding of what a philosophical debate is, and until you do not prove to me you are playing the same game, your case is not intellectually challenging to me.
creativesoulFebruary 08, 2022 at 15:37#6526190 likes
My problem is only with the claim that this belief report “P (mistakenly) believed that a broken clock was working” is not only accurate, but even more accurate than “P (mistakenly) believed that a clock was working”.
It has to do with the content of Jack's belief...
My position can admit and accept all three of the renditions we've been discussing. You're the one who has issue with the fact that we do sometimes believe that broken clocks are working.
creativesoulFebruary 08, 2022 at 16:07#6526260 likes
Pls focus: “a broken clock is working” is a contradiction (!!!).
While believing that a broken clock is working is not.
It's the difference between understanding that believing a broken clock is working is not the same as believing "a broken clock is working".
The latter is how those who hold all belief as propositional attitude would render Jack's belief that a broken clock is working. Not all belief can be successfully rendered as such.
creativesoulFebruary 08, 2022 at 16:16#6526300 likes
> What are you attributing(ascribing) to another prior to having a standard for what exactly counts as belief?
I don't get the sense of this question.
What is your criterion for belief?
You've based your arguments here on your understanding of belief ascription. What exactly are you ascribing to another when you say that they believe something?
creativesoulFebruary 09, 2022 at 01:51#6528260 likes
The last post of mine seems the most promising for attaining a mutual understanding of one another's position. The entire discussion has skirted around the underlying issue, which is - as mentioned heretofore - mutually exclusive notions of belief at work. Setting our notions out here in the public square will go a very long way to establishing where the pivotal key differences are.
We can set all the other stuff aside for now and focus upon what counts as belief.
Then, we will see how much sense it makes to ascribe belief to another, because we will have some standard of belief for comparing our ascriptions/attribution to.
I mean, we are both clearly dug in regarding our own respective reasoning for accepting and/or rejecting saying that we can and sometimes do believe that a broken clock is working. So, in line with your own suggestion of looking towards assumptions, etc., this is a perfect place to start!
Show me again, because thus far you've changed Jack's belief in your translation.
Quoting myself: OK let me help you with your case. Indeed, I think there might be a way out for you but only if you reject this line of reasoning: “Can Jack look at a broken clock? Surely. Can Jack believe what the clock says? Surely. Why then, can he not believe that a broken clock is working?” (along with the idea that de re belief ascriptions are appropriate independently from pragmatic and contextual considerations, or a better rendering than de dicto belief ascriptions). Indeed if you rejected that line of reasoning, then you could explain the situation in your thought experiment based on pragmatic considerations and shared assumptions, much better. How? Here you go: since at moment t2, you and Jack share the same assumptions about the reliability of that clock, the belief of Jack about that clock at t1, and the rationality of you and Jack, then between you two it would be easier to disambiguate the claim “Jack believed that broken clock was working”, and this is why you two would not find it so problematic to use that belief ascription (BTW that is also why we can't exclude a non-literal or ironic reading of this belief ascription either). However, as soon as we add to the story another interlocutor who doesn’t share all the same assumptions relevant to disambiguate “Jack believed that broken clock was working” then this rendering would be again inappropriate or less appropriate than de dicto rendering “Jack believed that clock was working”.
You're the one who has issue with the fact that we do sometimes believe that broken clocks are working.
Closer but still wrong, since I question such a fact as well as framing my view based on this putative fact. So, more accurately, I (as many others here) have issue with your claim that we do sometimes believe that broken clocks are working.
While believing that a broken clock is working is not.
It's the difference between understanding that believing a broken clock is working is not the same as believing "a broken clock is working".
The latter is how those who hold all belief as propositional attitude would render Jack's belief that a broken clock is working. Not all belief can be successfully rendered as such.
OK, let’s delve into this other claims of yours.
But first, let me notice that I don’t know whom you are talking about here (“those who hold all belief as propositional attitude”), since in the literature propositional attitudes are not normally rendered as attitudes toward quoted sentences, making them look as metalinguistic beliefs or beliefs about sentences! This notation is more likely your way to mark a difference between propositions and contents of belief. But if you take propositional attitudes as metalinguistic attitudes then your understanding of propositional attitudes certainly doesn’t match the common understanding of propositional attitudes and indeed this is confusing wrt to the related debate: e.g. for Frege, propositions are thoughts (senses), while for Russell they are complexes of objects and properties as extensional referents of words (probably state of affairs), while neither renders belief as belief that ‘p’ (with quotation marks). So from whom did you get the idea that beliefs as propositional attitudes are by definition attitudes toward sentences to be reported in quotation marks (as in “S believes that ‘p’” instead of “S believes that p”)? Until I do have a convincing answer to that, your claim is another unacceptable example of framing the issue in a way that presupposes your understanding as correct.
Said that, here my 3 questions:
Does believing a clock is working (without quotation marks) have the same truth conditions of believing “a clock is working” (with quotation marks)? If they differ, what is the difference?
If “a clock is working” is true, does this imply that “Jack’s believes that a clock is working” is true? If not, why not?
Take the statement “Jack believes that a broken clock is working” and the statement “a broken clock is working”, do they share the same content? If they differ, what is the difference?
What exactly are you attributing/ascribing to another when you say that they believe something?
I'm attributing a belief: beliefs are intentional cognitive states/events with intrinsic mind-to-world fitness conditions expressed through behavioral attitudes in a given context. These intrinsic fitness conditions constitute - broadly speaking - the p.o.v of the believer. So I take the task of identifying the intrinsic fitness conditions of a given belief in a given context as equivalent to providing an explanation of P’s behavior in a given context based on her cognitive intentionality. Since what better explains the cognitively-guided behavior of P at time t1 based on cognitive intentionality (i.e. P's belief at t1), to me, is the p.o.v. of P at t1 than any other alternative (like the p.o.v. of Q at t1, or the the p.o.v. of P at t2), then belief ascriptions about P at time t1 are accurate in so far as they match the p.o.v. of P at time t1.
We can set all the other stuff aside for now and focus upon what counts as belief.
OK let’s try. Now it’s your turn to clarify what belief is. However, I would still like to hear at least your answers to my 3 questions b/c it helps clarify your ideas about belief.
creativesoulFebruary 10, 2022 at 03:49#6532450 likes
So from whom did you get the idea that beliefs as propositional attitudes are by definition attitudes toward sentences to be reported in quotation marks (as in “S believes that ‘p’” instead of “S believes that p”)? Until I don’t have a convincing answer to that, your claim is another unacceptable example of framing the issue in a way that presupposes your understanding as correct.
That's a very odd phrasing at the end. There were others earlier, but they all seem inconsequential. I think you meant to write "Until I do..." rather than "Until I don't...". Clarify please if my interpretation is incorrect. If it's correct, no need to spend time verifying.
That's a fair and relevant question given the discussion. The near equation of statements and propositions amounts to combinatory vestiges from earlier discussions, including but not limited to the belief that approach which I've always taken to be about belief statements and the presupposition of truth inherently embedded within them such that suffixing them with "is true" amounts to redundancy.
It's good to know that that's not what you're doing with those words. Duly noted! Seeing that I've no issue with using them however you wish here, I'll follow your lead. I'm not at all married to the idea of propositions or attitudes towards them such that one takes them to be true(in the sense of propositions as statements) or such that one takes them to be the case(in the sense of propositions as states of affairs/events).
To your point, I would concur that I certainly cannot offer a valid objection, should I have an issue, regarding the practice of rendering belief as propositional attitudes if I've not understood what is meant by your use of the term propositional attitude; or better yet, if I've not rightly understood the practice.
I now understand, perhaps moreso than at the time, why you opened with the questionaire that you did. So, this serves as a reminder to me that there's often very good reasons why some want to begin by defining one's key terms.
What exactly are you attributing/ascribing to another when you say that they believe something?
— creativesoul
I'm attributing a belief: beliefs are intentional cognitive states/events with intrinsic mind-to-world (cognitive) fitness conditions expressed through behavioral attitudes in a given context. These intrinsic fitness conditions constitute - broadly speaking - the p.o.v of the believer...
In the spirit of building a bridge of mutual understanding, I must say that that's considerably more confusing to me than it is clarifying. It seems theory laden, and quite heavily so. This is not meant as an insult or necessarily a negative thing(to be theory laden). However, I now more than ever want to be sure that I understand what you're saying.
You're drawing a distinction between one's point of view and one's belief. Could you unpack them both individually please, so as to be able to compare and contrast the two?
I must say that it seems odd to me to say something like "beliefs are intentional cognitive states/events with intrinsic mind-to-world (cognitive) fitness conditions..." The double use of the term "cognitive" is throwing me.
On your view, does cognition include things not contained inside the skull?
creativesoulFebruary 10, 2022 at 03:50#6532460 likes
Now it’s your turn to clarify what belief is. However, I would still like to hear at least your answers to my 3 questions b/c it helps clarify your ideas about belief.
I plan on it. They are good questions.
creativesoulFebruary 10, 2022 at 05:25#6532650 likes
Does believing a clock is working (without quotation marks) have the same truth conditions of believing “a clock is working” (with quotation marks)? If they differ, what is the difference?
Believing a clock is working is something that happens as a result of knowing how to read a clock and looking towards one as a means to know what time it is. Things such as these are not the sort of things that we say have truth conditions. Rather, they are the truth conditions of statements about what's happened, and/or is happening.
It makes no sense to me to talk about the truth conditions of (believing "a clock is working"). That does not at all seem to be a truth apt set of meaningful marks contained within the parentheses. The truth conditions of the statement are another matter altogether...
"A clock is working" is true when and only when a clock is working.
If “a clock is working” is true, does this imply that “Jack’s believes that a clock is working” is true? If not, why not?
No. Why would it? The statement about the clock is true when and only when a clock is working. The statement about Jack's belief is true when and only when it corresponds to Jack's belief.
Take the statement “Jack believes that a broken clock is working” and the statement “a broken clock is working”, do they share the same content?
They both consist of meaningful words, some of the same ones in the same sense. One's about Jack's belief, and the other is about the working condition of a clock.
If they differ, what is the difference?
See above.
creativesoulFebruary 10, 2022 at 05:30#6532680 likes
Belief consists entirely of meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things by a creature with the biological machinery capable of doing so.
> That's a very odd phrasing at the end. There were others earlier, but they all seem inconsequential. I think you meant to write "Until I do..." rather than "Until I don't...". Clarify please if my interpretation is incorrect. If it's correct, no need to spend time verifying.
My bad, I meant until I do. I re-edited my text.
> That's a fair and relevant question given the discussion. The near equation of statements and propositions amounts to combinatory vestiges from earlier discussions, including but not limited to the belief that approach which I've always taken to be about belief statements and the presupposition of truth inherently embedded within them such that suffixing them with "is true" amounts to redundancy.
It's good to know that that's not what you're doing with those words. Duly noted! Seeing that I've no issue with using them however you wish here, I'll follow your lead. I'm not at all married to the idea of propositions or attitudes towards them such that one takes them to be true(in the sense of propositions as statements) or such that one takes them to be the case(in the sense of propositions as states of affairs/events). To your point, I would concur that I certainly cannot offer a valid objection, should I have an issue, regarding the practice of rendering belief as propositional attitudes if I've not understood what is meant by your use of the term propositional attitude; or better yet, if I've not rightly understood the practice. I now understand, perhaps moreso than at the time, why you opened with the questionaire that you did. So, this serves as a reminder to me that there's often very good reasons why some want to begin by defining one's key terms.
I find this answer unclear. And the situation could get much messier if there are different assumptions on the literature we are familiar with. Since I find your understanding of propositional attitudes peculiar wrt what I read so far on the subject, I was wondering where you got it from.
Let me clarify this a bit more. It seems you distinguish between these 2 types of statements:
S believes that p
S believes that ‘p’
However based on the literature I’m more familiar with (e.g. Frege and Russell), belief as a propositional attitude is always rendered as “S believes that p” (without quotation marks around p). Yet I’m fairly confident that “S believes that ‘p’” could be taken as a metalinguistic belief, namely as a propositional attitude about a sentence, which would allow claims as “S believes that ‘p’ is true” or “S believes that ‘p’ is not a correctly formed proposition” (if metalinguistic belief ascriptions can be reduced to non-metalinguistic beliefs is another issue). In any case, both renderings express propositional attitudes.
What I understood so far from your claims is that, for you, “S believes that p” (without quotation marks around p) does not express a propositional attitude, while “S believes that ‘p’” (with quotations mark around p) expresses a propositional attitude. Is that right? If so then, your understanding of propositional attitudes is different from the literature I’m familiar with, and I would like to understand from whom you got your idea that “S believes that p” (without quotation marks around p) is not a propositional attitude while “S believes that ‘p’” expresses a propositional attitude?
The only author whom your understanding of propositional attitudes seems to be referring to is Carnap: according to Carnap, “Jack believes the clock is on the table” should be analysed as “Jack believes-true ‘the clock is on the table’” (indeed Carnap’s position is called sententialism, i.e. beliefs are understood as attitudes towards sentences). However you do not seem to take “S believes that ‘p’” (with quotation marks around p) as an analysis of “S believes that p” (without quotation marks around p). On the contrary, it seems you take “S believes that ‘p’” (with quotation marks around p) as a wrong analysis for “S believes that p” (without quotation marks around p). Am I right? If I’m right, the following holds:
Sententialism is but one way of understanding belief as propositional attitude. So at best you questioned one specific way of understanding belief as a propositional attitude.
For Russell and Frege, “S believes that p” (without quotation marks around p) is a propositional attitude. And “S believes that ‘p’” (with quotation marks around p) is not an analysis of “S believes that p” (without quotation marks around p). But probably there are implications between the two statements. For that reason, your idea that “S believes that p” (without quotation marks around p) does not render a propositional attitude while “S believes that ‘p’” (with quotation marks around p) renders a propositional attitude, is quite incomprehensible wrt to authors I’m more familiar with.
> You're drawing a distinction between one's point of view and one's belief. Could you unpack them both individually please, so as to be able to compare and contrast the two?
It is impossible to unpack these two notions individually, since for me they are essentially linked together. A belief is, by (my) definition, an intentional state/event with intrinsic cognitive fitness conditions. By (my) definition, the intrinsic cognitive fitness conditions constitutive of a belief is the point of view (p.o.v.) of a believer.
I could say more about how I understand the intrinsic cognitive fitness conditions constitutive of belief b/c the definitions I just provided are not that controversial in the literature about intentionality (despite possible non-substantial differences in phrasing), while my substantial understanding of belief intrinsic cognitive fitness conditions could sound more controversial (even within the literature about intentionality). But I will not do it for two reasons:
- I’m reluctant to open too many fronts of contentions at the same time, especially if I do not see enough convergence in background knowledge, terminology and methodology. As it seems to be the case with you. So since the thread focus is on your & Banno’s positions, not mine, I prefer to keep it that way.
- A good deal of objections I made to your position are not directly linked to my specific understanding of belief, but more on the way we intuitively use belief ascriptions (so on linguistic facts), on what I take to be common knowledge about the debate on belief as propositional attitudes, or propositional calculus, or the internal logic of your claims as far as I understood/misunderstood them.
> The double use of the term "cognitive" is throwing me.
My bad, I removed “(cognitive)” from my text.
> Believing a clock is working is something that happens as a result of knowing how to read a clock and looking towards one as a means to know what time it is. Things such as these are not the sort of things that we say have truth conditions. Rather, they are the truth conditions of statements about what's happened, and/or is happening. […] The truth conditions of the statement are another matter altogether…
OK, so you are contrasting statements and things happening outside statements, and claim that truth values can be attributed only to statements and not to things that happen. Since beliefs are something that happens in the world, they do not have truth values. Is that it? If so, the least I can say is that I find it highly counter-intuitive for 2 reasons:
- Statements are taken to be true or false b/c they describe something happening, yet the sequence of verbal/written signs that constitute a sentence do not seem capable to describe anything by themselves. They do only if someone is expressing her belief about how things are through verbal/written signs and related linguistic rules. So truth-values are attributed derivatively to statements because they are originally attributed to beliefs.
- We attribute beliefs also to non-human animals and infants incapable of producing or understanding verbal/written statements. Yet we do not take their beliefs to be beyond any cognitive accuracy assessments, just because they happen to have them. Actually we would take as a sign of intelligent behavior from animals and kids, one were beliefs could be revised over time based on past cognitive failures.
> It makes no sense to me to talk about the truth conditions of (believing "a clock is working"). That does not at all seem to be a truth apt set of meaningful marks contained within the parentheses.
Profiting from you own suggestion, I would encourage you to change your phrasing style from:
S believes that p (where p is not a statement but the referent of the statement ‘p’ in the real world)
S believes that ‘p’ (where ‘p’ is a statement)
To:
(S believes that p) (where all the items within parentheses - or other types of brackets - are taken to be the referents in the real world of the belief ascription “S believes that p”, as such the expression within parentheses is neither true nor false)
S believes that p (as a statement, more precisely a belief ascription, that can be true or false)
The second rendering would not conflict with more common ways of reporting beliefs as propositional attitudes. In other words, it will spare others to adopt your non-conventional phrasing style, or to be always misrendered/misunderstood wrt to your view. Unless there are substantial reasons to not do it, and I would like to hear which ones.
> The statement about the clock is true when and only when a clock is working. The statement about Jack's belief is true when and only when it corresponds to Jack's belief.
All right, and if “Jack’s believes that a clock is working” is true, does this imply that “a clock is working” is true?
Reply to creativesoul
> Belief consists entirely of meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things by a creature with the biological machinery capable of doing so.
I’m not sure to understand what “drawing meaningful correlations” is supposed to mean. But I find this definition counter-intuitive, b/c one can draw meaningful correlations without believing anything: fantasizing or contemplating a painting are ways where we draw meaningful correlations but that doesn’t mean we believe any of that; even the simple understanding of a statements whose truth-value we acknowledge is unknown to us, requires “meaningful correlations” to be drawn yet understanding a statement is not believing what the statement says.
Count Timothy von IcarusFebruary 11, 2022 at 00:00#6534450 likes
I think both sides of the beliefs versus objects debate get something essential right.
If you look at it from a cognitive science perspective, both are making accurate statements about how thought is assumed to work.
First, information comes to a person from outside that person. Solipsistic concerns aside, I don't think this is a controversial point. From a physicalist standpoint, it is necissarily true as the mind can't be generating this information itself.
Thus, sensory inputs are of objects. Statements about those inputs are essentially about the objects that are known through those inputs, not about the inputs themselves. We have specific language we use when we want to specify that we are talking about our perceptions of an object, not the object itself, as when at the top of a mountain we say "the car looks small from here."
When I say, "the used bumper I bought was rusted through," I am making a statement based on my beliefs, based on the sensory experience I have of the thing, but the statement is not about those things, it is about the bumper. If the mechanic hits it with a wire brush and just an outer coating of rust falls off, revealing a solid bumper, I will except that my proposition was false, which only works if my proposition was about the actual bumper.
However, the belief side of the argument is getting at something just as essential, which is that the proposition is only ever about the object "as it is for conciousness." This is essentially what Kant's "Copernican Turn," got at, but we understand how cognition works much better today, and how this is true in more detail.
There is about 1.509 bits of information in a proton, 0.187 bytes . The content of a gram of hydrogen gas would be around 1.87 * 6.023 10^22 bytes if we're just talking about the details that can be measured about individual protons, let alone getting into the total entropy of the phase space. (Unrelated: you can get that from normal Boltzmann entropy S = k B ln ?, just by swapping the natural log for log2, which I found made picturing entropy far more intuitive because I could think about true/false values).
The human brain has an enormous memory potential, about a petabyte, or 2^50 bytes. But even with this massive potential, it's obvious that it could only code and store an infinitesimally small amount of the total information in the objects it hopes to represent. Aside from that, human sensory organs are also far too limited to get at most of this information. Additionally, there is a huge amount of noise in the channels through which the mind accesses this information, as well as errors in the coding process going on in the brain itself.
So a proposition, itself something formed in a code, is necissarily referencing another code that is an extremely compressed and often error ridden representation of an object (or more confusingly, mental abstractions with no direct ties to specific objects, such as propositions about "all cats").
A proposition is necissarily based on and vetted using codes, regardless of if tools are used to help the vetting process.
"The car is red," can be a statement about an actual object, but it's about how that object is to conciousness. This must be, since redness itself isn't a property of light waves except as experienced in conciousness.
I think the confusion comes from thinking that information in the form of codes containing information has to be somehow different in kind from the source of the code. It is different, in that the information is compressed, is stored differently, and has errors, but it doesn't become something totally different. If this were true, the same digital picture shared over and over across the internet is actually millions of different pictures. Different copies of War and Peace would contain different information, and so your propositions about War and Peace wouldn't just be propositions about beliefs about War and Peace, but propositions about beliefs about a particular copy of War and Peace.
creativesoulFebruary 11, 2022 at 07:38#6534820 likes
Believing a clock is working is something that happens as a result of knowing how to read a clock and looking towards one as a means to know what time it is. Things such as these are not the sort of things that we say have truth conditions. Rather, they are the truth conditions of statements about what's happened, and/or is happening.
OK, so you are contrasting statements and things happening outside statements, and claim that truth values can be attributed only to statements and not to things that happen. Since beliefs are something that happens in the world, they do not have truth values. Is that it?
No. Believing is not equivalent to belief.
The former is an activity. Activities are not the sort of things that have truth conditions. Activities are not capable of being true or false. Whereas at the core, the latter are compositions of meaningful correlations manifesting in varying complexities drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things by a creature capable of doing so.
Regarding the earlier intuitive offense...
I would agree that not all meaningful correlations constitute belief. I mean, all sorts of meaningful things aren't belief. All meaningful things become so as a result of being a part of some creature's correlation(s). All belief consists of correlations, nonetheless. There's still a bit of honing to go on this basic level, for sure. For now though, it's proving to have immense explanatory power.
...since the thread focus is on your & Banno’s positions, not mine, I prefer to keep it that way.
An interesting response to offer in lieu of a yes or no answer to a simple question. A baffling one when held in light of the subsequent extensive efforts to convince me to adopt your accounting practices.
When we say things like let's "keep it that way", we're presupposing that things have been that way. Your position has been the ground of your objections throughout!
If you want to critique my contributions here, by all means be my guest! The more well considered appropriately placed scrutiny the merrier. I mean, given that one cannot see the flaws in their own work, one cannot recognize their own mistakes should there be any. So, I welcome any and all valid criticism. I am most certainly not beyond reproach.
A good deal of objections I made to your position are not directly linked to my specific understanding of belief, but more on the way we intuitively use belief ascriptions (so on linguistic facts), on what I take to be common knowledge about the debate on belief as propositional attitudes, or propositional calculus, or the internal logic of your claims as far as I understood/misunderstood them.
Knowing what sorts of beliefs that which sorts of creatures can and do have in which sorts of situations and/or circumstances requires knowing what belief is and how it emerges and evolves over time. I am now quite confident that you're working from a gross misunderstanding and/or misconception of belief. As a result, the practice of ascribing belief to another suffers. This holds good regardless of whether or not you hold one of the conventional views/positions.
Since you've been advising that I adopt what I find to be dubious methods based upon specious notions, I've a bit of advice for you.
The notion of a point of view is fraught. Dispense of it. It's nothing more than an aggregate of thought and belief. One's point of view is thought and belief-based. Belief systems emerge and grow in their complexity. Point of views are the result. If you do not have belief right, you'll never have a point of view right either.
Depending upon the complexity, reports of another's belief can be true or false; partly true and partly false; mostly true or mostly false. Surely you get the picture. Our reports of Jack's belief at time t1 are no exception. Any and all reports of what another believes at time t1 must correspond to what the other creature believes at time t1 in order to be true. Our reports of Jack's belief can be true, even when Jack's mistaken and/or false belief cannot be.
To answer your earlier objection regarding my earlier mention of my rendering being more accurate than yours...
"Jack believed that a clock was working at time t1" is the way you've insisted is more acceptable for all the reasons you've been offering, ad nauseum. Here's the glaring problem...
Your report ascribes a belief to Jack that would be true when any clock is working at time t1. Jack's belief cannot be true! Yet you've attributed one to him that is because somewhere there was a clock working at time t1! Jack's belief is false. We all agree there! The disagreement is regarding which accounting practice offers the best rendering of Jack's belief. I'm showing you exactly how your ascription practices fail in the attempts to accurately depict and/or portray Jack's belief at time t1.
So, to reiterate, when it comes to what it would take for Jack's belief to be true, if we adopted your ascription practice, any working clock would suffice to meet the truth conditions of the belief you've insisted on attributing to Jack.
Jack was not just believing that any clock was working. He believed that one particular clock was working. The particular clock that Jack believed to be working was a broken one. At time t1, Jack most certainly believed that that particular broken clock was working.
His belief that that particular clock was working could not have been true! If his belief were rendered as "a clock is working", it would be true if and when any clock was working! So...
No thanks, but I'll stick to my own position on such matters...
> No. Believing is not equivalent to belief.
The former is an activity. Whereas at the core, the latter are compositions of correlations in varying complexities drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things by a creature capable of doing so. Believing is an activity, and as such it is something that happens and/or takes place over an extended period of time.
Some belief can be and/or become true(in the case of predictions), and some cannot(false and/or otherwise mistaken belief). Believing cannot. It's an activity. Activities are not the sort of things that have truth conditions. Activities are not capable of being true or false.
All right, so for you “believing” is an activity with no truth-value while belief is the representational result of the activity “believing”, representational b/c it can be true or false. Is that it?
What is the difference between a proposition and a belief as a “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things”?
> An interesting response to offer in lieu of a yes or no answer to a simple question.
If I simply said no, one could be misled into thinking that it is b/c I can’t (which is possible, I don’t have answers for all kinds of challenging philosophical questions) instead of because I don’t want. And I also wanted to profit from your question to point out at a methodological constraint, that it helps not disperse intellectual energies. So far I insisted on two methodological constraints: focused objections, and avoid framing other people's claims. Here is one more: do not open too many fronts of contention at the same time.
> A baffling one when held in light of the subsequent extensive efforts to convince me to adopt your accounting practices. […] When we say things like let's "keep it that way", we're presupposing that things have been that way.
You are missing the larger picture here:
I’m here in the first place to discuss about your debate with Banno as the main post title is suggesting.
My main motivation is simply and only my own fun as long as the “philosophical game” we are playing here is challenging to me (based on lots of factors: analysis sharpness, definitional/argumentative clarity, internal theoretical coherence, logic rigor, argumentative originality, honest effort in avoiding sophistry, etc.).
You are my direct interlocutor in this exchange right but whatever answer I’m giving to you is aiming at a more general audience (whoever is following or might follow our exchange, and find my arguments at least, as interesting as yours, if nor more)
“My accounting practices” are the common ones, you are the one who wants to reform them. So I’m not personally invested in this exchange as much as you should be.
I gave up on the idea of convincing people of their own philosophical mistakes ages ago, b/c most of philosophical debates I engaged in or witnessed almost never ended up in a change of philosophical convictions, but at best in an open ended reciprocal challenge. So I take the objective of convincing you as improbable from the start, but also of little interest.
Concerning my effort of unpacking my ideas, you shouldn’t complain too much, given that you drafted at best only the necessary conditions of the notion "belief", while I drafted necessary and sufficient conditions.
In conclusion, the efforts I’m putting here are justifiably focused around your position on the subject, and motivated by ultimate reasons that have nothing to do with convincing you.
> When we say things like let's "keep it that way", we're presupposing that things have been that way.
This is what the title of the main post is suggesting, and I’m fine with that.
> Your position has been the ground of your objections throughout!
Of course, my position is the ground of my objections. You are absolutely right. What I’m denying is simply that my objections have anything to do with my specific understanding of what belief (or believing) is, that is why there is no need to specify them. Let me summarize some of my arguments for clarity:
The claim that “Jack believes that a broken clock is working” is not accurate, is not directly linked to my specific understanding of belief.
The claim that your argument “Can Jack look at a broken clock? Surely. Can Jack believe what the clock says? Surely. Why then, can he not believe that a broken clock is working?” Is a preposterous example of propositional calculus, is not directly linked to my specific understanding of belief.
The claim that Jack believes that a broken clock is working is attributing to Jack a contradictory belief, is not directly linked to my specific understanding of belief.
The claim that belief ascription I can not be based on unaccounted knowledge claims, b/c knowledge ascriptions are based on belief ascriptions, is not directly linked to my specific understanding of belief.
The claim that belief can not be reduced to “drawing meaningful correlations”, is not directly linked to my specific understanding of belief.
Besides my first objection is also similar to the ones other people made (which again proves
that it is not directly link to my specific understanding of belief), and since I didn't elaborate further my specific understanding of belief, you do not even have evidences to support the claim that my objections are based on my specific understanding of belief.
Again: focus.
> All belief consists of correlations, nonetheless. There's still a bit of honing to go on this basic level, for sure. For now though, it's proving to have immense explanatory power.
Really? Then show me how this definition is supposed to support your claim that “Jack believes that a broken clock is working” is more accurate than “Jack believes that a clock is working”.
> Your report ascribes a belief to Jack that would be true when any clock is working at time t1. Jack's belief cannot be true!
That is correct but it’s a weak objection b/c we can ascribe to Jack more specific beliefs regarding the clock while always maintaining our common practices. Indeed our ordinary belief ascriptions (linguistic fact) can not be taken out of context (as I claimed since the beginning). That is why I started with examples like “Jack believes that clock is working”. However, as you scroll our past exchanges, you would notice that I’m trying to stick to your examples and claims. So when you started using belief ascription as “Jack believes that a clock is working”, I did the same. But I didn’t make to you the objection you are now making to me, because the focus of my objection was on the contrast between “Jack believes a broken clock is working” and “Jack believes a clock is working”.
Said that, here’s the glaring problem with your objection: the same objection you are making to me can be retorted to you. "Jack believes that a broken clock is working" would be true for any broken clock at time t1. Of course, you could sill claim that “a broken clock” is a more accurate description than “a clock”, but then “Jack believes a broken clock is working” would still be less accurate than “Jack believes that a clock that ex hypothesi CreativeSoul believes broken, is working” b/c if “a broken clock” is a more accurate description than “a clock”, “a clock that CreativeSoul believes broken” is not only a more accurate description than “a broken clock” but it also matches our ordinary belief ascription practices. Now what's your defense?
Again the focus of my contention is that the accuracy conditions in our common practices of belief ascriptions are not based on whatever level of descriptive accuracy you can come up with but only on those ones that match as best as possible the believer’s p.o.v. in the given circumstances (and if we infringe that rule, this is for pragmatic reasons not for accuracy concerns).
> No thanks, but I'll stick to my own position on such matters…
Pls stick to it in the most challenging way possible (at least, to me).
creativesoulFebruary 12, 2022 at 02:47#6537310 likes
the same objection you are making to me can be retorted to you. "Jack believes that a broken clock is working" would be true for any broken clock at time t1.
You could charge me with the same, but that doesn't make our respective practices guilty of the same offense.
You've ascribed a belief to Jack that is true. I have not. Jack's belief is false. False beliefs cannot be true. Jack's belief cannot be the one you've ascribed to him.
You're not alone in misattributing true belief to another when their belief is false. It's a common occurrence with the accounting malpractices you've been citing for reasons I began to offer earlier.
Gettier and the cottage industry following from Gettier's infamous paper all do exactly the same thing. Do you understand that much about the conventional practices you've insisted on following?
Belief is not equivalent to propositions. Belief is not equivalent to propositional attitudes, such that the believer takes the proposition to be the case or to be true. You keep insisting upon attempting to use conventional accounting practices to take proper account of something that they cannot.
creativesoulFebruary 12, 2022 at 04:15#6537620 likes
The claim that “Jack believes that a broken clock is working” is not accurate, is not directly linked to my specific understanding of belief.
My friend. Despite your objections, it is. Your rejection of the very idea that we can and often do believe that broken clocks are working is directly linked to what you conceive of being a belief.
The claim is about the accuracy of the belief being attributed to Jack by the speaker. An accurate ascription claim will be true. If Jack does not believe that a broken clock is working, then "Jack believes that a broken clock is working" would be false. If Jack does believe that a broken clock is working, then "Jack believes that a broken clock is working" would be true.
If you do not have a general understanding of what sorts of things beliefs are, then there could be no possible way for you to know what sorts of ascriptions are accurate, if being so requires being true.
creativesoulFebruary 12, 2022 at 04:47#6537730 likes
It is humanly impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood. When Jack is in the process of believing that a broken clock is working he is totally unaware of it. The proposition, assertion, claim, sentence, statement, thought, belief, and/or utterance - a broken clock is working - is always false. Broken clocks do not work. This is all just a matter of how we use the words everyday. We cannot knowingly believe that broken clocks are working, but we can and do believe that they are nonetheless.
Not one iteration I've offered here, despite the overall quantity of slightly different offerings, is ever even capable of being true. They all pass Leibniz's muster. They can all be interchanged and attributed to Jack without any unacceptable change in meaning. Jack's belief is false. As such, it is his belief that determines the truth value of any and all ascriptions thereof. Therefore, any and all ascriptions to Jack must be of false belief. That is to say, that any and all true attribution of belief to Jack at time t1 will be of some belief that it is humanly impossible to knowingly believe.
:flower:
creativesoulFebruary 12, 2022 at 05:04#6537820 likes
All right, so for you “believing” is an activity with no truth-value while belief is the representational result of the activity “believing”, representational b/c it can be true or false. Is that it?
No. I did not say all that either. How many strikes do we get before we're counted out?
What is the difference between a proposition and a belief as a “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things”?
All sorts of differences. I'll set out a one worth delving into...
Propositions are existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices. The same is not true of all belief.
Harry HinduFebruary 12, 2022 at 14:05#6539150 likes
Propositions are existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices. The same is not true of all belief.
What is naming and descriptive practices if not the use of symbols to refer to things that are not symbols (or else you'd have an infinite regress of readers never getting at what you're naming and describing)?
What is the redness and shape of the apple if not a description of how ripe the apple is and its location relative to you?
Just as scribbles are not the thing they are about, colors and shapes in the mind are not what the thing being observed is (naive vs indirect realism; observation vs thing being observed; map vs territory). Maps are propositions about the territory made with lines and shapes, no different than if you just typed scribbles (lines and shapes) describing objects and their location in the territory.
It seems contradictory to assert that black scribbles mean things, but red apples don't mean anything. So a red apple is just as propositional and descriptive as a string of black scribbles.
Beliefs are dependent upon observations as a preliminary justification for some belief.
> You've ascribed a belief to Jack that is true. I have not. Jack's belief is false.
Correct but I don’t get what is supposed to prove, since it’s not troubling at all for our common understanding of belief ascriptions nor my claims. Here is why:
By our common understanding of belief ascriptions, “Jack believes that a clock is working” may be true or false, but “Jack believes that a broken clock is working” is attributing to Jack a false belief b/c it is attributing to him a contradictory belief (“a broken clock is working” is a contradiction!), which also implies that this belief would be always false in any context (while merely false beliefs are not always false in any context). The point is that we do not take “Jack believes that a broken clock is working” to be an accurate description of Jack’s merely false belief b/c a false belief should not be equated to a contradictory belief. While you, on the other side, seemed to claim that “Jack believes that a broken clock is working” is not attributing to Jack a contradictory belief, but then I don’t know what else would make apparent that Jack’s belief “a broken clock is working” is false, as you claim.
To repeat the point I already made, I don’t take “Jack believes that a clock is working” as an accurate belief ascription of Jack’s belief in your example. What I would take to be an accurate belief ascription in your example is more something like “Jack believes that clock is working” since belief ascriptions need to be taken in the context. It’s true that “that clock is working” implies “a clock is working”, but what explains Jack’s behavior in the given context is not the belief that a clock is working instead it’s the belief that that clock is working. If I used the example “Jack believes that a clock is working” is just to contrast it with “Jack believes that a broken clock is working”, remark that while the former may report Jack’s merely false belief the latter would report a contradictory belief, and therefore conclude that the latter is inaccurate b/c false beliefs are not to be equated to contradictory beliefs.
By our common understanding, belief ascriptions are not required to deal with beliefs’ truth-value or knowledge assessments. On the contrary, truth-value/knowledge assessments presuppose belief ascriptions, and our reports are designed to express this accordingly, with statements like “Jack believes mistakenly that clock is working” or “Jack believes that a clock that ex hypothesi CreativeSoul believes broken, is working”. Truth/knowledge assessments of a given belief are a distinct task wrt to belief ascription, and a task that presupposes belief ascription.
> Despite your objections, it is. Your rejection of the very idea that we can and often do believe that broken clocks are working is directly linked to what you conceive of being a belief.
Plainly wrong. Let me clarify once more my take. The idea that “Jack believes that a broken clock is working” is not an accurate belief ascription is a linguistic fact, part of our common practices as competent speakers, and this linguistic intuition or pre-philosophical understanding of belief ascriptions is acknowledged by all of us (you included, unless you are crazy!). The philosophical task is providing a theoretical analysis/explanation either to support our common practices (as I would do) or to question it (as you would do). So the reluctance to accept your peculiar revisionist approach is not directly linked to any theoretical claim nor to my specific theory of belief (since other theories, which I do not share, could still be supporting the common understanding of belief ascriptions).
> If you do not have a general understanding of what sorts of things beliefs are, then there could be no possible way for you to know what sorts of ascriptions are accurate, if being so requires being true.
If by “general understanding” you mean a philosophical understanding, then this plainly false, since we learn and practice belief ascriptions before any philosophical scrutiny of our practices. If by “general understanding” you mean the cognitive abilities involved in acquiring and applying successfully belief ascriptions, then this ability is shown by our practices themselves, they are linguistic facts. And, absolutely yes, we can know how to properly use the word “belief” in belief ascriptions without being capable of theorising about it, as much as we can speak a native language without being able to theorising about its linguistic rules.
> It is humanly impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood. When Jack is in the process of believing that a broken clock is working he is totally unaware of it. The proposition, assertion, claim, sentence, statement, thought, belief, and/or utterance - a broken clock is working - is always false. Broken clocks do not work. This is all just a matter of how we use the words everyday. We cannot knowingly believe that broken clocks are working, but we can and do believe that they are nonetheless.
Not one iteration I've offered here, despite the overall quantity of slightly different offerings, is ever even capable of being true. They all pass Leibniz's muster. They can all be interchanged and attributed to Jack without any unacceptable change in meaning. Jack's belief is false. As such, it is his belief that determines the truth value of any and all ascriptions thereof. Therefore, any and all ascriptions to Jack must be of false belief. That is to say, that any and all true attribution of belief to Jack at time t1 will be of some belief that it is humanly impossible to knowingly believe.
Despite your previous muddling claims [1] (to be patched with some additional but pointless terminological/formatting style acrobatics) and in addition to your failure to show how this argument rigorously follows from your definition of belief as “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things” (as I did with my definition), it looks now evident that you are definitely embracing the catastrophic line of reasoning that I already spotted a while ago: equating false beliefs with contradictory beliefs (or if you prefer, equating occasionally false beliefs with always false beliefs), and confusing belief ascriptions with knowledge ascriptions. I was right all along. So here I rest my case.
You wrote: “No. Believing is not equivalent to belief. The former is an activity. Activities are not the sort of things that have truth conditions. Activities are not capable of being true or false. Whereas at the core, the latter are compositions of meaningful correlations manifesting in varying complexities drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things by a creature capable of doing so.” And you also wrote: “You've ascribed a belief to Jack that is true. I have not. Jack's belief is false.”
So you said that believing is an activity and it doesn’t have truth conditions. Beliefs are somehow related to believing and are the sort of things that can be true or false. So what else is exactly bothering you? The expression “belief is the representational result of the activity ‘believing’”? Why? Is it because you do not take belief to be representational? Beliefs must be representational in the sense I’ve immediately clarified (‘representational b/c it can be true or false’) b/c belief are the sort of things that can be true or false according to what you wrote. Or is the problem the fact that you do not take belief to be the result of the believing activity? Then what else is the relation between belief and believing?
You also seem to want to say that I am somehow attributing a self-contradictory belief to Jack, but I've yet to see you explain how I have done so. Thus far it's been gratuitously asserted along with other charges as well. That said, granted, going by the standards you're working from and one absolute presupposition they rest upon, it would be contradictory to say that anyone believed that broken clock was working. However, if we acknowledge the fact that we can and do hold belief that we are unaware of holding at the time of holding it, it is not at all contradictory to believe that a broken clock is working.
Pls focus: “a broken clock is working” is a contradiction (!!!). — neomac
While believing that a broken clock is working is not.
It's the difference between understanding that believing a broken clock is working is not the same as believing "a broken clock is working".
The latter is how those who hold all belief as propositional attitude would render Jack's belief that a broken clock is working. Not all belief can be successfully rendered as such.
creativesoulFebruary 12, 2022 at 18:21#6539780 likes
Yes, it is correct! The practice I've used is not guilty of the same offense that you've been using wrt Jack's belief at time t1. Jack's belief is false. The belief you've ascribed to Jack is true.
It proves that you've attributed a belief to Jack that Jack does not - dare I insist cannot - have at time t1. False beliefs are not true beliefs. You've admittedly attributed a belief to Jack that is true. Jack's belief is false. You've admitted that Jack's belief was false. What's stopping you from realizing that you've misattributed belief to Jack as a result of employing the standard practices?
Gettier did the same with Smith in both cases, and he was able to do so as a result of the inherent flaws in the conventional accounting practices.
...it’s not troubling at all for our common understanding of belief ascriptions nor my claims. Here is why:
By our common understanding of belief ascriptions, “Jack believes that a clock is working” may be true or false, but...
Jack's belief cannot be true for it is false. You've attributed a belief to Jack that could be rendered as true, in the exact same way that Gettier showed all while following the standard conventional practices. I've already hinted at how it could be rendered as true, by elaborating on the truth conditions of the belief, as you've written it. It is as a result of this that you ought outright reject that particular ascription to Jack. Jack's belief cannot be true!
“Jack believes that a broken clock is working” is attributing to Jack a false belief b/c it is attributing to him a contradictory belief...
No, it's not! It is not contradictory at all, not in least little bit, to believe that broken clocks are working while doing so. The reason why is simple:when believing such things we do not knowingly do so! We are unaware of the fact that we believe what a broken clock says when we do. We cannot knowingly do so. We cannot knowingly believe that...
that broken clock is working
that man in a sheep suit is a sheep
that barn facade is a barn
that sheet hanging from a limb is a sheep
a free and fair election was not free and fair
...and yet these sorts of beliefs can be had nonetheless! The issues arise as an inevitable consequence stemming from the historical practice of rendering beliefs as propositions and/or attitudes towards them, all of which amount to belief ascription that one would readily admit to having at the time! We cannot readily admit to having belief that we are unaware of having! Those sorts of beliefs break the mold, because the conventional practices do not keep in mind that we cannot knowingly believe a falsehood. They are also a death knell to the common understanding of belief ascriptons.
creativesoulFebruary 12, 2022 at 18:25#6539800 likes
Jack draws correlations between a broken clock and the time of day while believing a broken clock is working. Jack does not believe "a broken clock is working". Jack believes a broken clock is working.
creativesoulFebruary 12, 2022 at 18:33#6539850 likes
Jack draws correlations between a man in a sheep suit and his wondering how many sheep are in the field when he believes that a man in a sheep suit is a sheep, and thus concludes that there is at least one sheep in the field. Jack does not believe that "a man in a sheep suit is a sheep". He believes that a man in a sheep suit is a sheep.
Etc.
creativesoulFebruary 12, 2022 at 18:44#6539880 likes
It is humanly impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood. When Jack is in the process of believing that a broken clock is working he is totally unaware of it. The proposition, assertion, claim, sentence, statement, thought, belief, and/or utterance - a broken clock is working - is always false. Broken clocks do not work. This is all just a matter of how we use the words everyday. We cannot knowingly believe that broken clocks are working, but we can and do believe that they are nonetheless.
Not one iteration I've offered here, despite the overall quantity of slightly different offerings, is ever even capable of being true. They all pass Leibniz's muster. They can all be interchanged and attributed to Jack without any unacceptable change in meaning. Jack's belief is false. As such, it is his belief that determines the truth value of any and all ascriptions thereof. Therefore, any and all ascriptions to Jack must be of false belief. That is to say, that any and all true attribution of belief to Jack at time t1 will be of some belief that it is humanly impossible to knowingly believe.
Despite your previous muddling claims [1] (to be patched with some additional but pointless terminological/formatting style acrobatics) and in addition to your failure to show how this argument rigorously follows from your definition of belief as “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things” (as I did with my definition), it looks now evident that you are definitely embracing the catastrophic line of reasoning that I already spotted a while ago: equating false beliefs with contradictory beliefs (or if you prefer, equating occasionally false beliefs with always false beliefs), and confusing belief ascriptions with knowledge ascriptions. I was right all along. So here I rest my case.
Is that what counts as a valid objection on your view?
> You've admittedly attributed a belief to Jack that is true […] What’s stopping you from realizing that you've misattributed belief to Jack as a result of employing the standard practices?
Well, because I didn’t. Quoting myself: I don’t take “Jack believes that a clock is working” as an accurate belief ascription of Jack’s belief in your example. What I would take to be an accurate belief ascription in your example is more something like “Jack believes that clock is working” since belief ascriptions need to be taken in the context.
You are confusing my reasoning about the contrast between “Jack believes a clock is working” vs “Jack believes a broken clock is working” (to point out that attributing a false belief should not be equated to attributing a contradictory belief) with what I claim to be a more appropriate belief ascription in your thought experiment.
> Jack's belief cannot be true for it is false.
It’s false ex-hypothesi but it could have been true. So it can not be rendered with a contradiction b/c a contradiction could not have been true at all. This is the logic difference between a merely false belief and a contradictory belief. That's logic, dude.
> It is not contradictory at all, not in least little bit, to believe that broken clocks are working while doing so. so. The reason why is simple:when believing such things we do not knowingly do so! We are unaware of the fact that we believe what a broken clock says when we do. We cannot knowingly do so.
What did you just write?! That’s the craziest thing I’ve heard so far! Contradiction has to do with logic not with your awareness. The fact that one does not realize to have a contradictory belief doesn’t make it, not in least little bit, less contradictory. And the problem is not that we are not aware of a contradictory belief, the problem is that a false belief is not a contradictory belief! (Not to mention, again, the unaccounted knowledge ascriptions…)
> Jack draws correlations between a broken clock and the time of day while believing a broken clock is working. Jack does not believe "a broken clock is working". Jack believes a broken clock is working.
Seriously?! I don't get the structure of this argument at all, if it has one. For sure it is not a deduction. BTW what happened to the “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things” in the case of “Jack does not believe ‘a broken clock is working’” and why are we talking “Jack does not believe ‘a broken clock is working’” instead of “Jack believes that a clock is working”?!
Seriously?! I don't get the structure of this argument at all
That was not an argument. It was an explanation of Jack's belief in the terms I defined "belief" in earlier.
I'm beginning to seriously question your honesty here given the sheer amount of strawmen, red herrings, and other such non sequiturs that you've provided with your interpretations of my claims. There's a bit of irony in that too, given the subject matter is belief, and your objections are based upon what you deem to be unacceptable accounting of another's belief. Seems if you knew what you were talking about, you could at least get what I'm saying right. It is as easy as quoting and asking if you are unsure.
creativesoulFebruary 12, 2022 at 22:46#6540510 likes
why are we talking “Jack does not believe ‘a broken clock is working’” instead of “Jack believes that a clock is working”?!
You presented "a broken clock is working" as a contradiction. Going on to then say that I am attributing a contradictory belief to Jack by saying Jack believes that a broken clock is working at time t1.
I did not say that Jack believed "a broken clock is working".
Evidently you do not see the difference between believing "a broken clock is working" and believing a broken clock is working. The former is belief about language use, and the latter is belief about broken clocks. The former has propositional content. The latter has broken clocks as content.
Full circle.
creativesoulFebruary 12, 2022 at 23:02#6540550 likes
It’s false ex-hypothesi but it could have been true. So it can not be rendered with a contradiction b/c a contradiction could not have been true at all. This is the logic difference between a merely false belief and a contradictory belief. That's logic, dude.
It's false at the time. False belief cannot be true.
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.
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.
creativesoulFebruary 13, 2022 at 00:01#6540710 likes
Might just drop this off here...
A belief is a propositional attitude.That is, it can be placed in a general form as a relation between someone and a proposition.
I knew you would be lurking from time to time...
Does "a broken clock is working" qualify as a 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 was an explanation of Jack's belief in the terms I defined "belief" in earlier.
Seriously?! I don't get the structure of this explanation at all, if it has one. For sure it is not a deduction. BTW what happened to the “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things” in the case of “Jack does not believe ‘a broken clock is working’” and why are we talking “Jack does not believe ‘a broken clock is working’” instead of “Jack believes that a clock is working”?!
> I'm beginning to seriously question your honesty here given the sheer amount of strawmen, red herrings, and other such non sequiturs that you've provided with your interpretations of my claims.
There there... whatever makes you feel better, my friend.
> There's a bit of irony in that too
Oh not really, this is a likely outcome if you confuse belief ascription with knowledge ascription as you do.
> You presented "a broken clock is working" as a contradiction. Going on to then say that I am attributing a contradictory belief to Jack by saying Jack believes that a broken clock is working at time t1. I did not say that Jack believed "a broken clock is working”. Evidently you do not see the difference between believing "a broken clock is working" and believing a broken clock is working. The former is belief about language use, and the latter is belief about broken clocks. The former has propositional content. The latter has broken clocks as content.
I see the quotation marks which is your preposterous made-up convention, but it doesn’t help you for 3 reasons:
You wrote: “It is not contradictory at all, not in least little bit, to believe that broken clocks are working while doing so. so. The reason why is simple:when believing such things we do not knowingly do so! We are unaware of the fact that we believe what a broken clock says when we do. We cannot knowingly do so.” So the problem was - according to your claim - that we are not aware of the contradiction, so it is not a contradiction.
Even if you want to talk about the referents of a belief (according to your questionable understanding of propositional attitudes), then Jack believes that a broken clock is working, is linking together “clock”,”broken”,”working” within the same content of Jack’s belief, which is an impossible state of affairs as much as a squarish circle, b/c the working broken clock has contradictory properties while the state of affairs believed by Jack was epistemically possible and didn’t have contradictory properties.
Not to mention the fact that your made-up convention based on the quotation marks is still de-facto a linguistic representation, only with a contradictory function b/c it plays the vicarious role of the state of affairs but in this case it can not be true/false in any sense since state of affairs are not the kind of things that can be true or false, but at the same time it must be true or false, otherwise you could not claim that is more accurate than my belief ascription.
> It's false at the time. False belief cannot be true.
But it could have been true. And it’s this counterfactual what grounds the claim that a false belief can not be equated to a contradictory belief. So… again focus, especially if you want to talk about logic, dude.
creativesoulFebruary 13, 2022 at 01:54#6540980 likes
So… again focus, especially if you want to talk about logic, dude.
A certain smugness washes over me...
True belief cannot be false. If your logic says otherwise, it is mistaken. Here's how it is mistaken...
Your logic will not only permit, but your standards will demand that you impart a belief that could be true in place of a belief that could not be.
You will be changing the belief under our consideration in doing so. Gettier did the same thing to Smith's belief... both of them. The cottage industry followed suit.
MerkwurdichliebeFebruary 13, 2022 at 02:15#6541020 likes
Do you agree that it is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood? Where do you stand on that?
Absolutely not. With just a little cleverness, one can construct a logical framework around the most heinous falsehood in order to make it appear as truth - as something that can be easily believed. It happens all the time everywhere.
creativesoulFebruary 13, 2022 at 02:31#6541040 likes
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.
We cannot knowingly believe a falsehood. We cannot know that we're mistaken while being mistaken. That's why it becomes a problem when put into first person. Take it a bit farther and we understand that any and all true reports of another's false belief would be rendered as beliefs that it would be impossible for them to knowingly have.
Take it a bit farther and we understand that any and all true reports of another's false belief would be rendered as beliefs that it would be impossible for them to knowingly have.
> Do you agree that it is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood? Where do you stand on that?
I take to be impossible that a rational individual believes something to be the case while knowing it is not, under the condition that both belief/knowledge ascriptions should be taken according to our common practices of belief/knowledge reports.
> If that was according to my claim, I would have said that. I did not say that.
Well I quoted you, so let’s the gods decide. BTW I also added 2 more objections for their holy judgment.
> Seems we get five or six or eight strikes in your game of baseball.
Absolutely no clue about what game you are watching, but sure buddy, do you want some pop-corn?
> Gettier did the same thing to Smith's belief... both of them.
Not interested in talking about whatever you think you have understood about Gettier's ideas.
> True belief cannot be false. If your logic says otherwise, it is mistaken.
But it could have been false (counterfactual), if it’s not an analytic truth. This is what my logic keeps saying. And if your logic says otherwise (as it is seems [1] and I was suspecting all along), it is so badly mistaken (one of the many own goals made by you).
You repeat, I repeat. Oh boy, isn’t that fun? (And I'm the one strawmanning you?! seriously?!)
Only the first remark (one out of five) seems to be worth exploring (or so I wish). That’s not an ideal ratio for interesting debates. So unless you are tired of our exchange, pls, don't waste posts just to tease me out of bitterness or make more apparent that you are being in denial, because there is no philosophical challenge in there. I'm here to play philosophy not facebook, dude.
> A belief is a propositional attitude.That is, it can be placed in a general form as a relation between someone and a proposition.
> 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).
This definition of propositional attitude is far from being compelling as it is. Indeed a propositional attitude can be rendered as a relation between someone and a proposition, but not all relations between individuals and propositions express a belief as a propositional attitude, why? Because a propositional attitude is, by common definition, an individual's attitude toward a proposition, not whatever relation one can draw between an individual and a proposition! If some guy G waves his hand at me, and I mistakenly believe that that guy is greeting me instead of someone else next to me, then G is in relation to the propositional content of my belief, yet this is not G's belief.
Besides if and in so far beliefs are propositional attitudes, they are a very specific kind of attitudes toward propositions. Therefore we can question the idea that cats have propositional attitudes even if they can be put in relation to propositions. Indeed they do not seem to be able of holding beliefs as specific attitudes toward specific propositions (with their linguistic nature and alethic status) in the appropriate sense b/c they do not understand propositions (not being linguistic creatures), even if they could be put in relation to a proposition by those who can speak and understand propositions.
creativesoulFebruary 13, 2022 at 18:24#6542780 likes
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.
Another mistaken conventional practice that gave Gettier a foothold.
"The man" refers to Smith and Smith only in Smith's belief, whereas it refers to just any man in the proposition. Smith's prediction did not come true, for he did not get the job, but due to the sentiment in the quote above, any man with ten coins in his pocket could get the job and "the man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job" would become true as a result.
creativesoulFebruary 13, 2022 at 18:31#6542810 likes
At time t1 Jack believed that that particular clock was working. The clock was not working, so Jack's belief was false. You're saying Jack's belief at time t1 that that particular clock was working could have been true.
What would it have taken in order for Jack's belief that that particular clock was working to have been true at time t1?
creativesoulFebruary 13, 2022 at 18:35#6542840 likes
Take it a bit farther and we understand that any and all true reports of another's false belief would be rendered as beliefs that it would be impossible for them to knowingly have.
— creativesoul
that broken clock is working
that man in a sheep suit is a sheep
that barn facade is a barn
that sheet hanging from a limb is a sheep
a free and fair election was not free and fair
creativesoulFebruary 13, 2022 at 18:53#6542920 likes
I'm hoping to see you do some. I've no inclination to cut through all the misattribution of meaning that you've been imparting upon select quotes, saying I've said things that I haven't, claiming what I've said leads somewhere that it does not, etc., while doing your best to discredit any parts of my contributions here that pose serious problems for yours, or better yet ignoring them altogether.
It is my contention that you do not have a good grasp upon what constitutes belief, how belief emerges, and/or how it works and that is shown by the denial that we can and do sometimes believe that broken clocks are working.
Everyone I have asked in the last two weeks had no issue with understanding that we can and sometimes do. Your denial is based upon the fact that all this conflicts with your position on the matter.
"Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language" (PI § 109)
creativesoulFebruary 13, 2022 at 19:08#6542990 likes
Even if you want to talk about the referents of a belief (according to your questionable understanding of propositional attitudes), then Jack believes that a broken clock is working, is linking together “clock”,”broken”,”working” within the same content of Jack’s belief
Here is yet another imaginary opponent you've made up for yourself. I've not talked about referents of a belief. I've no clue what you're trying to say here, which is a problem for you not I. You're attempting to talk about what I want to do, and stuff that is purportedly according to my understanding. You're not doing a very good job of it. You can always just ask me questions.
"Jack believes that a broken clock is working" is a statement about what Jack believes. The words are linked together because that's what we do with words. You seem either very confused or very dishonest about what I'm saying.
> I've no inclination to cut through all the misattribution of meaning that you've been imparting upon select quotes, saying I've said things that I haven't, claiming what I've said leads somewhere that it does not, etc., while doing your best to discredit any parts of my contributions here that pose serious problems for yours, or better yet ignoring them altogether.
Oh boy, it was a good laugh. Thank you!
> Everyone I have asked in the last two weeks had no issue with understanding that we can and sometimes do.
Seriously?! Besides the fact that I have no idea why we should trust your survey, whose results you do not seem to be able to replicate with your interlocutors here. I’m just repeating the same points made thousands times:
A deviation from common practices of belief ascriptions are tolerated and perceived unproblematic for pragmatic reasons (shared assumptions in the given context), not for accuracy concerns.
My claim, since the beginning, is that “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” is not a more accurate belief ascription than “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working”, assumed that Jack was simply ignorant about the condition of the clock.
In conclusion, the “unproblematic understanding” argument is not decisive since it can be explained within our common practices, and the issue I have with your views started only and exclusively selectively precisely narrowly specifically with your belief ascription accuracy claims (e.g. that "At time t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working" is a belief ascription more accurate than "At time t1, Jack believes that clock is working" when Jack simply ignores that clock was broken or not-working at t1), especially given the catastrophic line of reasoning you provided so far to support it!
That is why I used the conditional (“even if…”). In any case my objection was justifiably based on the answers you already provided. If a belief is a “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things” in “Jack believes that/a broken clock is working” the belief “that/a broken clock is working” either is connecting words, then it’s a contradiction in terminis, or is taken to connect its referents witch include a clock instantiating contradictory properties (broken as in “not working” and “working”). Either way (at the level of the meaning or at the level of the referents) is a contradictory situation, which doesn’t correspond to the belief of Jack (in a simple case of ignorance). BTW you yourself claimed (have you ever read what you write?) that is always false [1] as any contradiction, but since we are not aware of it, then it’s not [2].
> Here is yet another imaginary opponent you've made up for yourself.
Looking forward to hearing more about my imaginary opponents. Oh and btw what is Jack telling you about them? He must be really really upset about them, isn't he?
> You can always just ask me questions.
Well that doesn't seem to be a good strategy either, given the backlog of unanswered questions I addressed to you [3]. Besides nobody is preventing you from trying to explain better what you failed to explain so far, especially if you keep claiming that others misunderstand your own quotations, b/c maybe the problem is not really that others are strawmanning you or being dishonest, but that - given the amount of posts you made - it is very hard for you to clarify your views. Did you think about that? It seems you did [4]. After all, if you are challenging the "conventional view", you should expect that your proposal is perceived as non-obvious.
BTW, since you expressly asked for more questions, here you go: if one believing that broken clock is working at t1, is not aware of believing it at t1 out of ignorance, what is s/he exactly aware of believing while believing that broken clock is working at time t1?
The proposition, assertion, claim, sentence, statement, thought, belief, and/or utterance - a broken clock is working - is always false. Broken clocks do not work.
it is not contradictory at all, not in least little bit, to believe that broken clocks are working while doing so. The reason why is simple:when believing such things we do not knowingly do so! We are unaware of the fact that we believe what a broken clock says when we do. We cannot knowingly do so.
Seriously?! I don't get the structure of this explanation at all, if it has one. For sure it is not a deduction. BTW what happened to the “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things” in the case of “Jack does not believe ‘a broken clock is working’” and why are we talking “Jack does not believe ‘a broken clock is working’” instead of “Jack believes that a clock is working”?!
What would it have taken in order for Jack's belief that that particular clock was working to have been true at time t1?
If that particular clock at time t1 had been working, Jack’s belief would have been true.
Is it possible for broken clocks to work?
I've set out two different objections. One is against the idea that all belief is propositional in content, and the other is against the idea that all belief can be rendered as propositional attitude. Language less creatures' belief falsifies the former and false belief negates the latter. The contention between you and I involves whether or not all belief can be accurately rendered in terms of a propositional attitude. The belief in contention is Jack's belief at time t1 when he believes that a particular clock is working, but that clock had stopped coincidentally twelve hours prior to Jack's looking towards it as a means to know what time it was.
I'm saying that at time t1, Jack believed that a broken clock was working. You are objecting to that claim based upon two things; a deviation from your practice of belief ascription, and as a result of your thinking that I'm attributing a self-contradictory belief to Jack, despite my having believed that I've already explained how it is not in multiple different ways. We're working out, currently, which ascription/attribution of belief to Jack is more accurate.
I've objected to the idea of attributing a belief that could be true to a person who has false belief, which amounts to an accounting malpractice. False belief cannot be true. I'm also noting that not a single iteration I've offered is a belief that could have been true. You seem to think that that is a problem.
creativesoulFebruary 14, 2022 at 15:54#6547320 likes
If a belief is a “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things” in “Jack believes that/a broken clock is working” the belief “that/a broken clock is working” either is connecting words, then it’s a contradiction in terminis, or is taken to connect its referents witch include a clock instantiating contradictory properties (broken as in “not working” and “working”). Either way (at the level of the meaning or at the level of the referents) is a contradictory situation which doesn’t correspond to the belief of Jack (in a simple case of ignorance). BTW you yourself claimed (have you ever read what you write?) that is always false [1] as any contradiction, but since we are not aware of it, then it’s not [2].
False dilemma. There are more ways to understand Jack's belief than what you've offered here as the only two...
Evidently you do not see the difference between believing "a broken clock is working" and believing a broken clock is working. The former is belief about language use, and the latter is belief about broken clocks. The former has propositional content. The latter has broken clocks as content.
No. And you know why? It’s because “broken” and “to work” are contradictory properties.
On the other side it is possible for clocks to be working or to be broken.
> I've objected to the idea of attributing a belief that could be true to a person who has false belief, which amounts to an accounting malpractice. False belief cannot be true. I'm also noting that not a single iteration I've offered is a belief that could have been true. You seem to think that that is a problem.
The problem is that:
False beliefs are not to be equated to contradictory beliefs
Mere false beliefs can be occasionally false (like "that clock is working"), but they could have been true (counterfactual), while a contradictory belief is always false (as you yourself claimed “a broken clock is working - is always false”).
Here are my questions to you: which one of these 2 claims of mine are you denying? For me any attempt to deny any of these 2 claims is catastrophic.
If you admit both then you are not justified in claiming that "Jack believes that broken clock is working" is not attributing to Jack a belief content that is not contradictory, because the belief content "that broken clock is working" is contradictory,
To attribute a false belief to someone, it's enough to say "S mistakenly believes that p", there is absolutely no need to touch the belief content to convey the idea that S's belief is false. Also because rendering the belief content in such a way that it expresses a false belief (by making it misleadingly look contradictory), it presupposes the identification of such belief content prior to this revisionist rendering, so independently from this manipulation. If you can't identify what someone is aware of believing while believing it, you can not even exactly identify what you claim they are unaware of believing (truth/knowledge assessments about beliefs presuppose belief ascriptions, not the other way around!).
> False dilemma. There are more ways to understand Jack's belief than what you've offered here as the only two...
Then show me exactly what the third option is and how it derives from your own definition of belief as “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things” to also prove that it effectively has explanatory power as you claim.
> Evidently you do not see the difference between believing "a broken clock is working" and believing a broken clock is working. The former is belief about language use, and the latter is belief about broken clocks. The former has propositional content. The latter has broken clocks as content.
I did see the difference. But I find your answer not only unsatisfactory but also fishy. Assuming your convention, you distinguish between quoted (“S believes that ‘p’”) and unquoted belief content (“S believes that p”). The first one is a propositional attitude and the second one is not. Here is the convention applied to the example of Jack: “Jack believes ‘that broken clock is working’” and “Jack believes that broken clock is working”, in both cases the belief content includes 3 items: “clock”, “broken”, “is working”. So it’s true but suspiciously incomplete to claim that the latter rendering of Jack’s belief has broken clocks as content. The non-propositional content of Jack’s belief has 3 items in it, not just broken clock, but broken clock is working.
Besides what kind of entities are these items? Are they linguistic terms? Are they meanings? Are they referents in the real world? What are they? And isn’t there a meaningful correlation drawn between these 3 items since they are the content of Jack’s belief? What is this meaningful correlation? Isn't this correlation supposed to show an impossible situation b/c broken clocks do not work? And how come that it's impossible that broken clocks do not work if not for the fact that the same clock is attributed or appears to instantiate contradictory properties ("broken" and "is working")?
Looking forward to hearing your answers.
> 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.
This consequence is not obvious at all. And this is related to the reasons clarified here. Indeed also knowledge can be put into a relational form K(S,p) between an individual and a proposition, yet the truth of K(S,p) is not independent from the truth of p. So it is not the relation between individual and proposition itself that guarantees that the truth of the proposition is unrelated to the truth of the belief ascription.
javi2541997February 16, 2022 at 16:16#6556460 likes
Well, it depends on the context we are seeking about. If you are debating with a theist, I would say for them belief implies truth. for example: God exists because I believe in their existence. Then, God's existence is true
If you are debating with a theist, I would say for them belief implies truth.
I disagree with that (but maybe you are simply confusing the truth claim intrinsic to any belief with the logic implication between belief and the truth of what is believed): "S believes that God exists" does not logically imply "God exists" (even for the religious believer... if s/he conforms to logic of course).
Besides here one of the assumptions of the formal debate between Banno and CreativeSoul that inspired this thread, is that we are talking about ordinary belief not about religious belief (or faith):
The sort of belief I intend to discuss is not the sort found in church, and that might better be called faith. The beliefs to be examined are the common everyday stuff, that the cup is on the shelf or that the sun is rising. Nothing too transcendent here. But if we start with the everyday, we might work towards such profundity.
we are talking about ordinary belief not about religious belief (or faith):
I see your point but this only happens when we make the effort to distinguish different types of belief. Thus, only happens when, at least, we destroy the argument of a monotheistic argument. For me, for example, "religious" belief does not even exist because I don't belive on it since the beginning.
I see what you quoted and it is pretty interesting indeed. This thread is so good to learn about.
creativesoulFebruary 19, 2022 at 05:27#6566380 likes
Regardless of which sensible parsing is being practiced, Jack's belief about that particular clock is false. Jack believes it to be working. It is not. So, there is no contention regarding whether or not Jack's belief is true or false. Jack's belief at time t1 is false. Jack's belief cannot be both true and false at time t1. Thus, it makes no sense whatsoever for us to ascribe belief to Jack that is, could be, or could have been true. False belief cannot be true.
There was one candidate earlier that I find is not guilty as charged above. It's worth discussing for it is founding wanting in another way...
At time t1, Jack believed that that particular clock was working.
Jack was mistaken. It is impossible to knowingly be mistaken. It is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood. Thus, any correct ascriptions of belief attributed to Jack at time t1, must come in a form that it is impossible for him to knowingly believe.
"That particular clock was/is working" simply does not meet that criterion.
Deleted UserFebruary 19, 2022 at 05:33#6566400 likes
Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!
:smile:
Deleted UserFebruary 19, 2022 at 05:35#6566410 likes
Poor Jack needs to get some rest now, his brain is fried from staring at this clock for weeks.
creativesoulFebruary 19, 2022 at 07:32#6566510 likes
At time t1, Jack believed of a broken clock that it was working.
This example also seems to come in a form that is impossible for Jack to believe at the time. However, there are a few unnecessary terms. The terms "of" and "that it" are superfluous. We can remove them entirely and lose nothing meaningful. The simplest explanation is the best provided there is no loss in explanatory power. Occam's razor applies. We are left with...
At time t1, Jack believed a broken clock was working.
First three methodological considerations:
1. If you want to answer my questions you should specify which ones by quoting them and then answer them. If you think they are flawed, you should specify which ones by quoting them and explain why they are flawed. I don’t see that you are doing that in your post, even though you explicitly invited me to ask you questions. That looks fishy.
2. If you claim that we can establish if “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working”, based on what we take belief to be, and your definition of belief is “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things”, then I expect you to show exactly how this definition helps you establish “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working”, all the more because you claim that your definition of belief is of “immense explanatory power”. But in your last post you never used such a definition. That looks fishy.
3. In your last post you kept repeating the same claims you already made. But if I didn’t find your claims intuitive nor challenging as they were for the reasons I already explained, it’s pointless to keep invariably repeating them on and on. You should find other ways to make your case look stronger, unless you do not care to promote further your revisionist view, despite you being committed to it (you are the challenger of the common belief ascription practice, not me).
So since we stalled, I’ll make a last attempt to make you sharpen your claims or your reasoning.
Let’s start with these two excerpts:
> Jack's belief cannot be both true and false and time t1 [1]. Thus, it makes no sense whatsoever for us to ascribe belief to Jack that is, could be, or could have been true [2]. False belief cannot be true [3].
> It is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood [4]. Thus, any correct ascriptions of belief attributed to Jack at time t1, must come in a form that it is impossible for him to knowingly believe [5].
As I understand your claims (correct me if I’m wrong), you take claim [2] to be justified by [1] (and/or [3]), and your claim [5] to be justified by [4].
Here are my claims. There are 2 distinct tasks in our common belief ascription practices: one is to identify a belief (and report it accordingly) and the other is to assess its truth-value (and report it accordingly). And the latter presupposes the former. Besides, a belief that is not analytically false, can be either true or false (for logic reasons).
Now let’s apply my claims to the usual example:
At t1, Jack believes that p (first task)
At t1, p is false (ex hypothesi)
At t1, Jack mistakenly believes that p (second task)
if at t1, Jack mistakenly believes that p, then at t1, Jack believes that p (logic dependency between the 2 tasks)
If the belief content p is ‘that clock is working’, then p is not contradictory (not analytically false) and p can be either true or false.
Now, let’s add your claims [1], [3] and [4] that I render as follows (if I’m wrong, provide the correct rendering):
It is false that at t1 Jack’s belief content (i.e. ‘that clock is working’) is true and false.
If the belief content ‘that clock is working’ is false, then the belief content ‘that clock is working’ is not true, and vice versa.
If the belief content ‘that clock is working’ is false, then it is false that Jack knows that clock is working.
According to our common belief ascription practices, these 8 statements are all perfectly intelligible individually and logically consistent between them. Do you agree?
If you agree, then your claim [1] and/or [3] are not logically sufficient to deduce claim [2], and your claim [4] is not logically sufficient to deduce [5], so some logic requirement is missing in your line of reasoning, i.e. your line of reasoning is not conclusive until you fill the gap successfully.
If you disagree, quote the statements that are logically inconsistent or unintelligible, and explain why.
The terms "of" and "that it" are superfluous. We can remove them entirely and lose nothing meaningful. The simplest explanation is the best provided there is no loss in explanatory power.
Indeed, there is loss of explanatory power, b/c by removing those parts you are attributing to Jack a contradictory belief so you can not distinguish a case of ignorance from a case of irrational belief, nor identify the different scopes in belief ascriptions (the p.o.v. of the one who makes the belief ascription about Jak is different from Jack's p.o.v). Not only, but if we assume that Jack's belief is a case of ignorance and not irrational belief, then your rendering is a case of misattribution, so it's a false explanation of Jack's behavior.
Besides the explanatory power of belief ascription should be based on your definition of belief, as you claimed, this definition is “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things”. But you are not using it at all to prove that there is no loss in explanatory power. So how can you justify the claim that there is not loss in explanatory power?
creativesoulFebruary 20, 2022 at 06:01#6568980 likes
First three methodological considerations:
1. If you want to answer my questions you should specify which ones by quoting them and then answer them. If you think they are flawed, you should specify which ones by quoting them and explain why they are flawed
That's neither a methodological concern, nor consideration.
If I spent the limited time available going over all of the problematic and/or invalid questions, concerns, and/or objections that you've raised in order to explain the issues with them, no time would be left for the relevant concerns(of which there are a few). I've already quoted you in recent past, and subsequently explained the problems. The response ignored the issues and aimed at me personally.
If you claim that we can establish if “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working”, based on what we take belief to be, and your definition of belief is “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things”, then I expect you to show exactly how this definition helps you establish “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working”, all the more because you claim that your definition of belief is of “immense explanatory power”. But in your last post you never used such a definition. That’s fishy.
There you go again, making claims for me that I've not made.
I've already explained Jack's belief in terms of correlations being drawn between a particular broken clock and Jack's own inquisition regarding what time it was. In fact, I've explained Jack's belief at time t1 in as many congruent but different ways as I see possible.
What's fishy is your acting otherwise.
What's fishy is when one individual holds another to a strict standard that they themselves cannot meet.
What's fishy is when one individual makes a concerted effort to cast doubt upon another's notion of belief after handwaving away and/or glossing over the fact that their own notion has been found wanting.
There are 2 distinct tasks in our common belief ascription practices: to identify a belief and to assess its truth-value.
Jack's belief at time t1 is false no matter how it has been parsed. You've offered and we've discussed some candidates that were true. I've objected to those based upon that.
Besides, a belief that is not analytically false, can be either true or false (for logic reasons)
Some beliefs are the sort of things that can be either true or false. I mean, not all belief are true. Not all belief are false. Not all belief are truth apt at the time. However, no true belief are false, and no false belief are true. So, if it is the case that we know that a belief is false, it makes no sense to say that it could have been true. No. It could not have been.
I mean we would need to stipulate an entirely different set of circumstances with a different clock in order to support such a possible world, and in doing so, lose sight of this one by completely changing the content of Jack's belief.
Believing that a broken clock is working is not something that can be properly taken account of by such practices. If we use them and correctly attribute the belief that a broken clock is working to Jack, we end up saying that he believed the proposition, which is a contradiction in terms. This is what you are doing, not me. Hence, you keep claiming over and over again that I am attributing a contradictory belief to Jack when I am not. You are.
You presented "a broken clock is working" as a contradiction. Going on to then say that I am attributing a contradictory belief to Jack by saying Jack believes that a broken clock is working at time t1.
I did not say that Jack believed "a broken clock is working".
Evidently you do not see the difference between believing "a broken clock is working" and believing a broken clock is working. The former is belief about language use, and the latter is belief about broken clocks. The former has propositional content. The latter has broken clocks as content. The former is amenable to and basically amounts to saying that Jack believes the statement at time t1, or that Jack holds some attitude or disposition towards that particular proposition at time t1. Neither of those claims are true.
I am rejecting that parsing of Jack's belief altogether. Jack's attitude and/or disposition is neither about nor towards a proposition. To quite the contrary, Jack's belief is all about the trustworthiness of one particular broken clock. His disposition and/or attitude, if he can be said to have one, is towards the clock, not propositions about or involving the clock.
There are mistaken and/or false beliefs such as these influencing our lives, thoughts, and behaviours that we are completely unaware of. Jack has exactly such belief. These sorts of beliefs are those which we could not knowingly believe. Such beliefs cannot be anything other than mistaken and/or false. Hence, when reporting upon another's false belief, our accounting practices, if the gold standard is accuracy or truth, ought produce examples of belief that cannot be knowingly believed/held.
If you claim that we can establish if “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working”, based on what we take belief to be, and your definition of belief is “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things”, then I expect you to show exactly how this definition helps you establish “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working”, all the more because you claim that your definition of belief is of “immense explanatory power”. But in your last post you never used such a definition. That’s fishy. — neomac
There you go again, making claims for me that I've not made.
So you do not claim that “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working”? Because if you don’t then we do not need to revise our common belief acription practices, while I thought you wanted to challenge them.
Or you do not claim that your claim that “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working” is based on your definition of belief as “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things”? Then why did you claim "We can set all the other stuff aside for now and focus upon what counts as belief"? [0]
What is exactly that you did not claim that I misattributed to you in my quotation?
Reply to creativesoul
Again, you didn't answer my questions.
You claim that you do no have time to answer them, really any of them? you didn't need to answer all of them all at once, you could have answered just few but properly, and in my last two posts there was but one question. Instead you have time to repeat your claims at length and search my past quotes. Besides if you do not have time to answer question then why do you invite me to ask you questions?
You claim that I attribute to you claims you didn’t make (even when I quote you!!!) without specifying what exactly these misattributions are, nor immediately providing an adequate rectification.
You claimed to have already explained things (even in many ways), but I already questioned that they are successful for reasons that I already explained, and you didn’t challenge any of my objections as I have articulated them yet. And I can do it again: if you want to give an explanation of why your rendering of Jack's belief is better than what provided by common practice based on your definition of belief, then you have to take the 2 renderings, the one you claim right (e.g. "At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working"), and the one you claim wrong (e.g. "At t1, Jack believes that clock is working"), and compare them based on your definition of belief as “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things”, b/c this is what I did based on my definition of belief [1]. In your explanation you talked only about your rendering, i.e. there was no comparison (that's fishy). And you also changed the relevant example (that's fishy) [2]. In addition to that, also my last post was explanatory in the sense that it provided a list of claims conform to our standard belief ascription practices that are logically consistent with the assumptions you employ to justify your revisionist view and this shows that your assumptions are not sufficient to justify your revisionist view. I also explained why you are attributing a contradictory belief to Jack in the relevant example (both in the case of quoted and unquoted belief content), while you just kept repeating that is not contradictory without explaining why (something you should have done wrt to both your definition of belief and your quoted/unquoted belief report style [2][3]). While you, instead of addressing my objections to your claims for both quoted and unquoted rendering, as I articulated them, you just keep repeating your claims (e.g. "Evidently you do not see the difference between believing 'a broken clock is working' and believing a broken clock is working") again without clarifying why a quoted belief content like "'that broken clock is not working'" can be contradictory while an unquoted belief content like "that broken clock is not working" is not contradictory (and yet represent an impossible situation!) as I asked. That's fishy.
Finally you keep using your standard rendering (distinguishing between quoted and unquoted belief contents ) based on assumptions that are under question, so it’s utterly pointless to use it to prove the strength of those assumptions (since it would bag the question).
The philosophical game I find interesting to play does not consist in making claims to popularise what one finds intuitive and repeat it ad nauseam, but to provide compelling arguments to support such intuitive claims using appropriate analytical tools like logic inference, conceptual clarifications and definitions. You can challenge my views either by questioning the truth of the assumptions (impossible to do b/c the evidences are the linguistic facts of our common belief ascription practices that you intend to challenge) or the consistency of my reasoning based on those assumptions, or you can challenge it by proving that your views can do a better job than mine (e.g. in terms of explanation power). You catastrophically failed both tasks b/c your philosophical approach is flawed methodologically and substantially: substantially b/c of reasons I already explained around 15 posts ago of mine [4]. Methodologically b/c you can't support your claims other than by making question bagging claims (and framing my replies accordingly), suggesting preposterous propositional calculi [5], making more preposterous claims (let’s not forget these arguments [6][7]!) or attacking me personally with a behavioral pattern typical of those who are in denial (none of which are adequate analytical tools, of course). And I dragged this exchange now long enough to make definitely clear that you do not have any better dialectical strategy than repeating ad nauseam your preposterous claims and self-indulging accusations to my articulated and very specific objections.
I spared you my sarcasm so far but I won't spare you my conclusion: you have literally nothing challenging to offer against our common belief ascription practices. And here I rest my case.
We can set all the other stuff aside for now and focus upon what counts as belief. Then, we will see how much sense it makes to ascribe belief to another, because we will have some standard of belief for comparing our ascriptions/attribution to.
I'm attributing a belief: beliefs are intentional cognitive states/events with intrinsic mind-to-world fitness conditions expressed through behavioral attitudes in a given context. These intrinsic fitness conditions constitute - broadly speaking - the p.o.v of the believer. So I take the task of identifying the intrinsic fitness conditions of a given belief in a given context as equivalent to providing an explanation of P’s behavior in a given context based on her cognitive intentionality. Since what better explains the cognitively-guided behavior of P at time t1 based on cognitive intentionality (i.e. P's belief at t1), to me, is the p.o.v. of P at t1 than any other alternative (like the p.o.v. of Q at t1, or the the p.o.v. of P at t2), then belief ascriptions about P at time t1 are accurate in so far as they match the p.o.v. of P at time t1.
The terms "of" and "that it" are superfluous. We can remove them entirely and lose nothing meaningful. The simplest explanation is the best provided there is no loss in explanatory power. — creativesoul
Indeed, there is loss of explanatory power, b/c by removing those parts you are attributing to Jack a contradictory belief so you can not distinguish a case of ignorance from a case of irrational belief, nor identify the different scopes in belief ascriptions (the p.o.v. of the one who makes the belief ascription about Jak is different from Jack's p.o.v). Not only, but if we assume that Jack's belief is a case of ignorance and not irrational belief, then your rendering is a case of misattribution, so it's a false explanation of Jack's behavior.
Besides the explanatory power of belief ascription should be based on your definition of belief, as you claimed, this definition is “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things”. But you are not using it at all to prove that there is no loss in explanatory power. So how can you justify the claim that there is not loss in explanatory power?
> Jack draws correlations between a broken clock and the time of day while believing a broken clock is working. Jack does not believe "a broken clock is working". Jack believes a broken clock is working.
Seriously?! I don't get the structure of this argument at all, if it has one. For sure it is not a deduction. BTW what happened to the “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things” in the case of “Jack does not believe ‘a broken clock is working’” and why are we talking “Jack does not believe ‘a broken clock is working’” instead of “Jack believes that a clock is working”?!
I did see the difference. But I find your answer not only unsatisfactory but also fishy. Assuming your convention, you distinguish between quoted (“S believes that ‘p’”) and unquoted belief content (“S believes that p”). The first one is a propositional attitude and the second one is not. Here is the convention applied to the example of Jack: “Jack believes ‘that broken clock is working’” and “Jack believes that broken clock is working”, in both cases the belief content includes 3 items: “clock”, “broken”, “is working”. [b]So it’s true but suspiciously incomplete to claim that the latter rendering of Jack’s belief has broken clocks as content. The non-propositional content of Jack’s belief has 3 items in it, not just broken clock, but broken clock is working.
Besides what kind of entities are these items? Are they linguistic terms? Are they meanings? Are they referents in the real world? What are they? And isn’t there a meaningful correlation drawn between these 3 items since they are the content of Jack’s belief? What is this meaningful correlation? Isn't this correlation supposed to show an impossible situation b/c broken clocks do not work? And how come that it's impossible that broken clocks do not work if not for the fact that the same clock is attributed or appears to instantiate contradictory properties ("broken" and "is working")?[/b]
Looking forward to hearing your answers.
My reformulation was aiming at rescuing your proposal also from the line of reasoning you just drafted, which I find simply catastrophic, even if we forget the aforementioned objections. Why? Because “accuracy” as an intrinsic fitness-condition of beliefs is what grounds our expectations about our honest reports, like the expectation that a factual report about facts at time t1 should match them, and the expectation that a belief ascription to P at time t1 should match the belief prospective of P at time t1 (i.e. the way P would express her belief at time t1). While what you are trying to do is to blend the 2 distinct expectations in a belief ascription that matches neither the prospective of the believer nor the relevant facts: a broken clock is working is neither a fact nor the perspective of P at time t1, just a blend of what you take to be a correct description of the relevant facts ("the broken clock") with P’s perspective (“is working”). The utmost preposterous consequence of your approach is that all false beliefs are equated to contradictory beliefs (since, the belief ascription subordinate clause "a broken clock is working" is a contradiction). This amounts to a categorical confusion between epistemology and logic: a false belief is not a contradictory belief (!!!), since a contradictory belief is always false, while a false belief could have been true, and this depends on the relevant facts not on its internal logic. Indeed this would also make the believers look always irrational, when they could have been simply ignorant about the relevant facts.
Why would you do such a catastrophic move? My impression is that you are misled, by your unaccounted knowledge claims (“we find ourselves discussing another's belief that they themselves do not know that they have”), into thinking that belief report accuracy is based on knowledge (track knowledge or lack thereof). This is wrong for 2 reasons: 1. belief ascriptions by S are themselves beliefs and do not warrant S’s knowledge of the relevant facts, nor need for such a warrant 2. knowledge ascriptions about P presuppose belief ascriptions about P (and not the other way around). In other words, a theory of belief ascription can not settle issues about belief and belief ascription by presupposing knowledge, b/c knowledge presupposes belief, therefore accurate belief reports should be understood in terms of intrinsic fitness-condition of belief, not in terms of extrinsic fitness-condition of belief (as knowledge is).
Can Jack look at a broken clock? Surely. Can Jack believe what the clock says? Surely. Why then, can he not believe that a broken clock is working?
[6]
[quote=“neomac;654030”]>It is not contradictory at all, not in least little bit, to believe that broken clocks are working while doing so. so. The reason why is simple:when believing such things we do not knowingly do so! We are unaware of the fact that we believe what a broken clock says when we do. We cannot knowingly do so.
What did you just write?! That’s the craziest thing I’ve heard so far! Contradiction has to do with logic not with your awareness. The fact that one does not realize to have a contradictory belief doesn’t make it, not in least little bit, less contradictory. And the problem is not that we are not aware of a contradictory belief, the problem is that a false belief is not a contradictory belief! (Not to mention, again, the unaccounted knowledge ascriptions…)[/quote]
> Do you not find it odd that Jack would agree, if and when he figured out that the clock was broken?
Seriously?! By “Jack” you mean a fictional character in a story that you just invented? Oh no, that’s not odd at all, it would be indeed much more odd if you invented stories where fictional characters explicitly contradict your theories, and despite that you used those stories to prove your theory.
Michael SolFebruary 20, 2022 at 11:38#6569390 likes
Uh, isn't this a lot of parsing for no real good reason? If we were not trying to study language and, specifically, the Proposition, for clues as to Reality, why would we care?
Which is to say, if we presume that Jack and his clock are both in the Physical Universe (as described by the Standard Model Of Cosmology), then the Proposition, "Reading it's face at 11:00 that morning, Jack believed the clock was working;" must be true, since it refers to nothing but our clock-watcher's own conviction.
If the Proposition becomes "Reading its face ... was working, though it was not," then, presuming the narrator honest, we have another simple, true statement or Proposition, and Jack, we thus learn, was Mistaken.
And if the Proposition, lastly becomes, "Reading its face...Jack, though he knew it was broken, still believed the time shown was accurate," we then are presented with a simple dilemma hinging on the question as to whether Jack had any other way of knowing the present time, and, if so, whether the actual time was the same as shown on the clock-face; leading us to conclude that if the times were coincident, Jack was merely amused at the brief moment of accuracy in the broken clock, or, alternatively, that Jack is Mad.
Once we place our little thought experiment starring Jack of the Broken Clock into the Real World, the variations on the Proposition are simple and limited, and any confusion arises simply from inelegant expression; it is only when we are absurdly trying to parse propositions for different flavors of reality that this becomes silly and confusing.
How about this, there ain't no such thing as a Consciousness that didn't evolve in a Material Universe, so all of this is Real and language problems are just bad rhetoric and confusions of nuances.
creativesoulFebruary 20, 2022 at 18:30#6570130 likes
At time t1, Jack believed of a broken clock that it was working.
This example also seems to come in a form that is impossible for Jack to believe at the time. However, there are a few unnecessary terms. The terms "of" and "that it" are superfluous. We can remove them entirely and lose nothing meaningful. The simplest explanation is the best provided there is no loss in explanatory power. Occam's razor applies. We are left with...
At time t1, Jack believed a broken clock was working.
There is loss of explanatory power, b/c by removing those parts you are attributing to Jack a contradictory belief so you can not distinguish a case of ignorance from a case of irrational belief...
I've not attributed contradictory belief to Jack. It's always a case of ignorance when one believes a broken clock.
creativesoulFebruary 20, 2022 at 18:38#6570170 likes
Uh, isn't this a lot of parsing for no real good reason? If we were not trying to study language and, specifically, the Proposition, for clues as to Reality, why would we care?
It's about belief. Get that wrong and you have gotten all sorts of things wrong. I could not care less about the failings of convention. It just so happens that, weirdly enough, many of the problems are dissolved by my understanding of belief.
Belief is not equivalent to propositions, or attitudes towards them. Convention has yet to have figured this out, evidently.
Michael SolFebruary 21, 2022 at 00:33#6571130 likes
CreativeSoul - You said:
"It's about belief. Get that wrong and you have gotten all sorts of things wrong. I could not care less about the failings of convention. It just so happens that, weirdly enough, many of the problems are dissolved by my understanding of belief."
We are talking about the beliefs underlying the terms of the proposition, right? So we have to read it as if it makes sense, as in "At 11, Jack believed that the clock [of indeterminate working condition] was working," is understood to be the same proposition "At 11, Jack believed that the [unbeknownst to him] broken clock was working," the Reader supposing of Jack sanity and so refusing equivalence to what would have to be "At 11, Jack believed that [what he knew to be a] broken clock was working," because that would infer that Jack was delusive. right?
Are we not then, as a rule, that we must infer in Jack a meaning to his utterance that is logically correct in a Commonly Perceived Reality?
creativesoulFebruary 21, 2022 at 00:57#6571220 likes
We are talking about the beliefs underlying the terms of the proposition, right?
I'm not even sure what that is supposed to mean, so I hesitate to answer either way.
The matter under contention was whether or not all belief content is propositional. That was what the original debate between Banno and myself was about. The current discussion began by my claiming that conventional practices cannot properly account for belief like Jack's. The alternative renderings have all sorts of problems like some have left the broken clock out of Jack's belief altogether. Others are true belief, when we know Jack's was false. Others add words that do not change the fact that Jack believed what a broken clock said(so to speak).
There are only a couple of alternatives that are not guilty of at least one of these errors. Those are the interesting ones to me. Neo seems to be grasping at the straws of misattribution as a means to find flaw in what I've been presenting. There are a few simple true statements about belief that go a long way in supporting what I've been arguing here in addition to driving a death knell into the coffin of the idea that all belief are equivalent to propositional attitudes.
True belief cannot be false. False belief cannot be true. It is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood. It is impossible to knowingly be mistaken.
The tenets directly above place any and all attempts at rendering false belief in terms of propositional attitudes in serious trouble.
Jack is unaware that he believes a broken clock while he does. Jack's not talking about it at the time. Jack's also not even thinking about his own belief at the time.
I'm also not all that impressed with what counts as being "logically correct" these days. I reject the purported rules of 'logical' entailment, for example. I can and have shown how they are in error. Gettier and all...
creativesoulFebruary 21, 2022 at 04:29#6571640 likes
What seems to be an underlying issue here is whether or not it makes sense for me to say that at time t1, Jack believes that a broken clock is working. It does, but that does not seem to have been rightly understood. Some have argued that I am attributing a contradictory belief to Jack. That argument is based upon a fair amount of misunderstanding, all of which stems from a reading of my accounting practice based upon the mistaken tenets of mutually exclusive accounting practices.
As they are written, the words "a broken clock is working" could be rightly said to introduce a nonsensical utterance if and when that judgment is based upon the obvious failure of using the terms in congruence with everyday linguistic practices. I totally agree that such an utterance is either meaningless nonsense or else incoherent if and when we're judging the coherency of the language use(the words as they are written). We do not use the term "broken" to describe things that are not. It is also the case that such an utterance simply cannot be true. It is never true. It is incapable of being so for other reasons as well. It is literally a contradiction in terms.
So...
Based upon all this, some have concluded that when I say that at time t1, Jack believes a broken clock is working, that I am attributing to him a belief that is nonsensical and/or contradictory, and that it is impossible to hold such a belief. It is not impossible to hold such a belief. It is only impossible to knowingly hold it. Jack does not know that he holds it. They do not understand that I am not attributing those words to him as though his belief consisted of those words, which would be contradictory and/or nonsensical. Rather, as I said in so many words at the very beginning of this particular dispute, I am attributing to him an attitude towards the broken clock such that he believes it to be a reliable source of information regarding what time it was. That's what we do when we look to clocks to tell the time.
It seems that my objectors/detractors do not understand that the content of Jack's belief is not propositional. He is not drawing correlations that include the words "a broken clock is working". It is only if he were doing so, it is only if I said he were doing so, that I would be guilty as charged regarding attributing a contradictory belief to Jack. Jack's belief does not come in propositional form, unless "a broken clock is working" counts as a proposition. I do not think that it does, regardless of which sense of "proposition" we're considering.
It seems that my objectors do not understand that all false belief, each and every one, is had by a creature completely unaware of having it while they do. They do not understand that it is impossible to knowingly have false belief, to knowingly believe a falsehood, and/or to knowingly be mistaken. But we have false belief, we believe falsehoods, and we are most certainly mistaken at times, nonetheless. They do not understand that when we become aware that some belief we have is false, it is no longer even possible to continue having it.
They do not understand that an accurate report of false belief will provide that which is and would be impossible to knowingly believe.
Propositions are not.
Deleted UserFebruary 21, 2022 at 07:03#6572130 likes
the content of Jack's belief is not propositional. He is not drawing correlations that include the words "a broken clock is working".
No, he isn't. Jack is "drawing correlations that include the words 'a [ ] clock is working.'" So his belief is propositional.
Regardless of how you've decided to formulate it, it remains true that Jack's belief can be formulated proposition-wise in the usual way: Jack believes "a clock is working" is true.
So Jack's belief is in some sense propositional, regardless of this non-conundrum you're at.
Michael SolFebruary 21, 2022 at 10:36#6572650 likes
Ok, I was talking about Jack's beliefs in the figure.
How can a belief, how can anything but nonsense, not be propositional? What non-propositional statement has any meaning? Am I missing something? If I'm not attributing something to something else, than am I saying anything?
My point is, if we accept the objective reality of the material universe, Jack either knew the clock was broken or he did not; he either knew the time or did not; and the time on the face of the clock at that instant was either coincident with the actual time, or it was not; and from these possible conditions we can make any of the possible statements:
Jack, not knowing the clock was broken, thought it to be Eleven.
Jack, knowing the clock was broken, wondered if it could actually be Eleven, as shown on the broken clocks face.
Jack, knowing the clock was broken, checked his pocket watch, and was amused that the working and broken clocks agreed that it was Eleven.
Jack, knowing the clock was broken, and knowing that the actual time was different, yet still thought that, in some strange fashion, the clock was working, and that its time was somehow more accurate than the one that agreed with Greenwich.
Is there some variant to the explication of "At 11, Jack thought the broken clock was working," that I'm missing? If I am, let me know; but the point is, in Reality, the Proposition can only have a very limited number of very clear meanings.
So why are we spending so much time in parsing the nuances of Propositions to see if we can make them seem Absurd? Why all the fuss about language?
So let me say this again, in an Objectively Extant Material Reality all of the Referents of speech are to real objects in the real world, all of which operate according to the fundamental, eternal, necessary and unchangeable laws of Physics, and so any confusion between Consciousnesses over their communications is solely due to poor definitions and poor or untenable propositions....
And none of this Linguistic Confusion has any Metaphysical significance whatsoever...
I am attributing to him an attitude towards the broken clock such that he believes it to be a reliable source of information regarding what time it was.
Notice that this claim is a de re belief ascription analogous to "Jack believes of that broken clock that is working" (which I was talking about a while ago) where the expression "the broken clock" is outside the completive clause of the predicate "to believe", and within the semantic scope of the one who makes the belief ascription. You are using it to disambiguate your own claim against the putative misunderstanding of others. In using it, you are proving that this form is more understandable than your own rendering. But even if you used it just as a temporary concession, what is more critical, is that this rendering allows you to keep unclear what constitutes non-propositional belief contents. Which is what you should still explain to support your claims.
It seems that my objectors/detractors do not understand that the content of Jack's belief is not propositional. He is not drawing correlations that include the words "a broken clock is working". It is only if he were doing so, it is only if I said he were doing so, that I would be guilty as charged regarding attributing a contradictory belief to Jack.
You have to prove that part in bold of your claim. What is exactly the non-propositional belief content that Jack is not aware to hold, namely "that broken clock is working" (without quotes)? Can you spell it out right away? Between what kind of things is Jack drawing correlations when you are attributing to him the non-propositional and unquoted content "that broken clock is working"? I see 3 items in there ("broken", "clock" and "is working"), what do they stand for as parts of a non-propositional content? Not words (b/c otherwise they would be propositions), then what else?
creativesoulFebruary 21, 2022 at 15:37#6573190 likes
We have the ability to use propositions to talk about Jack's belief, as well as language less creatures'. It does not follow that the belief is propositional in content. It follows that our reports are.
Deleted UserFebruary 21, 2022 at 16:14#6573350 likes
Notice that this claim is a de re belief ascription analogous to "Jack believes of that broken clock that is working" (which I was talking about a while ago) where the expression "the broken clock" is outside the completive clause of the predicate "to believe", and within the semantic scope of the one who makes the belief ascription.
If any of that or all of that and possibly more leads you to believe that the content of Jack's belief cannot be a broken clock, in large part at least, and that broken clocks are not propositions, then I don't know what to tell you honestly without sounding like a grumpy old guy...
Bewitched.
creativesoulFebruary 22, 2022 at 03:19#6577060 likes
Not all belief amounts to believing that p.
creativesoulFebruary 22, 2022 at 03:34#6577140 likes
...what is more critical, is that this rendering allows you to keep unclear what constitutes non-propositional belief contents. Which is what you should still explain to support your claims.
Belief that does not consist of propositions consists of other things... trees and mice and spatiotemporal relationships between them... for example. Broken clocks and wondering what time it is, for yet another.
creativesoulFebruary 22, 2022 at 03:38#6577170 likes
What is the content of Jack's belief at time t1?
creativesoulFebruary 22, 2022 at 03:58#6577270 likes
If it were the case that, at time t1, Jack's belief was "a clock is working", then Jack's belief would be true, because somewhere at that time, a clock was working. Jack's belief about the clock was false.
creativesoulFebruary 22, 2022 at 04:03#6577280 likes
I asked you to give me the full non-propositional content which Jack is not aware of believe and can not knowingly believe true when you claim of him "Jack believes that brocken clock is working". It's always the same example. In such content there is "broken clock" but there is no "wondering what time it is".
There are 3 items in this non-propositional "brocken" "clock" and "is working". What are these entities? What is the meaningful correlation that is drawn by them? And who is drawing this meaningful correlation between these 3 parts "broken", "clock" and "is working"? I take it to mean the real-world referents of the word you are using in your non-quoted belief ascription report. Is that right?
"clock" is the real object existing in the world
"broken" is the property this real object in the world truly has
"is working" is the property that this real object does not have.
If not, spell out what these 3 items are, because you are using these three items to determine the non propositional content of Jack's belief.
I answered that already. Belief contents express the point of view (the intrinsic fitness conditions) of Jack's believing attitudes which best explain his behavior in the given circumstances at t1. In the case of false beliefs due to ignorance and not irrationality "that clock is working" is better than "that broken clock is working" because that clock is working can be either true or false, while "that broken clock is working" is contradictory so always false i.e. it can not adequately express a case of ignorance.
It seems you do not fully appreciate the different theoretical tasks of your approach wrt mine. My theory of belief is based on what I take to be some pre-philosophical linguistic facts (common belief ascription practices). These belief ascription practices are not based at all on my theory of belief. These belief ascription practices are not based at all on a full blown theory of propositional content (like frege's or russell's). And my theory of belief is not based at all on a full blown theory of belief as propositional attitude (like frege's or russell's). Indeed my theory of belief and a theory of belief as propositional attitude may compete to explain the very same linguistic facts. That is why:
- my primary task is not to develop a theory of belief, but to understand as much as I can the logic of our common belief attribution practices.
- I don't care about your distinction between propositional and non-propositional content as such, as much as I care about how your view and the usage of this distinction may compete against our common belief ascription practices.
- I don't care to specify further my theory of belief, because understanding and defending the logic of our common belief ascription practices it's more important to me than my theory of belief. That is also why you shouldn't care about my full-blown theory of belief coz I don't have one yet. And to critisize your view it's enough for me to counter your misconception about the logic of our common belief ascription practices as I understand them, or to question the internal coherence of your assumptions and claims.
Your situation is different: you are developing a theory of belief and belief ascription in competition with a specific theory of belief as propositional content (whose source is still unknown to me) and our common linguistic practices. So your primary task is to provide the details of your theory of belief and then judge our common practices accordingly.
That is why the primary explanatory task for you is to exactly and completely explain the difference between propositional and non-propositional belief content as you understand it in the relevant example which are always the same two (never ever change them):
At time t1, Jack believed that clock was working.
At time t1, Jack believed that broken clock was working.
That is why I asked you to give me the full non-propositional content which Jack is not aware of believing (and can not knowingly believe true) when you claim of him "Jack believes that broken clock is working". There are 3 items in this non-propositional content: "brocken" "clock" and "is working". What are these entities? What is the meaningful correlation that is drawn between them? And who is drawing this meaningful correlation between these 3 parts "broken", "clock" and "is working"? I take it to mean the real-world referents of the words you are using in your non-quoted belief ascription report. Is that right?
"clock" is the real object existing in the world outside of our mind
"broken" is the property this real object in the world truly has
"is working" is the property that this real object does not have.
Is that it? If not, spell out what these 3 items are, because you are using these three items to determine the non propositional content of Jack's belief. You keep saying that Jack's non-propositional content is about a broken clock but you never mention "is working". Yet the non-propositional content is not "Jack believes that broken clock" but "Jack believes that broken clock is working" and if the broken clock is the real world object than what "is working" in the real world? Nothing?
There is no progress if you keep just repeating your distinction between propositional and non-propositional content (without offering an analysis of it) and then projecting it on to me as if I were committed to it, to make me play the role of one who confuses the 2. That's framing and question begging accusations.
creativesoulFebruary 22, 2022 at 16:15#6578780 likes
Belief contents express the point of view (the intrinsic fitness conditions) of Jack's believing attitudes which best explain his behavior in the given circumstances at t1. In the case of false beliefs due to ignorance and not irrationality "that clock is working"
So you're saying that those words in quotes are the content of Jack's belief at time t1?
creativesoulFebruary 23, 2022 at 02:42#6580970 likes
In the case of false beliefs due to ignorance and not irrationality "that clock is working" is better than "that broken clock is working" because that clock is working can be either true or false, while "that broken clock is working" is contradictory so always false i.e. it can not adequately express a case of ignorance.
Sure it can adequately express a case of ignorance. I mean, it is impossible to knowingly believe that broken clock is working(treat this as if we are pointing at the clock). So, when one believes that broken clock is working, it is most certainly a case of ignorance. Jack's is precisely such a case.
While it is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood, it is not impossible to believe one. Jack's belief is false. We know this. It cannot be either true or false. Jack's belief can only be false. Therefore, if we say that he believes a falsehood(as compared/contrasted to just being mistaken), then our report of Jack's belief ought produce a candidate that is impossible to knowingly believe. Falsehoods are language constructs on par with false assertions. So...
The candidate "that clock is working" is not impossible to knowingly believe. Jack's belief is false, and all false belief is impossible to knowingly believe. Therefore, "that clock is working" cannot be what Jack believes.
If we say that Jack holds false or mistaken belief, then our report ought produce a candidate that is impossible to knowingly believe.
If, at time t1, we're pointing at the clock and saying Jack believes that clock is working, we could be saying that the content of his belief is not equivalent to a proposition because clocks are not, and his belief is about that particular clock. All of this would be true for he does indeed believe that particular clock to be working. So, our report would seem fine. However, if we're aiming at the most accurate or precise description of the content of Jack's belief, we cannot leave out the fact that that particular clock, which has become meaningful to Jack as a result of his belief formation, is a broken one.
It is as a result of Jack's belief not being propositional in content, that our saying that he believes that that broken clock is working does not attribute a contradictory belief to Jack, because it is only the words that are contradictory. Jack's belief does not consist of those words. Jack's belief that that broken clock is working consists of correlations drawn between the broken clock and his wondering what time it was. Jack's belief that that broken clock is working does not have propositional content. It's not belief about the words I just used to report upon it. It's not belief about assertions, sentences, utterances, or any other language use. It's belief about a broken clock. Broken clocks are not propositions. Thus, Jack's belief that that particular broken clock is working does not have propositional content.
Jack's belief has that broken clock as it's content, in very large part at least. The broken clock is not all there is to Jack's belief(for it is a complex one indeed with other necessary prerequisites), but without that particular broken clock to look at, Jack's belief would not have been formed at all.
Jack's belief would pose no problem at all if it were not broken. Perhaps that's why there is such a fervor to leave that much out.
creativesoulFebruary 23, 2022 at 04:07#6581160 likes
the primary explanatory task for you is to exactly and completely explain the difference between propositional and non-propositional belief content as you understand it
The former includes propositions. The latter does not.
That is why I asked you to give me the full non-propositional content which Jack is not aware of believing (and can not knowingly believe true) when you claim of him "Jack believes that broken clock is working". There are 3 items in this non-propositional "brocken" "clock" and "is working"
While words are not propositions, on my view, the content of Jack's belief is not words either. The correlations he draws at the time as a means for believing what the clock says do not include language use. Those words are not being thought by Jack at time t1. Jack is wondering what time it is, so he looks towards a clock to know. That's the way it happens. This is well established habit, to the point of it's being nearly autonomous. That is to say that it is something done without much thought at all about the clock aside from believing what it says. We do not look to a clock and think silently or aloud "I believe that that clock is working". We just don't. That's just not how it works. That is a metacognitive endeavor. Believing a broken clock is not.
To give the full non-propositional content is impossible. There's no way to know that much and to set such a standard is unacceptable as a result of this sound consideration. Omniscience is neither possible nor necessary here. I mean, I'm not defending the God of Abraham. By the way, it doesn't matter which notion/sense of "proposition" you're using, they are all fatally flawed. It's just that some are flawed differently than others.
The basic arguments are simple.
Either propositions exist completely independently of all language use in some way such that a language less creature is capable of having an attitude and/or disposition towards them, or language less creatures do not have belief. I've yet to have seen a notion/sense of "proposition" that succeeds here. Hence, many who hold such a view(belief as propositional attitude) reject the idea of language less belief.
Propositions are existentially dependent upon language. Language less creature's have belief. Therefore, belief are not equivalent to propositional attitudes.
Much the same holds good for claiming all belief has propositional content.
creativesoulFebruary 23, 2022 at 05:27#6581210 likes
my primary task is not to develop a theory of belief, but to understand as much as I can the logic of our common belief attribution practices.
Logical notation? The form of belief attribution? "The logic"???
How can anyone establish what counts as acceptable and/or unacceptable attribution of belief to another if there is no standard regarding what counts as belief? We're faced with the dire need for an adequate minimal criterion for belief which, when satisfied by some candidate or another, warrants concluding that that candidate counts as a belief.
What exactly would we be attributing to another when ascribing some belief to them, if we did not already have an idea of what beliefs are?
This especially comes to the forefront when ascribing belief to language less creatures.
To give the full non-propositional content is impossible.
Impossible? We are discussing here if "that clock is working" is more or less accurate than "that broken clock is working". The full account I'm asking is about this and only this belief content attribution in this and only this example, not the belief of everybody in the universe present past and future.
So again:spell out what each single item of these 3 items (|broken|, |clock|, |is working|) is, because you are using these three items to determine the non propositional content of Jack's belief in your non-propositional belief ascription rendering. You can start from |is working| , since you keep saying that Jack's non-propositional content is about a broken clock but you never mention "is working". Yet the non-propositional content you attribute to Jack is not rendered as in "Jack believes that broken clock" but as in "Jack believes that broken clock is working" and if the broken clock is the real world object than what "is working" in the real world? Nothing? A property? So spell out what each single item of these 3 items (|broken|, |clock|, |is working|) that are part of the belief content you attribute to Jack in your non-propositional belief ascription rendering "Jack believes that broken clock is working", is. You can start from |is working|
BTW even for the claim "While it is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood" you have yet again to explain exactly why it is impossible to knowingly believe "that broken clock is working".
So you're saying that those words in quotes are the content of Jack's belief at time t1?
No. In the example "Jack believes that clock is working", the belief content is the fitness condition expressed by the completive clause, so it's the state-of-affairs (i.e. the object "clock" and its property "is working") in the real world that would make that belief content cognitively accurate or, to simplify, true. There might be something else misleading in talking like this though.
Reply to creativesoul
> Logical notation? The form of belief attribution? "The logic”???
By “logic” here, I’m generically referring to the rules of our common belief ascription practices.
> How can anyone establish what counts as acceptable and/or unacceptable attribution of belief to another if there is no standard regarding what counts as belief?
Of course there is a standard, but it’s implicit in our belief ascription practices. What is hard it is to spell it out. Also grammar rules are implicit in our language practices, but it’s a non-trivial task to abstract them. So there are cognitive rules that are implicit in our common belief ascription practices to identify beliefs, and my theoretical effort is to abstract those cognitive rules from our common belief ascription practices. But rule abstraction presupposes rule application. Yet again there might be something else misleading in talking like this though.
> What exactly would we be attributing to another when ascribing some belief to them, if we did not already have an idea of what beliefs are?
Right, this idea however is implicit in our common belief ascription practices. Indeed one learns the usage of the word “belief” from those competent speakers that utter belief ascriptions in the given circumstances.
Look, I won't answer any more your questions if you do not answer my previous post. Coz it's the 4th time in a row that I'm asking the same question (that I already asked other times) but you avoid to answer it, which is fishy. So: Quoting neomac
spell out what each single item of these 3 items (|broken|, |clock|, |is working|) that are part of the belief content you attribute to Jack in your non-propositional belief ascription rendering, is. You can start from |is working|
creativesoulFebruary 23, 2022 at 16:11#6582690 likes
the non-propositional content you attribute to Jack is... ..."Jack believes that broken clock is working"
No, it is not.
You are conflating the content of my report with the content of Jack's belief.
The content of Jack's belief are correlations drawn by Jack between directly and indirectly perceptible things. That would include the broken clock and his wondering what time it was, amongst other things less relevant. That's at least the fourth time I've said that and answered your question. It's fishy that you act as if I've avoided it.
creativesoulFebruary 23, 2022 at 16:16#6582740 likes
That's at least the fourth time I've said that and answered your question. It's fishy that you act as if I've avoided it.
Then quote yourself when you explain what "is working" stands for. Because this is what I asked. And if you not find it, that's because you did not answer my question.
So try again (5th time): Quoting neomac
spell out what each single item of these 3 items (|broken|, |clock|, |is working|) that are part of the belief content you attribute to Jack in your non-propositional belief ascription rendering "Jack believes that broken clock is working", is. You can start from |is working|
spell out what each single item of these 3 items (|broken|, |clock|, |is working|) that are part of the belief content you attribute to Jack in your non-propositional belief ascription rendering "Jack believes that broken clock is working", is. You can start from |is working|
You are conflating the content of my report with the content of Jack's belief.
I might conflate whatever you see me conflating if you continue to frame my questions. But I will return to such a claim of yours later because I suspect you are committing yet another big mistake.
At time t1, Jack believed that clock was working. At time t1, Jack believed that broken clock was working.
You're claiming the first is more accurate. I'm claiming the second is.
Prior to continuing... Do you agree with that much?
I'm asking you (7th time): in the belief report that you claim more accurate, namely "At time t1, Jack believes that broken clock was working.", I see 3 items: broken, clock, was working. Explain what each of them stands for. Start from was working.
It's always the same question, but I removed the part that triggers your framing (i.e. "belief content").
P.S.
Too often the questions of mine you think you are answering, are not my questions but the questions that you misunderstand as a consequence of framing my position.
creativesoulFebruary 24, 2022 at 04:54#6585820 likes
I'll answer whatever questions you like, so long as they follow from what I'm arguing or are just plain ole simple questions about basic facts that seem to cause an issue for my position if and when my position is held in light of those facts. I've no problem at all bearing the burden of my claims. Questions based upon non sequiturs are another matter altogether.
I'm asking you (7th time): in the belief report that you claim more accurate, namely "At time t1, Jack believes that broken clock was working.", I see 3 items: broken, clock, was working. Explain what each of them stands for. Start from was working.
Here's what you've done...
You've broken down the basic belief report that I am arguing for(At time t1, Jack believed that that broken clock was working) into disparate bits of language use, which is to say that you're not focusing upon the meaningful set of marks I've presented, as I've presented them. Then... you're really asking me what the words "is working" stand for, as if - when isolated from the rest of the report - they stand for something that I bear the burden of elaborating upon?
What is it that you believe can be gleaned here by virtue of this procedure of yours? What does that question have to do anything we've discussed? Explain to me the relevance of the question. If it is relevant, I'll be glad to answer it. Teach me something new. I'm always game for that.
You've been asking, in more than one way, how I've tied this novel understanding of "belief" that I have into my report/account of Jack's belief. You held two claims(well... parts of them anyway) beside one another, basically asking me to explain their congruence. You asked about Jack's belief in terms of correlations drawn. It seemed that you wanted to know how I made sense of belief as correlations when it came to Jack's belief at time t1. I've obliged. I've set that out a number of times. The response was basically rhetorical huffing and puffing followed by some insults and handwaving. Simply put, you've ignored and deflected.
All belief consists entirely of correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things by a creature capable of doing so.
At time t1, Jack believed that a broken clock was working. Jack's belief consisted of all the meaningful correlations he drew while wondering what time it was and then looking at a broken clock to find an answer to his question. The content of the correlations Jack drew at that time are the content of Jack's belief at that time. So, I simplified the answer for ease of understanding. The non propositional content included Jack's wondering what time it was, and a broken clock. That satisfies the criterion perfectly.
It is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood; to knowingly be mistaken; to knowingly form, have, or hold false belief. Jack's belief is false. Thus, when Jack's false belief is put into proper linguistic form, it will be impossible to knowingly believe.
> I'll answer whatever questions you like, so long as they follow from what I'm arguing or are just plain ole simple questions about basic facts that seem to cause an issue for my position if and when my position is held in light of those facts. I've no problem at all bearing the burden of my claims. Questions based upon non sequiturs are another matter altogether.
What I always asked you to argue from the start is to prove the following claim of yours: Quoting creativesoul
At time t1, Jack believed that clock was working. At time t1, Jack believed that broken clock was working.
You're claiming the first is more accurate. I'm claiming the second is.
Prior to continuing... Do you agree with that much?
So I’m following your arguments as long as they focus on what I’ve asked you to argue: to provide support for precisely that claim, and nothing else. And you should expect that kind of questions, because you are challenging our common belief ascription practices. So if you do not make your challenges worth following, I will simply dismiss them.
Besides you have a default tendency of framing other people’s claims by assuming correct your assumptions, which again would simply make pointless any philosophical debate because you are begging the question. And, not surprisingly, this complaint of yours proves it once more: since I removed the part that triggers your framing attitude (like the expression "belief content"), then you accuse me of "non sequiturs" (even when I'm simply quoting your claims and asking questions about them) because you can not trap me in your frames to easily accuse me of conflating things. So my questions are either conflating things (when you can frame me) or arbitrary (because you can not frame me), therefore you are right. This is not how I understand philosophical debates, this is just your way to preventively censor any potential objections against your philosophical assumptions. Trying to retrain your interlocutors to conform their claims to your theoretical language, to validate your own claims is not philosophy, but - at best - brainwashing.
> What is it that you believe can be gleaned here by virtue of this procedure of yours? What does that question have to do anything we've discussed? Explain to me the relevance of the question. If it is relevant, I'll be glad to answer it. Teach me something new. I'm always game for that.
The relevance is that this is a claim of yours that I find questionable (indeed absurd), so until you provide arguments to support it, I’ll take to be unproven your claim that your belief report is more accurate. The reason why I find it questionable is because you are reporting of Jack that he believes something, which is contradictory because “broken” and “is working” represent contradictory properties of “the clock” (let's see if you can frame this). Indeed it must be so because this is the proper linguistic form which you claim it is impossible to knowingly believe.
Thus, when Jack's false belief is put into proper linguistic form, it will be impossible to knowingly believe.
Jack can not knowingly believe that broken clock is working because “that broken clock is working” is a linguistic form of a contradiction.
> At time t1, Jack believed that a broken clock was working. Jack's belief consisted of all the meaningful correlations he drew while wondering what time it was and then looking at a broken clock to find an answer to his question. The content of the correlations Jack drew at that time are the content of Jack's belief at that time. So, I simplified the answer for ease of understanding. The non propositional content included Jack's wondering what time it was, and a broken clock. That satisfies the criterion perfectly.
I have objections against this claim too, and I have objections also against the claim that “It is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood” but let’s do a piece at a time and do not mix everything since you can not clearly follow my objections.
So once more (8th time): is “that broken clock is working” in your report “Jack believes that broken clock is working” a contradiction? Or, if you prefer, does “that broken clock is working” in your report “Jack believes that broken clock is working” have the linguistic form of a contradiction? If not, why not?
creativesoulFebruary 24, 2022 at 15:41#6588390 likes
Reply to creativesoul
I'm not talking about the sentence "That broken clock is working", I'm talking about the proper linguistic form that you claim to be impossible to knowingly believe when put into the belief report "Jack believes that broken clock is working". Isn't this proper linguistic form representing an object ("the clock") with contradictory properties ("broken" and "is working")? Because if it is not the case, then you should explain why it is impossible to knowingly believe it when using this proper linguistic form in your belief report.
creativesoulFebruary 25, 2022 at 01:46#6590640 likes
Jack believes that broken clock is working.
The above report is in proper linguistic form. It is accurate. It is true. It is impossible to knowingly believe that a broken clock is working. That's all that was meant by "proper linguistic form". Jack was mistaken. It is impossible to knowingly be. Thus, a proper rendering of Jack's belief will come in a linguistic form that is impossible to knowingly believe.
creativesoulFebruary 25, 2022 at 01:56#6590660 likes
Jack can not knowingly believe that broken clock is working because “that broken clock is working” is a linguistic form of a contradiction.
Well yes and no. Jack cannot knowingly believe "that broken clock is working" is true, because it is a contradiction in terms, necessarily false, etc. That's all about language use. Jack's belief is not.
It is impossible to knowingly believe that a broken clock is working, because if we know it is broken, we also know it is not working, and thus we cannot believe that it is. That has nothing to do with the sentence being a contradiction and everything to do with knowing that broken clocks do not work.
creativesoulFebruary 25, 2022 at 02:00#6590680 likes
We cannot knowingly believe that a broken clock is working.
Reply to creativesoul
> Jack cannot knowingly believe "that broken clock is working" is true, because it is a contradiction in terms, necessarily false, etc. That's all about language use. Jack's belief is not.
Why are you changing the example again?
You should write: Jack cannot knowingly believe that broken clock is working
And not: Jack cannot knowingly believe “that broken clock is working” is true
> It is impossible to knowingly believe that a broken clock is working, because if we know it is broken, we also know it is not working, and thus we cannot believe that it is. That has nothing to do with the sentence being a contradiction and everything to do with knowing that broken clocks do not work.
Why are you changing the example again?
You should write: It is impossible to knowingly believe that broken clock is working
And not: It is impossible to knowingly believe that a broken clock is working.
Reply to creativesoul
> There is no need for further explanation. I've more than adequately explained several times over in a variety of ways.
That’s because probably you do not understand what I’m asking you to explain. Even though you should have understood because I gave you examples of the kind of answer I was expecting. Anyways, what you are doing is just joggling with truth claims such as:
Jack believes that broken clock is working (accurate belief report with appropriate non-propositional linguistic form)
Jack believes “that broken clock is working” is false (accurate belief report with appropriate propositional linguistic form)
“that broken clock is working” is false (accurate non-belief report with appropriate propositional linguistic form)
It is impossible to knowingly believe that a broken clock is working (accurate knowledge report with appropriate non-propositional linguistic form)
And you evidently take this joggling explanatory, because you take as your philosophical task to simply make such claims, contrast their usage so that others do not conflate them, and enforce their usage on your interlocutors without further questions to make you happy. But that has more to do with brainwashing than philosophy to me. And it shows that you are not open to challenges (while challenging others’ views), so why should others be open to your challenges?! When I ask you for an explanation, I’m asking you about what grounds the truth of all these truth claims of yours. What grounds the truth of all these claims must depend on relevant facts or logic/analytic rules that govern our representations. And if you want to compare the validity of your claims against other claims you should ground your arguments on relevant facts and inferential/logic/analytic rules that govern our representations that must be shared to make our views commensurable. That is why it's utterly pointless to constantly remind us your list of truth claims to prove anything at all. And that's why I keep you telling to not change examples and to provide the truth conditions for your claims in a way that is understandable to us without using your truth claims (which would beg the question) [1]
Now since you insist to distinguish between sentences and belief reports with appropriate non-propositional linguistic form, and you still avoid to answer the very specific question I already asked you 8th times in a row (by changing examples and shifting attention from one truth claim to the other), instead of asking you the same question for the 9th time in a row, I'll ask you:
what grounds the truth of the claim “the sentence ‘that broken clock is working’ is a contradiction in terms”? My answer is because that sentence ‘that broken clock is working’ represents an object (i.e. that clock) with contradictory properties, namely the properties attributed to the object at the same time by that sentence are terms (i.e. “broken” and “is working”) that by definition are taken to be one the negation of the other. Do you agree? If not, what else grounds the truth of the claim “the sentence ‘that broken clock is working’ is a contradiction in terms”?
what grounds the truth of the claim “It is impossible to knowingly believe that broken clock is working”? My answer is because the non-propositional linguistic form ‘that broken clock is working’ represents an object (i.e. that clock) with contradictory properties, namely the properties attributed to the object at the same time by that non-propositional linguistic form are terms (i.e. “broken” and “is working”) that by definition are taken to be one the negation of the other. Do you agree? If not, what else grounds the truth of the claim “It is impossible to knowingly believe that broken clock is working”?
What grounds the truth of the claim that “if we know it is broken, we also know it is not working”? My answer is because “is broken” is a term that by definition is the negation of “is working”, so they are supposed to refer to the same property respectively as absent and as present, whence the validity of the inference between "we know it is broken" and "we also know it is not working". Do you agree? If not, what else grounds the truth of the claim that “if we know it is broken, we also know it is not working”?
Jack believes that broken clock is working. The above report is in proper linguistic form. It is accurate. It is true. It is impossible to knowingly believe that a broken clock is working. That's all that was meant by "proper linguistic form". Jack was mistaken. It is impossible to knowingly be. Thus, a proper rendering of Jack's belief will come in a linguistic form that is impossible to knowingly believe.
This is a perfect example of begging the question argument (twice fallacious b/c besides begging the question, it’s also deductively badly formed, as it is!). You take as premises that “Jack believes that broken clock is working” is an accurate report and that that report is in proper linguistic form b/c it is impossible to knowingly believe that a broken clock is working, to conclude that Jack’s belief’s report is accurate b/c it is in a linguistic form that it is impossible to knowingly believe. The problem is that the claim that “Jack believes that broken clock is working” is an accurate report of Jack's belief, is precisely what needs to be proven, so you can not use it AT ALL as a premise of a probative argument. Indeed what needs to be proven must figure in the conclusion not in the set of premises !!!
Here another objection for you: you claim that “At time t1, Jack believed that broken clock was working” [1] is accurate based on the idea that the proper rendering of a false belief should be put into a proper form that it will be impossible to knowingly believe [2] .
Then here are some belief reports put into a form that it will be impossible to knowingly believe:
1. At time t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working
2. At time t1, Jack believes that clock is working and that clock is broken
3. At time t1, Jack believes that is not the case that clock is either broken or working
4. At time t1, Jack believes “that broken clock is working” is true [3]
3. At time t1, Jack believes that broken clock is not a broken clock
5. At time t1, Jack believes that broken clock is not a clock
6. At time t1, Jack believes that clock is not a clock
7. At time t1, Jack believes that clock that CreativeSoul knowingly believes to be broken, is working
8. At time t1, Jack believes that he knows that broken clock is working
9. At time t1, Jack believes that he knowingly believes that clock is working and that clock is not working
10. At time t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working and 23765.3456 * 23.456 = 557439.9463936
11. At time t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working and planet Earth is flat and all elephants fly
12. At time t1, Jack believes that working clock is broken
13. At time t1, Jack believes that clock is working and a butterfly is not a butterfly
14. At time t1, Jack believes that 0 / 3 = 5
Since all 14 reports satisfy your requirement of being in a form impossible to knowingly believe, are they all equally accurate report of Jack’s mistaken belief?
And if only 1 is the accurate report of Jack’s mistaken belief (or you exclude any of them as accurate), then your requirement is at best necessary but not sufficient to determine the proper belief report of Jack's mistaken belief.
And you have to specify what the missing requirement is b/c otherwise you didn't prove yet At time t1, Jack believed that broken clock was working” from your own explicit assumptions!!!.
At time t1, Jack believed that clock was working. At time t1, Jack believed that broken clock was working.
You're claiming the first is more accurate. I'm claiming the second is.
Jack was mistaken. It is impossible to knowingly be. Thus, a proper rendering of Jack's belief will come in a linguistic form that is impossible to knowingly believe.
Why are you changing the example again?
You should write: It is impossible to knowingly believe that broken clock is working
And not: It is impossible to knowingly believe that a broken clock is working.
Either works for me. I'm not picky about it. The only difference is that one is more general while the other(the one you prefer) is about a particular broken clock.
Then we need your theory of meaning and truth for you to establish when sentences are true, false , or necessary false. Or do you mean that sentences are true, false or necessary false as a brute fact? And, BTW, shouldn't the belief content you attribute to Jack in your report "At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working" match the belief content as you describe it in your claim below in order to be accurate? Quoting creativesoul
You are conflating the content of my report with the content of Jack's belief.
The content of Jack's belief are correlations drawn by Jack between directly and indirectly perceptible things. That would include the broken clock and his wondering what time it was, amongst other things less relevant.
Which is all it takes to show how convention has been in error...
Well if we accept all your premises (and I haven't accepted any so far) maybe you are right, yet it doesn't prove that your report is accurate. I pointed that out b/c this is a problem internal to your theory, not b/c it's enough to prove that our common belief ascription practices are wrong (indeed I think the opposite).
We can set all the other stuff aside for now and focus upon what counts as belief.
Then, we will see how much sense it makes to ascribe belief to another, because we will have some standard of belief for comparing our ascriptions/attribution to.
So I would expect you to prove that "Jack believes that broken clock is working" is an accurate report of Jack's mistaken belief based on your definition of "belief" [1]. Instead you are trying to support that claim based on a knowledge requirement [2].
Now either your knowledge requirement is based on your definition of belief, but you didn't provide any (valid) argument that deduces this requirement from your definition of belief.
Or your knowledge requirement is not based on your definition of belief, then your claim that "what counts as belief" would set a standard for comparing belief ascriptions is unjustified.
Belief consists entirely of meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things by a creature with the biological machinery capable of doing so.
Jack was mistaken. It is impossible to knowingly be. Thus, a proper rendering of Jack's belief will come in a linguistic form that is impossible to knowingly believe.
It is impossible to knowingly believe that a broken clock is working, because if we know it is broken, we also know it is not working, and thus we cannot believe that it is. That has nothing to do with the sentence being a contradiction and everything to do with knowing that broken clocks do not work.
Jack was mistaken. It is impossible to knowingly be. Thus, a proper rendering of Jack's belief will come in a linguistic form that is impossible to knowingly believe. — creativesoul
This is a perfect example of begging the question argument — neomac
:worry:
I misunderstood your argument because this is how you presented it:
[i]Jack believes that broken clock is working.
The above report is in proper linguistic form. It is accurate. It is true. It is impossible to knowingly believe that a broken clock is working. That's all that was meant by "proper linguistic form".Jack was mistaken. It is impossible to knowingly be. Thus, a proper rendering of Jack's belief will come in a linguistic form that is impossible to knowingly believe[/i]
So from the way you presented it, it wasn't clear where the argument was supposed to start.
But if I misunderstood you, then I'll take back my objection that this specific argument was begging the question. One objection less against this specific argument.
Yet I have another objection. Now that you made clear that your argument is only this: Jack was mistaken. It is impossible to knowingly be. Thus, a proper rendering of Jack's belief will come in a linguistic form that is impossible to knowingly believe.
Then your argument (as it is) is a perfect example of non sequitur, logically speaking. I'll formalise it for you:
premise 1: Jack was mistaken (p)
premise 2: It is impossible to knowingly be mistaken (q)
conclusion: a proper rendering of Jack's belief will come in a linguistic form that is impossible to knowingly believe (c)
p
q
-------
c
This is not a valid logic deduction!!! And it's not only fallacious, but it is still far from being conclusive because the conclusion is not that "Jack believes that broken clock is working" is an accurate report of Jack's mistaken belief, as I asked you to prove. So you simply provided a fallacious argument to prove a general claim about how Jack's mistaken belief should be rendered.
In other words, you have yet to provide a deductive argument in a valid form (if that's what you are trying to do), which ends with the right conclusion. And once you did, then we still have to see if it is sound.
Which is all it takes to show how convention has been in error...
— creativesoul
Well if we accept all your premises (and I haven't accepted any so far) maybe you are right...
Maybe I am right if you do not.
:brow:
A true belief cannot be false. A false belief cannot be true. It is impossible to knowingly be mistaken. It is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood.
Do you agree with all four of the above tenets?
:brow:
creativesoulFebruary 27, 2022 at 02:44#6598720 likes
Belief contents express the point of view...
— neomac
This notion of "belief" cannot take account of language less, mistaken, and/or false belief.
A mistaken creature's point of view does not - dare I say, cannot - include the mistake. Hence, when we ask Jack at time t1, what he's doing immediately after looking at the clock, he will not say "I believe that that broken clock is working". Rather, he will say something about finding out what time it is/was.
He is unaware of being mistaken. He is unaware that he believes that a broken clock is working. From's Jack's point of view at time t1, the mistake is unknown.
Inform Jack of what he needs to know and upon recognizing his own mistake, he will readily admit to having made it unbeknownst to him at the time. He will readily admit to having once believed that that broken clock was working.
Of course, your claims may be correct even if you didn't demonstrate to me any good argument to support them. What I meant it's just that you didn't demonstrate to me you are right. To do that one has to provide a valid and conclusive argument from some assumptions. I didn't accept any of the assumptions specific to your view (your definition of "belief" and your knowledge requirement) nor I saw any valid and conclusive argument that from those assumptions concludes that "At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working" is a more accurate report than "At t1, Jack believes that clock is working" wrt to the example of Jack you gave us (which is a case of ignorance of the relevant facts)
> A true belief cannot be false. A false belief cannot be true . It is impossible to knowingly be mistaken. It is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood.
I totally agree with the part in bold, for semantic reasons: true and false are contradictory terms.
Concerning the part not in bold, I'm not sure how you understand it. If it simply means that any of the 2 following claims is necessarily false or contradictory:
The claim "S knows that p and 'p' is false"
The claim "S knows that p and p does not occur"
Then yes, I totally agree, and that again for semantic reasons: the notion of "knowledge" presupposes that "p" is true or that p occurs, but "true" and "false" are contradictory terms as much as "occur" and "does not occur", so those 2 claims are contradictory or necessarily false.
If the part not in bold means something else (as it seems from your later posts) or the same but for different reasons, then you have to spell it out to me, coz I can't justifiably agree to something I do not even understand.
Has nothing to do with failing to read the next few lines...
Meaning? "Thus" expresses the idea that you are logically inferring your claim "a proper rendering of Jack's belief ..." from "Jack was mistaken" and "It is impossible to knowingly be", aren't you? If so then your argument [1] (as it is) is deductively invalid (in particular, it's a perfect example of non sequitur) and inconclusive (because you didn't conclude with the claim that you were asked to prove). In other words, there is literally nothing else to logically understand in there. Unless you are claiming that the "next few lines" weren't supposed to be an argument to logically support your claim that "At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working". But then what else? Can you spell it out?
For now your argument looks nothing more than a wishful thought.
Jack was mistaken. It is impossible to knowingly be. Thus, a proper rendering of Jack's belief will come in a linguistic form that is impossible to knowingly believe.
> This notion of "belief" cannot take account of language less, mistaken, and/or false belief [1].
A mistaken creature's point of view does not - dare I say, cannot - include the mistake [2].
[…] He is unaware of being mistaken [3]. He is unaware that he believes that a broken clock is working [4]. From's Jack's point of view at time t1, the mistake is unknown [5].
I agree with claims 2, 3, 5. But totally disagree with claims 1 and 4.
More specifically:
Claim 4 can neither be equated to nor be implied from 3
By comparing 3 and 5, it seems that you are equating the notion of “being aware that” and the notion of “knowing that”, or you are presupposing some co-implication between them but it would be better to spell it out appropriately because it is not evident at all: “awareness” is an ambiguous notion per se (e.g. are you familiar with the distinction between transitive and intransitive consciousness? Or the notion of higher-order consciousness? Or the notions of phenomenal and non-phenomenal awareness?). Also the notion of “knowledge” admits different understanding (e.g. internalist vs externalist notion of “knowledge”) and can not be conflated with the notion of “awareness” yet there might be some equations/co-implications between them, depending how these notions are understood. So I would agree on some equation or co-implication between claims 3 and 5, under the condition that we agree on the specific notions of “being aware that” and “knowing that” as applied in this case.
I’m noticing a potential claim shift though: from “S knowingly believes that p” to “S knows that he believes that p” or “S is aware that he believes that p” as claim 4 and the equation between “being aware that” and “knowing that” (from claim 3 and 5) would suggest. Indeed you never spelled out what “S knowingly believes that p” is supposed to mean until now. If “S knowingly believes that p” means “S is aware that he believes that p” then say it explicitly b/c there are different understandings of "knowledge" and "being aware". However if this is the case, there would be an additional problem: we are shifting focus from someone's belief about a broken clock to someone's belief about their own belief about a broken clock, which looks yet another bad move for you.
So your claims 3,4,5 put together look twice equivocal: in the first place, wrt to the notion of "awareness" (if it is to be assimilated/correlated to the notion of "knowledge"); in the second wrt the content of such awareness (p or the belief that p?).
> Inform Jack of what he needs to know and upon recognizing his own mistake, he will readily admit to having made it unbeknownst to him at the time. He will readily admit to having once believed that that broken clock was working.
I myself can be mistaken and I can figure out what is proper or improper to claim of myself if I were in the situation of Jack. Now, after putting myself in his shoes, even when I recognize that I’m mistaken, I wouldn’t be "ready to admit" to having once believed that broken clock was working. And if I were so disposed it would be only for pragmatic reasons, not for accuracy concerns. So the “unproblematic understanding” argument does not prove to me that your philosophical understanding of Jack’s hypothetical situation is right.
The major problem of your definition of “belief” [1], among others, is that - in a case of belief based on ignorance of the relevant facts - it either does not prove that “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” is a more accurate belief report than “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working”, or it proves rather the opposite, i.e. that “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working”.
Here is why:
- At a first glance, both competing belief ascriptions present Jack as drawing meaningful correlations between the perceptible clock , his wondering what time it is, and whatever other evidence necessary to find out what time it is with that perceptible clock. According to this coarse understanding of your definition of belief, one is allowed to use indifferently “that clock” and “that broken clock” to refer to the clock, as you do when talking indifferently about “a clock” and “a broken clock” [2]. But that means that both belief reports are equally accurate!
- However, according to a narrower understanding of your definition of belief (which we must prefer to be more analytical), then it is true that Jack drew meaningful correlations between that perceptible clock, his wondering what time it is, and whatever other evidence necessary to find out what time it is, but Jack didn’t draw meaningful correlations between that clock and the evidences of its being broken, b/c otherwise we couldn’t claim that he ignored that that perceptible clock was broken! Therefore “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” for a case of ignorance of the relevant facts, indeed the former is true while the latter is false precisely because the former accurately reports between what relevant evidences Jack was drawing correlations [3], while the latter fails to do that!!!
BTW, this line of reasoning shows another wider problem of your definition of belief. Indeed your definition of “belief” doesn’t allow you to distinguish true from false beliefs: since in both cases the believer draws meaningful correlations between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things.
These two objections help better understand the probable reasons why you can not rely on your definition of belief (as you presented it) to prove your belief ascription claims. Indeed your definition of belief (despite being still very inadequate) is more apt to express the p.o.v. of the believer (or what the believer is aware of believing) then your notion of "unaware" belief based on a (for me, equivocal and unjustified) knowledge requirement [4]. And in fact, to support your belief report accuracy claims you still need a suitable linguistic report of the belief content we are aware to believe (which is captured by your definition of "belief") as input for the manipulative rendering of the belief content we are unaware to believe (that's how you select the proper linguistic form for a given belief content)!!! And this is already enough to show how self-defeating your line of reasoning is wrt to your own assumptions!!!
Unfortunately due to the inadequacies of your notion of belief, you feel pushed to rely on another assumption (the knowledge requirement for belief ascriptions) to discriminate true from false beliefs and identify putative "unaware" beliefs to be reported.
Belief consists entirely of meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things by a creature with the biological machinery capable of doing so.
While words are not propositions, on my view, the content of Jack's belief is not words either. The correlations he draws at the time as a means for believing what the clock says do not include language use. Those words are not being thought by Jack at time t1. Jack is wondering what time it is, so he looks towards a clock to know. That's the way it happens. This is well established habit, to the point of it's being nearly autonomous. That is to say that it is something done without much thought at all about the clock aside from believing what it says. We do not look to a clock and think silently or aloud "I believe that that clock is working". We just don't. That's just not how it works. That is a metacognitive endeavor. Believing a broken clock is not.
[3]
Indeed this also consistent with your claim about not being aware of our own mistaken beliefs
Belief contents express the point of view...
— neomac — creativesoul
This notion of "belief" cannot take account of language less, mistaken, and/or false belief. A mistaken creature's point of view does not - dare I say, cannot - include the mistake. Hence, when we ask Jack at time t1, what he's doing immediately after looking at the clock, he will not say "I believe that that broken clock is working". Rather, he will say something about finding out what time it is/was.
He is unaware of being mistaken. He is unaware that he believes that a broken clock is working. From's Jack's point of view at time t1, the mistake is unknown.
Inform Jack of what he needs to know and upon recognizing his own mistake, he will readily admit to having made it unbeknownst to him at the time. He will readily admit to having once believed that that broken clock was working.
Jack was mistaken. It is impossible to knowingly be. Thus, a proper rendering of Jack's belief will come in a linguistic form that is impossible to knowingly believe.
creativesoulFebruary 27, 2022 at 18:21#6602640 likes
A gifted shitshow consisting of a gross misattribution of meaning bordering on deliberate obfuscation...
I've much more important matters to be involved in.
A gifted shitshow consisting of a gross misattribution of meaning bordering on deliberate obfuscation...
Look, I didn't mean to wreck your self-confidence. You put yourself into a corner, despite my repeated warnings, and started beating yourself with such an embarrassing determination that it's a bit unfair to make me feel guilty for how bad your catastrophic views look to yourself now.
Reply to creativesoul You are taking it too personally, sir. I had fun primarily in being articulate, clear, focused, logic and versatile while formulating my objections against your view. Instead, you played very poorly at every round (and we had many), so I guess not much fun for you, independently from the scores. At your place, I wouldn't care about the scores you lost as much as about the fun you didn't have.
At time t1, an individual capable of telling time wonders what time it is. Like all other folk who know how to read the hands of a clock, they look towards one. However, unbeknownst to the individual, they looked at a particular clock that had just so happened to have stopped working exactly twelve hours prior. While looking at the clock, the individual formed belief about what time it was based upon exactly what it said. The clock said it was three o'clock, and the individual believed it was three o'clock. The belief about the time was true, but that belief is not concerning. Rather, it is their belief about that clock that is of utmost importance.
At time t1, the individual believes that that particular clock is a working one. It is not. The individual's belief is false. False belief cannot possibly be true. Therefore, the individual's belief cannot possibly be true. "That clock is working" can be. It only follows that "that clock is working" cannot possibly be what the individual believes.
At time t1, the individual believes that that particular clock is a working one. It is not. The individual's belief is false. False belief cannot possibly be true. Therefore, the individual's belief cannot possibly be true. "That clock is working" can be. It only follows that "that clock is working" cannot possibly be what the individual believes.
That's quite a knot.
I suggest yanking out these two sentences, which are only tricky, rickety embellishments:
At time t1, the individual believes that that particular clock is a working one. It is not. The individual's belief is false. "That clock is working" can be [true].
A much more reasonable statement.
If you choose to keep these two sentences, to my view the burden is yours to justify their inclusion.
At time t1, the individual believes that that particular clock is a working one. It is not [0]. The individual's belief is false [1]. False belief cannot possibly be true [2]. Therefore, the individual's belief cannot possibly be true [3]. "That clock is working" can be [4]. It only follows that "that clock is working" cannot possibly be what the individual believes [5].
This is a very messy argument. But before tossing it into the trash bin (along with all your other catastrophic arguments), let’s clarify a few points.
First point, it seems you are comparing here 2 things:
- The individual's belief that that particular clock is a working one, at time t1
- And the statement “At time t1, that clock is working”
You apparently need this comparison to establish correct belief reports wrt your understanding of the difference between propositional and non-propositional belief. Let’s not forget however that this argument must be understood within your specific theoretical framework, because my theory doesn’t require any truth assessment of a belief for proper belief ascription at all (indeed such a requirement of yours suggests a confusion between logic requirements and epistemological requirements!). In addition to that, I also questioned that you can successfully identify the right belief report without running into some inconsistencies internal to your own theory for reasons that affect also your current argument. Anyway, in this post, let’s put all the latter considerations aside and focus on your last comparative argument as it is.
Second point, if the individual's belief is claimed to be false ex hypothesi, then also the statement “that clock is working” must be claimed to be false ex hypothesi. In addition to that, you made a general claim such as “False belief cannot possibly be true”, but since you did not explain the truth conditions of this claim (my idea is that it’s a contradiction in terms), one can find it as evident as “False statements cannot possibly be true” (which is also a contradiction in terms). Unless you can argue otherwise, if you wish so.
Third point, let’s assume now that we can validly infer [3] from [1] and [2] (even though the structure of your argument - as it is - does not correspond to a logically valid deduction yet, so it’s a non sequitur!):
[1] The individual's belief is false (ex hypothesi)
[2] False beliefs cannot possibly be true (contradiction in terms)
[3] Therefore, the individual's belief cannot possibly be true (conclusion)
Then we can also validly infer [3’] from [1’] and [2’] b/c the above argument and the following one share the same (il)logic structure:
[1’] The statement “that clock is working” is false (ex hypothesi)
[2’] False statements cannot possibly be true (contradiction in terms)
[3’] Therefore, the statement “that clock is working” cannot possibly be true (conclusion)
Therefore either [4] or [3] must be rejected !!! And in either case it only follows that also [5] must be rejected !!!
In other words, you should compare (assessed) false beliefs with (assessed) false statements, not (assessed) false beliefs with (unassessed) statements!!! So your messy argument amounts (among others) to an ignoratio elenchi fallacy.
So your argument amounts to an ignoratio elenchi fallacy.
The irony.
At time t1, an individual capable of telling time wonders what time it is. Like all other folk who know how to read the hands of a clock, they look towards one. However, unbeknownst to the individual, they looked at a particular clock that had just so happened to have stopped working exactly twelve hours prior. While looking at the clock, the individual formed belief about what time it was based upon exactly what it said. The clock said it was three o'clock, and the individual believed it was three o'clock. The belief about the time was true, but that belief is not concerning. Rather, it is their belief about that clock that is of utmost importance.
At time t1, the individual believes that that particular clock is a working one. It is not. The individual's belief is false. False belief cannot possibly be true. Therefore, the individual's belief cannot possibly be true. "That clock is working" can be true. It only follows that "that clock is working" cannot possibly be what the individual believes.
> At time t1, the individual believes that that particular clock is a working one. It is not. The individual's belief is false. False belief cannot possibly be true. Therefore, the individual's belief cannot possibly be true. "That clock is working" can be true. It only follows that "that clock is working" cannot possibly be what the individual believes.
You just fetched the same argument from the trash bin, where it should have rested for ever and ever. So I must re-toss it into the trash bin for exactly the same reasons I already explained here. Evidently you fail to understand my objection as well as how valid deductions work. The problem is not in the piece of narrative you reported about the genesis of that belief but in what you feel so ridiculously confident to infer from. This confidence comes from some preposterous assumptions that are neither properly spelt out nor properly argued, and that you simply brainwashed yourself to accept, hoping to do the same with me (or us). And you failed that too. Philosophy, as I understand it, it's the opposite of brainwashing.
Taken in its context, my claim was referring to a different example from the one we are handling here, and only in order to clarify some implications of your views, not mine. (But now that you made me think about it, I would not be surprised if also on that occasion you were already committing a similar ignoratio elenchi fallacy ).
If all propositions can possibly be either true or false, and false belief cannot possibly be true, then propositions are not equivalent to false belief.
If all propositions can possibly be either true or false, and true belief cannot possibly be false, then propositions are not equivalent to true belief.
If all propositions can possibly be either true or false, and false belief cannot possibly be true, then propositions are not equivalent to false belief.
If all propositions can possibly be either true or false, and true belief cannot possibly be false, then propositions are not equivalent to true belief.
Both of your claims sound correct as much as the 4 following ones:
If all propositions can possibly be either true or false, and false propositions cannot possibly be true, then propositions are not equivalent to false propositions.
If all propositions can possibly be either true or false, and true propositions cannot possibly be false, then propositions are not equivalent to true propositions.
If all beliefs can possibly be either true or false, and false beliefs cannot possibly be true, then beliefs are not equivalent to false beliefs.
If all beliefs can possibly be either true or false, and true beliefs cannot possibly be false, then beliefs are not equivalent to true beliefs.
However, differently from your former 2 claims, what these latter 4 claims make more evident is that:
We should distinguish qualified and unqualified subjects (like “true proposition” or “false proposition” vs “proposition”, or “true belief” or “false belief” vs “belief”) as reported in these claims. If we do not distinguish them appropriately, then the antecedents of the conditional claims will be contradictory: e.g. if “all propositions” means “true propositions and false propositions” then “all propositions can possibly be either true or false” is a contradiction in terms, while if we take "propositions" to generically refer to any proposition prior to (or independently from) any assessment of its truth-value then there is no contradiction.
The validity of the “cannot possibly be true/false” requirement (as in “false propositions cannot possibly be true”) depends on the meaning of “true” and “false” (which are contradictory terms), not on the meaning of “belief” or “proposition” per se.
And this shows where your ignoratio elenchi fallacy (as discussed here, see third point) is coming from:
Distinguishing qualified and unqualified subjects wrt to their alethic status assessment
But then swapping them implicitly and misleadingly while comparing propositions and beliefs
And that's why if you want to pertinently compare propositions and belief, then:
you should NOT compare assessed beliefs (i.e. “false beliefs” or “true beliefs”) with unassessed propositions (i.e. “propositions”), or unassessed beliefs (i.e. “beliefs”) with assessed propositions (i.e. “false propositions” or “true propositions”).
Instead you should compare assessed beliefs (i.e. “false beliefs” or “true beliefs”) with assessed propositions (i.e. “false propositions” or “true propositions”), or unassessed beliefs (i.e. “beliefs”) with unassessed propositions (i.e. “propositions”).
An astute reader with a keen eye will surely note that the critique in the post prior to this one, while seemingly reasonable, particularly at first blush, is based upon what the author takes to be an accurate report and/or rendering of what's being critiqued. It's plainly not. What I wrote can be simplified as follows...
If all A's can possibly be true or false, and false B's cannot possibly be true, then A's are not equivalent to false B's.
If all A's can possibly be true or false, and true B's cannot possibly be false, then A's are not equivalent to true B's.
The above puts what I wrote into simpler form. I'm comparing two distinctly different things, propositions and belief. As clearly shown below, the critique is not. Rather, the critique compares different kinds of the same thing. Salva veritate. There is an obvious substitution error here.
If all propositions can possibly be either true or false, and false propositions cannot possibly be true, then propositions are not equivalent to false propositions.
If all propositions can possibly be either true or false, and true propositions cannot possibly be false, then propositions are not equivalent to true propositions.
If all beliefs can possibly be either true or false, and false beliefs cannot possibly be true, then beliefs are not equivalent to false beliefs.
If all beliefs can possibly be either true or false, and true beliefs cannot possibly be false, then beliefs are not equivalent to true beliefs.
If all A's can possibly be either true or false, and false A's cannot possibly be true, then A's are not equivalent to false A's.
If all A's can possibly be either true or false, and true A's cannot possibly be false, then A's are not equivalent to true A's.
In the first rendering they compared kinds of propositions. In the second, they compared kinds of beliefs. Both have the form above. Neither shares the form of the claims I made. Those claims are what is purportedly being critiqued. Hence, it is an irrelevant critique, as a result of critiquing something other than what I wrote. Given that what followed, as copied below, is based upon a fatally flawed rendering of what I wrote, there's a bit more irony involved yet once again.
However, differently from your former 2 claims, what these latter 4 claims make more evident is that:We should distinguish qualified and unqualified subjects (like “true proposition” or “false proposition” vs “proposition”, or “true belief” or “false belief” vs “belief”) as reported in these claims. If we do not distinguish them appropriately, then the antecedents of the conditional claims will be contradictory: e.g. if “all propositions” means “true propositions and false propositions” then “all propositions can possibly be either true or false” is a contradiction in terms, while if we take "propositions" to generically refer to any proposition prior to (or independently from) any assessment of its truth-value then there is no contradiction.
The validity of the “cannot possibly be true/false” requirement (as in “false propositions cannot possibly be true”) depends on the meaning of “true” and “false” (which are contradictory terms), not on the meaning of “belief” or “proposition” per se.
A logic reader will understand that your highlighting is pointless. Indeed I'm not misattributing any of my claims to you, since I'm explicitly stating that my 4 claims are different from your 2 claims, except for their logic structure which is the one you reported here [1]. But what my 4 claims show more clearly than your 2 claims, it logically holds also for your 2 claims.
In the first rendering they compared kinds of propositions. In the second, they compared kinds of beliefs. Hence, it is an irrelevant critique, as a result of critiquing something other than what I wrote.
A logic reader will understand that it is relevant to show:
the genesis of your ignoratio elenchi fallacy as explained here (third point).
That even if you compare beliefs and propositions you should distinguish qualified and unqualified subjects in your conditionals
The validity of the “cannot possibly be true/false” requirement (as in “false propositions cannot possibly be true”) depends on the meaning of “true” and “false” (which are contradictory terms), not on the meaning of “belief” or “proposition” per se.
If all A's can possibly be true or false, and false B's cannot possibly be true, then A's are not equivalent to false B's.
If all A's can possibly be true or false, and true B's cannot possibly be false, then A's are not equivalent to true B's.
An astute reader will note that the critique above holds good only if we conflate belief and statements.
A logic reader will understand that I'm not conflating anything. And it's precisely b/c I'm not conflating belief and statements that I can prove where your reasoning logically fails.
It is relevant to show:
the genesis of your ignoratio elenchi fallacy as explained here (third point).
That even if you compare beliefs and propositions you should distinguish qualified and unqualified subjects in your conditionals
The validity of the “cannot possibly be true/false” requirement (as in “false propositions cannot possibly be true”) depends on the meaning of “true” and “false” (which are contradictory terms), not on the meaning of “belief” or “proposition” per se.
When an author is critiquing something other than what I've wrote, and/or something that quite simply does not follow from what I wrote, it is an irrelevant critique.
When an author is critiquing something other than what I've wrote, and/or something that quite simply does not follow from what I wrote, it is an irrelevant critique.
A logic reader will understand that you are not logic.
There's nothing at all problematic about metacognitive endeavors which point out the simplest of details such as a true belief cannot be false; a false belief cannot be true; it is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood; and it is impossible to knowingly be mistaken. The first two claims can be said of true and false propositions without issue. It is unproblematic to say that when we discuss whether belief or propositions are true or false, that our reports are qualifying both propositions and beliefs.
The issue is that all truth apt belief is either true or false, and that is the case regardless of whether or not we further qualify them during our metacognitive endeavors.
So, when we know that an individual's belief is false, we can also know that it cannot possibly be true, and that the individual cannot knowingly believe whatever it is that they do at the time. If we then make the further metacognitive claim that they believe something that can be true, or something that is believable, then we've just ascribed a belief to the individual that they cannot possibly have.
If convention has issue putting what I've presented into logical notation, it is not a flaw of what I've presented, rather it is the accounting practice that is found lacking.
An astute reader will note that the critique above holds good only if we conflate belief and statements.
— creativesoul
I'm not conflating anything
Reminding the reader of the notion of belief you're working from again...
The contents of an individual's belief, according to your own words, "express the point of view" of the individual believer. "That clock is working" is a proposition and/or statement which expresses of the individual's point of view at time t1, according to what you've been arguing here. You've also claimed that that proposition/statement could be true, and hinted at possible world scenarios...
False belief cannot possibly be true. The statement you've been arguing in favor of can.
Which I'm not questioning. Indeed also false statements cannot possibly be true. And that depends on the meaning of truth and false, not on the meaning of belief and proposition or statement, as I already explained.
Reminding the reader of the notion of belief you're working from again...
— creativesoul
Unfortunately for you, my objections to your ignoratio elenchi fallacy do not depend on my theory
You're such a moron. The objection was based upon a conflation of belief and statements. I do not conflate belief and statements. The objection was based upon what you did, not I. What you did is irrelevant.
The objection was based upon a conflation of belief and statements. I do not conflate belief and statements. The objection was based upon what you did, not I. What you did is irrelevant.
The problem is that you can not soundly prove your claims. You can not soundly prove that I'm conflating statements and beliefs, that I'm misrendering your claims, and that my arguments are irrelevant. At best you can insult me when you fail to brainwash me. And you failed on all grounds.
Additionally, the more you insult me or try to brainwash me (by repeating the same claims ad nauseamwithout even understanding the logic implications of what you yourself are claiming and related objections), the more you prove my point.
Look, if you are tired of debating with me, there is no need to get hysterical, just ignore my posts and my arguments.
> So, when we know that an individual's belief is false, we can also know that it cannot possibly be true, and that the individual cannot knowingly believe whatever it is that they do at the time [1]. If we then make the further metacognitive claim that they believe something that can be true, or something that is believable, then we've just ascribed a belief to the individual that they cannot possibly have [2].
On one side, claim [1] can be applied to both beliefs and propositions, so it can not be used to distinguish them (if this is the aim of such considerations). On the other, against claim [2], we can claim of a belief (or proposition) that is proven to be true (or false), that it could have been false (or true). Any belief (or proposition) capable of representing the world in a given way is contingently either true or false (unless they are contradictions or tautologies). This is perfectly consistent with the claim that both beliefs and propositions can be understood independently from their truth-value assessment. Besides truth-value assessments are fallible, so the same belief can be assigned different truth values by the same person at different times or by different subjects at the same time. In other words, identifying a belief is a distinct task from assessing its truth-value and indeed the latter task presupposes the former task.
> If convention has issue putting what I've presented into logical notation, it is not a flaw of what I've presented, rather it is the accounting practice that is found lacking.
If you have issue understanding logic, it is not a flaw of logic, rather it's you who are found lacking.
...we can claim of a belief (or proposition) that is proven to be true (or false), that it could have been false (or true)...
Arriving at incoherence is a sign of self-contradiction and/or equivocation. You've littered the thread and this conversation with such things. I've just been far too busy attempting to be a charitable reader to care enough to point out all of the flaws in what you've offered here. There is plenty to choose from. The irony though is that nearly all of your critiques and/or objections are invalid. You do know what that means right? They do not follow from what I've said, but rather, they follow from your interpretations thereof and/or your own linguistic framework. You've demonstrated a deeply ingrained habit of assessing my claims based upon a framework other than the one I'm employing.
How many strikes do we get again in your game before being counted out?
I am very well aware of the difficulty inherent to what I'm setting out. I am very well aware of the affront that it exemplifies, particularly against propositional logic as well as paraconsistent logic. That's okay though, because neither of those practices have ever gotten belief quite right to begin with. I suppose you also hold the rules of logical entailment as a standard also, based upon what I've seen here.
All the shit you've said about me and logic is far less convincing when you employ practices that permit changing the truth conditions of belief as well as outright attributing belief that could possibly be true to an individual that has belief that cannot possibly be true. That you do not see that as a problem is typical though, you do follow the conventional practices that allowed Russell's clock, Moore's paradox, and Gettier the footholds that they still have to this day.
The sole purpose of logic(the rules of correct inference) is to preserve the truth of the premisses. The sole purpose of logical notation is to take proper account of human thought, belief, and/or statements thereof. It is claimed that there is some basic form that that comes in. Logical notation is purportedly setting that out. Currently, convention fails on both counts. That's no secret.
I'm explicitly stating that my 4 claims are different from your 2 claims, except for their logic structure...
The structure was different. That is exactly what I pointed out. So, they are not just different except for that structure. To quite the contrary, they are different structures altogether, as I've already pointed out clearly enough for the average person to grasp.
I had fun primarily in being articulate, clear, focused, logic and versatile while formulating my objections against your view...
:smile:
The above presupposes that you have a good grasp of my view. I'd like to see you offer a comprehensive summary of the position I hold and have been arguing in favor of. I mean, in order to levy valid objections against another's viewpoint, that viewpoint must be first understood rightly. So... show me.
False belief cannot possibly be true.
— creativesoul
Which I'm not questioning. Indeed also false statements cannot possibly be true. — neomac
...we can claim of a belief (or proposition) that is proven to be true (or false), that it could have been false (or true)... — neomac
Arriving at incoherence is a sign of self-contradiction and/or equivocation.
Where is the contradiction? Where is the equivocation? Can you exactly spell it out? First of all notice that the subjects are different: “false belief” and “belief” (qualified vs unqualified subject). Secondly, notice that also what is predicated is in different verb's mood (i.e. “cannot possibly be…” vs “could have been…”). But I get that some intellectual effort (which you are evidently incapable of) is necessary. So here are some additional hints (and if they are not enough I'll sharpen them at the next round): the claim that you apparently need so badly is “False belief cannot possibly be true” but this is a misleading claim, because - among others - its truth conditions (which you did not specify [1]) depend on the meaning of the word “true” and “false” (which are contradictory terms) not on the meaning of “belief”. In other words, reasoning in terms qualified subject (i.e. “False belief”) is ambiguous wrt what we can infer from "being a belief" or from "being false"). To avoid this ambiguity we can better render your claim (“False belief cannot possibly be true”) as a bi-conditional:
If a belief B is false then B is not true and if a belief B is true then B is not false.
Notice that in this latter statement, the subject is unqualified. Of this unqualified subject we can claim at the same time without contradiction:
1. If a belief B is false then B is not true and if B is true then B is not false
2. B is actually true (or false) and B could have been false (or true)
And BTW the same holds for propositions/statements (i.e. “False propositions/statements cannot possibly be true”):
1. If a statement S is false then S is not true and if S is true then S is not false
2. S is actually true (or false) and S could have been false (or true)
3. If a proposition P is false then P is not true and if P is true then P is not false
4. P is actually true (or false) and P could have been false (or true)
Do you agree with these conclusions? If not, can you spell out exactly why not in substantial terms (i.e. meaning, truth conditions, logic implications or presuppositions)?
The structure was different. That is exactly what I pointed out. So, they are not just different except for that structure.
All right, I missed to properly address this part. I’ll do it now. The distinction of A and B as 2 variables ranging over values in 2 different domains respectively, serves your specific purpose of comparing propositions and beliefs. So what your objection is highlighting [2] is the logic structure of your comparison as such. That’s fine and since I didn't clarify well enough what I took to be the same or different in the logic structure of your 2 claims wrt my 4 claims, your objection is understandable. The point is that it's grounded on a misunderstanding due to my poor phrasing. Indeed my comments were pointing at some implicit assumptions embedded in the logic structure of your 2 claims (so that's relevant for your own theory), and that do not depend on the comparison between beliefs and propositions: namely the contrast between qualified and unqualified subjects (do you deny it? [3]). Now, my 4 claims - as I said - “made more evident” this aspect by using variables ranging in the same domain. Clarified the misunderstanding, the point is that the contrast between qualified and unqualified subjects (which holds for my 4 claims too) should be relevant also in guiding a proper comparison between beliefs and propositions. And, indeed, this is the ground for my objection to your ignoratio elenchi fallacy (as discussed here, see third point). So, despite your excusable misunderstanding, my objection still holds (along with all others I made, of course [4]) .
You can however try to deny the validity of my 4 claims, for example do you deny the following ones? If yes, can you exactly spell out why in substantial terms (i.e. meaning, truth conditions, logic implications or presuppositions)?
If all beliefs can possibly be either true or false, and false beliefs cannot possibly be true, then beliefs are not equivalent to false beliefs.
If all beliefs can possibly be either true or false, and true beliefs cannot possibly be false, then beliefs are not equivalent to true beliefs.
How many strikes do we get again in your game before being counted out?
It's a bit late for that. In my game you lost a while ago. And there is no way to recover it. We are just reviewing how badly you lost. And we can continue as long as you enjoy it. Unless I get bored, of course.
[1]
you keep repeating the following claim without specifying anywhere its truth conditions: Quoting creativesoul
when we know that an individual's belief is false, we can also know that it cannot possibly be true
What does the modal predicate "cannot possibly be" mean here? Are you saying if an individual's belief is false in the actual world, then it is not true in any possible world? In other words, if any individual's belief is false, then it is necessarily false, and if any individual's belief is true, then it is necessarily true, so there are no contingent true/false beliefs only necessary true/false beliefs? And if you do not mean that, what else do you mean exactly? Can you spell it out?
Besides do you also believe when we know that an individual's statement is false, we can also know that it cannot possibly be true? if not, why not?
If all A's can possibly be either true or false, and false A's cannot possibly be true, then A's are not equivalent to false A's.
If all A's can possibly be either true or false, and true A's cannot possibly be false, then A's are not equivalent to true A’s.
If all A's can possibly be true or false, and false B's cannot possibly be true, then A's are not equivalent to false B's.
If all A's can possibly be true or false, and true B's cannot possibly be false, then A's are not equivalent to true B's.
[3] "all A's can possibly be either true or false" would be a contradiction in terms if "all A's" meant "all true A's and all false A's".
[4] Here is a list of entry points to my main objections to your preposterous claims and arguments:
I'm quoting you when I make my objections and then I spell out in detail what I have to object to your quotations, as well as why it is relevant (here is a good example to prove my point). So this already shows what I understood about your views (unless you expect from me to parrot your claims or to fill up a questionnaire). And I expect you to do the same every time you have something specific to object against my claims or arguments. But you on the contrary waste lots posts and words in recycling the same generic objections, dismissive remarks and compulsive framing accusations, that either miss my point and its relevance, or miss what I argued to support it, or simply prove your intellectual dishonesty [1]. That's why, not surprisingly, any objection to your claims and arguments are either conflating or irrelevant according to you, no matter how preposterous your arguments and claims evidently look to everybody else.
To prove once more what I just said, your most recent posts [2] do not offer any support to the target of my objections: the ignoratio elenchi fallacy (as discussed here, see third point). Instead they point out, at best, some flaw in the way I presented my argument, and that helped me just sharpen my objection.
Another example of your shallowness is here: Quoting creativesoul
False belief cannot possibly be true.
— creativesoul
Which I'm not questioning. Indeed also false statements cannot possibly be true. — neomac
...we can claim of a belief (or proposition) that is proven to be true (or false), that it could have been false (or true)... — neomac
Arriving at incoherence is a sign of self-contradiction and/or equivocation. You've littered the thread and this conversation with such things...
Where you accuse me of self-contradiction and/or equivocation without spelling out in detail where the contradiction or the equivocation is. You just slam your preposterous claims, and then you move on with your dumb rant as if it was enough to quote me to make your point!
Finally let's appreciate the scale of your methodological failures (practically, as catastrophic as your substantial claims and arguments): if you think I'm misunderstanding you, you can always rectify or answer my request of clarifications. But you do not address many of my pressing questions [3] and take as rectification, just repeating the same preposterous claims or arguments that I already quoted and you claim I've misunderstood. This is a very dumb dialectic strategy because if I failed to understand your claims (even when I'm directly commenting your quotes) as you state, what's the point in reiterating them? On the other side, if I don't understand, that may only depend on the non-evident logic or meaning or truth conditions of your claims wrt shared assumptions between me and you, so it's dumb just to repeat your claims (which are under question or misunderstood) and provide examples on how to apply them (as you did here Reply to creativesoul ), all the more if you so candidly admit "I am very well aware of the difficulty inherent to what I'm setting out". You should instead prove your claims with logic tools and clarifications about meaning/truth conditions/logic implications or presuppositions consistent with shared assumptions between me and you [4]. If you do not do this, you are not making your view look more convincing, but simply incommensurable wrt more standard views. Indeed it's the dumbest philosophical strategy to challenge a view with claims and arguments that are unintelligible within that view, and reiterate ad nauseam until brainwashing interlocutors holding that view succeeds. And you do know what that means right? That you literally proved nothing substantially valid to support your views since the beginning of this exchange [5] up until now, especially wrt your central claim [6].
To recapitulate and not lose focus, here are the main important claims/assumptions that you didn't prove yet wrt what I questioned:
You did not prove the immense explanatory power of your definition of belief
You did not prove that you are not ascribing a contradictory belief in your “more accurate” belief report
You did not prove that the knowledge requirement is necessary for accurate belief report
You did not prove that your belief report is more accurate than the one we would normally provide in the relevant example of Jack
So spare me your sermons, insults and brainwashing sessions, and do some actual philosophical work, if you really care.
My sentence was creatively chopped out by a deranged soul.
?creativesoul
Taken in its context, my claim was referring to a different example from the one we are handling here, and only in order to clarify some implications of your views, not mine. (But now that you made me think about it, I would not be surprised if also on that occasion you were already committing a similar ignoratio elenchi fallacy ).
[3]
Like the following one. You keep repeating such kind of claims: Quoting creativesoul
is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood; and it is impossible to knowingly be mistaken
But why is it impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood or to knowingly be mistaken ? What is "knowingly" supposed to mean here? Can you spell it out?
[2] "all A's can possibly be either true or false" would be a contradiction in terms if "all A's" meant "all true A's and all false A's"
And I take to be shared all other substantive claims I made which are relevant for my objections and that you didn't directly nor specifically question, like this one (referred to “False belief cannot possibly be true”): Quoting neomac
its truth conditions (which you did not specify) depend on the meaning of the word “true” and “false” (which are contradictory terms) not on the meaning of “belief”
Indeed I took also your remark about the logical structure of your 2 claims, as a valid observation, because I can understand it wrt our shared assumptions, even though it didn't substantially affect my objection. And since you are proving to be so sensitive about logic structures, then there is still hope you will readily acknowledge that this other argument of yours is a non sequitur: Quoting neomac
Yet I have another objection. Now that you made clear that your argument is only this:
Jack was mistaken. It is impossible to knowingly be. Thus, a proper rendering of Jack's belief will come in a linguistic form that is impossible to knowingly believe.
Then your argument (as it is) is a perfect example of non sequitur, logically speaking. I'll formalise it for you:
premise 1: Jack was mistaken (p)
premise 2: It is impossible to knowingly be mistaken (q)
conclusion: a proper rendering of Jack's belief will come in a linguistic form that is impossible to knowingly believe (c)
We can set all the other stuff aside for now and focus upon what counts as belief.
Then, we will see how much sense it makes to ascribe belief to another, because we will have some standard of belief for comparing our ascriptions/attribution to.
At time t1, Jack believed that clock was working.
At time t1, Jack believed that broken clock was working.
You're claiming the first is more accurate. I'm claiming the second is.
LeontiskosSeptember 16, 2023 at 07:15#8379560 likes
If beliefs attain definite content absent the formation of statements which describe them at the time, why would the content of those beliefs depend upon hypothetical objects which are made later?
If someone restricts intentional state content to declarative sentences' propositional content (eg, making beliefs only target propositional content or propositions) it removes both the character of that content and the means of its interpretation.
Another good post. I will have to read you on something I care more about. :grin:
EG, if I claimed that my partner makes me feel a special way and I called it "blimblam", and I described it as a composite of homeliness, horniness, care and calm. You'd know how to use the word. It's not my blimblam thoughts and sensations that are doing the work in the setting up the use of the word, it's leveraging the public criteria we share that characterise the use of those sensations and feeling words we both already know.
If you're going to do a debate you should agree on a motion. All key terms in the OP's question are vague, and each of you can use that to hedge.
[...]
If you continued like that, Banno could assert his definition of belief, you could assert your definition of belief, and there's a strong chance you'll both address none of the other's points and retreat to hedges.
Prophecies are always better when they are written down. :lol:
LeontiskosSeptember 17, 2023 at 04:21#8381490 likes
I should think that creativesoul won the debate, if only because Banno construed his own position in the form of a particularly bald tautology. That and it seems that Banno has capitulated in the meanwhile.
But the curious thing is that I tend to think Banno's position is correct—the non-tautologous variety. I would want to render propositions this way:
Third, I am not convinced there are non-propositional beliefs... I tend to think that implicit beliefs are propositional. For example, if I am driving and I brake when a child runs into the street, I am acting on the belief that, “If I brake I will not hit this child,” even though this belief is not explicit or formulated or conscious. Admittedly the thinking would not need to be discursive or consciously carried out. It is fast thinking, but it nevertheless involves a mental act.
Obviously I am not thinking about propositions in terms of statements, for I am including unformulated affirmations or acknowledgments. But regardless of the conception of propositions, there seems to be a substantive disagreement with @creativesoul here.
Comments (1442)
It's unusual to see my and Banno's considerations dovetail to a similar conclusion. It's significant that they do. Philosophy is about understanding what not to waste time on. :smile:
Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm
Quoting Banno
Animals, since they lack human-like languages, may think in pictures/images. Picture theory of meaning?
If so,
1. Are pictures/images propositions?
or
2. Are (some) beliefs nonpropositional?
S believes of X that p
E.g. Jack believes of that broken clock that is working
The reason being that in this form, the reference to X is put within the semantic scope of the one who is making the belief ascription instead of the scope of Jack's beliefs themselves.
Other examples to consider:
a1) Jack believes that Alice loves Jim
a2) Jack believes that Jim is loved by Alice
b1) Jack believes that Alice is the sister of Jim
b2) Jack believes that Jim is the brother of Alice
Do a1 and a2 express the same belief?
Do b1 and b2 express the same belief?
Besides we shouldn't take Kripke's theory for granted. And indeed I don't.
CS is obviously being purposely obtuse regarding your rebuttal (and mine), yet you continue with wasting your time trying to restate it, when there are more pertinent points in this thread to address. :roll:
Quoting neomac
As well as Banno's and ZZz's because they've have an emotional attachment to their beliefs about beliefs.
Quoting neomacAgreed. But that is difficult to do when people maintain their grip on their understanding of propositions with their emotions and don't respond to questions about what propositions are when the questions get tough.
Quoting neomac
Yes, how can three different strings of scribbles mean the same thing?
Quoting neomacMind independent abstract entities seems to be a contradiction. Abstractions are defined as existing as an idea and not as physical or concrete. So how can something that is abstract be mind independent?
Quoting neomac
This sounds like what I was hinting at here:
Quoting Harry Hindu
In what form do the rules present themselves if not the visual and auditory experiences you have when learning how others use language? This is no different than learning the rules of anything else, like object permanence - the realistic notion that entities continue to exist even when they do not exist in the mind - like the mouse that ran behind the tree.
I'm not wasting my time. I'm trying to help creative see he's wasting his time. And also enjoying the puzzle. This kind of philosophy is just a popcorn exercise to me. Great exercise, though.
My point was that it is a waste of your time when it's obvious CS doesn't care about wasting his. That was obvious several pages ago. Yet you avoided the the tough exercises and the tastiest popcorn.
You're view here is odd to me. I have no attachment or commitment to a single thing that comes out of this branch of philosophy (analytic). I'm just here to make my brain feel good. I'm an existentialist at heart, to whom this sort of wordplay "twaddle" has a ludicrous ring.
When I think about belief, I think about a psychology of belief. That's where my heart is.
Your posts seem highly biased and emotionalized. That's why I don't engage with them fully.
I would refer you to the recent thread on 'doing good.'
Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm So you'd rather engage them half-assed? Sounds like a waste of time to me.
Quoting ZzzoneiroCosmCS was even more odd as you even admitted that he was wasting his time, yet you spent more time addressing his waste of time than my "odd" view. :roll:
Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm
Why when there is no objective morality or ethics? What good would your notion of good do for me?
I engaged them up to a point. Until further engagement seemed futile and there was no fun puzzle to solve.
I didn't see a fun, interesting puzzle in your post. Just your insistence and insistence is no fun.
I had a compassionate feeling for creative, for whatever reason, and thought I might help him sort out his mistake.
Many philosophers take the technical notion “abstract entity” to mean something that is not the result of some mental operation (“abstraction”). According to them “abstract entities” are to be contrasted to “concrete entities”: indeed both of them are real (i.e. mind-independent) entities , the difference (at least according to many) is that abstract entities are not located in space and time, and they are causally inert, while concrete entities are located in space and time (or at least, in time) and are not causally inert. Propositions, numbers, sets are often taken to be some common cases of abstract entities by those who believe in their existence. So for example, while a sentence is a concrete entity, the proposition that the sentence is meant to represent would be an abstract entity of the sort I’ve just described. Frege seems to have proposed this view.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Yes it does.
:lol: What was CS doing if not insisting? You keep contradicting yourself.
Sure, difficult questions that, when answered, point out your contradictions can't be much fun. That's why you don't answer the question. And not being fun isn't an argument against anything that I've said. It's just a thinly veiled ad hominem.
All this time you've spent with me now could have been more constructive if you just answer the question.
Quoting neomac
Thank you, neomac for answering my question.
Thank you for the example.
So in the example, the sentence would be the written scribbles or spoken sounds and the proposition would be the state-of-affairs the scribbles/sounds are meant to represent? To me, the proposition and sentence are one and the same.
A sentence/proposition is a string of scribbles that refers to some state-of-affairs that is not just another string of scribbles. The reference, or the mental act of referencing, scribble with state-of-affairs would be abstract in the sense that we could use any scribble to refer to the same state-of-affairs as you showed when using three different languages to mean the same thing. When translating languages, that is what is translated - the state-of-affairs the scribbles refer to. The scribbles/sounds we use are arbitrary, which is why there must be an agreement to the rules on what scribbles and sounds to use and how to use them.
This is also what it means for some proposition/sentence to be true in that the string of scribbles is true if what it refers to is the case.
Meaning, however, is not arbitrary. It is the relationship between cause and effect. What some scribble means is what caused it to exist on the paper or on the screen. It is caused by a mind that possesses an idea and the will to communicate it, or else the scribbles would not exist. "Hello" refers to the idea and intent of someone to begin a conversation with someone else.
Since propositions are the arbitrary scribbles we use to refer to what is the case and scribbles are experienced visually just like most other things, like houses, hammers, grass and fish, then learning a language is not much different than learning how to use houses, hammers, grass and fish, which is done without language and done simply by observing the behavior of others around such items. This is no different than animals, just a different degree.
So non-language creatures have beliefs in that they learn by making observations and what they learn is what they believe to be the case in other similar states-of-affairs. Their beliefs are not in the form of propositions, but the visual experiences they had. The same goes for scribble-using humans, and is how they learned a language in the first place by believing that scribbles can be used to refer to what is the case or not. You have to believe that before you can begin using scribbles.
This is why I don't engage. You have no sense of charity and your posts are unpleasant.
It's the tone of your insistence. It's off-putting.
Neomac seems to know a lot about these things so I hope you have better luck there.
I mentioned above I was muddling through and following along, yet you still take that imperious tone... It's off-putting.
Good question. Here is another one: if all propositions can be rendered in linguistic form, then what proposition would correspond to the following image?
You're not reading my posts. I think your emotions are mediating.
Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm
Yes, both of you were insisting.
But in your case, there was no fun puzzle to solve.
That's shallow, knee-jerk psychology.
His heart is in it. He feels he's created or uncovered something devastating or catalytic to the history of philosophy. That foments a profound experience of life-meaning: wakefulness, inspiration, excitement, a superior feeling,* a sense of domination - of philosophical material and of philosophical opponents.
To abandon his position is to abandon his happiness. His sense of newfound power and that heady sense of overcoming.
To my view creative's mindset is a great distance from purposeful obtuseness. He's having an invigorating emotional experience and to abandon his position is to shut down that enjoyment and obliterate that purposefulness. I was doing a bit of coaxing. That's why wisdom is so important in philosophy. Philosophy is an emotional game and our emotions can easily and quickly hoodwink us and walk us...
Quoting Banno
- to borrow one of Banno's bones.
But it's not nice to gossip so I'll stop.
* See Adler's writings on the ramifications of a universal native experience of inferiority.
** Nietzsche and Saint John of Revelation are - strangely enough - soul-brothers united in the word 'overcome'.
Not sure about that. Take a couple of English sentences with their relative translations in French:
A1) Alice loves Jim
A2) Jim is loved by Alice
B1) Alice aime Jim
B2) Jim est aimé par Alice
I would take all 4 statements to be about the same state-of-affairs (and you?). Yet B1 is a correct translation of A1 only, and B2 of A2 only. If it was true that the translation is based on reference to the same state-of-affairs then both B1 and B2 would be equally good translations of A1 or A2 indifferently.
Quoting Harry Hindu
The idea that “a mind” is causing “scribble means” doesn’t sound right to me.
“Scribbles” may be the kind of entities that can be caused, but “means” are not caused, nor can be rendered in causal terms.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I’m inclined to agree with you in general, but the devil is in the details. So, I agree that animal cognitive skills and consequent behavior are much more constrained by their experience than human cognitive skills are. Yet it doesn’t sound right to me to claim that animals’ beliefs are “in the form of their visual experiences”. The problem is that experience (visual or other) doesn’t seem to be enough to grant belief (see the case of optical illusions like the Müller-Lyer illusion [1]: the 2 arrows keep looking different in length even if one correctly believes that they have the same size), therefore animals’ beliefs too are not necessarily nor tightly coupled with their experiences.
Besides the claim that human’s beliefs are “in the form of propositions” does sound right, at least in part. However I would complement it by saying that a belief in propositional form is just a belief that is expressed through a declarative sentence, i.e. through a specific linguistic behavior, that doesn’t imply that humans are equipped only of propositional beliefs.
[1]
I'm genuinely confused by your hesitance to agree.
Russell, Gettier, and Moore all took JTB to task. It's not survived very well. No one seems to have figured out what the problem was because those who've been convinced by those critics still hold on to the same conventional notions that gave all three their foothold. Rendering human belief as propositional attitude has remained as a structural ledger. That's quite unfortunate, because that rendering was, and it remains to be a structural problem. It's not entirely wrong. It's just that not all belief are equivalent to propositional attitudes, and thus those exceptions cannot be sensibly rendered in those terms. That's what my broken clock example shows us, and quite clearly it seems to me.
We can and do know that at that particular time, and in that particular situation, they most certainly had to have believed that that particular clock was working, for [i]there is no other way to come away believing what it said.
Jack - mistakenly - believed that a broken clock was dependable; read true; was running; was trustworthy; was where he ought look to find out what time it was; etc. Hid did not know that it was broken, but he most certainly believed it!
But you want to say more than just this, don't you? Somehow this is supposed to show the be;eifs are not propositional.
Fill in the gap.
What I said was enough. I admire your brevity, when it's appropriate. I'll mimic.
Jack believed that: the clock showed the correct time.
"The clock showed the correct time" is the propositional content of Jack's belief.
1. The fact that you're using propositions to, in a way, denounce propositions: (some) beliefs are nonpropositional.
2. There's a difference between a sentence (in a language) and the proposition it's about. I hope you're not confusing the two. Propositions are about reality and the sentences that state them are about language. How can a belief, necessarily concerning reality, be nonpropositional?
Quoting creativesoul
Are you objecting to the above quote?
The first rings hollow... the second is nonsense. The sentence "that is a tree" is not about language.
Quoting Agent Smith
In the context of this discussion...
By virtue of not having propositional content.
Quoting creativesoul
He believed it was broken? Or he believed it was working?
It was a broken clock that he believed to be working.
We could show Jack the error. Jack would readily agree that he had indeed believed that that particular broken clock was working. How else does one get lucky about what time it is after looking at a broken clock, if not by virtue believing that the broken clock was working?
This goes to prove my point. We can have belief that we are unaware of. Believing that a broken clock is working is one such belief.
It makes no sense to render that belief as a propositional attitude.
That's a problem for that practice.
He does not - cannot - believe that "the broken clock is working" is true while believing that the broken clock is working, because he does not know it is broken.
again,
Quoting Banno
What here is problematic for beliefs being propositional attitudes?
Your point, if there is one, remains hidden.
Why are you looking where the problem is not showing itself?
I've given the simplest of them. They've not been given subsequent due attention. Not once.
What sort of argument would you say counts as a negation if not one that shows a belief that cannot be put into the form of a propositional attitude?
What is that belief?
I'm at a loss here, my friend. You simply have not given us a belief that cannot be put into the form of a propositional attitude.
Jack believed a broken clock was working. While holding such a belief, Jack cannot have an attitude towards the proposition "a broken clock was working" such that he believed it to be true. It could be rightfully rendered as such - but only in hindsight after becoming aware of his error. At that point in time, he would no longer believe that a broken clock was working.
He never believed "a broken clock is working" was true.
The all share the same set of truth conditions. So, in that sense they're about the same things...
Sure. But jack did no believe that: a broken clock was working. All you have done is to stuff up the parsing of Jack's belief.
That is, "Jack believed a broken clock was working" is not an accurate rendering of Jack's belief, since you have substituted "a broken clock" into the belief, and Jack did not believe the clock to be broken.
Substituting,
We know that substituting within the scope of a propositional attitude need not preserve truth value, and hence that the conclusion is invalid.
I don’t see what JTB about knowledge has to do with our understanding of belief ascriptions.
Quoting creativesoul
Your understanding of belief ascriptions is biased by your philosophical understanding of propositional attitudes. While de dicto/de re belief ascriptions have an appropriate usage and make sanse to competent speakers independently from your ideas about propositional attitudes.
And there is a strong reason to prefer de dicto belief ascriptions over de re ascriptions b/c the former ones generally explain better believers’ intentional behavior, than the latter (assumed they are both correct).
Quoting creativesoul
Your claim is misleading for 2 reasons: 1. De re belief ascriptions make absolutely sense in some cases (e.g. when we try to solve belief ascriptions ambiguities wrt other subjects’ contextual and shared background understanding of the situation [1]), yet it’s not correctness the ground for de-re belief ascriptions! 2. Your de re belief ascription about Jack is based on a de-contextualised assumption that the description “that brocken clock” is correct by hypothesis (an assumption that nobody would take for granted in controversial real cases b/c even your belief ascriptions are beliefs after all!).
[1]
A toddler runs toward a woman walking with her partner in a park, the toddler’s father runs after him, and, knowing that couple from the neighbourhood, explains to the surprised partner: “my son believes that your wife is his mum”. Of course the toddler knows nothing about the marital relationship between the partner and the woman, he doesn’t even have the concept of “marriage”, nor “motherhood” for that matter, as shared by adults, therefore the father’s belief ascription is not de dicto (what would be a de dicto rendering of that toddler’s belief?), yet this de re belief ascription is epistemologically plausible to the father and the couple based on their background and shared understanding of the situation.
Yet look at all of the posts you have created since my last post. You're willing to engage but only if you dictate the topic, which is off the topic of this thread that you want to avoid so that you don't have to address my points.
Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm
You engaged me up to the point where I asked my question then abandoned it and would now rather waste thread space with your ranting. Your behavior is off-putting by not being intellectually honest.
Quoting ZzzoneiroCosmSounds like you're describing an emotional attachment to me. My only goal in being here is to learn from others by asking them questions and to subject some of my own ideas to criticism. You aren't willing to do either and only seem to be willing in entertaining the ideas of someone with delusions of grandeur. Good luck.
Quoting neomac
What are propositions if not images of scribbles? So to think in propositions is to think in visual images, or sounds if you're talking to yourself in your head.
What form does a language you don't know take if not visual scribbles and sounds? In hearing a language you don't know are you able to distinguish subjects from predicates, or even just the ending of one word from the beginning of the next?
"This is a picture of a duck or a rabbit, depending on how you look at it." The picture would be an example of "ambiguity".
I agree that all 4 statements to be about the same state-of-affairs so we are agreeing that all four statements are translatable with the other. In saying that all 4 statements are about the same state-of-affairs you are saying that they are all translatable with each other. You can even have two different sentences in the same language that mean the same thing (A1 and A2), meaning that translating isn't necessarily between two or more languages. It is between two or more symbols (scribbles).
Synonyms are different words that mean the same thing. So you can create two different sentences in one language that mean the same thing and when translated to another language that also has synonyms that mean the same thing as the other two sentences. You can say the same thing different ways. The point is what you are saying, not how you are saying it. In other words none of these statements used is an example of people talking past each other.
Quoting neomacI didn't say means are caused. I said meaning is the relationship between cause and effect. Causes leave effects and when we look for the meaning of the effect, we are looking for the cause. Examples would be a criminal investigator using the crime scene (effect) to find the identity of the criminal (cause) so this fingerprint means Crooked Joe Smith committed this crime, or tree rings in a tree stump where the rings (effect) are caused by how the tree grows throughout the year (cause) so tree rings means the number of years the tree has existed.
Scribbles are the effect. What they mean is the relationship between the scribbles existing and what caused them, which is an idea and the intent to communicate them and then the act of typing them and clicking Post Comment. If none of those things happened, scribbles would not appear on this screen.
What are you asking for when you ask what does X mean?
Quoting neomac
Thank you for the detailed response which is more than I can say about many veteran members on this site.
Beliefs are not necessarily true. Someone that holds a belief may have some degree of certainty in maintaining their belief, which is to say that they have some reason or justification, but usually isn't logically justified, only justified by observation. A bent straw in a glass of water is a good example. When observing a bent straw in a glass of water one might believe the straw is bent with their reasoning being their own observation for believing it. But when you integrate it with other observations (like taking the straw out of the water and integrating the knowledge that we see light and not objects) and logic then beliefs can be disbelieved or justified even further into knowledge. The straw is not bent. The light is bent.
In the example of your lines, one may believe that one line is longer until you get out the ruler.
So beliefs would be an idea that something is true based on one observation, while knowledge would be something is true based on multiple observations that are integrated with logic.
That is one of the places where convention goes wrong. That's Gettier's foothold as well. Jack believed that a broken clock was working. Smith believed that he would get the job. The substitutions made changed the truth conditions and thus the meaning of the beliefs. In both cases, as explained earlier, when we make such substitutions, we are no longer talking about Jack's or Smith's belief.
No. Jack's mistaken belief has propositional content. A cat's cannot. Both can be rendered using propositions.
"Dictate" is a bit overblown. Just following my muse. My attitude toward analytic philosophy is decidedly lighthearted. To my view, there's wisdom in that. Do you have an interest in wisdom?
Quoting Harry Hindu
Like I said:
Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm
Quoting Harry Hindu
I told you I was muddling through and following along. I considered that a confession of ignorance. Yet you continued your imperious questioning.
I don't have clear answers to the bulk of the questions that came to light in this thread. Your off-putting tone made it easy (and likely wise) to ignore you.
At any rate, I'm ready to move on if you are. :smile:
Should the formulation of Jack's belief include information about the clock beyond Jack's ken?
You say yes.
Analytic convention apparently says no. It seems to fall under the rubric: substitution.
Banno seems to be saying that the puzzle you've brought to light has already been acknowledged and addressed in the analytic canon. They apparently call it substitution and know it "need not preserve truth value." In other words, other folks have come across this tricky conundrum and have set a rule in place to remedy the specific confusion you're wrestling with.
Quoting Banno
Maybe Banno has a reference for this info so that we can read about the history of substitution in analytic philosophy.
That is the problem of putting visual content into propositional form. Images can be ambiguous in a way that is not captured by any related descriptions.
Besides one and the same image can correspond to many possible descriptions, whose number is arguably higher than any limited mind can conceive of.
Quoting Harry Hindu
When we translate, we take into account precisely how things are said, otherwise it wouldn’t be a translation.
So you can not use an active form in your native language to translate a foreign sentence in passive form, if you want to translate literally the foreign sentence of course.
That is why, in the examples I listed, B2 is a correct translation of A2, and not of A1, despite the fact that all 3 statements are about the same state of affaires.
Quoting Harry Hindu
D'oh! I misread your statement. Apologies.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Still I disagree on this. My conviction is that linguistic meaning presupposes intentionality and intentionality can not be understood in causal terms for several reasons.
Here I limit myself to 3 and will leave it at that:
1. Causes and effects form an indefinitely long sequence of events, so in this chain of events start and end of a meaningful correlation (say between a sign and its referent) are identifiable only by presupposing the constitutive correlates of intentional states: namely subject (who would produce linguistic signs ) and object (which would be the referent of the linguistic sign).
2. “reference” between signs and referents is grounded on rule-based behavior that presupposes intentionality with its direction of fit, while causality has no direction of fit at all.
3. a sign can refer to things that do not exist, and things that do not exist can not cause anything
Quoting Harry Hindu
Belief can be based on one or multiple observations, agreed. But this seems to contradict instead of supporting the idea that belief can be taken “in the form of their visual experiences”. Perceptual beliefs exceed the related visual experience: they are attitudes, but visual experiences are not attitudes. This should be true for both men and animals, to my understanding.
He'll learn.
It's found in Frege. I mistakenly assumed familiarity, given that it is so common. I've mentioned it a few times before in this very thread.
Here's an invalid inference mentioned earlier:
It's part of the reason for Frege's separation of sense and reference. His response is roughly that "Superman" in "Superman has x-ray vision" refers to superman; but that "Superman" in "Louis believes Superman has x-ray vision" doesn't; instead it refers to the way Louis represents Superman - the sense. There are issues with that explanation - see Davidson's "On saying that..."
I've been tacitly adopting Davidson's sentential response. Roughly, "Superman has x-ray vision" is a different sentence to "Kent has x-ray vision". Louis believes the former but not the latter. There are technical issues with this approach, too, of course, but it works as a rule of thumb.
More relevant to our present discussion is that these are puzzles of belief attribution, and not of belief as such. That is, they do not show a problem with treating beliefs as propositional attitudes, but rather with reporting those beliefs. Those who are working on these problems accept that beliefs can be parsed as attitudes towards statements, sentences or propositions.
There are interesting issues here. But now unfortunately folk here will again get hung upon the irrelevancy of the distinction between a proposition and a statement, or mistake issues of belief reports for issues of belief.
Sure and propositions statements sentences (and whatever else you have in your menu) can be parsed in sequences of electric impulses with different electric voltages, therefore - by transitivity - beliefs are attitudes toward sequences of impulses with different electric voltage.
How is this relevant? Instead, give me an example of a proposition, sentence, statement (or whatever else you don't care to distinguish from propositions) that can not be parsed into sequences of electric impulses of different voltage!
Thanks.
We all have different backgrounds.
That's not a bad question.
Quoting Banno
First you agree with my saying that Jack believed a broken clock was working, then you add a colon and claim he did not believe a broken clock was working...
Is that a magic colon? I mean, does it somehow change Jack's belief?
Help me out here. I think we agree, based upon your "Sure..." answer.
It seems that we both agree that although he believed a broken clock was working, during the time he did, that he would not assent to that belief if rendered in propositional form. In other words, while believing that a broken clock was working, he would not have an attitude towards "a broken clock is working" such that he believed it to be true. Furthermore, that after becoming aware of his error, he would no longer hold the belief, but would readily acknowledge that he had indeed believed that a broken clock was working.
Are we in agreement here?
It has everything to do with it, for it is the basis of belief as propositional attitude.
Quoting neomac
My understanding of belief ascriptions is based upon my understanding of belief; how it is formed. how it becomes meaningful to the creature, what it consists of, what it is existentially dependent upon, and so forth...
Are you of the position that Jack cannot believe that a broken clock is working when he looks at it to find out what time it is?
Is that supposed to be clearer and more accurate somehow than just admitting that we can mistakenly believe that a broken clock is working?
You're the one invoking the dichotomy. I'm guessing it's an utterly inadequate one, like most other historically philosophical ones.
You tell me...
What would be a de dicto rendering of that toddler's belief? I mean, ought we not all do our own work?
:wink:
To the best of my knowledge, the broken clock belief has yet to have been properly accounted for in Russell's example. In the defense of convention, the point being made was not about the way that Russell took the man's belief into account. Rather, it was about whether or not we're justified in believing clocks. The fact that it was broken wasn't considered, as a result of the man's ignorance of the fact that it was, and thus his ignorance of the fact that he believed a broken clock.
Indeed, he will.
They show interesting issues with our reports, that's true. However, I find that those problematic reports are based - sometimes at least - upon a misconception of belief, as a propositional attitude notwithstanding. Jack believed a broken clock was working, but never did he believe that "the broken clock is working" was true. That's a big problem for the practice of rendering belief as a propositional attitude. Anamoly? Perhaps. Nonetheless, it shows something is wrong with the practice.
Not to mention the issues with language less belief as propositional attitude.
I don't think anything can sway creative at this point but this seems spot-on.
:smile:
Why? What are the reasons? Where are the arguments to support your claim that JTB is the basis for belief as propositional attitude? I mean, ought we not all do our own work?
Quoting creativesoul
Yep that would be my presupposition (and not only mine apparently) wrt your hypothetical case. The point is that I’m capable of de dicto/de re rendering/understanding of belief ascriptions as any other competent speaker in the right circumstances and prior to any philosophical debate. Your revisionist approach about this distinction based on your philosophical assumptions still looks unjustified for 2 reasons: 1. de dicto rendering is usually more accurate than de re rendering when we want to explain behavior 2. The success of de re ascriptions is not based on correctness but on shared assumptions between the one who makes the belief ascription and her audience on the situation at hand. If I don’t know enough Jack, I might find appropriate to make a de re ascription like this: Jack believes of that broken clock that is working.
Indeed de re belief ascriptions would still be effective if the shared assumptions were completely wrong: e.g. flat Earth believers could claim of me “he believes that our flat Earth is round” or, better, “he believes of our flat Earth that is round”.
Quoting creativesoul
Here my answer:
1. My claim is that “Jack believes that the broken clock is working” can be read in 2 ways, de dicto or de re. And de dicto ascription would be preferred over a de re ascription, when possible and based on shared understanding, because it’s more informative, more explanatory of believers’ behavior. But possibility and shareability assessments depend on the contextual assumptions of the involved parties: the one who states the belief ascription and her audience wrt the believer in the situation at hand.
2. The claim that “Jack mistakenly believes that the broken clock is working” out-of-context is more ambiguous about a de re and de dicto reading: with a de dicto reading Jack would simply be irrational (since it’s a contradictory belief), with a de re reading Jack could be either irrational or ignorant about the fact that the clock is not working. In other words, the de dicto belief ascription is more specific than de re belief ascription, therefore - if accurate - more explanatory or useful in guiding our expectations about Jack.
Quoting creativesoul
Mine was indeed a rhetoric question! The example of the toddler was meant to show a common case where a de re belief ascription makes sense, since we may have at best an approximate idea of what a toddler’s understanding of the situation is (i.e. we would be much less confident in any de dicto belief ascription in this specific case). The same goes for belief ascriptions to animals. The better we understand the believer’s view of the situation, the more we would rely on her understanding of the situation to explain her behavior (or assess her rationality), and share it with others with de dicto belief ascriptions in the appropriate circumstances.
My tone hasn't changed yet here you are not ignoring me.
It was a simple question, much simpler than the other questions in this thread that you attempted to muddle through in answering. The only way to move on is for you to muddle through answering my question, if you can stop contradicting yourself long enough so that I might actually take you seriously.
Were you asking me to describe the image, or what the image is about? The image isn't about anything because it is ambiguous. The image is ambiguous, therefore it's not about anything, but the words, "this image is ambiguous" is about the image. One might say that art is intentionally ambiguous - meaning that art isn't about anything itself, rather it is meant to play games with images, or words in the way of poems or music. Also the image isn't about tigers and bears, only rabbits and ducks. So it's limited in its ambiguity.
Quoting neomac
But using a different language is itself a difference in how things are said from how it is said in another language. Different symbols and rules are used to refer to the same thing. This is what I meant when I said that symbol use is arbitrary. I can use different symbols, even in the same language, to mean the same thing.
Quoting neomac
So A1 is said differently than B1, but you say that they are translatable and mean the same thig. How is that so?
Quoting neomac
I agree that causes and effects form an indefinitely long sequence of events. All of these prior events can be discovered by correctly interpreting the effect. Your use of words not only informs me that you have an idea and the intent to communicate it, but also your level of education in English and what part of the world you are from based on your accent and dialect. So, it all depends on what the goal of the mind is at any moment (intent). Is it to know where you are from, or to know what you intend to say? If I really wanted to I could use the effect of your scribbles to even show that it is evidence of the Big Bang, as you would not be here putting scribbles on a screen if the Big Bang did not occur, nor if stars did not fuse heavier elements together and then scatter them across the galaxy in a supernova.
A sign never refers to things that do not exist. The question is where it exists - out in the world, or in your head. Imaginary concepts have causal power. Just go visit the Sci-Fi / Fantasy section of your favorite book store and think about some of the movies made from some if those books and you will see what I'm talking about.
In reading the book, The Lord of the Rings and watching the film trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, both are different ways of telling the same story. The narrator's words in the book has been replaced by images of non-verbal behaviors and events in the movie, and the latter is what you think about, or picture in your mind, when reading the narrator's words in the book.
Unlike Banno, I believe that language use is not a game, but games can be played with words, which is what art typically does in the form of poems and musical lyrics. Language was initially used for relaying information in the same way as observing others' behaviors relays information, but once humans had enough time on their hands from not having to worry about where the next meal is coming from, they began to play games with their words (write poems and do philosophy).
Quoting neomac
I think I understand what you are saying is that the justification (observation) is not the belief. The attitude seems to occur with the initial observation as useful observations are remembered. Why remember something that isn't useful? The act of memorizing an experience is the act of believing it so that you may recall it later (use the belief).
Jack believes that a broken clock is working.
Jack believes that that particular clock is working.
Jack mistakenly believes that a broken clock is working.
Jack mistakenly believes that that particular clock is working.
I just do not see how this distinction helps anything at all here, particularly with those who object to saying Jack believes that a broken clock is working. I employ Leibniz and salva veritate in my own substitution rules.
Quoting neomac
Do you not see the absurdity in this? Can Jack look at a broken clock? Surely. Can Jack believe what the clock says? Surely. Why then, can he not believe that a broken clock is working?
The point of this exercise, on my end anyway, is to show how the consequences of conventional accounting practices are absurd, like saying that we cannot look at a broken clock and believe what it says.
This is the best yet. Well done. Then again...
So, we cannot say of those people that they believe that a spherical object is flat(there are still flat-earthers, you know).
And yet they most certainly do!
The oddest part of all this is that despite the objections to my renderings here, the believers themselves would readily admit that they did indeed hold such belief, but could do so only after becoming aware of their errors, at which point in time, they would no longer believe.
Are the objectors here going to object to that as well?
The interesting part is that they never believed the propositional rendering was true.
All right, but pragmatic considerations should be taken into account to get the full picture of our communicative practices concerning de re/de dicto belief ascriptions (what terms are taken to co-refere, when substitution is allowed, etc.).
Besides also co-reference is matter of belief!
Quoting creativesoul
Well, you are trying to make your belief ascription analysis fit your understanding of belief. For me, it should be the other way around.
Quoting creativesoul
Simply because belief ascriptions are not based on such a math out-of-context, but on their explanatory power wrt to believers’ behavior in a given context.
BTW, once more, you didn’t clarify why JTB is the basis for belief as propositional attitude.
> Were you asking me to describe the image, or what the image is about?
I was more brainstorming about Agent Smith’s question: “Are pictures/images propositions?”
The problem is that propositions are not supposed to be ambiguous, while images are.
Sentences can be ambiguous, but (not surprisingly) there are rules to systematically disambiguate them wrt to the propositions that they are supposed to represent (at least in the case of declarative sentences), that’s not the case for images.
> So A1 is said differently than B1, but you say that they are translatable and mean the same thing.
Because B1 not only matches with what A1 says (about Alice’s love for Jim) but also with how it is said by A1 (passive form)
> So, it all depends on what the goal of the mind is at any moment (intent).
That is the point I’m making as well: what enables us to single out semantic relations between signs and referents out of a causal chain of events is “a mind” with intentionality. If we talked only in terms of causality and effects, we would end up having a situation where, in a causal chain, any subsequent effect be "a sign of” any preceding cause.
> Imaginary concepts have causal power.
That is a very problematic statement to me: we should clarify the notions of “concept” and “causality” before investigating their relationship. But it’s a heavy task on its own, so I will not engage it in this thread.
> Why remember something that isn't useful? The act of memorizing an experience is the act of believing it so that you may recall it later (use the belief).
Not sure about that: e.g. we may remember things without believing in them (e.g. dreams). To my understanding, belief can interact with experience and memory in many ways, yet the latter cognitive skills come ontogenetically and phylogenetically prior to any doxastic attitude.
We can say of those people not "that they believe that a spherical object is flat", but 'that they believe of a spherical object that it is flat'. The former is ambiguous, and could mean either that they, absurdly contradicting themselves, believe that an object is both spherical and flat, or it could simply mean that they mistakenly believe that an object that is actually spherical is flat. Apart from it's being mistaken, the latter interpretation is unproblematic, and says nothing about beliefs being able to be rendered in propositional form.
On another tack, let's say a fox believes a rabbit is behind a tree; we say that can be rendered in propositional form, but what if the fox is simply visualizing the rabbit being behind the tree, and following that image, and goes to look? Would we call that believing? If so, would we say that it is in any sense, in its 'raw' condition, propositional? I think we might say it is a kind of believing, but not that is it is in the form of 'believing that'. So, as I have argued before, in other similar conversations with you, I think it makes sense to say that animals believe, but not that they hold beliefs.
On yet again another tack, I think the phenomenological point of distinguishing between the feeling of believing and what is believed is important to keep in mind. The latter is intentional (in the phenomenological sense) and the former is not. So, there is no simple, unambiguous, 'yes or no', 'one size fits all' answer to the question as to whether the act of believing, as distinct from beliefs themselves, in the abstract as it were, can be rendered in propositional form.
:worry:
So you think we ought fit our understanding of belief into our understanding of belief ascription...
I'm going to think about that for a minute here...
What are you ascribing to another prior to having an understanding of belief?
So, are you saying here that it seems to you that the above is not self-contradictory, but "they believe a spherical object is flat", somehow is? And that your objection is based upon this purported self-contradiction?
Yes, indeed we have had similar conversations about this in past. I remember that. You may find it interesting to know that there is a distinction to be drawn between holding a belief(according to the position I'm arguing for/from) and believing that something or other is true.
That's where the idea that knowledge claims consist of propositions believed to be true by those justified in doing so came from. It's the whole S knows that P... parsing. Apparently Frege played a major role as well regarding the attitude part. It also makes sense as to how it became the case that false belief, such as the broken clock and both Gettier cases became such a problem for the notion. I could be wrong, but not completely.
Believing is far more complex a process than this thread shows, that's for sure.
The content of belief can be very different than what the belief is about. The content is - strictly speaking - underdetermined by any and all of our accounting practices, but I do think that there are common forms and/or different versions that we can glean a bit of knowledge regarding their basic 'outline' as it were.
An attitude towards some proposition, such that it is true, is but one.
AS I said this is prone to equivocation. The incoherent interpretation would be equivalent to they believe that "a spherical object is flat" is true. It doesn't seem to me that you are willing to engage with the (sensible) objections that others are raising.
I lost you. I’m talking about your theoretical understanding of the belief ascription practice wrt to the notion of “belief”. A theory of belief should fit into a theory of belief ascription not the other way around, the reason being that you as any body else learned the word “belief” and its proper usage in the context of specific linguistic practices about belief ascriptions, prior to any philosophical debate. So the nature of belief should be such that it makes such a practice possible. Such practices tell us that we can provide de re/de dicto ascriptions, that they are appropriate in some circumstances not in others, that those belief ascriptions guide our understanding and expectations about other people’s behavior, that we can attribute beliefs even to non-linguistic creatures, etc. So based on these practices what can we claim about the nature of belief? That's the philosophical task that makes sense to me.
As far as I can tell, Frege published "Sense and reference" in 1892, while Gettier published his "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" in 1963, besides the JTB analysis of "knowledge" challenged by Gettier presupposes (or so it seems) the notion of "belief" as propositional attitude not the other way around. So, unless you have something more convincing to support your claim ("JTB is the basis for belief as propositional attitude"), b/c that is what I asked, then it is fair to say that you are completely wrong.
There is usually more than one interpretation for any report. That is not a problem, especially when the author painstakingly details what is meant with subsequent explanation as to avoid any confusion.
Equivocation is a charge that the author is using two different senses of the same term in the same argument.
You did not answer the question I asked about the charge you're levying.
:meh:
We've been using the term belief for thousands of years. We've been attributing beliefs to ourselves and others for at least that long. Some attribute beliefs to the simplest of animals, such as slugs.
According to what you've said here, we ought make our theory of belief fit such usage.
That is false on it's face.
We learned to use the word "belief" in the context of specific linguistic practices, but those practices were not about belief ascriptions.
( 1 ) Beliefs are dispositions (Assumption)
( 2 ) Every disposition is a mental state (Assumption)
( 3 ) Beliefs are mental states. (1,2 modus ponens)
( 4 ) Beliefs are mental states in which a statement is held to be true. ( Assumption )
( 5 ) The content of a belief is a statement. ( Seems to follow from 4 by how content is used )
( 6 ) If X is a state, the content of X is part of that state. (Assumption)
( 7 ) A belief's statement is part of that belief's mental state. (5, 6, instantiation)
( 8 ) A statement's semantic content is part of that statement ( 6 )
( 9 ) If X has content Y, and Y has content Z, then Z is part of X'd content. (assumption)
( 10 ) "This snow is white"'s semantic content is external (assumption).
( 11 ) "This snow is white's" semantic content is part of a mental state (if someone believes it and 8)
( 12 ) The semantic content of "This snow is white" is equivalent to the white snow. (assumption)
( 13 ) The white snow is part of a mental state.
( 13 ) is absurd.
Therefore 1,2,4,6,9, or 12 is false.
( 1 ) is easiest to assume true I think, ( 2 ) is granted by the discussion, ( 4 ) is @Banno 's thingy (up to wrangling regarding distinctions between propositions and statements), ( 6 ) seems hard to argue against, ( 9 ) holds true for pies and parthood so it looks like an uphill battle to claim it doesn't apply to content, ( 12 ) is close to a thesis of direct realism.
My picks are either ( 2 ) is false or ( 12 ) is too ambiguous to use as a premise (equivalent in what sense?).
The notion of "mental" is problematic for it rests upon dichotomous frameworks, none of which are capable of taking proper account of that which consists of both mental and non-mental things.
Belief is one such thing. As are dispositions.
The white snow is one part of belief and/or dispositions about it.
I lost you again. It doesn’t really matter how you phrase it based on your questionable philosophical assumptions. All I meant was simply that you as anybody else learned the word “belief” when other speaking people around you were saying things such: I/you/he/she/we/they believe or not believe this or that etc. This is a linguistic fact. There is no possible contention on this. And that, only that, is the point I care making.
So if you are happier to write “We learned to use the word "belief" in the context of specific linguistic practices”, just go for it. The point I made still holds.
Quoting creativesoul
Sure, why not? But our practices admit figurative and literal usages, normal and fringe cases, shared and non-shared background beliefs, successful and unsuccessful belief attributions, etc. When you were a kid you learned the word "belief" also in playful contexts and stories about fictional characters, if you had a religious education you also learned the word “belief” as applied to invisible divine beings or disembodied souls, etc.
In any case, I must confess in all honesty that I don’t know and never even heard of any example in any culture in the entire known human history where people learned the word “belief” predominantly as applied to slugs, do you? And if you don't, then this shows not only how weak your objection is, of course, but also an interesting linguistic fact that our theory of belief should take into account!
FYI I prefer arguments to emoticons.
When we say that S holds a belief, has a belief, or forms a belief, what exactly is it that we are claiming that S holds, has, or has formed? When we ascribe belief to another, what exactly are we ascribing? If we do not have an understanding of what belief is, what it consists of, etc., then on what grounds are we to determine which sorts of beliefs can be formed and/or held by which sort of creatures?
There is a common practice of personifying animals. If we follow your advice here, anthropomorphism is acceptable.
You are arguing that because our use of the term predates our thinking about that use that our understanding of what belief is ought somehow fit that use. I'm not disagreeing with that on it's face. What I'm saying is that some belief existed in it's entirety prior to our talking about it, and as such, our common practices could very well be wrong, particularly regarding language less ones as well as ones that are formed and/or held prior to thinking about them as a subject matter in their own right.
Be all this as it may...
My aim currently is to shine a bit of much needed light upon the current failings of our accounting practices. Russell's clock, both Gettier cases, and Moore's paradox all stem from belief as propositional attitude.
My attitude towards your position is clear befuddlement. It is about as preposterous as it can be for us to deny that it is possible to believe that a broken clock is working, or object to the reporting of that simply because your accounting practice cannot make sense of it, because not only is it possible to believe that a broken clock is working, it happens on a regular basis to someone... somewhere. It's happened to me.
Then I suggest you peruse the last couple of weeks worth of posts by yours truly here in this thread, because you seem to have either ignored or missed the arguments that have been given.
:meh:
I too prefer arguments to rhetoric, handwaving, and gratuitous assertions. So far, you've offered the latter three. Got any of the former?
I'd not put too much emphasis on "mental state", so much as on explanations for behaviours. It is not that there is always a thing in the mind that is a belief. Your belief that folk in Darwin can sometimes buy shoes is not a discrete state of your mind. So it's not quite my view.
Quoting fdrake
I think this needs cleaning up. Belief is a relation between someone and a statement such that the statement is held to be true. We can loosely call the statement the content of the belief. But in (9) you want to have some sort of transitivity relation here. I can't see how it would work.
Perhaps you are poking at "Snow is white" being extensional but not "Fdrake believes that snow is white".
Also, in (12),
Quoting fdrake
What is being held equal? "Snow is white" is not the same as snow is white, obviously. "Snow is white" is true IFF snow is white, but that's a truth functional equivalence, not an equivalence of identity. Puzzling.
I did. To repeat: to say that X believed a stopped clock was working is ambiguous; it could mean that X believed the clock was both stopped and working, which is obviously absurd, and is the real reason to reject the propositional equivalent: "X did not believe 'A stopped clock is working' is true".
Anyway I and several others have pointed this out to you, and you refuse to hear apparently.
If someone believes that folk in Darwin can sometimes buy shoes then there must be a mental state (or probably better, process) correlated with that belief. It need not be a conscious state or process, just as the belief need not be explicit.
That said, would any belief be " a discrete state of your mind"? Would the idea that beliefs are discrete states not be an illusion fostered by the apparently discrete character of the sentences in which they are expressed?
In what way are images suppose to be ambiguous? The only images and words that are suppose to be ambiguous is art. By describing your images and words as "art" you are informing others that the images and words are intended to be ambiguous. If not, then it is assumed that the images and words you make refer to real states-of-affairs, or are meant to inform others of real states-of-affairs.
If what we need are rules for images to not be ambiguous, what rules would they be?
Quoting neomacWhen I say "how it is said", I'm referring to the scribbles used. Using different scribbles to say the same thing is saying the same thing differently.
Quoting neomac
I'm not clear of where we are agreeing or disagreeing here. There are a probably an infinite number of causal relations any of which could be useful to single out depending on our goal. This is simply saying that not all meanings (causal relations) are useful in every given moment. Meaning is everywhere causes leave effects and the time between some cause and effect is a product of our own minds, and what meanings are useful are also a product of our goals.
Quoting neomacI can only say that would there not be books about Hobbits (effect) if someone did not imagine them (the cause) prior.
Quoting neomac
We're clearly talking past each other. It's not useful to remember/believe that you dream, or to remember/believe you know the difference between dream and reality?
Aye. I don't think you like 'mental furniture'. I wanted to bring that out with the argument.
Quoting Banno
The first relationship might be called intentional content, the second might be called semantic content. The belief is in relation with the statement (statement is intentional content of belief), the statement is in relation toward the world (the world forms some part of the semantic content of the statement). It seems necessary that there is some transitivity condition implied. If X believes that the snow they are seeing is white, then it would be strange if the semantic content of "snow is white" was consistent with the intentional content of non-white snow. If you believe snow is white, that places constraints on whether you can mean something black when referring to snow in a usual context.
If a person is holding the statement P true, they are also committed to P's semantic content in a manner that a person would be surprised if the world wasn't consistent with the semantic content of P. I believe thats snow is white, I'm not just committed to the statement, I'm committed to its truth, and what that truth says about the state of things.
Quoting Banno
I think that's a related issue, yeah. What kind of event fleshes out the truth of the claim "fdrake believes that snow is white" - I know you can disquote it, can you give me a disquotation which isn't a redundant one? I want to know what the belief means, not just that I was accurately said to believe snow is white.
I disagree.
Folk talk about mental states as if it were clear what they are and as if they helped explain stuff.
I chose the obscurity of Darwinian shoes specifically because, before you read my post, you had probably never contemplated them; and yet it was perhaps at that time true that you nevertheless believed that folk in Darwin can buy shoes. At least, you did not disbelieve it...
SO before I mentioned it, did you somehow nevertheless have a latent mental state concerning Darwinian shoes?
I think this brings renders somewhat dubious the whole notion of beliefs as mental states.
> There is a common practice of personifying animals. If we follow your advice here, anthropomorphism is acceptable.
Not necessarily. First of all, I find acceptable as a linguistic datum the cases that you may qualify as anthropomorphic along with those that you do not qualify as anthropomorphic based on your assumptions, precisely to assess your own assumptions. Secondly, belief attribution practices evolve over time, so we can’t ignore this fact either, and I don’t assume that they do it arbitrarily.
> What I'm saying is that some belief existed in it's entirety prior to our talking about it, and as such, our common practices could very well be wrong, particularly regarding language less ones as well as ones that are formed and/or held prior to thinking about them as a subject matter in their own right.
One way to revise the practice is to fix ambiguities/indeterminacies internal to the practice itself (here the need to distinguish e.g. different logical functions of “to be”). Your approach about belief ascriptions however doesn’t seem to solve ambiguities/indeterminacies of ordinary belief ascriptions, instead - depending on the pragmatic context - introduces them as I already argued.
> My aim currently is to shine a bit of much needed light upon the current failings of our accounting practices. Russell's clock, both Gettier cases, and Moore's paradox all stem from belief as propositional attitude.
Not sure how I am supposed to understand such a claim. Also because I’m not sure that Russell, Moore, Gettier, and you share the same idea of “belief as propositional attitude”, nor that their arguments rely on a specific way of understanding “belief as propositional attitude”. Anyways, how can your way of understanding belief ascriptions “shine a bit of much needed light upon” these three cases? If you explained it already elsewhere and can provide the links, I’m willing to read it of course.
> My attitude towards your position is clear befuddlement. It is about as preposterous as it can be for us to deny that it is possible to believe that a broken clock is working, or object to the reporting of that simply because your accounting practice cannot make sense of it, because not only is it possible to believe that a broken clock is working, it happens on a regular basis to someone... somewhere. It's happened to me.
Sure, you are right, if you frame the problem in the way you believe it should be handled, how on earth can I possibly question it? Unfortunately it’s just a sophism.
Besides since the question for me, it’s not if it is possible, but under what conditions it is permissible to make such claims, there is a way I could make sense of it, after all. And I also told you that in this case, to avoid ambiguities, instead of saying “Jack believes that a broken clock is working” I would say “Jack believes of that broken clock that is working”, is there any substantial reason why you wouldn’t?
> Then I suggest you peruse the last couple of weeks worth of posts by yours truly here in this thread, because you seem to have either ignored or missed the arguments that have been given.
And I suggest you to do the same, because I addressed many of them when they were available.
But in the following comment I couldn’t find any, unless you consider emoticons as arguments:
Quoting creativesoul
> I too prefer arguments to rhetoric, handwaving, and gratuitous assertions. So far, you've offered the latter three [1]. Got any of the former?
I wish I could help, but unfortunately, I don’t take emoticons to be arguments. Sorry.
[1]
Maybe you have that impression b/c you are the one to be challenged now. When I was challenging Banno you used to write things like: "I'd be honored to offer my feedback to such a carefully well-crafted post". Not to mention all the moments you agreed with my points against Banno. You even re-used an argument I made against Banno without mentioning me. Quoting neomac
I don't think we have a substantive point of disagreement. The language here becomes so clumsy. SO not too sure.
Quoting fdrake
Pretty much everything you do that relates to snow...?
In a strong sense, the entire enterprise of this thread and surrounds is a mess; As if we could squeeze the entire form of life of belief through the sphincter of predication. What should have been a simple grammatical observation - that we can state beliefs - has been made into a vast, pointless diatribe.
Speak for your own sphincter.
I think it looks nice on the bookshelf next to my Hegel, Bergson, Derrida and Heidegger. Beautiful vast pointlessnesses.
Mary's Room
Does Mary learn anything new when she actually, with her own eyes, sees the color Red?
Qualia: Ineffable, yes, but is it knowledge?
> In what way are images suppose to be ambiguous? The only images and words that are suppose to be ambiguous is art.
My point was that images are ambiguous in 2 senses: 1. they can match different descriptive sentences that do no share the same proposition. 2. Propositions - differently from sentences - are supposed to be unambiguous, however images can be not only ambiguous but also be ambiguous in ways that no descriptive sentence can render (image ambiguity does not match sentence ambiguity).
These observations are relevant b/c if we are supposed to take propositions as correlates that different sentences, different languages, different propositional attitude can share, we can wonder if propositions can be shared across different media (images vs linguistic expressions)
> When I say "how it is said", I'm referring to the scribbles used. Using different scribbles to say the same thing is saying the same thing differently.
OK let’s start again. I remember you claiming “When translating languages, that is what is translated - the state-of-affairs the scribbles refer to”. Now, I understand your comment as implying the truth of the following conditional: if translation consists in replacing statements from at least 2 different languages co-referring the same state-of-affairs, then the French translations (I provided in my example) could translate the English sentences indifferently, because they all are referring to the same state of affaires (at least to me). But the consequent of that conditional is false, so it should be false also the conditional.
> I'm not clear of where we are agreeing or disagreeing here.
My central claim is that semantic relations can not be reduced to sequences of mind-independent causal chains. You seem to do the same (due to the relevance of the notion of “mind” in your argument), but you are also developing your discourse over aspects that simply widen the scope of that central claim (e.g. with the reference to art works), which is fine but I'm more interested in arguments that support or question the claim: semantic correlations (between sign and referent) can not be reduced to causal chains. To support that central claim, one could for example argue that while art works are ambiguous in some sense, any causal chain involved in the intentional production/experience/understanding of a piece of art work can not be qualified as "ambiguous". While to question that main claim one could argue that indeed ambiguity can be reduced to some probabilistic feature of causal chains involving psychological states, etc.
In any case, I'm not interested to deal with this specific task in this thread. So I'll leave it at that.
> It's not useful to remember/believe that you dream, or to remember/believe you know the difference between dream and reality?
In your past comment, you wrote “The act of memorizing an experience is the act of believing it”. This looks as an identity claim to me, and I don’t support such identity claim. For me belief exceeds both experience and episodic memory. Maybe you wanted to say that an act of memorizing a given experience always results from believing in that experience. Even if this was true, it would be just an empirical fact, namely something that doesn’t exclude the logical possibility of believing a given experience without memorizing it and memorizing a given experience without believing in that experience. Besides there are actual counter-examples: I remember a dream but I do not believe in that dream, I do not take whatever seemed to happen in that dream to be the case. Maybe you want to claim that while dreaming I was believing whatever was experiencing, and that resulted in me memorizing it. But that we believe in our dreams while dreaming can be acknowledged for all our most common dreams, yet we do not seem to remember all of them either.
The correlation between usefulness, memory, experience and belief you are pointing at, again looks empirical to me, not logical (which is the part I’m more interested in), and even more slippery because what counts as useful is no less controversial than what counts as memory, experience, and belief.
A good question.
A proposition is the content of an uttered sentence.
We know it isn't a sentence because multiple sentences can be used to express the same proposition.
It's not an utterance (sounds or marks) for the same reason. Distinct utterances, same proportion.
It's not a mental object because...same thing. You and I can think of the same proposition, but my mental state can't be identical to yours.
It's an abstract object. It's the primary truth bearer. It's what's expressed by the utterance of a sentence.
ds
It wouldn't be a specific sentence, or specific scribbles, or specific mental objects. It would be sentences in general, or scribbles in general, or mental objects in general. Just as the content of a computer's hard drive is data, even though you and I have different data on our hard drives.
Different propositions tell different truths depending on their contents (symbols) and what they refer to (what is the case).
Ok, and does it have content? If so, back to my first question.
Two is a prime number.
The above is an utterance of a sentence. It expresses a proposition, specifically that two is a prime number.
Jim, pointing to a 2 written on a white board, said "It's a prime number."
Jim expressed the proposition that two is a prime number.
What this example (straight from a famous philosopher) shows is that discerning the proposition expressed by the utterance of a sentence is context dependent.
It is content.
ds
A lot of famous people say stuff. It doesn't make it true, or useful, because they are famous.
All your example shows is that we can substitute hand motions (pointing) and scribbles (different symbols) in creating some proposition (symbols and what it refers to - in this case another scribble, 2). Your example still helps my case, not yours.
Ok.
ds
That's fair enough. It's the end of the road, and doesn't itself refer to anything and isn't about anything?
Here we are talking past each other again. In 1 and 2 you are talking about the some string of scribbles (descriptive sentences that do not share the same proposition). You're talking about words, not images. You're explaining how words, not images, are ambiguous. I want to know how a wordless image can be ambiguous without using language to describe it. I'm thinking the image is a description of something - either ambiguous or concrete - and words - either ambiguous or concrete - can describe the image (but that would only be useful to someone who can't see the image), or what the image is about (what someone who is just looking at some image believes it to be informing them of). I wish you would be more clear about which one you are talking about.
Quoting neomacHuh? How is it false? I also said that you can translate different words in the same language (synonyms). What if I were to say that instead of translating the scribbles, we were translating the rules by which the scribbles are used.
Quoting neomac
You seem to be reading more into what I've been saying than what I've actually been saying. Semantic correlations are themselves effects of prior causes as correlating some symbol and what it refers to is dependent upon the experience and education that one has in establishing those correlations. We interpret what some visual or auditory experience means based upon prior experiences. Sometimes we get it wrong like in the case of seeing a mirage. When we understand that what we see isn't objects (like puddles of water), we see light, then we interpret the causal relationships more accurately - like there is a "middle-man" called light in the causal sequence that we call "seeing", and that we don't see objects directly, or else we could see objects in the dark - without any light.
Quoting neomac
What else would belief include if not just experience and episodic memory? In the moment of your dream, you are remembering what is happening and therefore believing it is happening. What happened in the beginning of the dream is useful to remember in the middle of the dream, or else how would you know you're still in the same dream? After you wake up you still have the memories because they were stored when you were believing, not when you aren't. Because they aren't useful memories they will eventually be forgotten.
.
What is logic if not the manipulation, or the processing, of symbols?
Right. It doesn't refer anymore than the world refers to something else. Russell wanted to picture it as: a proposition is a state of affairs. The snag there is that there are false propositions.
What would it mean for there to be false propositions if not that the proposition doesn't refer to some state-of-affairs that isn't just another proposition being stated?
The world refers to the state-of-affairs that existed prior to the world existing. Meaning is the relationship between cause and effect. What is someone asking when they ask, "what is the meaning of my life?", if not how or why did I come to exist?
So, I'm curious as to how your account makes sense of the content of the belief as well as what the belief is about...
If we say that Jack believes of that broken clock that it is working, what is the content of Jack's belief and what is Jack's belief about?
An all too common error; the conflation of meaning and causality. The former requires being meaningful to something or someone, whereas the latter does not. The conflation is the basis for many who claim that clouds mean rain even when there is noone around to take notice...
Earlier you mentioned that one interpretation of believing that a broken clock is working would lead to what seems to be Jack holding self-contradictory belief, and that that was ground for changing the report to something similar to neomac's rendering.
I pose the same questions to you that I just posed to them...
If we say that Jack believes of that broken clock that it is working, what is the content of Jack's belief and what is Jack's belief about?
So if I gloss my question as,
Quoting bongo fury
... you will say, a state of affairs, and yes?
I would say the the utterance of a sentence expresses a proposition. I don't know what the second question means exactly. We might use sentences to identify propositions, or it's the object of a that clause: "It's true that..."
Do you know anything about the data/information idea?
Plus, if you want to talk to a reliable source, Nagase is a good teacher. Haven't seen him lately tho.
Mary's room is based upon the dubious presupposition that we can learn anything about seeing red without seeing red.
Qualia is neither ineffable, nor knowledge.
Which you glossed as a state of affairs, I got that.
Quoting frank
I don't know what the title of this thread means exactly, hence my first question.
Quoting frank
I know what I think: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/585599
Quoting frank
No, I wanted folk here to explain and clarify what they mean by "content".
Committing logical fallacies isn't helping your argument. You should try a different argument.
Huh? Meaning requires being meaningful to something or someone? This is circular logic. What does it mean for something to be meaningful to someone?
Quoting creativesoul
You're conflating causal relationships between clouds and rain and someone taking notice that clouds mean rain. Are you saying the act of taking notice is meaning? Observations are meanings?
Quoting bongo furyScribbles and spoken sounds?
Did you see that movie Arrival? If you haven't, I won't spoil it, but it's related to this question.
“the limits of my language mean the limits of my world”. What does this mean to you?
Both Gettier cases, Russell's clock, and Moore's paradox all directly involve and/or include false belief, but none of the three address that aspect as a subject matter in it's own right.
The stopped clock example shows how Russell left out a key consideration; Russell is correct to question whether or not the belief about what time it is counted as a justified belief. It's certainly true, but are we to claim that a false belief counts as good justificatory ground?
Gettier's first case shows how an accounting malpractice of a false belief can lead us astray when taking account of that false belief by virtue of using the rules of entailment. Smith believed that he would get the job and that he had ten coins in his pocket. Entailment allows us to say that he is justified in believing that the man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job, and he is. The issue here is that - when it comes to Smith's belief - "the man" has one referent and one referent only. He's talking about himself and no one else... after-all. So, because Smith's belief is about himself, and because "the man" refers to himself, the only way for Smith's belief to become true is if he got the job. He did not. Therefore, his belief about what would happen was false. This case shows us that the belief and the statement thereof have different sets of truth conditions.
It only follows that the two are not always equivalent.
Gettier's second case shows us the same as above, except it's a bit more complex. Smith believes Jones owns a Ford, and because Smith believes that he also believes that either Smith owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona, but he only believes that the disjunction is true because he believes Smith owns a Ford. He cannot believe it to be any other way. He does not believe that that disjunction is true as a result of the second disjunct. Rather, to quite the contrary, Smith believes the disjunction is true because he believes the first disjunct is true. So, while either disjunct can be true, and that alone makes the disjunction true as a result of either one's being so, Smith's belief is only true if Brown owns a Ford. His belief is that the disjunct is true as a result of the first disjunct being so. It is not. It is true as a result of the second. Smith's belief is false. Again, this example shows us that the belief and the statement thereof have different sets of truth conditions.
It only follows that the two are not always equivalent.
Moore's paradox shows us that we can say of another that they are in error, that they have some false belief or another, but we cannot say the same about ourselves, at least not while still believing the falsehood. That last part is what I've found to be lacking in the explanations of the problem. There are all sorts of reasons for this, self-contradiction being one. However, after becoming aware of our error, there's nothing at all stopping us from admitting that it was once raining outside and we did not believe it, or that we once believed a broken clock was working, or that we once believed that we would get the job, or that we once believed that "Either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona" was true because we believed that Jones owned a Ford.
All of this seems to show some inherent issues with the accounting practices...
I would need "world" defined in this instance.
Yea. I think that captures the flavor of the situation, and what's really going on with the OP.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Language is more than scribbles and sounds, ya know.
> Here we are talking past each other again. In 1 and 2 you are talking about the some string of scribbles (descriptive sentences that do not share the same proposition). You're talking about words, not images. You're explaining how words, not images, are ambiguous.
No, I’m talking about images. Images are visual entities like strings of letters written on a paper, yet we can take images and strings to represent something (again intentionality is a presupposition here for understanding images and textual strings as representational). If we were to describe with sentences what images can represent, we would notice that there can be many descriptions that could correspond to the same image (this is particularly evident in the case of so called “ambiguous images” - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiguous_image), yet they do not share the same proposition. And so on with the other remarks I made. Don’t forget that my brainstorming was about the propositional nature of images.
> Huh? How is it false?
That’s basic propositional calculus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional_proof): if you claim that conditional that I reported in the previous comment, it can not be true that the consequent is false and the antecedent is true. I gave an unquestionable counter-example to prove the falsity of the consequent, so the antecedent must be false.
> I also said that you can translate different words in the same language (synonyms).
Besides the fact that synonymity is grounded on semantics, while passive and active forms are grounded on syntax, the point is that translation has to take into account all the relevant semiotic dimensions of a text for a proper translation, and the co-reference to the same state of affairs is only one semiotic dimension.
> What else would belief include if not just experience and episodic memory?
To my terminology, experience includes perception, memory, imagination. Belief can not be reduced to experience. Belief is a cognitive attitude based on experience or other beliefs.
> In the moment of your dream, you are remembering what is happening and therefore believing it is happening. What happened in the beginning of the dream is useful to remember in the middle of the dream, or else how would you know you're still in the same dream?
After you wake up you still have the memories because they were stored when you were believing, not when you aren't. Because they aren't useful memories they will eventually be forgotten.
I don’t follow you here: first it seems to me you are talking about different types of memory (working and episodic memory) and I don’t know if you are taking this in due account, secondly your statements concern empirical regularities (while I’m more interested in broadly logic analysis and reasoning), thirdly they do not seem to be always true (I doubt that while dreaming at any given time I know that I am in the same dream, also because normally I’m not aware of dreaming when I dream), forth you talk about usefulness which is a term to be clarified and then empirically proved.
In conclusion, I’m not sure how to understand your claim, if I understood it, it doesn’t seem to be right, and even if you were right, I don’t know what to do with it.
> What is logic if not the manipulation, or the processing, of symbols?
This seems again an identity claim, but I wouldn’t talk about logic as identical to manipulation or symbolic processing. However, I’m not going to open another front of contention, before converging on the many ones that we already have at hand.
Plato is perhaps best attributed with the original conception of JTB. Nonetheless, JTB presupposes belief as propositional attitude, as you yourself have acknowledged. My claim was that JTB was the basis of the rendering.
It's never a good sign when someone simultaneously does both, confirms and denies, something I've written all while denouncing something I'd not. Hence...
:meh:
> However, after becoming aware of our error, there's nothing at all stopping us from admitting that it was raining outside and we did not believe it, or that we believed a broken clock was working.
Still, I don’t see anything problematic in the claim “that it was raining outside and we did not believe it”, while “that we believed a broken clock was working” still looks problematic. If you tried to put the second claim into the same form of the former, you would obtain: that broken clock was working and I didn’t believe it. Does it make sense? Hell, no.
P.S. you re-edited your post, fine. But my comment still holds
Great job denouncing shit that I've not said.
You claimed that JTB was the basis of belief as propositional attitude. I took you to mean either that the notion of belief as propositional attitude is grounded on the notion of knowledge as JTB, and this is false, because it's at best the opposite. Or that the contemporary debate on belief as propositional is originally inspired by the debate between Russell, Moore and Gettier over the notion of knowledge as JTB. But that's not true b/c the contemporary debate about belief as propositional attitude was heavily inspired by Frege "Sense and Reference" which doesn't address the notion and the problems of knowledge as JTB. That is why I asked you to give me something else to support your claim, which it seems you tried to do, but I don't understand what you mean.
What's your view regarding Russell's clock, Gettier's cases, and Moore's paradox?
Interesting how different your account of my position is from what I've argued here.
It's very simple; the belief is simply that the clock is working. If he was asked whether he thinks 'the clock is working' is true, he might say 'yes' or he might say, as I said before 'give me a minute and I'll tell you'. Or he might say 'I had assumed that, but on reflection I realize that was a baseless assumption'.
All right, as I wrote in the P.S. you re-edited the text, after I picked it up. I realised it too late. Apologies, sir. Let me repay you by denouncing the shit that you wrote (unless you change it again):
Quoting creativesoul
Now, admitting that it was once raining outside and we did not believe it, makes sense. While admitting that we once believed a broken clock was working, still looks problematic and a way to see it is by rendering it in the same form as the former statement: once a broken clock was working and I did not believe it. Does it make sense? Hell, no.
That does not answer the question I asked. The discussion is all about what counts as the content of some belief or another. So, again...
If we say that Jack believes of that broken clock that it is working, what is the content of Jack's belief, and what is Jack's belief about?
Great job of denouncing shit that I've not written.
The irony of the earlier sophism attribution.
mmmkey
And what does "My claim was that JTB was the basis of the rendering" is supposed to mean?
What do you mean? I just quoted verbatim the shit you wrote. Did you change it again?
I write something that you agree with. You change what I write. You disagree with and denounce the change, not what I wrote. Evidently, you cannot see.
What is the colour of a proposition?
42.
The content of the belief (if you want to characterize it as a definite belief, rather than a mere passing assumption) would be "That clock is working".
So then,
Are you saying that Jack believes of a broken clock that it is working, and that the content of Jack's belief is "That clock is working"?
Granted for further evaluations...
And what is Jack's belief about?
No. I repeated what neomac said and you seemed to agree with. Evidently I was wrong, and you do not agree with neo's rendering either.
So, I am asking you to clearly state Jack's belief and then proceed to tell me what Jack's belief is about as well as what the content of that belief is...
I already have:
"The content of the belief (if you want to characterize it as a definite belief, rather than a mere passing assumption) would be "That clock is working". "
Jack's belief is obviously about a clock that he doesn't realize is not working. If he did realize it wasn't working his belief would be "That clock is not working".
Jack's belief is...
Jack's belief is about...
The content of Jack's belief is...
Please, to avoid any possible misunderstandings. Fill in the blanks.
According to your answers in the last reply...
The content of Jack's belief is "That clock is working".
Jack's belief is about a clock he does not realize is not working.
What is Jack's belief?
Mea culpa!
:blush:
Jack's belief is that the clock is working.
I just saw the answer a few replies back...
Okay, so then we have...
Jack's belief is that the clock is working.
The content of Jack's belief is "that the clock is working".
Jack's belief is about a clock that he does not realize is not working.
Are you still okay with that?
Yes it's pretty much what I had said.
:up:
So, is it safe to say that - on your view - the content of Jack's belief is equivalent to Jack's belief and that Jack's belief is about something other than it's content?
I haven't thought about those specifics. Off the top of my head I'd say that Jack's belief is about a clock and it's condition of working, which begs the question as to whether the clock and its condition of working together form the content of the belief. What else could Jack's belief be about?
In other words, qualia is ineffable. Why else can't Mary learn everything about red without seeing red? That sensation of redness couldn't/ can't be put into words.
Quoting creativesoul
:chin: If qualia is effable, why did Mary learn something new when she saw red for the first time?
:chin:
Really? What does a language that you don't know look like? And when describing what a language you know looks like, are you describing the language or your knowledge of the language?
Statement, or state of affairs?
The prose is purple, the weather black.
All right sir, let’s talk about what I did and why I did it.
First of all, I already made my objections to your theoretical assumptions wrt a more common understanding of belief ascriptions (as others did). Those objections still hold, independently from the following additional remarks.
Secondly, this time I tried something different, namely I’m questioning the internal coherence of your theoretical approach on its own (de)merit. How?
Let’s recapitulate:
Now to my argument: if we pretend that both these 2 points hold, then at the prospect of some propositional operation based on sheer co-reference that I spotted, I too did my propositional math accordingly in order to show you its dumb result.
Of course, you too disapprove of such a dumb propositional math, otherwise you would try to defend it. The problem however is: can you explain why your propositional math is acceptable while mine isn’t, based on your own assumptions? Again, if I can plausibly render “we did not believe that it was once raining outside” as “it was once raining outside and we did not believe it” based on sheer co-reference, why can’t we plausibly render “we once believed a broken clock was working” as “a broken clock was working and we once believed it” ? Or to put it into more formal terms: if one can render “I did/did not believed that p” as “p and I did/did not believe it” and vice versa, why can’t we do the same with your type of belief ascriptions?
If you can not provide an explanation on that case that is coherent with your own assumptions and doesn’t look ad-hoc, then your theoretical approach appears incoherent and your propositional math as dumb as mine. In other words, we have one more reason to question your theoretical approach along with what results out of it (your rendering of belief ascriptions).
Get it now?
If the limits of my language mean the limits of my world, it means I do not have freedom of thought. It means there are things I'm bound to believe simply because that's how my language structures my world.
If all that is true, what is a philosophical debate? What's actually happening with philosophy?
How are propositions made? if they are made by writing or typing then they are the color of the ink or font you choose to write or type with. If they are spoken then they don't have color - they have volume, pitch, etc.
When thinking of a proposition, what is it that you're thinking of? What is your mind grasping when you think of "proposition"? Is it just the string of scribbles, "proposition", the sound of the spoken word, "proposition", or what the string of scribbles refers to? How do you know when you're thinking of a proposition and when you're not, or all we always thinking in propositions (ie propositions and thinking are one and the same)?
Quoting frank
I don't see how this answers my question. I entertained you with your silly question, so I'm waiting on you to return the favor.
When you say that your language limits your thoughts, are you saying that you don't have the freedom to learn new words and new ways of expressing yourself? Are you saying that pre-language babies are more free than you are?
Learning to ride a bike involves learning the structure of the bike and your body, how to pedal and stay balanced. Once you learn it, you no longer have to focus on balancing and pedaling. It can be done on auto-pilot.
The same is done with learning a language. Once we learn the language, we don't focus on the rules so much. It's automatic in the way we reference what is the case with scribbles and sounds to the point where we start to believe that we think only in words. We find that we only need to go back and reference the rules when something goes wrong in communicating.
To say that scribbles and sounds structure your world, are you saying that your world is made up of scribbles and sounds? Scribbles and sounds are visual and auditory experiences and there are many other types of visual and auditory experiences, not to mention olfactory, gustatory and tactile experiences. So if you only experience the visual of scribbles, or the auditory experience of spoken words, then I can definitely see why you would say that your world is limited.
As I said, this is the kind of de re belief ascription that we can use when we are not sure about a de dicto belief ascription (i.e. we don’t know what someone else’s beliefs are really about, see the case of the kid in the park). In the case of Jack, I would prefer that form of rendering, if e.g. I’m not sure whether Jack is holding contradictory beliefs or he simply ignores that that clock is not working. Certainly, if I knew that Jack ignores that clock is not working, I would prefer to say “Jack believes that clock is working” or “Jack mistakenly believes that clock is working” instead of “Jack believes of that broken clock that is working”, or worse, “Jack believes that broken clock is working”.
Now imagine another case: Jack and everybody else believes that clock is working, except me who hacked the clock to show whatever time I wanted it to show. If I decided to confess this to everybody, would I still say “you all guys believe of that broken clock that is working”? Nope, because given everybody else’s default understanding of the situation (the shared assumptions), people would reply “what?! That clock?!” being unsure that I’m referring to the same clock or what exactly I’m claiming about that clock, etc. (i.e. what shared assumption they need to revise). So what I would prefer to say, is “you all guys believe that clock is working, but you are wrong”.
Now imagine another case: I and Jim hacked the clock, so we both know that is not working, but Jim doesn’t know if Jack was told about the hack, what could I say to assure him? I could say indifferently “Jack believes that broken clock is working” or “Jack believes of that broken clock that is working” sure that - given our shared assumptions about the clock and Jack’s rationality - Jim wouldn’t possibly interpret my belief ascription as de dicto. Unless, of course, Jim has a philosophical attitude and will start questioning me about it!
Not sure about it, also because knowledge is a wider issue. What I can say now is that, concerning belief ascription practices, I'm strongly against a "propositional calculus" kind of approach.
If you are agreeing with me that strings of scribbles is an image then there could be many descriptions that could correspond to the same image of strings of scribbles, meaning that words (as an image of strings of scribbles) would be subject to the same ambiguity that you are ascribing to images that are not scribbles.
You mentioned before that there are rules that we use that removed the ambiguity of what some scribble means and that we don't have rules for interpreting images that are not scribbles. I asked you what rules would we need to remove the ambiguity of images that are not scribbles?
Yeah, I've been having the same problem with neomac with us continually talking past each other. Their posts are mostly highbrow word salad.
First of all, I'm neutral on the question. I'm just exploring the implications.
I'm starting with the assumption that my beliefs are limited by the limits of my language.
Why some fucker would assert that is a different topic. Maybe we could start a thread:
Why do some fuckers believe the limits of their languages are the limits of their worlds?
> If you are agreeing with me that strings of scribbles is an image then there could be many descriptions that could correspond to the same image of strings of scribbles, meaning that words (as an image of strings of scribbles) would be subject to the same ambiguity that you are ascribing to images that are not scribbles.
Yep, this is correct if we take strings of characters, independently from any pre-defined linguistic codification. The difference is that with words (notice that the term “word” is already framing its referent, like an image, as a linguistic entity!) we readily have different codified systems of linguistic rules that help us identify the propositional content of declarative sentences and solve ambiguities internal to that practice.
> I asked you what rules would we need to remove the ambiguity of images that are not scribbles?
You can have all kinds of sets of rules (e.g. the codification of traffic signs). Concerning the problem at hand, one thing that really matters is to understand if/what systems of visual codifications disambiguate an image always wrt a specific proposition: think about the codified images of a deck of cards. Does e.g. the following card have a propositional content that card game rules can help us identify? What would this be?
A broken clock.
I got it then. You agreed with what I wrote, changed that, and then denounced the change. If you wish to see how they could be rendered similarly...
It was raining outside and I did not believe it. The clock was broken, and I did not believe it.
We're not discussing knowledge. What's your view wrt belief? Do you agree that in the Russell and Gettier cases that the belief was properly accounted for?
Agreed? In what sense? Where? Can you quote where I agree with you? I also said, let's pretend etc.
Quoting creativesoul
And this is just one part of the reasoning, where is the rest?
Quoting creativesoul
No sir. the problem I have is with "Jack believed that a broken clock was working" since your are insisting on it.
You came up with this rendering based on the propositional calculus suggested here: “Can Jack look at a broken clock? Surely. Can Jack believe what the clock says? Surely. Why then, can he not believe that a broken clock is working?”.
So I proposed you the following propositional calculus: if one can render “I did/did not believed that p” as “p and I did/did not believe it” and vice versa. And asked you: why can’t we do the same with p="a broken clock was working" [1]?
So I'm challenging you to explain why your propositional calculus is correct, and mine is wrong based on your own assumptions. This is the problem you should address, hopefully in a non ad-hoc way.
[1] I re-edited because the value of p that I had in mind was "a broken clock was working" but by copy-and-pasting I made a mistake.
If someone says "the limits of my language mean the limits of my world" is this assertion self contradictory?
What is the pov of the assertion? I'm asking you because you're mentally flexible. You could probably see it better than me.
I don't see them as presupposing a specific account of belief as such, in their treatment of JTB. They are reasoning about the idea that JTB (formulated in some way) provides all necessary and sufficient conditions to have a case of knowledge.
Why would anyone make an attempt to explain this to you when you already nailed you flag to the mast? You've misunderstood the remark, which is from the Tractatus. You are "unavailable for learning", as they say about the kinder child who is having a tantrum.
As I said, I'm neutral on the issue. I'd discuss it with Harry if he's interested.
I'm presently working in a team situation. My partner, who uses the word "fuck" pretty continuously, calls all the patients "fuckers", including an infant burn victim we had the fun of stabilizing. Fucker!
But yes, I don't expect to learn anything from you.
From Jack's point of view he doesn't believe anything about a broken clock, obviously, since he thinks the clock is not broken. Of course we can say that he believes of a broken clock that it is working. But so what; people entertain mistaken beliefs all the time?
:smile:
Which clock does he think is not broken?
The broken one. Clearly, he does believe something about a broken clock. He believes that the broken clock is working.
I'm not sure what possesses you to see this as problematic.
Indeed. That is at issue. I'm waiting for a valid objection.
Rather than propose something I've not, would it not just be easier to answer the question following from the simple understanding set out with common language use? I've no issue at all accounting for Jack's belief.
Do you not find it odd that Jack would agree, if and when he figured out that the clock was broken? He would have no issue saying that he had believed that a broken clock was working. So, what's your problem with it?
No. Not in other words 'qualia is ineffable'.
What qualia?
:worry:
I am not saying it is problematic; you are. You were claiming that it had some problematic implication for the idea that beliefs can be expressed in propositional form.
Jack cannot believe both simultaneously, that the clock is broken, and that a broken clock is working. There is no possibility of misunderstanding what is meant by "Jack believes a broken clock is working" unless one has already bewitched their own thinking skills by virtue of arriving at a gross misunderstanding of what belief is as a result of working from a misconception thereof.
All belief as propositional attitude is one such misconception.
Interesting thing here to me is that on the one hand you're railing against propositional calculus(as you call it), and yet again on the other your unknowingly objecting based upon the fact that Jack would not assent to his own belief if it were put into propositional form and he was asked if he believed the statement. At least, not while he still believed it.
Never mind. G'day. :smile:
You're either forgetful or dishonest. You have been levying charges against the claim. That's not something one does unless the claim is problematic, or they are not arguing in good faith.
As far as the charges I'm levying against convention...
The belief under our consideration is problematic for the conventional rendering of belief as a propositional attitude. It is not problematic for rendering it in propositional form.
What claim do you think I've been objecting to?
Jack believes that a broken clock is working.
Jack believed that a broken clock was working.
So, Banno, I'm wondering what you think of this? It seems to be not at all problematic for being rendered in propositional form, but Jack never believes the statement is true. Do you not find that both odd and interesting?
We're in agreement there. I've never argued otherwise.
The content of belief is what the debate is about.
Jack believes(or believed) that a broken clock is(was) working. So, what is that belief about, and what is the content of that belief?
Is there a point? I don't understand how it is that you don't understand.
(Jack believed that a broken clock was working) is ambiguous.
Is (the clock is broken) within the scope of Jack's belief? Then you have Jack believed that: ((The clock is broken) & (the clock is working)); Poor old Jack needs help.
Or is it outside the scope? Then you have: The clock is broken and (Jack believed that: (the clock is working))
No problem. In both cases the belief is presented as a propositional attitude.
By definition, a broken clock doesn't work, so your proposition makes no sense. A proposition equivalent to "it was raining and we thought otherwise," would be more like: "the clock was broken but we didn't know it, and we wrongly assumed it was working."
Quoting neomac
Isn't it a seven of diamonds regardless of what card game that we are playing? We don't even need a game to define the image as a seven of diamonds, because we have rules about what scribble refers to which shapes (diamonds, spades, hearts, or clubs).
In your example of street signs, we have signs with no words, and yet they are properly interpreted by most people as to what they are saying. The rules we establish are arbitrary and we have to spend time learning what some symbol (imagery, audible, etc.,) refers to. The rules themselves are language-less as each individual has their own unique experiences, starting from a pre-language (pre-symbol-using) state, in learning how the symbols are used to refer to what, or was, or potentially is the case.
Lame. Wtf does it mean to be neutral on a question, if not "I don't want to answer it because the answer would contradict other things that I've said."?
You're starting with an incoherent assumption. You need to define "language" and in a way that acknowledges that there are languages that we don't know and some that we do, and what the noticeable (visual) difference is.
Quoting frank
So you can assert something, but when the assertion is questioned we need to start another thread? The ways in which people on this forum try to avoid answering valid questions grows stranger by the day.
Quoting frank
Wait, I thought we were suppose to start another thread on this topic?
I don't say such things, you are, so it is incumbent upon you to explain what you mean, because I have no idea.
The question I asked above is much simpler and can move us forward in our conversation, yet you'd rather waste time trying to interpret some nonsensical string of scribbles.
What question?
I don't know. What do you think?
> Rather than propose something I've not,
Oh really? This is what you wrote: “Can Jack look at a broken clock? Surely. Can Jack believe what the clock says? Surely. Why then, can he not believe that a broken clock is working?”.
To obtain “Jack believes that broken clock was working” you simply replaced the term “broken clock” from “Jack looks at a broken clock” with the term “the clock” from “Jack believe what the clock says”. This is a substitution operation applied to two propositions (one reporting a belief ascription), to obtain a third proposition (reporting a belief ascription) based on the sheer co-reference of some terms involved. That is why I call it propositional calculus. Indeed a propositional calculus that is supposed to work independently from any other pragmatic and contextual considerations. Hence: you proposed something by applying some propositional calculus that I find quite preposterous.
Since you didn’t perceive how preposterous your argumentative approach is, then I gave you another case where your type of reasoning (i.e. propositional calculus applied to belief ascriptions, based on sheer co-reference, and indifferent to any pragmatic/contextual considerations) looks more evidently preposterous: if one can render “S did/did not believed that p” as “p and S did/did not believe it” and vice versa, and one can take p="that broken clock was working”, why can’t I justifiably render “Jack did believe that broken clock was working” as “that broken clock was working and Jack did believe it”?
> would it not just be easier to answer the question following from the simple understanding set out with common language use?
That’s what I and others did, unless you think you are a more competent speaker than all of those who objected your rendering, you should take this as a linguistic datum and infer that your account is not that common language usage, after all. And indeed you did that already when you claimed to be questioning the “conventional” belief account.
Let me repeat once more: I don’t feel intellectually compelled to answer questions based on preposterous assumptions, like this one:“Can Jack look at a broken clock? Surely. Can Jack believe what the clock says? Surely. Why then, can he not believe that a broken clock is working?”. But I can certainly show you why I find them preposterous (which I did). BTW, as far as I read from your posts [1], this is the only argument you made to justify your belief ascription rendering (besides your thought experiment with a fictional character that — surprise surprise — agrees with you!).
Anyways, I now question this justification not simply because its conclusion is wrong (which is), but also because itself is flawed by design (even if your conclusion was correct)!
> Do you not find it odd that Jack would agree, if and when he figured out that the clock was broken?
Seriously?! By “Jack” you mean a fictional character in a story that you just invented? Oh no, that’s not odd at all, it would be indeed much more odd if you invented stories where fictional characters explicitly contradict your theories, and despite that you used those stories to prove your theory.
OK let me help you with your case. Indeed, I think there might be a way out for you but only if you reject this line of reasoning: “Can Jack look at a broken clock? Surely. Can Jack believe what the clock says? Surely. Why then, can he not believe that a broken clock is working?” (along with the idea that de re belief ascriptions are appropriate independently from pragmatic and contextual considerations, or a better rendering than de dicto belief ascriptions). Indeed if you rejected that line of reasoning, then you could explain the situation in your thought experiment based on pragmatic considerations and shared assumptions, much better. How? Here you go: since at moment t2, you and Jack share the same assumptions about the reliability of that clock, the belief of Jack about that clock at t1, and the rationality of you and Jack, then between you two it would be easier to disambiguate the claim “Jack believed that broken clock was working”, and this is why you two would not find it so problematic to use that belief ascription (BTW that is also why we can't exclude a non-literal or ironic reading of this belief ascription either). However, as soon as we add to the story another interlocutor who doesn’t share all the same assumptions relevant to disambiguate “Jack believed that broken clock was working” then this rendering would be again inappropriate or less appropriate than de dicto rendering “Jack believed that clock was working”.
> Interesting thing here to me is that on the one hand you're railing against propositional calculus(as you call it), and yet again on the other your unknowingly objecting based upon the fact that Jack would not assent to his own belief if it were put into propositional form and he was asked if he believed the statement. At least, not while he still believed it.
There are 2 problems in your comment:
[1] If you have others and can provide links, I’d like to read them.
Of course, but if you follow my exchange with Creative Soul with due attention, you should understand why I made it up. That crazy sentence is the result of some unjustified propositional calculus that I applied to the belief ascription rendering "Jack believes that broken clock is working" (proposed by CreativeSoul). Why did I do that? To show CreativeSoul that my unjustified propositional calculus is very much the same type of propositional calculus CreativeSoul used to justify his belief ascription rendering (e.g. "Jack believes that broken clock is working")
:roll: You've never seen a language you don't know? Have you ever used Google translate?
Take some of your own advice in answering questions you don't know how to answer:
Quoting frank
We're still on this? CS doesn't yet realize that the proposition, "Jack believed that a broken clock was working." isn't something Jack is saying (believing), but what someone else is saying (believing) about Jack and the clock? Who is making this statement? It certainly can't be Jack.
But what about this?
The only good trilobite is a dead trilobite as far as I'm concerned.
Agreed, indeed I was backing up the part where you wrote “meaning that words (as an image of strings of scribbles)”
Quoting Harry Hindu
Maybe regardless of any specific card game, but the challenge here is to express the propositional content of that image (something that an image can share with sentences, different propositional attitudes, different languages): so is the propositional content of that image rendered by “this is a seven of diamonds” or “this is a seven of diamonds in standard 52-card deck” or “this is a card of diamonds different from a 1 to 6 or 8 to 13 of diamonds” or “this is a seven of a suit different from clubs, hearts, spades” or “this is a card with seven red diamond-shaped figures and red shaped number seven arranged so and so” or any combination of these propositions? All of them are different propositions which one is the right one? BTW “this” is an indexical, and shouldn’t be part of the content of an unambiguous proposition: so maybe the propositional content is “something is a seven of diamonds” or “some image is a seven of diamonds”? And so on.
At least this is how I understand the philosophical task of proving that images have propositional content, but I'm neither sure that others understand this philosophical task in the same way I just drafted, nor that this task can be accomplished successfully.
We're all stubborn around here. :smile:
I understand that and most of what others are objecting to. The rendering of the belief as (a broken clock is working) is said to be problematic. On my end, it would be better put as (that broken clock is working), but the objections would remain. What I do not understand is the move to set (that broken clock) outside of the scope of Jack's belief and replace it with (that clock) when the example hinges upon the fact that the clock is broken but Jack believes what it says. Jack does not know it is broken, so he cannot believe that it is broken. I grant that much entirely, but there's no reason to say that he cannot believe that that broken clock is working.
I'm going to postpone any further replies to you for now. You seem to be taking things personally. Mea culpa on a few of those things you said in the last long reply...
The example is akin to believing that a facade is a barn, or a sheet is a sheep. These could all be broken down into two propositions as Moore did with (it is raining and I do not believe it).
Fine with me, I don’t want to waste your time and energies. And you already have many other interlocutors. In any case, I'm more playful than you might think. Just I can play it tougher depending on other peoples' replies.
The move to set it outside the scope of Jack's belief is due to the fact that it would be impossible for Jack to make such a statement based on his belief. It would be what someone else is stating about their own beliefs about Jack and the clock. After all, Jack could be tricking the observer (his boss) into thinking he doesn't really know what time it was as an excuse for being late.
What about it?
What do you mean by "propositional content"? What are you pointing at when you use the string of scribbles, "propositional content"?
You seem to be confusing the card with the deck. I don't need to know it's relationship with other things to know that it is a sheet of paper with red ink in shape of diamonds and a "7". If you want me to know the relationship it has with other things, then I would need to see the image of those things as well. The propositions you propose cannot be discerned by merely looking at a 7 of diamonds. I would have to observe it in a box with the rest of the cards, or used with the other cards.
> What do you mean by "propositional content"? What are you pointing at when you use the string of scribbles, "propositional content”?
I take it to mean, something that at least can be shared by different sentences (e.g. “Jim loves Alice” and “that guy called Jim loves Alice” ), by different propositional attitudes (e.g. I believe that Jim loves Alice, I hope that Jim loves Alice), by different languages (e.g. “Jim loves Alice” and “Jim aime Alice”) and determines their usage/fitness conditions. Those who theorize about propositions have richer answers than this of course (e.g. Frege’s propositions, Russell’s propositions, unstructured propositions, etc.). But I’m not a fan of these theories, so I’ll let others do the job.
Anyways, I hear people wondering about images as propositions or as having propositional content, without elaborating or clarifying, so this was my piece of brainstorming about this subject.
> You seem to be confusing the card with the deck. I don't need to know it's relationship with other things to know that it is a sheet of paper with red ink in shape of diamonds and a “7".
To know that I’m confusing the propositional content of that image, presupposes that you know what the propositional content of that image is. But I’m not convinced it’s that simple, see what you just wrote about that image:
Again, I’m just brainstorming, so no strong opinion on any of that. Indeed I was hoping to get some feedback from those who talk about propositional content of images, or images as propositions.
SO you do not understand that "the broken clock" is not a description Jack could correctly make? That "The broken clock" could not be within the scope of Jack's belief?
It's that "broken clock" is an extensional definition, while [I]believes[/I] is an intensional operator.
The typical example of intension is
Jack believes Stephen King's first novel is The Shining.
If we stuck an extensional definition in there it would read
Jack believes that Carrie is The Shining.
Same thing.
Don't make me cry. I've made that point, indeed in detail and with a history of it's origin before Frege, over the course of this damnable thread, and elsewhere.
Yes, it's an impossibly long thread and doubtless you may have not seen it. Let's move on.
There are some interesting aspects to some of your objections. However, we seem to be having difficulty focusing upon what I think is of importance. That's on me.
Well, yes and no.
While believing that that broken clock was working, it would be impossible.
However, after becoming aware of the fact that he believed that a broken clock was working, by showing him that clock had stopped, after becoming aware of exctly how he had come to believe that it was 3 o'clock, he could no longer believe that that clock was working. At this point in time, Jack could readliy admit to having once believed that that particular clock was working, and that that particular clock was broken at that time, so he had once believed that that particular broken clock was working.
So, no, it is not always impossible to make such a statement based upon his belief.
Here's the interesting part...
Never did he have an attitude towards that particular proposition(that broken clock is working) such that he believed it to be the case, or true. Thus, he cannot be sensibly said to have an attitude towards that proposition such that he takes it to be the case, or takes it to be true. If an accurate rendering of Jack's belief were put into belief statement form, he would not assent. That is not a problem at all for what I'm saying here. He did not know he was wrong. He believed that that broken clock was working nonetheless.
That example stands in direct opposition to underlying false presuppositions pervading some of the objections to the simple account I'm offering here. Namely, 1.that we must be aware of everything we believe, and 2.all belief can be rendered into propositional form such that the individual to whom the belief belongs would assent.
Neither of those are true. I'm offering an everyday example that warrants our tempering our confidence in those two notions. A bit more carefully well-placed skepticism is appropriate.
At least not while he believed that the broken clock was working.
Quoting Banno
I would agree if what counts as being within the scope of our belief are only what we would assent to if asked. Jack would assent if asked after becoming aware of the relevant facts.
However, if the scope was broadened a bit so as to include what we all actually believe rather than what we know, and/or would admit to, we would surely see that the scope of Jack's belief is beyond his own knowledge.
He actually believes that the clock is working.
I don't think you have understood this scope thing. A bit of formal logic would do you no harm.
Jack would assent to once believing that that particular broken clock was working if asked after having become aware of the relevant facts. Not before.
So, the scope of Jack's belief ought be broadened a bit so as to include what he believed rather than what he would admit to believing. The scope of Jack's belief ought include all of Jack's belief. He was totally unaware of his false belief that that particular broken clock was working while he believed it. He believed what the clock said, and would readily admit to this all after having become aware of the relevant facts. After becoming aware of the broken clock, he would have become aware of his own mistake. At this point in time he would readily agree if asked "Did you believe that that broken clock was working?"...
He would have never agreed if ever asked if the proposition/statement "That broken clock is working" were true. He never held an attitude towards the proposition (that broken clock is working) such that he believed it true.
That's a bit more cleaned up.
Seems to me that this is clearly a belief that does not allow itself to be rendered in propositional form such that the believer would hold it to be true, or as true.
Could you apply this to (Jack believed that a broken clock was working)? I'm curious to see exactly how it is the same...
Here I'm extending this to barn facades and sheets in fields that resemble sheep...
Belief that does not permit itself to be rendered as a propositional attitude.
SO now I am wondering if you have a clear grasp of what a proposition is. I just don't see anything here that supports your contention.
You're moving goal posts. Jack's beliefs can change, sure, but which belief is the statement about - before or after he became aware? You're being purposely obtuse, such that I don't believe your goal here is to reach any common ground with anyone, rather you seem to have too much time on your hands and a need to waste other people's time.
"Something" that is shared by different sentences is too vague. What specifically do they share and is there a categorical term that can be used to refer to what is shared that allows us to group all propositional content under the the term, "propositional content"? What makes something propositional content? What allows us to say that different sentences that have different propositional content? There must be something that sentences share that allows us to say that they all have propositional content. If not, then how can we say that different sentences share things?
Quoting neomac
Well, again, it depends on our goals in communicating. What are we trying to talk about? How was a 52 deck of cards invented? What is the history of the 52-deck of cards? There had to either be an idea for a 52-deck of cards in someone's head that evolved from pre-existing ideas about games with cards that did not include 7 of diamonds. So it isn't likely that someone just created a 7 of diamonds card without also creating the rest of the deck, hence the 7 of diamonds is only meaningful with the rest of the deck. With that I can agree, but it still is possible for someone to find a card with the number 7 and 7 diamonds on it that has never seen playing cards. How would they go about determining the meaning of the card, or could they use it for something else, like a bookmark, or as an object for bringing luck (lucky 7)? When using it as a bookmark are they misusing the card, or are they simply co-opting an object (scribbles and images) for other uses?
I don't think you'll find it helpful.
I think that it would be helpful to show how the objection is inapplicable to what I'm arguing here. Your example is one of switching referents. Mine is not.
(That broken clock is working) has been proposed as the belief from the beginning. Any change was for elucidation only, not as a way to avoid valid objection. Evidently you do not understand what's being argued. That reply was meant more for others anyway...
> "Something" that is shared by different sentences is too vague. […] If not, then how can we say that different sentences share things?
Right. But I left it vague on purpose b/c otherwise I should have taken position wrt what propositions are, which is not my intention. Yet a major intuition pump that is inspiring the philosophical theory of propositions lies in that kind of examples I provided.
> So it isn't likely that someone just created a 7 of diamonds card without also creating the rest of the deck, hence the 7 of diamonds is only meaningful with the rest of the deck. With that I can agree, but it still is possible for someone to find a card with the number 7 and 7 diamonds on it that has never seen playing cards.
Your last point is going back to where we started: images (taken as a representational kind of things) can match different descriptions that do not share the same proposition. Then, if you remember, you asked me “what rules would we need to remove the ambiguity of images that are not scribbles?”. So, I proposed you to consider the codification systems that we have to interpret images (traffic signs, deck of cards, national flags, emoticons, brand logos, etc.). These codification rules are certainly helping us identify and understand images, but the issue at hand is more specific: can they help us determine the right propositional content of an image? I’m inclined to think that the correct answer is no. Unless, say, images are trivially coupled with sentences by stipulation (but what if the problem is deeper than this?).
> How would they go about determining the meaning of the card?
Good question, but your question should be more demanding than this, and look for a meaning that has an intrinsic propositional form (that sentences can share etc.). So the question should be: how would they go about determining the [s]meaning[/s] propositional content of the card?
I understand what you are arguing. You're just wrong.
A better approach would be to explore the implications of belief being limited by language.
To which contention are you referring?
That's not at all convincing to an astute audience. Gratuitous assertions such as these may convince some, but not I. We'll see if I'm wrong. That has yet to have been determined and/or established. I'm not even finished yet. Time constraints.
There's a certain bit of irony here. I could say "pots and kettles" too...
Need I remind you of the absolute mess you made of the notion during the debate? There is more than one accepted use of that term. On my view, all propositions are proposed. It follows that having an attitude towards some proposition such that one believes it to be the case requires an individual capable of proposing and an individual capable of understanding that proposal and subsequently taking it to be true.
That sheet hanging from a clothesline is a sheep, therefore there is at least one sheep in that field.
That man dressed in a sheep suit is a sheep, therefore there is at least one sheep in that field.
That stopped clock is working, therefore what it says about the time is accurate.
Jones owns a Ford and disjunctions are true if either disjunct is. Therefore, 'either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona' is true because Jones owns a Ford.
Yeah but now you're talking about Jack having different beliefs after becoming aware of something that CONTRADICTS his prior belief.
Quoting creativesoul
That is a barn, therefore there is at least one barn on that land.
That is a sheep, therefore there is at least one sheep in that field.
That clock is working, therefore what it says about the time is accurate.
That barn facade is a barn, therefore there is at least one barn on that land.
That sheet hanging from a clothesline is a sheep, therefore there is at least one sheep in that field.
That man dressed in a sheep suit is a sheep, therefore there is at least one sheep in that field.
That stopped clock is working, therefore what it says about the time is accurate.
So, above are two different ways to describe some of the beliefs under consideration. It seems that I am the only one around here who finds the bottom set to be more accurate and/or acceptable than the first. Most of the objections are based upon the idea that the believer needs to assent to their belief when put into propositional form. That the scope of one's belief needs to be limited to only what they would say of themselves at that time.
Accuracy with respect to what? All I can say is that the most accurate report of someone’s belief at time t1 is the one that best matches the point of view of the believer at time t1. Why would I pick the point of view of some person P at time t2 (or some other person Q at time t1) as a criterium of accuracy for reporting P's belief at time t1?
Let me reformulate your proposal without mentioning all wrong hints I think you provided (and still provide) and in terms that I find less equivocal, in order to make it look better (at least, to me).
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[i]We commonly take a believer’s perspective on a given situation as a fundamental accuracy condition for belief ascriptions about him, and intensional belief ascriptions are designed for expressing this understanding. This is why we reject extensional belief ascriptions, at least, when intensional belief ascriptions are available.
Yet one can wonder if all intensional belief ascriptions can be in principle replaced by extensional belief ascriptions without omitting the believer’s perspective. How? By rendering the believer’s perspective in terms of metalinguistic belief ascriptions (belief about the truth-value of some propositions).
This is why one can claim as valid both
Where is the benefit? At least, in preserving truth-value through substitution of co-referent terms, even for belief ascriptions, and without giving up on the believer’s perspective. [I’ll let you integrate with other benefits][/i]
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Before commenting further, would you find this re-formulation enough acceptable? And if not, why not?
Neither way of describing the beliefs is more accurate other than from their different appropriate perspectives.
In your rendering of my contentions here, you've placed far too much importance on the notions of intentional, intensional, and extensional. One in my position could be easily flattered by such misattribution. I mean, it looks like a very intelligent viewpoint is being described.
Is the practice of using "intensional" to ensure that our ascriptions are somehow congruent and/or otherwise amenable to the believer's perspective at the time? Given what I've quoted below, it would seem so.
Quoting neomac
One great reason to deny the need for a match between our report and the person's own perspective and/or point of view at that time is when they believe that a man in a sheep suit is a sheep, but they've no idea that they believe that. That man in that suit is a very large part of the meaningful content of any belief that he is a sheep. That man in that suit is both, unknown and influential to the believer.
The believer does not know at the time that they believe a man in a sheep suit is a sheep.
One great reason to pick the same person at another time is when we find ourselves discussing another's belief that they themselves do not know that they have. We can ask them later after they become aware of the relevant facts. It seems to me that that part of what I'm saying here honors and satisfies your standard of matching the individual's perspective concerning what exactly they believed at time t1. Moreso even than the alternative.
The above is not half bad. That's supposed to be a compliment.
> In your rendering of my contentions here, you've placed far too much importance on the notions of intentional, intensional, and extensional..
Indeed I reported that premise (there was a typo: I wrote “intenTional” instead of “intenSional”), b/c if you want to make a philosophical proposal that is appealing to me, or those holding the conventional view of belief ascription, you should feel intellectually compelled to show understanding toward what we are concerned about (de dicto report are necessary for rendering believers' p.o.v.), and prove by that that we are not talking past each other. The burden is on you, b/c it’s you who wants to challenge the conventional view, not the other way around.
Otherwise our exchange will just end up in butting heads against the wall of our diverging intuition pumps. It’s pointless. So we can work out our different views better if we start from common grounds or at least reciprocal concessions (depending on the burden of proof).
> I mean, it looks like a very intelligent viewpoint is being described.
So, do you find my formulation good enough despite of “you've placed far too much importance etc.”, or not good enough because of “you've placed far too much importance etc.”?
> The above is not half bad. That's supposed to be a compliment.
So, is the part you quoted acceptable enough or not? And if not, for what reason?
> One great reason to deny the need for a match between our report and the person's own perspective and/or point of view at that time is when they believe that a man in a sheep suit is a sheep, but they've no idea. […]
One great reason to pick the same person at another time is when we find ourselves discussing another's belief that they themselves do not know that they have. We can ask them later after they become aware of the relevant facts. It seems to me thatthat part of what I'm saying here honors and satisfies your standard of matching the individual's perspective concerning what exactly they believed at time t1. Moreso even than the alternative.
Here my objections:
My reformulation of your proposal looks better because it is not based on anything I found highly controversial in your claims (wild propositional calculi, confusion between false and contradictory beliefs, confusion between knowledge and belief ascriptions) and it doesn’t evidently betray any intrinsic accuracy condition for belief ascriptions (since the believer's perspective is still preserved through metalinguistic belief ascriptions) which is at the core of conventional understanding of belief ascriptions.
Very well put. I'm fairly certain that we are not talking past each other. I'll give your objections due attention as soon as time permits. There's quite a bit wrapped up in there, and again... I appreciate the due attention. You've presented what seems to be a cogent well considered reply and as such it deserves the same in response.
I agree. That is not a problem, for I am talking about a belief that they are unaware of having at time t1. Thus, my proposal ought not match their point of view at time t1. My proposal of what they believe ought match what they believe. Sometimes we believe things that we are totally unaware of.
At time t1, if we should ask, "Hey!... Jack!... Do you realize that you believe that that broken clock is working?" they would be quite surprised that they had just believed that that particular broken clock was working.
Quoting neomac
According to the standard you've put forth for what counts as an acceptable report of Jack's belief at time t1, Jack's own reporting at time t2 would not meet that standard.
> I am talking about a belief that they are unaware of having at time t1. Thus, my proposal ought not match their point of view at time t1.
First of all, the expression “unaware of” is ambiguous here: “unaware” can mean that the belief is there just implicitly/dispositionally there; or it can mean we are “unaware” of the actual truth value of a belief (b/c we will discover it later or never) or if it expresses knowledge or not.
Secondly what your proposal ought to do, depends on the accuracy condition for belief ascriptions: as I said they should be intrinsic to belief and not extrinsic to it (as knowledge is) and when we are reporting beliefs at time t1 they should ideally track the p.o.v. of the belief holder at time t1 (it doesn’t matter if the belief is implicit or explicit) which can not be contradictory just because later it is proven to be false (so if a false belief is presented as contradictory, it will be ambiguous wrt to the believer’s p.o.v. at time t1 as it is confusing logic and epistemology).
Therefore the appeal to beliefs we are unaware of, doesn’t hint at anything decisive unless you are specifically referring to the actual truth-value or knowledge-status of the belief. But in this case, there is the problem of the unwarranted knowledge claims, on top of the irrecoverable ambiguity of your belief ascriptions.
> According to the standard you've put forth for what counts as an acceptable report of Jack's belief at time t1, Jack's own reporting at time t2 would not meet that standard.
Right, this is coherent with my view and indeed this is what I explicitly claimed in my previous comment ("P at t2 is not offering any accurate report of P at t1 if she used your belief ascription report"). Yet I also pointed out to a specific situation where a belief ascription like yours (“Jack believed that a broken clock was working”) even though doesn’t meet the standard I acknowledge, it could be tolerated b/c easy to disambiguate (which also means that your “Jack” example does not necessarily support your view more than the conventional understanding of belief ascriptions!).
> Ah shit! That's true! At time t1, I did believe that that particular broken clock was working!
The philosophical task, as I understand it, consists precisely in looking for what justifies one’s intuitive assumptions and not giving them for granted, all the more if they are not shared (like in your case). This amounts to trying to strengthen one’s position or weaken alternative positions, by means of sharper analysis of our assumptions, assessments of the explanatory power of available&shared evidences, assessments of our theory internal coherence or theoretical benefits.
In other words, if you think you can advance our philosophical dispute by dramatizing an example you invented and appealing to its intuitive force, then I’m afraid we do not have the same understanding of the philosophical task and your proposal is no longer intellectually challenging to me.
Well, if you do not wish to continue, there's not much more I can do. I am very short on time for doing this stuff, for having this discussion, but I am making time just to be able to do so. You've levied a fair amount of serious charges here, and evidently you do not feel the obligation to allow the accused to provide a defense.
Due to the depth and breadth of the charges, I was planning on going through your objections one at a time. So, I began with your objection that my report of Jack's belief at time t1 did not match Jack's point of view at time t1. That objection was based upon your own proposed standard that our report of another's belief at time t1 match the point of view and/or perspective of the believer at time t1. You further supported this idea of matching the believer's own viewpoint.
So, I raised the valid objection that, at time t2, the believer's own report of their belief at time t1 does not meet the standard you've set. Do you not find that problematic? Are we to say that, at time t2, Jack is wrong about what they believed at time t1? What ground is there for us to accept his point of view at time t1(while mistaken) and reject it at time t2 after he's become aware of and subsequently corrected the mistake?
That's absurd. Special pleading at best.
There is nothing at all wrong with our saying that they held a belief that they were unaware of at time t1, but later when they became aware of the relevant facts concerning the clock along with their belief about it, they would readily admit that they had indeed believed that that broken clock was working.
The problem of our doing so is that it goes against the conventional notions.
You also seem to want to say that I am somehow attributing a self-contradictory belief to Jack, but I've yet to see you explain how I have done so. Thus far it's been gratuitously asserted along with other charges as well. That said, granted, going by the standards you're working from and one absolute presupposition they rest upon, it would be contradictory to say that anyone believed that broken clock was working. However, if we acknowledge the fact that we can and do hold belief that we are unaware of holding at the time of holding it, it is not at all contradictory to believe that a broken clock is working.
The standard you've presented presupposes that a believer is always aware of their own belief at the time it is influencing their behaviour. That is a false presupposition.
You've also complained several times about the fact that I've been using a thought experiment and/or hypothetical scenario, as if that is a problem? Surely, you do not want me to show you how absurd that is... do you? Here's the thing, it's not just a thought experiment...
It's something that happens! It is also something that can be tested in a controlled environment. Now, I would agree that the subjects would agree to both reports; that they believed that that clock was working, and that they believed that a broken clock was working. They could do so without any self-contradiction whatsoever.
Lastly, it has become more and more apparent to me that we have mutually exclusive notions of belief at work. I'm still wondering about something you said earlier regarding whether or not our notion of belief ought match our standard for belief ascription or the other way around. I'll ask you again...
What are you attributing(ascribing) to another prior to having a standard for what exactly counts as belief?
Have you never believed a clock that was not telling the right time?
:worry:
At time t2, Jack's own report of his own belief at time t1 matches mine. Somehow, you find this to be a problem. According to the above, we're both wrong. That's an incredible claim!
Now, just to be clear, I agree that there are times that we can know another's belief better than they do, but this is not one of those times(you do not know Jack's belief at time t1 better than Jack at time t2).
If the position you hold forbids you to admit that we can do both, believe that a broken clock is working, and admit of having held that belief at a later time, then I suggest you seriously consider incorporating the fact that we can and do hold belief that we are unaware of holding at the time.
Do you also deny that it is possible for us to believe that a man in a sheep suit is a sheep, or that a barn facade is a barn?
> Well, if you do not wish to continue, there's not much more I can do. I am very short on time for doing this stuff, for having this discussion, but I am making time just to be able to do so. You've levied a fair amount of serious charges here, and evidently you do not feel the obligation to allow the accused to provide a defense.
The problem is not that you do not have time, but how you use it to respond to my “serious charges”. Even this time, you wrote a lot, but no value added. Just more of the same. And if you keep repeating the same "begging-the-question" claims and framing examples based on your questionable assumptions, I will just repeat my objections (unless you are unlucky, b/c I will add more objections on top of the ones I already made).
> I raised the valid objection that, at time t2, the believer's own report of their belief at time t1 does not meet the standard you've set. [...]
That's absurd. Special pleading at best.
It’s absurd how much trust you put in this argument.
First of all we are talking about a fictional character you invented to support your claims, while real people like us are questioning the intuitive strength of your claim. So no, my denial is not absurd at all, especially if compared to your claim.
Secondly to the perceived plausibility of “Jack believed that a broken clock was working” can be explained also by our common understanding of belief ascriptions, without supporting your idea that your belief ascription style is accurate or even more accurate than “Jack believed that a broken clock was working”. So no special pleading.
In conclusion. your objection relies on the fact that the believer's own report (in your fictitious example) is accurate and this suffices to destabilize a common understanding of belief ascriptions. I question both, and justifiably so.
> You also seem to want to say that I am somehow attributing a self-contradictory belief to Jack, but I've yet to see you explain how I have done so. […] it is not at all contradictory to believe that a broken clock is working.
Pls focus: “a broken clock is working” is a contradiction (!!!). You are attributing to Jack, in your example ("Jack believed a broken clock was working"), a contradictory belief. The consequence is that, by your standard, any false belief is equated to a contradictory belief. This shows a confusion between false belief and contradictory belief, therefore your belief ascription is inaccurate and ambiguous.
If it wasn't already enough, here you go with two other preposterous consequences of your view:
1. if a belief ascription about P at time t1 is based on P's p.o.v at time t1m, we shouldn't change the belief ascription every time P changes her mind about the relevant facts (which she can do in an unlimited number of time). While with your standard we should revise our belief ascriptions at every revision of P's beliefs about the relevant facts.
2. We (collectively) do not always know or can determine the truth-value of our beliefs (are there aliens in the universe? can we prove this mathematical conjecture?), yet that doesn't prevent us from believing and being attributed beliefs, independently from of our capacity to determine what the relevant facts are. This is perfectly compatible with a belief ascription that aims at reporting the p.o.v of the believer independently from the truth about the relevant facts and knowledge claims, while with your standard the real content of a belief would be indeterminate until we can't determine what the relevant facts are.
> Thus far it's been gratuitously asserted along with other charges as well.
Marginal observation: how you can talk about “the depth and breadth” of my “serious charges” (which I seriously doubt you grasped) and yet claim that they are gratuitous (wrt your intuitions, I guess), is a mystery to me, but at this point I can't find it surprising anymore.
> The standard you've presented presupposes that a believer is always aware of their own belief at the time it is influencing their behaviour. That is a false presupposition.
Not only I do not presuppose this but I also declared that the false belief of P is explainable in terms of her ignorance (so lack of awareness about the relevant facts). However I also clearly stated that knowledge ascription should not be presupposed by belief ascription: i.e. Jack, in your example, ignored at t1 that his belief was false or he was not aware at t1 of his mistaken belief until t2. And an accurate way to express this is "at t1, Jack mistakenly believed that a clock was working", so there is no need to mention at all the "broken clock" within the scope of Jack's belief, even after he becomes aware that his belief was false. Replacing "clock" with "broken clock" would mess up the belief report, not make it more accurate.
> What are you attributing(ascribing) to another prior to having a standard for what exactly counts as belief?
I don't get the sense of this question. I exposed my understanding of belief ascriptions when I talked about intrinsic/extrinsic fitness conditions of beliefs, did you read and understand the point I made there? If you do not agree, what would be the reasons?
Quoting creativesoul
Pls, focus: "to believe a clock that is not working" is as fine as "to believe a broken clock that is working", these are a kind of de re ascriptions that can be legitimately, accurately and unambiguously used in certain contexts, and that possibility is grounded on the fact that "the (broken) clock" is within the cognitive scope of the one who makes the belief ascription, not within the scope of the believer . And I already discussed about this kind of belief reports before you did, so don't look for disagreements where there are none.
My problem is only with the claim that this belief report “P (mistakenly) believed that a broken clock was working” is not only accurate, but even more accurate than “P (mistakenly) believed that a clock was working”. So I’m challenging you to explain why, and in particular, accurate with respect to what. Your belief attribution report is not accurate wrt to the relevant facts ("a broken clock is working" is not a fact), nor it is an accurate report of P's p.o.v at time t1 (since at time t1, P doesn't know his belief is wrong and would express this by saying "I do not believe that a broken clock is working" or "I do believe that 'a broken clock is working' is false"), so what else? Even if you claimed that it matches P's p.o.v at time t2, there is big problem: why should we take P's p.o.v at time t2 as an accuracy condition for belief ascriptions about P at t1, instead of P's p.o.v at time t1? Here is where you need to feel in your defensive arguments without "begging the question".
It still seems to me we have a different understanding of what a philosophical debate is, and until you do not prove to me you are playing the same game, your case is not intellectually challenging to me.
Show me again, because thus far you've changed Jack's belief in your translation.
It has to do with the content of Jack's belief...
My position can admit and accept all three of the renditions we've been discussing. You're the one who has issue with the fact that we do sometimes believe that broken clocks are working.
While believing that a broken clock is working is not.
It's the difference between understanding that believing a broken clock is working is not the same as believing "a broken clock is working".
The latter is how those who hold all belief as propositional attitude would render Jack's belief that a broken clock is working. Not all belief can be successfully rendered as such.
What is your criterion for belief?
You've based your arguments here on your understanding of belief ascription. What exactly are you ascribing to another when you say that they believe something?
The last post of mine seems the most promising for attaining a mutual understanding of one another's position. The entire discussion has skirted around the underlying issue, which is - as mentioned heretofore - mutually exclusive notions of belief at work. Setting our notions out here in the public square will go a very long way to establishing where the pivotal key differences are.
We can set all the other stuff aside for now and focus upon what counts as belief.
Then, we will see how much sense it makes to ascribe belief to another, because we will have some standard of belief for comparing our ascriptions/attribution to.
I mean, we are both clearly dug in regarding our own respective reasoning for accepting and/or rejecting saying that we can and sometimes do believe that a broken clock is working. So, in line with your own suggestion of looking towards assumptions, etc., this is a perfect place to start!
Quoting myself:
OK let me help you with your case. Indeed, I think there might be a way out for you but only if you reject this line of reasoning: “Can Jack look at a broken clock? Surely. Can Jack believe what the clock says? Surely. Why then, can he not believe that a broken clock is working?” (along with the idea that de re belief ascriptions are appropriate independently from pragmatic and contextual considerations, or a better rendering than de dicto belief ascriptions). Indeed if you rejected that line of reasoning, then you could explain the situation in your thought experiment based on pragmatic considerations and shared assumptions, much better. How? Here you go: since at moment t2, you and Jack share the same assumptions about the reliability of that clock, the belief of Jack about that clock at t1, and the rationality of you and Jack, then between you two it would be easier to disambiguate the claim “Jack believed that broken clock was working”, and this is why you two would not find it so problematic to use that belief ascription (BTW that is also why we can't exclude a non-literal or ironic reading of this belief ascription either). However, as soon as we add to the story another interlocutor who doesn’t share all the same assumptions relevant to disambiguate “Jack believed that broken clock was working” then this rendering would be again inappropriate or less appropriate than de dicto rendering “Jack believed that clock was working”.
Quoting creativesoul
Closer but still wrong, since I question such a fact as well as framing my view based on this putative fact. So, more accurately, I (as many others here) have issue with your claim that we do sometimes believe that broken clocks are working.
Quoting creativesoul
OK, let’s delve into this other claims of yours.
But first, let me notice that I don’t know whom you are talking about here (“those who hold all belief as propositional attitude”), since in the literature propositional attitudes are not normally rendered as attitudes toward quoted sentences, making them look as metalinguistic beliefs or beliefs about sentences! This notation is more likely your way to mark a difference between propositions and contents of belief. But if you take propositional attitudes as metalinguistic attitudes then your understanding of propositional attitudes certainly doesn’t match the common understanding of propositional attitudes and indeed this is confusing wrt to the related debate: e.g. for Frege, propositions are thoughts (senses), while for Russell they are complexes of objects and properties as extensional referents of words (probably state of affairs), while neither renders belief as belief that ‘p’ (with quotation marks). So from whom did you get the idea that beliefs as propositional attitudes are by definition attitudes toward sentences to be reported in quotation marks (as in “S believes that ‘p’” instead of “S believes that p”)? Until I do have a convincing answer to that, your claim is another unacceptable example of framing the issue in a way that presupposes your understanding as correct.
Said that, here my 3 questions:
Quoting creativesoul
I'm attributing a belief: beliefs are intentional cognitive states/events with intrinsic mind-to-world fitness conditions expressed through behavioral attitudes in a given context. These intrinsic fitness conditions constitute - broadly speaking - the p.o.v of the believer. So I take the task of identifying the intrinsic fitness conditions of a given belief in a given context as equivalent to providing an explanation of P’s behavior in a given context based on her cognitive intentionality. Since what better explains the cognitively-guided behavior of P at time t1 based on cognitive intentionality (i.e. P's belief at t1), to me, is the p.o.v. of P at t1 than any other alternative (like the p.o.v. of Q at t1, or the the p.o.v. of P at t2), then belief ascriptions about P at time t1 are accurate in so far as they match the p.o.v. of P at time t1.
Quoting creativesoul
OK let’s try. Now it’s your turn to clarify what belief is. However, I would still like to hear at least your answers to my 3 questions b/c it helps clarify your ideas about belief.
That's a very odd phrasing at the end. There were others earlier, but they all seem inconsequential. I think you meant to write "Until I do..." rather than "Until I don't...". Clarify please if my interpretation is incorrect. If it's correct, no need to spend time verifying.
That's a fair and relevant question given the discussion. The near equation of statements and propositions amounts to combinatory vestiges from earlier discussions, including but not limited to the belief that approach which I've always taken to be about belief statements and the presupposition of truth inherently embedded within them such that suffixing them with "is true" amounts to redundancy.
It's good to know that that's not what you're doing with those words. Duly noted! Seeing that I've no issue with using them however you wish here, I'll follow your lead. I'm not at all married to the idea of propositions or attitudes towards them such that one takes them to be true(in the sense of propositions as statements) or such that one takes them to be the case(in the sense of propositions as states of affairs/events).
To your point, I would concur that I certainly cannot offer a valid objection, should I have an issue, regarding the practice of rendering belief as propositional attitudes if I've not understood what is meant by your use of the term propositional attitude; or better yet, if I've not rightly understood the practice.
I now understand, perhaps moreso than at the time, why you opened with the questionaire that you did. So, this serves as a reminder to me that there's often very good reasons why some want to begin by defining one's key terms.
Quoting neomac
In the spirit of building a bridge of mutual understanding, I must say that that's considerably more confusing to me than it is clarifying. It seems theory laden, and quite heavily so. This is not meant as an insult or necessarily a negative thing(to be theory laden). However, I now more than ever want to be sure that I understand what you're saying.
You're drawing a distinction between one's point of view and one's belief. Could you unpack them both individually please, so as to be able to compare and contrast the two?
I must say that it seems odd to me to say something like "beliefs are intentional cognitive states/events with intrinsic mind-to-world (cognitive) fitness conditions..." The double use of the term "cognitive" is throwing me.
On your view, does cognition include things not contained inside the skull?
I plan on it. They are good questions.
Believing a clock is working is something that happens as a result of knowing how to read a clock and looking towards one as a means to know what time it is. Things such as these are not the sort of things that we say have truth conditions. Rather, they are the truth conditions of statements about what's happened, and/or is happening.
It makes no sense to me to talk about the truth conditions of (believing "a clock is working"). That does not at all seem to be a truth apt set of meaningful marks contained within the parentheses. The truth conditions of the statement are another matter altogether...
"A clock is working" is true when and only when a clock is working.
Quoting neomac
No. Why would it? The statement about the clock is true when and only when a clock is working. The statement about Jack's belief is true when and only when it corresponds to Jack's belief.
Quoting neomac
They both consist of meaningful words, some of the same ones in the same sense. One's about Jack's belief, and the other is about the working condition of a clock.
See above.
Reduced to the point of near breaking...
Belief consists entirely of meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things by a creature with the biological machinery capable of doing so.
> That's a very odd phrasing at the end. There were others earlier, but they all seem inconsequential. I think you meant to write "Until I do..." rather than "Until I don't...". Clarify please if my interpretation is incorrect. If it's correct, no need to spend time verifying.
My bad, I meant until I do. I re-edited my text.
> That's a fair and relevant question given the discussion. The near equation of statements and propositions amounts to combinatory vestiges from earlier discussions, including but not limited to the belief that approach which I've always taken to be about belief statements and the presupposition of truth inherently embedded within them such that suffixing them with "is true" amounts to redundancy.
It's good to know that that's not what you're doing with those words. Duly noted! Seeing that I've no issue with using them however you wish here, I'll follow your lead. I'm not at all married to the idea of propositions or attitudes towards them such that one takes them to be true(in the sense of propositions as statements) or such that one takes them to be the case(in the sense of propositions as states of affairs/events). To your point, I would concur that I certainly cannot offer a valid objection, should I have an issue, regarding the practice of rendering belief as propositional attitudes if I've not understood what is meant by your use of the term propositional attitude; or better yet, if I've not rightly understood the practice. I now understand, perhaps moreso than at the time, why you opened with the questionaire that you did. So, this serves as a reminder to me that there's often very good reasons why some want to begin by defining one's key terms.
I find this answer unclear. And the situation could get much messier if there are different assumptions on the literature we are familiar with. Since I find your understanding of propositional attitudes peculiar wrt what I read so far on the subject, I was wondering where you got it from.
Let me clarify this a bit more. It seems you distinguish between these 2 types of statements:
S believes that p
S believes that ‘p’
However based on the literature I’m more familiar with (e.g. Frege and Russell), belief as a propositional attitude is always rendered as “S believes that p” (without quotation marks around p). Yet I’m fairly confident that “S believes that ‘p’” could be taken as a metalinguistic belief, namely as a propositional attitude about a sentence, which would allow claims as “S believes that ‘p’ is true” or “S believes that ‘p’ is not a correctly formed proposition” (if metalinguistic belief ascriptions can be reduced to non-metalinguistic beliefs is another issue). In any case, both renderings express propositional attitudes.
What I understood so far from your claims is that, for you, “S believes that p” (without quotation marks around p) does not express a propositional attitude, while “S believes that ‘p’” (with quotations mark around p) expresses a propositional attitude. Is that right? If so then, your understanding of propositional attitudes is different from the literature I’m familiar with, and I would like to understand from whom you got your idea that “S believes that p” (without quotation marks around p) is not a propositional attitude while “S believes that ‘p’” expresses a propositional attitude?
The only author whom your understanding of propositional attitudes seems to be referring to is Carnap: according to Carnap, “Jack believes the clock is on the table” should be analysed as “Jack believes-true ‘the clock is on the table’” (indeed Carnap’s position is called sententialism, i.e. beliefs are understood as attitudes towards sentences). However you do not seem to take “S believes that ‘p’” (with quotation marks around p) as an analysis of “S believes that p” (without quotation marks around p). On the contrary, it seems you take “S believes that ‘p’” (with quotation marks around p) as a wrong analysis for “S believes that p” (without quotation marks around p). Am I right? If I’m right, the following holds:
> You're drawing a distinction between one's point of view and one's belief. Could you unpack them both individually please, so as to be able to compare and contrast the two?
It is impossible to unpack these two notions individually, since for me they are essentially linked together. A belief is, by (my) definition, an intentional state/event with intrinsic cognitive fitness conditions. By (my) definition, the intrinsic cognitive fitness conditions constitutive of a belief is the point of view (p.o.v.) of a believer.
I could say more about how I understand the intrinsic cognitive fitness conditions constitutive of belief b/c the definitions I just provided are not that controversial in the literature about intentionality (despite possible non-substantial differences in phrasing), while my substantial understanding of belief intrinsic cognitive fitness conditions could sound more controversial (even within the literature about intentionality). But I will not do it for two reasons:
- I’m reluctant to open too many fronts of contentions at the same time, especially if I do not see enough convergence in background knowledge, terminology and methodology. As it seems to be the case with you. So since the thread focus is on your & Banno’s positions, not mine, I prefer to keep it that way.
- A good deal of objections I made to your position are not directly linked to my specific understanding of belief, but more on the way we intuitively use belief ascriptions (so on linguistic facts), on what I take to be common knowledge about the debate on belief as propositional attitudes, or propositional calculus, or the internal logic of your claims as far as I understood/misunderstood them.
> The double use of the term "cognitive" is throwing me.
My bad, I removed “(cognitive)” from my text.
> Believing a clock is working is something that happens as a result of knowing how to read a clock and looking towards one as a means to know what time it is. Things such as these are not the sort of things that we say have truth conditions. Rather, they are the truth conditions of statements about what's happened, and/or is happening. […] The truth conditions of the statement are another matter altogether…
OK, so you are contrasting statements and things happening outside statements, and claim that truth values can be attributed only to statements and not to things that happen. Since beliefs are something that happens in the world, they do not have truth values. Is that it? If so, the least I can say is that I find it highly counter-intuitive for 2 reasons:
- Statements are taken to be true or false b/c they describe something happening, yet the sequence of verbal/written signs that constitute a sentence do not seem capable to describe anything by themselves. They do only if someone is expressing her belief about how things are through verbal/written signs and related linguistic rules. So truth-values are attributed derivatively to statements because they are originally attributed to beliefs.
- We attribute beliefs also to non-human animals and infants incapable of producing or understanding verbal/written statements. Yet we do not take their beliefs to be beyond any cognitive accuracy assessments, just because they happen to have them. Actually we would take as a sign of intelligent behavior from animals and kids, one were beliefs could be revised over time based on past cognitive failures.
> It makes no sense to me to talk about the truth conditions of (believing "a clock is working"). That does not at all seem to be a truth apt set of meaningful marks contained within the parentheses.
Profiting from you own suggestion, I would encourage you to change your phrasing style from:
S believes that p (where p is not a statement but the referent of the statement ‘p’ in the real world)
S believes that ‘p’ (where ‘p’ is a statement)
To:
(S believes that p) (where all the items within parentheses - or other types of brackets - are taken to be the referents in the real world of the belief ascription “S believes that p”, as such the expression within parentheses is neither true nor false)
S believes that p (as a statement, more precisely a belief ascription, that can be true or false)
The second rendering would not conflict with more common ways of reporting beliefs as propositional attitudes. In other words, it will spare others to adopt your non-conventional phrasing style, or to be always misrendered/misunderstood wrt to your view. Unless there are substantial reasons to not do it, and I would like to hear which ones.
> The statement about the clock is true when and only when a clock is working. The statement about Jack's belief is true when and only when it corresponds to Jack's belief.
All right, and if “Jack’s believes that a clock is working” is true, does this imply that “a clock is working” is true?
> Belief consists entirely of meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things by a creature with the biological machinery capable of doing so.
I’m not sure to understand what “drawing meaningful correlations” is supposed to mean. But I find this definition counter-intuitive, b/c one can draw meaningful correlations without believing anything: fantasizing or contemplating a painting are ways where we draw meaningful correlations but that doesn’t mean we believe any of that; even the simple understanding of a statements whose truth-value we acknowledge is unknown to us, requires “meaningful correlations” to be drawn yet understanding a statement is not believing what the statement says.
If you look at it from a cognitive science perspective, both are making accurate statements about how thought is assumed to work.
First, information comes to a person from outside that person. Solipsistic concerns aside, I don't think this is a controversial point. From a physicalist standpoint, it is necissarily true as the mind can't be generating this information itself.
Thus, sensory inputs are of objects. Statements about those inputs are essentially about the objects that are known through those inputs, not about the inputs themselves. We have specific language we use when we want to specify that we are talking about our perceptions of an object, not the object itself, as when at the top of a mountain we say "the car looks small from here."
When I say, "the used bumper I bought was rusted through," I am making a statement based on my beliefs, based on the sensory experience I have of the thing, but the statement is not about those things, it is about the bumper. If the mechanic hits it with a wire brush and just an outer coating of rust falls off, revealing a solid bumper, I will except that my proposition was false, which only works if my proposition was about the actual bumper.
However, the belief side of the argument is getting at something just as essential, which is that the proposition is only ever about the object "as it is for conciousness." This is essentially what Kant's "Copernican Turn," got at, but we understand how cognition works much better today, and how this is true in more detail.
There is about 1.509 bits of information in a proton, 0.187 bytes . The content of a gram of hydrogen gas would be around 1.87 * 6.023 10^22 bytes if we're just talking about the details that can be measured about individual protons, let alone getting into the total entropy of the phase space. (Unrelated: you can get that from normal Boltzmann entropy S = k B ln ?, just by swapping the natural log for log2, which I found made picturing entropy far more intuitive because I could think about true/false values).
The human brain has an enormous memory potential, about a petabyte, or 2^50 bytes. But even with this massive potential, it's obvious that it could only code and store an infinitesimally small amount of the total information in the objects it hopes to represent. Aside from that, human sensory organs are also far too limited to get at most of this information. Additionally, there is a huge amount of noise in the channels through which the mind accesses this information, as well as errors in the coding process going on in the brain itself.
So a proposition, itself something formed in a code, is necissarily referencing another code that is an extremely compressed and often error ridden representation of an object (or more confusingly, mental abstractions with no direct ties to specific objects, such as propositions about "all cats").
A proposition is necissarily based on and vetted using codes, regardless of if tools are used to help the vetting process.
"The car is red," can be a statement about an actual object, but it's about how that object is to conciousness. This must be, since redness itself isn't a property of light waves except as experienced in conciousness.
I think the confusion comes from thinking that information in the form of codes containing information has to be somehow different in kind from the source of the code. It is different, in that the information is compressed, is stored differently, and has errors, but it doesn't become something totally different. If this were true, the same digital picture shared over and over across the internet is actually millions of different pictures. Different copies of War and Peace would contain different information, and so your propositions about War and Peace wouldn't just be propositions about beliefs about War and Peace, but propositions about beliefs about a particular copy of War and Peace.
Quoting neomac
No. Believing is not equivalent to belief.
The former is an activity. Activities are not the sort of things that have truth conditions. Activities are not capable of being true or false. Whereas at the core, the latter are compositions of meaningful correlations manifesting in varying complexities drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things by a creature capable of doing so.
Regarding the earlier intuitive offense...
I would agree that not all meaningful correlations constitute belief. I mean, all sorts of meaningful things aren't belief. All meaningful things become so as a result of being a part of some creature's correlation(s). All belief consists of correlations, nonetheless. There's still a bit of honing to go on this basic level, for sure. For now though, it's proving to have immense explanatory power.
Quoting neomac
An interesting response to offer in lieu of a yes or no answer to a simple question. A baffling one when held in light of the subsequent extensive efforts to convince me to adopt your accounting practices.
When we say things like let's "keep it that way", we're presupposing that things have been that way. Your position has been the ground of your objections throughout!
If you want to critique my contributions here, by all means be my guest! The more well considered appropriately placed scrutiny the merrier. I mean, given that one cannot see the flaws in their own work, one cannot recognize their own mistakes should there be any. So, I welcome any and all valid criticism. I am most certainly not beyond reproach.
Knowing what sorts of beliefs that which sorts of creatures can and do have in which sorts of situations and/or circumstances requires knowing what belief is and how it emerges and evolves over time. I am now quite confident that you're working from a gross misunderstanding and/or misconception of belief. As a result, the practice of ascribing belief to another suffers. This holds good regardless of whether or not you hold one of the conventional views/positions.
Since you've been advising that I adopt what I find to be dubious methods based upon specious notions, I've a bit of advice for you.
The notion of a point of view is fraught. Dispense of it. It's nothing more than an aggregate of thought and belief. One's point of view is thought and belief-based. Belief systems emerge and grow in their complexity. Point of views are the result. If you do not have belief right, you'll never have a point of view right either.
Depending upon the complexity, reports of another's belief can be true or false; partly true and partly false; mostly true or mostly false. Surely you get the picture. Our reports of Jack's belief at time t1 are no exception. Any and all reports of what another believes at time t1 must correspond to what the other creature believes at time t1 in order to be true. Our reports of Jack's belief can be true, even when Jack's mistaken and/or false belief cannot be.
To answer your earlier objection regarding my earlier mention of my rendering being more accurate than yours...
"Jack believed that a clock was working at time t1" is the way you've insisted is more acceptable for all the reasons you've been offering, ad nauseum. Here's the glaring problem...
Your report ascribes a belief to Jack that would be true when any clock is working at time t1. Jack's belief cannot be true! Yet you've attributed one to him that is because somewhere there was a clock working at time t1! Jack's belief is false. We all agree there! The disagreement is regarding which accounting practice offers the best rendering of Jack's belief. I'm showing you exactly how your ascription practices fail in the attempts to accurately depict and/or portray Jack's belief at time t1.
So, to reiterate, when it comes to what it would take for Jack's belief to be true, if we adopted your ascription practice, any working clock would suffice to meet the truth conditions of the belief you've insisted on attributing to Jack.
Jack was not just believing that any clock was working. He believed that one particular clock was working. The particular clock that Jack believed to be working was a broken one. At time t1, Jack most certainly believed that that particular broken clock was working.
His belief that that particular clock was working could not have been true! If his belief were rendered as "a clock is working", it would be true if and when any clock was working! So...
No thanks, but I'll stick to my own position on such matters...
Thanks for all the fun, but I gotta run. Toodles!
:flower:
> No. Believing is not equivalent to belief.
The former is an activity. Whereas at the core, the latter are compositions of correlations in varying complexities drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things by a creature capable of doing so. Believing is an activity, and as such it is something that happens and/or takes place over an extended period of time.
Some belief can be and/or become true(in the case of predictions), and some cannot(false and/or otherwise mistaken belief). Believing cannot. It's an activity. Activities are not the sort of things that have truth conditions. Activities are not capable of being true or false.
All right, so for you “believing” is an activity with no truth-value while belief is the representational result of the activity “believing”, representational b/c it can be true or false. Is that it?
What is the difference between a proposition and a belief as a “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things”?
> An interesting response to offer in lieu of a yes or no answer to a simple question.
If I simply said no, one could be misled into thinking that it is b/c I can’t (which is possible, I don’t have answers for all kinds of challenging philosophical questions) instead of because I don’t want. And I also wanted to profit from your question to point out at a methodological constraint, that it helps not disperse intellectual energies. So far I insisted on two methodological constraints: focused objections, and avoid framing other people's claims. Here is one more: do not open too many fronts of contention at the same time.
> A baffling one when held in light of the subsequent extensive efforts to convince me to adopt your accounting practices. […] When we say things like let's "keep it that way", we're presupposing that things have been that way.
You are missing the larger picture here:
In conclusion, the efforts I’m putting here are justifiably focused around your position on the subject, and motivated by ultimate reasons that have nothing to do with convincing you.
> When we say things like let's "keep it that way", we're presupposing that things have been that way.
This is what the title of the main post is suggesting, and I’m fine with that.
> Your position has been the ground of your objections throughout!
Of course, my position is the ground of my objections. You are absolutely right. What I’m denying is simply that my objections have anything to do with my specific understanding of what belief (or believing) is, that is why there is no need to specify them. Let me summarize some of my arguments for clarity:
Besides my first objection is also similar to the ones other people made (which again proves
that it is not directly link to my specific understanding of belief), and since I didn't elaborate further my specific understanding of belief, you do not even have evidences to support the claim that my objections are based on my specific understanding of belief.
Again: focus.
> All belief consists of correlations, nonetheless. There's still a bit of honing to go on this basic level, for sure. For now though, it's proving to have immense explanatory power.
Really? Then show me how this definition is supposed to support your claim that “Jack believes that a broken clock is working” is more accurate than “Jack believes that a clock is working”.
> Your report ascribes a belief to Jack that would be true when any clock is working at time t1. Jack's belief cannot be true!
That is correct but it’s a weak objection b/c we can ascribe to Jack more specific beliefs regarding the clock while always maintaining our common practices. Indeed our ordinary belief ascriptions (linguistic fact) can not be taken out of context (as I claimed since the beginning). That is why I started with examples like “Jack believes that clock is working”. However, as you scroll our past exchanges, you would notice that I’m trying to stick to your examples and claims. So when you started using belief ascription as “Jack believes that a clock is working”, I did the same. But I didn’t make to you the objection you are now making to me, because the focus of my objection was on the contrast between “Jack believes a broken clock is working” and “Jack believes a clock is working”.
Said that, here’s the glaring problem with your objection: the same objection you are making to me can be retorted to you. "Jack believes that a broken clock is working" would be true for any broken clock at time t1. Of course, you could sill claim that “a broken clock” is a more accurate description than “a clock”, but then “Jack believes a broken clock is working” would still be less accurate than “Jack believes that a clock that ex hypothesi CreativeSoul believes broken, is working” b/c if “a broken clock” is a more accurate description than “a clock”, “a clock that CreativeSoul believes broken” is not only a more accurate description than “a broken clock” but it also matches our ordinary belief ascription practices. Now what's your defense?
Again the focus of my contention is that the accuracy conditions in our common practices of belief ascriptions are not based on whatever level of descriptive accuracy you can come up with but only on those ones that match as best as possible the believer’s p.o.v. in the given circumstances (and if we infringe that rule, this is for pragmatic reasons not for accuracy concerns).
> No thanks, but I'll stick to my own position on such matters…
Pls stick to it in the most challenging way possible (at least, to me).
You could charge me with the same, but that doesn't make our respective practices guilty of the same offense.
You've ascribed a belief to Jack that is true. I have not. Jack's belief is false. False beliefs cannot be true. Jack's belief cannot be the one you've ascribed to him.
You're not alone in misattributing true belief to another when their belief is false. It's a common occurrence with the accounting malpractices you've been citing for reasons I began to offer earlier.
Gettier and the cottage industry following from Gettier's infamous paper all do exactly the same thing. Do you understand that much about the conventional practices you've insisted on following?
Belief is not equivalent to propositions. Belief is not equivalent to propositional attitudes, such that the believer takes the proposition to be the case or to be true. You keep insisting upon attempting to use conventional accounting practices to take proper account of something that they cannot.
My friend. Despite your objections, it is. Your rejection of the very idea that we can and often do believe that broken clocks are working is directly linked to what you conceive of being a belief.
The claim is about the accuracy of the belief being attributed to Jack by the speaker. An accurate ascription claim will be true. If Jack does not believe that a broken clock is working, then "Jack believes that a broken clock is working" would be false. If Jack does believe that a broken clock is working, then "Jack believes that a broken clock is working" would be true.
If you do not have a general understanding of what sorts of things beliefs are, then there could be no possible way for you to know what sorts of ascriptions are accurate, if being so requires being true.
It is humanly impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood. When Jack is in the process of believing that a broken clock is working he is totally unaware of it. The proposition, assertion, claim, sentence, statement, thought, belief, and/or utterance - a broken clock is working - is always false. Broken clocks do not work. This is all just a matter of how we use the words everyday. We cannot knowingly believe that broken clocks are working, but we can and do believe that they are nonetheless.
Not one iteration I've offered here, despite the overall quantity of slightly different offerings, is ever even capable of being true. They all pass Leibniz's muster. They can all be interchanged and attributed to Jack without any unacceptable change in meaning. Jack's belief is false. As such, it is his belief that determines the truth value of any and all ascriptions thereof. Therefore, any and all ascriptions to Jack must be of false belief. That is to say, that any and all true attribution of belief to Jack at time t1 will be of some belief that it is humanly impossible to knowingly believe.
:flower:
No. I did not say all that either. How many strikes do we get before we're counted out?
All sorts of differences. I'll set out a one worth delving into...
Propositions are existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices. The same is not true of all belief.
What is naming and descriptive practices if not the use of symbols to refer to things that are not symbols (or else you'd have an infinite regress of readers never getting at what you're naming and describing)?
What is the redness and shape of the apple if not a description of how ripe the apple is and its location relative to you?
Just as scribbles are not the thing they are about, colors and shapes in the mind are not what the thing being observed is (naive vs indirect realism; observation vs thing being observed; map vs territory). Maps are propositions about the territory made with lines and shapes, no different than if you just typed scribbles (lines and shapes) describing objects and their location in the territory.
It seems contradictory to assert that black scribbles mean things, but red apples don't mean anything. So a red apple is just as propositional and descriptive as a string of black scribbles.
Beliefs are dependent upon observations as a preliminary justification for some belief.
> You've ascribed a belief to Jack that is true. I have not. Jack's belief is false.
Correct but I don’t get what is supposed to prove, since it’s not troubling at all for our common understanding of belief ascriptions nor my claims. Here is why:
> Despite your objections, it is. Your rejection of the very idea that we can and often do believe that broken clocks are working is directly linked to what you conceive of being a belief.
Plainly wrong. Let me clarify once more my take. The idea that “Jack believes that a broken clock is working” is not an accurate belief ascription is a linguistic fact, part of our common practices as competent speakers, and this linguistic intuition or pre-philosophical understanding of belief ascriptions is acknowledged by all of us (you included, unless you are crazy!). The philosophical task is providing a theoretical analysis/explanation either to support our common practices (as I would do) or to question it (as you would do). So the reluctance to accept your peculiar revisionist approach is not directly linked to any theoretical claim nor to my specific theory of belief (since other theories, which I do not share, could still be supporting the common understanding of belief ascriptions).
> If you do not have a general understanding of what sorts of things beliefs are, then there could be no possible way for you to know what sorts of ascriptions are accurate, if being so requires being true.
If by “general understanding” you mean a philosophical understanding, then this plainly false, since we learn and practice belief ascriptions before any philosophical scrutiny of our practices. If by “general understanding” you mean the cognitive abilities involved in acquiring and applying successfully belief ascriptions, then this ability is shown by our practices themselves, they are linguistic facts. And, absolutely yes, we can know how to properly use the word “belief” in belief ascriptions without being capable of theorising about it, as much as we can speak a native language without being able to theorising about its linguistic rules.
> It is humanly impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood. When Jack is in the process of believing that a broken clock is working he is totally unaware of it. The proposition, assertion, claim, sentence, statement, thought, belief, and/or utterance - a broken clock is working - is always false. Broken clocks do not work. This is all just a matter of how we use the words everyday. We cannot knowingly believe that broken clocks are working, but we can and do believe that they are nonetheless.
Not one iteration I've offered here, despite the overall quantity of slightly different offerings, is ever even capable of being true. They all pass Leibniz's muster. They can all be interchanged and attributed to Jack without any unacceptable change in meaning. Jack's belief is false. As such, it is his belief that determines the truth value of any and all ascriptions thereof. Therefore, any and all ascriptions to Jack must be of false belief. That is to say, that any and all true attribution of belief to Jack at time t1 will be of some belief that it is humanly impossible to knowingly believe.
Despite your previous muddling claims [1] (to be patched with some additional but pointless terminological/formatting style acrobatics) and in addition to your failure to show how this argument rigorously follows from your definition of belief as “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things” (as I did with my definition), it looks now evident that you are definitely embracing the catastrophic line of reasoning that I already spotted a while ago: equating false beliefs with contradictory beliefs (or if you prefer, equating occasionally false beliefs with always false beliefs), and confusing belief ascriptions with knowledge ascriptions. I was right all along. So here I rest my case.
> No. I did not say all that either.
You wrote: “No. Believing is not equivalent to belief. The former is an activity. Activities are not the sort of things that have truth conditions. Activities are not capable of being true or false. Whereas at the core, the latter are compositions of meaningful correlations manifesting in varying complexities drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things by a creature capable of doing so.” And you also wrote: “You've ascribed a belief to Jack that is true. I have not. Jack's belief is false.”
So you said that believing is an activity and it doesn’t have truth conditions. Beliefs are somehow related to believing and are the sort of things that can be true or false. So what else is exactly bothering you? The expression “belief is the representational result of the activity ‘believing’”? Why? Is it because you do not take belief to be representational? Beliefs must be representational in the sense I’ve immediately clarified (‘representational b/c it can be true or false’) b/c belief are the sort of things that can be true or false according to what you wrote. Or is the problem the fact that you do not take belief to be the result of the believing activity? Then what else is the relation between belief and believing?
[1]
Quoting creativesoul
Quoting creativesoul
Quoting neomac
Yes, it is correct! The practice I've used is not guilty of the same offense that you've been using wrt Jack's belief at time t1. Jack's belief is false. The belief you've ascribed to Jack is true.
Quoting neomac
It proves that you've attributed a belief to Jack that Jack does not - dare I insist cannot - have at time t1. False beliefs are not true beliefs. You've admittedly attributed a belief to Jack that is true. Jack's belief is false. You've admitted that Jack's belief was false. What's stopping you from realizing that you've misattributed belief to Jack as a result of employing the standard practices?
Gettier did the same with Smith in both cases, and he was able to do so as a result of the inherent flaws in the conventional accounting practices.
Quoting neomac
Jack's belief cannot be true for it is false. You've attributed a belief to Jack that could be rendered as true, in the exact same way that Gettier showed all while following the standard conventional practices. I've already hinted at how it could be rendered as true, by elaborating on the truth conditions of the belief, as you've written it. It is as a result of this that you ought outright reject that particular ascription to Jack. Jack's belief cannot be true!
Quoting neomac
No, it's not! It is not contradictory at all, not in least little bit, to believe that broken clocks are working while doing so. The reason why is simple:when believing such things we do not knowingly do so! We are unaware of the fact that we believe what a broken clock says when we do. We cannot knowingly do so. We cannot knowingly believe that...
that broken clock is working
that man in a sheep suit is a sheep
that barn facade is a barn
that sheet hanging from a limb is a sheep
a free and fair election was not free and fair
...and yet these sorts of beliefs can be had nonetheless! The issues arise as an inevitable consequence stemming from the historical practice of rendering beliefs as propositions and/or attitudes towards them, all of which amount to belief ascription that one would readily admit to having at the time! We cannot readily admit to having belief that we are unaware of having! Those sorts of beliefs break the mold, because the conventional practices do not keep in mind that we cannot knowingly believe a falsehood. They are also a death knell to the common understanding of belief ascriptons.
Etc.
Quoting neomac
Is that what counts as a valid objection on your view?
:yikes:
> You've admittedly attributed a belief to Jack that is true […] What’s stopping you from realizing that you've misattributed belief to Jack as a result of employing the standard practices?
Well, because I didn’t. Quoting myself: I don’t take “Jack believes that a clock is working” as an accurate belief ascription of Jack’s belief in your example. What I would take to be an accurate belief ascription in your example is more something like “Jack believes that clock is working” since belief ascriptions need to be taken in the context.
You are confusing my reasoning about the contrast between “Jack believes a clock is working” vs “Jack believes a broken clock is working” (to point out that attributing a false belief should not be equated to attributing a contradictory belief) with what I claim to be a more appropriate belief ascription in your thought experiment.
> Jack's belief cannot be true for it is false.
It’s false ex-hypothesi but it could have been true. So it can not be rendered with a contradiction b/c a contradiction could not have been true at all. This is the logic difference between a merely false belief and a contradictory belief. That's logic, dude.
> It is not contradictory at all, not in least little bit, to believe that broken clocks are working while doing so. so. The reason why is simple:when believing such things we do not knowingly do so! We are unaware of the fact that we believe what a broken clock says when we do. We cannot knowingly do so.
What did you just write?! That’s the craziest thing I’ve heard so far! Contradiction has to do with logic not with your awareness. The fact that one does not realize to have a contradictory belief doesn’t make it, not in least little bit, less contradictory. And the problem is not that we are not aware of a contradictory belief, the problem is that a false belief is not a contradictory belief! (Not to mention, again, the unaccounted knowledge ascriptions…)
> Jack draws correlations between a broken clock and the time of day while believing a broken clock is working. Jack does not believe "a broken clock is working". Jack believes a broken clock is working.
Seriously?! I don't get the structure of this argument at all, if it has one. For sure it is not a deduction. BTW what happened to the “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things” in the case of “Jack does not believe ‘a broken clock is working’” and why are we talking “Jack does not believe ‘a broken clock is working’” instead of “Jack believes that a clock is working”?!
> Is that what counts as a valid objection on your view?
Worse, this is what counts as own goals made by you. But apparently you are not over yet.
I think that the underlying differences between our views are finally becoming apparent. A question for you...
Do you agree that it is humanly impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood?
That was not an argument. It was an explanation of Jack's belief in the terms I defined "belief" in earlier.
I'm beginning to seriously question your honesty here given the sheer amount of strawmen, red herrings, and other such non sequiturs that you've provided with your interpretations of my claims. There's a bit of irony in that too, given the subject matter is belief, and your objections are based upon what you deem to be unacceptable accounting of another's belief. Seems if you knew what you were talking about, you could at least get what I'm saying right. It is as easy as quoting and asking if you are unsure.
You presented "a broken clock is working" as a contradiction. Going on to then say that I am attributing a contradictory belief to Jack by saying Jack believes that a broken clock is working at time t1.
I did not say that Jack believed "a broken clock is working".
Evidently you do not see the difference between believing "a broken clock is working" and believing a broken clock is working. The former is belief about language use, and the latter is belief about broken clocks. The former has propositional content. The latter has broken clocks as content.
Full circle.
It's false at the time. False belief cannot be true.
That's logic dude.
Quoting Banno
I knew you would be lurking from time to time...
Does "a broken clock is working" qualify as a proposition?
I've pointed to the exit.
> Do you agree that it is humanly impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood?
It’s logically impossible if knowledge presupposes true belief.
> It was an explanation of Jack's belief in the terms I defined "belief" in earlier.
Seriously?! I don't get the structure of this explanation at all, if it has one. For sure it is not a deduction. BTW what happened to the “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things” in the case of “Jack does not believe ‘a broken clock is working’” and why are we talking “Jack does not believe ‘a broken clock is working’” instead of “Jack believes that a clock is working”?!
> I'm beginning to seriously question your honesty here given the sheer amount of strawmen, red herrings, and other such non sequiturs that you've provided with your interpretations of my claims.
There there... whatever makes you feel better, my friend.
> There's a bit of irony in that too
Oh not really, this is a likely outcome if you confuse belief ascription with knowledge ascription as you do.
> You presented "a broken clock is working" as a contradiction. Going on to then say that I am attributing a contradictory belief to Jack by saying Jack believes that a broken clock is working at time t1. I did not say that Jack believed "a broken clock is working”. Evidently you do not see the difference between believing "a broken clock is working" and believing a broken clock is working. The former is belief about language use, and the latter is belief about broken clocks. The former has propositional content. The latter has broken clocks as content.
I see the quotation marks which is your preposterous made-up convention, but it doesn’t help you for 3 reasons:
> It's false at the time. False belief cannot be true.
But it could have been true. And it’s this counterfactual what grounds the claim that a false belief can not be equated to a contradictory belief. So… again focus, especially if you want to talk about logic, dude.
Well, here is one place that our respective positions diverge.
Quoting creativesoul
Quoting neomac
Do you agree that it is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood? Where do you stand on that?
If that was according to my claim, I would have said that. I did not say that.
Seems we get five or six or eight strikes in your game of baseball.
A certain smugness washes over me...
True belief cannot be false. If your logic says otherwise, it is mistaken. Here's how it is mistaken...
Your logic will not only permit, but your standards will demand that you impart a belief that could be true in place of a belief that could not be.
You will be changing the belief under our consideration in doing so. Gettier did the same thing to Smith's belief... both of them. The cottage industry followed suit.
Absolutely not. With just a little cleverness, one can construct a logical framework around the most heinous falsehood in order to make it appear as truth - as something that can be easily believed. It happens all the time everywhere.
We cannot knowingly believe a falsehood. We cannot know that we're mistaken while being mistaken. That's why it becomes a problem when put into first person. Take it a bit farther and we understand that any and all true reports of another's false belief would be rendered as beliefs that it would be impossible for them to knowingly have.
Demonstrate that.
> Do you agree that it is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood? Where do you stand on that?
I take to be impossible that a rational individual believes something to be the case while knowing it is not, under the condition that both belief/knowledge ascriptions should be taken according to our common practices of belief/knowledge reports.
> If that was according to my claim, I would have said that. I did not say that.
Well I quoted you, so let’s the gods decide. BTW I also added 2 more objections for their holy judgment.
> Seems we get five or six or eight strikes in your game of baseball.
Absolutely no clue about what game you are watching, but sure buddy, do you want some pop-corn?
> Gettier did the same thing to Smith's belief... both of them.
Not interested in talking about whatever you think you have understood about Gettier's ideas.
> True belief cannot be false. If your logic says otherwise, it is mistaken.
But it could have been false (counterfactual), if it’s not an analytic truth. This is what my logic keeps saying. And if your logic says otherwise (as it is seems [1] and I was suspecting all along), it is so badly mistaken (one of the many own goals made by you).
You repeat, I repeat. Oh boy, isn’t that fun? (And I'm the one strawmanning you?! seriously?!)
Only the first remark (one out of five) seems to be worth exploring (or so I wish). That’s not an ideal ratio for interesting debates. So unless you are tired of our exchange, pls, don't waste posts just to tease me out of bitterness or make more apparent that you are being in denial, because there is no philosophical challenge in there. I'm here to play philosophy not facebook, dude.
[1]
Quoting creativesoul
> 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).
This definition of propositional attitude is far from being compelling as it is. Indeed a propositional attitude can be rendered as a relation between someone and a proposition, but not all relations between individuals and propositions express a belief as a propositional attitude, why? Because a propositional attitude is, by common definition, an individual's attitude toward a proposition, not whatever relation one can draw between an individual and a proposition! If some guy G waves his hand at me, and I mistakenly believe that that guy is greeting me instead of someone else next to me, then G is in relation to the propositional content of my belief, yet this is not G's belief.
Besides if and in so far beliefs are propositional attitudes, they are a very specific kind of attitudes toward propositions. Therefore we can question the idea that cats have propositional attitudes even if they can be put in relation to propositions. Indeed they do not seem to be able of holding beliefs as specific attitudes toward specific propositions (with their linguistic nature and alethic status) in the appropriate sense b/c they do not understand propositions (not being linguistic creatures), even if they could be put in relation to a proposition by those who can speak and understand propositions.
Another mistaken conventional practice that gave Gettier a foothold.
"The man" refers to Smith and Smith only in Smith's belief, whereas it refers to just any man in the proposition. Smith's prediction did not come true, for he did not get the job, but due to the sentiment in the quote above, any man with ten coins in his pocket could get the job and "the man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job" would become true as a result.
Let's see how this plays out...
At time t1 Jack believed that that particular clock was working. The clock was not working, so Jack's belief was false. You're saying Jack's belief at time t1 that that particular clock was working could have been true.
What would it have taken in order for Jack's belief that that particular clock was working to have been true at time t1?
I have been.
Quoting creativesoul
I'm hoping to see you do some. I've no inclination to cut through all the misattribution of meaning that you've been imparting upon select quotes, saying I've said things that I haven't, claiming what I've said leads somewhere that it does not, etc., while doing your best to discredit any parts of my contributions here that pose serious problems for yours, or better yet ignoring them altogether.
It is my contention that you do not have a good grasp upon what constitutes belief, how belief emerges, and/or how it works and that is shown by the denial that we can and do sometimes believe that broken clocks are working.
Everyone I have asked in the last two weeks had no issue with understanding that we can and sometimes do. Your denial is based upon the fact that all this conflicts with your position on the matter.
"Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language" (PI § 109)
Here is yet another imaginary opponent you've made up for yourself. I've not talked about referents of a belief. I've no clue what you're trying to say here, which is a problem for you not I. You're attempting to talk about what I want to do, and stuff that is purportedly according to my understanding. You're not doing a very good job of it. You can always just ask me questions.
"Jack believes that a broken clock is working" is a statement about what Jack believes. The words are linked together because that's what we do with words. You seem either very confused or very dishonest about what I'm saying.
> What would it have taken in order for Jack's belief that that particular clock was working to have been true at time t1?
If that particular clock at time t1 had been working, Jack’s belief would have been true.
> I've no inclination to cut through all the misattribution of meaning that you've been imparting upon select quotes, saying I've said things that I haven't, claiming what I've said leads somewhere that it does not, etc., while doing your best to discredit any parts of my contributions here that pose serious problems for yours, or better yet ignoring them altogether.
Oh boy, it was a good laugh. Thank you!
> Everyone I have asked in the last two weeks had no issue with understanding that we can and sometimes do.
Seriously?! Besides the fact that I have no idea why we should trust your survey, whose results you do not seem to be able to replicate with your interlocutors here. I’m just repeating the same points made thousands times:
In conclusion, the “unproblematic understanding” argument is not decisive since it can be explained within our common practices, and the issue I have with your views started only and exclusively selectively precisely narrowly specifically with your belief ascription accuracy claims (e.g. that "At time t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working" is a belief ascription more accurate than "At time t1, Jack believes that clock is working" when Jack simply ignores that clock was broken or not-working at t1), especially given the catastrophic line of reasoning you provided so far to support it!
> I've not talked about referents of a belief.
That is why I used the conditional (“even if…”). In any case my objection was justifiably based on the answers you already provided. If a belief is a “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things” in “Jack believes that/a broken clock is working” the belief “that/a broken clock is working” either is connecting words, then it’s a contradiction in terminis, or is taken to connect its referents witch include a clock instantiating contradictory properties (broken as in “not working” and “working”). Either way (at the level of the meaning or at the level of the referents) is a contradictory situation, which doesn’t correspond to the belief of Jack (in a simple case of ignorance). BTW you yourself claimed (have you ever read what you write?) that is always false [1] as any contradiction, but since we are not aware of it, then it’s not [2].
> Here is yet another imaginary opponent you've made up for yourself.
Looking forward to hearing more about my imaginary opponents. Oh and btw what is Jack telling you about them? He must be really really upset about them, isn't he?
> You can always just ask me questions.
Well that doesn't seem to be a good strategy either, given the backlog of unanswered questions I addressed to you [3]. Besides nobody is preventing you from trying to explain better what you failed to explain so far, especially if you keep claiming that others misunderstand your own quotations, b/c maybe the problem is not really that others are strawmanning you or being dishonest, but that - given the amount of posts you made - it is very hard for you to clarify your views. Did you think about that? It seems you did [4]. After all, if you are challenging the "conventional view", you should expect that your proposal is perceived as non-obvious.
BTW, since you expressly asked for more questions, here you go: if one believing that broken clock is working at t1, is not aware of believing it at t1 out of ignorance, what is s/he exactly aware of believing while believing that broken clock is working at time t1?
[1]
Quoting creativesoul
[2]
Quoting creativesoul
[3]
Without going too far back:
Quoting neomac
Quoting neomac
[4]
Quoting creativesoul
Is it possible for broken clocks to work?
I've set out two different objections. One is against the idea that all belief is propositional in content, and the other is against the idea that all belief can be rendered as propositional attitude. Language less creatures' belief falsifies the former and false belief negates the latter. The contention between you and I involves whether or not all belief can be accurately rendered in terms of a propositional attitude. The belief in contention is Jack's belief at time t1 when he believes that a particular clock is working, but that clock had stopped coincidentally twelve hours prior to Jack's looking towards it as a means to know what time it was.
I'm saying that at time t1, Jack believed that a broken clock was working. You are objecting to that claim based upon two things; a deviation from your practice of belief ascription, and as a result of your thinking that I'm attributing a self-contradictory belief to Jack, despite my having believed that I've already explained how it is not in multiple different ways. We're working out, currently, which ascription/attribution of belief to Jack is more accurate.
I've objected to the idea of attributing a belief that could be true to a person who has false belief, which amounts to an accounting malpractice. False belief cannot be true. I'm also noting that not a single iteration I've offered is a belief that could have been true. You seem to think that that is a problem.
False dilemma. There are more ways to understand Jack's belief than what you've offered here as the only two...
Perhaps you missed this...
Quoting creativesoul
> Is it possible for broken clocks to work?
No. And you know why? It’s because “broken” and “to work” are contradictory properties.
On the other side it is possible for clocks to be working or to be broken.
> I've objected to the idea of attributing a belief that could be true to a person who has false belief, which amounts to an accounting malpractice. False belief cannot be true. I'm also noting that not a single iteration I've offered is a belief that could have been true. You seem to think that that is a problem.
The problem is that:
Here are my questions to you: which one of these 2 claims of mine are you denying? For me any attempt to deny any of these 2 claims is catastrophic.
If you admit both then you are not justified in claiming that "Jack believes that broken clock is working" is not attributing to Jack a belief content that is not contradictory, because the belief content "that broken clock is working" is contradictory,
To attribute a false belief to someone, it's enough to say "S mistakenly believes that p", there is absolutely no need to touch the belief content to convey the idea that S's belief is false. Also because rendering the belief content in such a way that it expresses a false belief (by making it misleadingly look contradictory), it presupposes the identification of such belief content prior to this revisionist rendering, so independently from this manipulation. If you can't identify what someone is aware of believing while believing it, you can not even exactly identify what you claim they are unaware of believing (truth/knowledge assessments about beliefs presuppose belief ascriptions, not the other way around!).
> False dilemma. There are more ways to understand Jack's belief than what you've offered here as the only two...
Then show me exactly what the third option is and how it derives from your own definition of belief as “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things” to also prove that it effectively has explanatory power as you claim.
> Evidently you do not see the difference between believing "a broken clock is working" and believing a broken clock is working. The former is belief about language use, and the latter is belief about broken clocks. The former has propositional content. The latter has broken clocks as content.
I did see the difference. But I find your answer not only unsatisfactory but also fishy. Assuming your convention, you distinguish between quoted (“S believes that ‘p’”) and unquoted belief content (“S believes that p”). The first one is a propositional attitude and the second one is not. Here is the convention applied to the example of Jack: “Jack believes ‘that broken clock is working’” and “Jack believes that broken clock is working”, in both cases the belief content includes 3 items: “clock”, “broken”, “is working”. So it’s true but suspiciously incomplete to claim that the latter rendering of Jack’s belief has broken clocks as content. The non-propositional content of Jack’s belief has 3 items in it, not just broken clock, but broken clock is working.
Besides what kind of entities are these items? Are they linguistic terms? Are they meanings? Are they referents in the real world? What are they? And isn’t there a meaningful correlation drawn between these 3 items since they are the content of Jack’s belief? What is this meaningful correlation? Isn't this correlation supposed to show an impossible situation b/c broken clocks do not work? And how come that it's impossible that broken clocks do not work if not for the fact that the same clock is attributed or appears to instantiate contradictory properties ("broken" and "is working")?
Looking forward to hearing your answers.
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.
This consequence is not obvious at all. And this is related to the reasons clarified here. Indeed also knowledge can be put into a relational form K(S,p) between an individual and a proposition, yet the truth of K(S,p) is not independent from the truth of p. So it is not the relation between individual and proposition itself that guarantees that the truth of the proposition is unrelated to the truth of the belief ascription.
Well, it depends on the context we are seeking about. If you are debating with a theist, I would say for them belief implies truth. for example:
God exists because I believe in their existence. Then, God's existence is true
I disagree with that (but maybe you are simply confusing the truth claim intrinsic to any belief with the logic implication between belief and the truth of what is believed): "S believes that God exists" does not logically imply "God exists" (even for the religious believer... if s/he conforms to logic of course).
Besides here one of the assumptions of the formal debate between Banno and CreativeSoul that inspired this thread, is that we are talking about ordinary belief not about religious belief (or faith):
(source: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/482145)
I see your point but this only happens when we make the effort to distinguish different types of belief. Thus, only happens when, at least, we destroy the argument of a monotheistic argument. For me, for example, "religious" belief does not even exist because I don't belive on it since the beginning.
I see what you quoted and it is pretty interesting indeed. This thread is so good to learn about.
Regardless of which sensible parsing is being practiced, Jack's belief about that particular clock is false. Jack believes it to be working. It is not. So, there is no contention regarding whether or not Jack's belief is true or false. Jack's belief at time t1 is false. Jack's belief cannot be both true and false at time t1. Thus, it makes no sense whatsoever for us to ascribe belief to Jack that is, could be, or could have been true. False belief cannot be true.
There was one candidate earlier that I find is not guilty as charged above. It's worth discussing for it is founding wanting in another way...
At time t1, Jack believed that that particular clock was working.
Jack was mistaken. It is impossible to knowingly be mistaken. It is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood. Thus, any correct ascriptions of belief attributed to Jack at time t1, must come in a form that it is impossible for him to knowingly believe.
"That particular clock was/is working" simply does not meet that criterion.
:smile:
This example also seems to come in a form that is impossible for Jack to believe at the time. However, there are a few unnecessary terms. The terms "of" and "that it" are superfluous. We can remove them entirely and lose nothing meaningful. The simplest explanation is the best provided there is no loss in explanatory power. Occam's razor applies. We are left with...
At time t1, Jack believed a broken clock was working.
First three methodological considerations:
1. If you want to answer my questions you should specify which ones by quoting them and then answer them. If you think they are flawed, you should specify which ones by quoting them and explain why they are flawed. I don’t see that you are doing that in your post, even though you explicitly invited me to ask you questions. That looks fishy.
2. If you claim that we can establish if “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working”, based on what we take belief to be, and your definition of belief is “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things”, then I expect you to show exactly how this definition helps you establish “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working”, all the more because you claim that your definition of belief is of “immense explanatory power”. But in your last post you never used such a definition. That looks fishy.
3. In your last post you kept repeating the same claims you already made. But if I didn’t find your claims intuitive nor challenging as they were for the reasons I already explained, it’s pointless to keep invariably repeating them on and on. You should find other ways to make your case look stronger, unless you do not care to promote further your revisionist view, despite you being committed to it (you are the challenger of the common belief ascription practice, not me).
So since we stalled, I’ll make a last attempt to make you sharpen your claims or your reasoning.
Let’s start with these two excerpts:
> Jack's belief cannot be both true and false and time t1 [1]. Thus, it makes no sense whatsoever for us to ascribe belief to Jack that is, could be, or could have been true [2]. False belief cannot be true [3].
> It is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood [4]. Thus, any correct ascriptions of belief attributed to Jack at time t1, must come in a form that it is impossible for him to knowingly believe [5].
As I understand your claims (correct me if I’m wrong), you take claim [2] to be justified by [1] (and/or [3]), and your claim [5] to be justified by [4].
Here are my claims. There are 2 distinct tasks in our common belief ascription practices: one is to identify a belief (and report it accordingly) and the other is to assess its truth-value (and report it accordingly). And the latter presupposes the former. Besides, a belief that is not analytically false, can be either true or false (for logic reasons).
Now let’s apply my claims to the usual example:
Now, let’s add your claims [1], [3] and [4] that I render as follows (if I’m wrong, provide the correct rendering):
According to our common belief ascription practices, these 8 statements are all perfectly intelligible individually and logically consistent between them. Do you agree?
If you agree, then your claim [1] and/or [3] are not logically sufficient to deduce claim [2], and your claim [4] is not logically sufficient to deduce [5], so some logic requirement is missing in your line of reasoning, i.e. your line of reasoning is not conclusive until you fill the gap successfully.
If you disagree, quote the statements that are logically inconsistent or unintelligible, and explain why.
Indeed, there is loss of explanatory power, b/c by removing those parts you are attributing to Jack a contradictory belief so you can not distinguish a case of ignorance from a case of irrational belief, nor identify the different scopes in belief ascriptions (the p.o.v. of the one who makes the belief ascription about Jak is different from Jack's p.o.v). Not only, but if we assume that Jack's belief is a case of ignorance and not irrational belief, then your rendering is a case of misattribution, so it's a false explanation of Jack's behavior.
Besides the explanatory power of belief ascription should be based on your definition of belief, as you claimed, this definition is “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things”. But you are not using it at all to prove that there is no loss in explanatory power. So how can you justify the claim that there is not loss in explanatory power?
That's neither a methodological concern, nor consideration.
If I spent the limited time available going over all of the problematic and/or invalid questions, concerns, and/or objections that you've raised in order to explain the issues with them, no time would be left for the relevant concerns(of which there are a few). I've already quoted you in recent past, and subsequently explained the problems. The response ignored the issues and aimed at me personally.
Quoting neomac
There you go again, making claims for me that I've not made.
I've already explained Jack's belief in terms of correlations being drawn between a particular broken clock and Jack's own inquisition regarding what time it was. In fact, I've explained Jack's belief at time t1 in as many congruent but different ways as I see possible.
What's fishy is your acting otherwise.
What's fishy is when one individual holds another to a strict standard that they themselves cannot meet.
What's fishy is when one individual makes a concerted effort to cast doubt upon another's notion of belief after handwaving away and/or glossing over the fact that their own notion has been found wanting.
Quoting neomac
Jack's belief at time t1 is false no matter how it has been parsed. You've offered and we've discussed some candidates that were true. I've objected to those based upon that.
Some beliefs are the sort of things that can be either true or false. I mean, not all belief are true. Not all belief are false. Not all belief are truth apt at the time. However, no true belief are false, and no false belief are true. So, if it is the case that we know that a belief is false, it makes no sense to say that it could have been true. No. It could not have been.
I mean we would need to stipulate an entirely different set of circumstances with a different clock in order to support such a possible world, and in doing so, lose sight of this one by completely changing the content of Jack's belief.
Quoting creativesoul
Quoting neomac
Then Jack's belief could not have been true. That particular clock could not have been working, for it was a broken one.
Quoting neomac
Believing that a broken clock is working is not something that can be properly taken account of by such practices. If we use them and correctly attribute the belief that a broken clock is working to Jack, we end up saying that he believed the proposition, which is a contradiction in terms. This is what you are doing, not me. Hence, you keep claiming over and over again that I am attributing a contradictory belief to Jack when I am not. You are.
You presented "a broken clock is working" as a contradiction. Going on to then say that I am attributing a contradictory belief to Jack by saying Jack believes that a broken clock is working at time t1.
I did not say that Jack believed "a broken clock is working".
Evidently you do not see the difference between believing "a broken clock is working" and believing a broken clock is working. The former is belief about language use, and the latter is belief about broken clocks. The former has propositional content. The latter has broken clocks as content. The former is amenable to and basically amounts to saying that Jack believes the statement at time t1, or that Jack holds some attitude or disposition towards that particular proposition at time t1. Neither of those claims are true.
I am rejecting that parsing of Jack's belief altogether. Jack's attitude and/or disposition is neither about nor towards a proposition. To quite the contrary, Jack's belief is all about the trustworthiness of one particular broken clock. His disposition and/or attitude, if he can be said to have one, is towards the clock, not propositions about or involving the clock.
There are mistaken and/or false beliefs such as these influencing our lives, thoughts, and behaviours that we are completely unaware of. Jack has exactly such belief. These sorts of beliefs are those which we could not knowingly believe. Such beliefs cannot be anything other than mistaken and/or false. Hence, when reporting upon another's false belief, our accounting practices, if the gold standard is accuracy or truth, ought produce examples of belief that cannot be knowingly believed/held.
So you do not claim that “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working”? Because if you don’t then we do not need to revise our common belief acription practices, while I thought you wanted to challenge them.
Or you do not claim that your claim that “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working” is based on your definition of belief as “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things”? Then why did you claim "We can set all the other stuff aside for now and focus upon what counts as belief"? [0]
What is exactly that you did not claim that I misattributed to you in my quotation?
Again, you didn't answer my questions.
You claim that you do no have time to answer them, really any of them? you didn't need to answer all of them all at once, you could have answered just few but properly, and in my last two posts there was but one question. Instead you have time to repeat your claims at length and search my past quotes. Besides if you do not have time to answer question then why do you invite me to ask you questions?
You claim that I attribute to you claims you didn’t make (even when I quote you!!!) without specifying what exactly these misattributions are, nor immediately providing an adequate rectification.
You claimed to have already explained things (even in many ways), but I already questioned that they are successful for reasons that I already explained, and you didn’t challenge any of my objections as I have articulated them yet. And I can do it again: if you want to give an explanation of why your rendering of Jack's belief is better than what provided by common practice based on your definition of belief, then you have to take the 2 renderings, the one you claim right (e.g. "At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working"), and the one you claim wrong (e.g. "At t1, Jack believes that clock is working"), and compare them based on your definition of belief as “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things”, b/c this is what I did based on my definition of belief [1]. In your explanation you talked only about your rendering, i.e. there was no comparison (that's fishy). And you also changed the relevant example (that's fishy) [2]. In addition to that, also my last post was explanatory in the sense that it provided a list of claims conform to our standard belief ascription practices that are logically consistent with the assumptions you employ to justify your revisionist view and this shows that your assumptions are not sufficient to justify your revisionist view. I also explained why you are attributing a contradictory belief to Jack in the relevant example (both in the case of quoted and unquoted belief content), while you just kept repeating that is not contradictory without explaining why (something you should have done wrt to both your definition of belief and your quoted/unquoted belief report style [2][3]). While you, instead of addressing my objections to your claims for both quoted and unquoted rendering, as I articulated them, you just keep repeating your claims (e.g. "Evidently you do not see the difference between believing 'a broken clock is working' and believing a broken clock is working") again without clarifying why a quoted belief content like "'that broken clock is not working'" can be contradictory while an unquoted belief content like "that broken clock is not working" is not contradictory (and yet represent an impossible situation!) as I asked. That's fishy.
Finally you keep using your standard rendering (distinguishing between quoted and unquoted belief contents ) based on assumptions that are under question, so it’s utterly pointless to use it to prove the strength of those assumptions (since it would bag the question).
The philosophical game I find interesting to play does not consist in making claims to popularise what one finds intuitive and repeat it ad nauseam, but to provide compelling arguments to support such intuitive claims using appropriate analytical tools like logic inference, conceptual clarifications and definitions. You can challenge my views either by questioning the truth of the assumptions (impossible to do b/c the evidences are the linguistic facts of our common belief ascription practices that you intend to challenge) or the consistency of my reasoning based on those assumptions, or you can challenge it by proving that your views can do a better job than mine (e.g. in terms of explanation power). You catastrophically failed both tasks b/c your philosophical approach is flawed methodologically and substantially: substantially b/c of reasons I already explained around 15 posts ago of mine [4]. Methodologically b/c you can't support your claims other than by making question bagging claims (and framing my replies accordingly), suggesting preposterous propositional calculi [5], making more preposterous claims (let’s not forget these arguments [6][7]!) or attacking me personally with a behavioral pattern typical of those who are in denial (none of which are adequate analytical tools, of course). And I dragged this exchange now long enough to make definitely clear that you do not have any better dialectical strategy than repeating ad nauseam your preposterous claims and self-indulging accusations to my articulated and very specific objections.
I spared you my sarcasm so far but I won't spare you my conclusion: you have literally nothing challenging to offer against our common belief ascription practices. And here I rest my case.
[0]
Quoting creativesoul
[1]
Quoting neomac
Quoting neomac
[2]
Quoting neomac
[3]
Quoting neomac
[4]
Quoting neomac
[5]
Quoting creativesoul
[6]
[quote=“neomac;654030”]>It is not contradictory at all, not in least little bit, to believe that broken clocks are working while doing so. so. The reason why is simple:when believing such things we do not knowingly do so! We are unaware of the fact that we believe what a broken clock says when we do. We cannot knowingly do so.
What did you just write?! That’s the craziest thing I’ve heard so far! Contradiction has to do with logic not with your awareness. The fact that one does not realize to have a contradictory belief doesn’t make it, not in least little bit, less contradictory. And the problem is not that we are not aware of a contradictory belief, the problem is that a false belief is not a contradictory belief! (Not to mention, again, the unaccounted knowledge ascriptions…)[/quote]
[7]
Quoting neomac
Which is to say, if we presume that Jack and his clock are both in the Physical Universe (as described by the Standard Model Of Cosmology), then the Proposition, "Reading it's face at 11:00 that morning, Jack believed the clock was working;" must be true, since it refers to nothing but our clock-watcher's own conviction.
If the Proposition becomes "Reading its face ... was working, though it was not," then, presuming the narrator honest, we have another simple, true statement or Proposition, and Jack, we thus learn, was Mistaken.
And if the Proposition, lastly becomes, "Reading its face...Jack, though he knew it was broken, still believed the time shown was accurate," we then are presented with a simple dilemma hinging on the question as to whether Jack had any other way of knowing the present time, and, if so, whether the actual time was the same as shown on the clock-face; leading us to conclude that if the times were coincident, Jack was merely amused at the brief moment of accuracy in the broken clock, or, alternatively, that Jack is Mad.
Once we place our little thought experiment starring Jack of the Broken Clock into the Real World, the variations on the Proposition are simple and limited, and any confusion arises simply from inelegant expression; it is only when we are absurdly trying to parse propositions for different flavors of reality that this becomes silly and confusing.
How about this, there ain't no such thing as a Consciousness that didn't evolve in a Material Universe, so all of this is Real and language problems are just bad rhetoric and confusions of nuances.
Quoting neomac
I've not attributed contradictory belief to Jack. It's always a case of ignorance when one believes a broken clock.
False belief cannot be knowingly held.
The practice you've been using sometimes attributes true belief to one who holds false belief.
So it seems that one thing you want is to compare/contrast the respective renderings of Jack's belief at time t1.
At time t1, Jack believed that clock was working.
At time t1, Jack believed that broken clock was working.
You're claiming the first is more accurate. I'm claiming the second is.
Prior to continuing... Do you agree with that much?
It's about belief. Get that wrong and you have gotten all sorts of things wrong. I could not care less about the failings of convention. It just so happens that, weirdly enough, many of the problems are dissolved by my understanding of belief.
Belief is not equivalent to propositions, or attitudes towards them. Convention has yet to have figured this out, evidently.
"It's about belief. Get that wrong and you have gotten all sorts of things wrong. I could not care less about the failings of convention. It just so happens that, weirdly enough, many of the problems are dissolved by my understanding of belief."
We are talking about the beliefs underlying the terms of the proposition, right? So we have to read it as if it makes sense, as in "At 11, Jack believed that the clock [of indeterminate working condition] was working," is understood to be the same proposition "At 11, Jack believed that the [unbeknownst to him] broken clock was working," the Reader supposing of Jack sanity and so refusing equivalence to what would have to be "At 11, Jack believed that [what he knew to be a] broken clock was working," because that would infer that Jack was delusive. right?
Are we not then, as a rule, that we must infer in Jack a meaning to his utterance that is logically correct in a Commonly Perceived Reality?
I'm not even sure what that is supposed to mean, so I hesitate to answer either way.
The matter under contention was whether or not all belief content is propositional. That was what the original debate between Banno and myself was about. The current discussion began by my claiming that conventional practices cannot properly account for belief like Jack's. The alternative renderings have all sorts of problems like some have left the broken clock out of Jack's belief altogether. Others are true belief, when we know Jack's was false. Others add words that do not change the fact that Jack believed what a broken clock said(so to speak).
There are only a couple of alternatives that are not guilty of at least one of these errors. Those are the interesting ones to me. Neo seems to be grasping at the straws of misattribution as a means to find flaw in what I've been presenting. There are a few simple true statements about belief that go a long way in supporting what I've been arguing here in addition to driving a death knell into the coffin of the idea that all belief are equivalent to propositional attitudes.
True belief cannot be false. False belief cannot be true. It is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood. It is impossible to knowingly be mistaken.
The tenets directly above place any and all attempts at rendering false belief in terms of propositional attitudes in serious trouble.
Jack is unaware that he believes a broken clock while he does. Jack's not talking about it at the time. Jack's also not even thinking about his own belief at the time.
I'm also not all that impressed with what counts as being "logically correct" these days. I reject the purported rules of 'logical' entailment, for example. I can and have shown how they are in error. Gettier and all...
As they are written, the words "a broken clock is working" could be rightly said to introduce a nonsensical utterance if and when that judgment is based upon the obvious failure of using the terms in congruence with everyday linguistic practices. I totally agree that such an utterance is either meaningless nonsense or else incoherent if and when we're judging the coherency of the language use(the words as they are written). We do not use the term "broken" to describe things that are not. It is also the case that such an utterance simply cannot be true. It is never true. It is incapable of being so for other reasons as well. It is literally a contradiction in terms.
So...
Based upon all this, some have concluded that when I say that at time t1, Jack believes a broken clock is working, that I am attributing to him a belief that is nonsensical and/or contradictory, and that it is impossible to hold such a belief. It is not impossible to hold such a belief. It is only impossible to knowingly hold it. Jack does not know that he holds it. They do not understand that I am not attributing those words to him as though his belief consisted of those words, which would be contradictory and/or nonsensical. Rather, as I said in so many words at the very beginning of this particular dispute, I am attributing to him an attitude towards the broken clock such that he believes it to be a reliable source of information regarding what time it was. That's what we do when we look to clocks to tell the time.
It seems that my objectors/detractors do not understand that the content of Jack's belief is not propositional. He is not drawing correlations that include the words "a broken clock is working". It is only if he were doing so, it is only if I said he were doing so, that I would be guilty as charged regarding attributing a contradictory belief to Jack. Jack's belief does not come in propositional form, unless "a broken clock is working" counts as a proposition. I do not think that it does, regardless of which sense of "proposition" we're considering.
It seems that my objectors do not understand that all false belief, each and every one, is had by a creature completely unaware of having it while they do. They do not understand that it is impossible to knowingly have false belief, to knowingly believe a falsehood, and/or to knowingly be mistaken. But we have false belief, we believe falsehoods, and we are most certainly mistaken at times, nonetheless. They do not understand that when we become aware that some belief we have is false, it is no longer even possible to continue having it.
They do not understand that an accurate report of false belief will provide that which is and would be impossible to knowingly believe.
Propositions are not.
No, he isn't. Jack is "drawing correlations that include the words 'a [ ] clock is working.'" So his belief is propositional.
Regardless of how you've decided to formulate it, it remains true that Jack's belief can be formulated proposition-wise in the usual way: Jack believes "a clock is working" is true.
So Jack's belief is in some sense propositional, regardless of this non-conundrum you're at.
Ok, I was talking about Jack's beliefs in the figure.
How can a belief, how can anything but nonsense, not be propositional? What non-propositional statement has any meaning? Am I missing something? If I'm not attributing something to something else, than am I saying anything?
My point is, if we accept the objective reality of the material universe, Jack either knew the clock was broken or he did not; he either knew the time or did not; and the time on the face of the clock at that instant was either coincident with the actual time, or it was not; and from these possible conditions we can make any of the possible statements:
Jack, not knowing the clock was broken, thought it to be Eleven.
Jack, knowing the clock was broken, wondered if it could actually be Eleven, as shown on the broken clocks face.
Jack, knowing the clock was broken, checked his pocket watch, and was amused that the working and broken clocks agreed that it was Eleven.
Jack, knowing the clock was broken, and knowing that the actual time was different, yet still thought that, in some strange fashion, the clock was working, and that its time was somehow more accurate than the one that agreed with Greenwich.
Is there some variant to the explication of "At 11, Jack thought the broken clock was working," that I'm missing? If I am, let me know; but the point is, in Reality, the Proposition can only have a very limited number of very clear meanings.
So why are we spending so much time in parsing the nuances of Propositions to see if we can make them seem Absurd? Why all the fuss about language?
So let me say this again, in an Objectively Extant Material Reality all of the Referents of speech are to real objects in the real world, all of which operate according to the fundamental, eternal, necessary and unchangeable laws of Physics, and so any confusion between Consciousnesses over their communications is solely due to poor definitions and poor or untenable propositions....
And none of this Linguistic Confusion has any Metaphysical significance whatsoever...
Yes I do.
Notice that this claim is a de re belief ascription analogous to "Jack believes of that broken clock that is working" (which I was talking about a while ago) where the expression "the broken clock" is outside the completive clause of the predicate "to believe", and within the semantic scope of the one who makes the belief ascription. You are using it to disambiguate your own claim against the putative misunderstanding of others. In using it, you are proving that this form is more understandable than your own rendering. But even if you used it just as a temporary concession, what is more critical, is that this rendering allows you to keep unclear what constitutes non-propositional belief contents. Which is what you should still explain to support your claims.
Quoting creativesoul
You have to prove that part in bold of your claim. What is exactly the non-propositional belief content that Jack is not aware to hold, namely "that broken clock is working" (without quotes)? Can you spell it out right away? Between what kind of things is Jack drawing correlations when you are attributing to him the non-propositional and unquoted content "that broken clock is working"? I see 3 items in there ("broken", "clock" and "is working"), what do they stand for as parts of a non-propositional content? Not words (b/c otherwise they would be propositions), then what else?
You've just attributed true belief to Jack. Jack's belief is false.
We have the ability to use propositions to talk about Jack's belief, as well as language less creatures'. It does not follow that the belief is propositional in content. It follows that our reports are.
In what way does...
Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm
...attribute truth or falsity?
The answer has been given over and over for the last ten or so pages.
Believing that a broken clock is working is not a proposition.
You're not interested in discussing how belief that a broken clock is working does not have propositional content.
Stick around and learn something.
"The clock is both working and not working" is a proposition that is false.
What does that have to do with the content of Jack's belief at time t1?
If any of that or all of that and possibly more leads you to believe that the content of Jack's belief cannot be a broken clock, in large part at least, and that broken clocks are not propositions, then I don't know what to tell you honestly without sounding like a grumpy old guy...
Bewitched.
Belief that does not consist of propositions consists of other things... trees and mice and spatiotemporal relationships between them... for example. Broken clocks and wondering what time it is, for yet another.
Okay, good.
What is the content of Jack's belief at time t1?
I'm sorry, I don't follow you at all. Why is it not a proposition, as it attributes a (false) belief to subject?
I asked you to give me the full non-propositional content which Jack is not aware of believe and can not knowingly believe true when you claim of him "Jack believes that brocken clock is working". It's always the same example. In such content there is "broken clock" but there is no "wondering what time it is".
There are 3 items in this non-propositional "brocken" "clock" and "is working". What are these entities? What is the meaningful correlation that is drawn by them? And who is drawing this meaningful correlation between these 3 parts "broken", "clock" and "is working"? I take it to mean the real-world referents of the word you are using in your non-quoted belief ascription report. Is that right?
"clock" is the real object existing in the world
"broken" is the property this real object in the world truly has
"is working" is the property that this real object does not have.
If not, spell out what these 3 items are, because you are using these three items to determine the non propositional content of Jack's belief.
I answered that already. Belief contents express the point of view (the intrinsic fitness conditions) of Jack's believing attitudes which best explain his behavior in the given circumstances at t1. In the case of false beliefs due to ignorance and not irrationality "that clock is working" is better than "that broken clock is working" because that clock is working can be either true or false, while "that broken clock is working" is contradictory so always false i.e. it can not adequately express a case of ignorance.
It seems you do not fully appreciate the different theoretical tasks of your approach wrt mine. My theory of belief is based on what I take to be some pre-philosophical linguistic facts (common belief ascription practices). These belief ascription practices are not based at all on my theory of belief. These belief ascription practices are not based at all on a full blown theory of propositional content (like frege's or russell's). And my theory of belief is not based at all on a full blown theory of belief as propositional attitude (like frege's or russell's). Indeed my theory of belief and a theory of belief as propositional attitude may compete to explain the very same linguistic facts. That is why:
- my primary task is not to develop a theory of belief, but to understand as much as I can the logic of our common belief attribution practices.
- I don't care about your distinction between propositional and non-propositional content as such, as much as I care about how your view and the usage of this distinction may compete against our common belief ascription practices.
- I don't care to specify further my theory of belief, because understanding and defending the logic of our common belief ascription practices it's more important to me than my theory of belief. That is also why you shouldn't care about my full-blown theory of belief coz I don't have one yet. And to critisize your view it's enough for me to counter your misconception about the logic of our common belief ascription practices as I understand them, or to question the internal coherence of your assumptions and claims.
Your situation is different: you are developing a theory of belief and belief ascription in competition with a specific theory of belief as propositional content (whose source is still unknown to me) and our common linguistic practices. So your primary task is to provide the details of your theory of belief and then judge our common practices accordingly.
That is why the primary explanatory task for you is to exactly and completely explain the difference between propositional and non-propositional belief content as you understand it in the relevant example which are always the same two (never ever change them):
At time t1, Jack believed that clock was working.
At time t1, Jack believed that broken clock was working.
That is why I asked you to give me the full non-propositional content which Jack is not aware of believing (and can not knowingly believe true) when you claim of him "Jack believes that broken clock is working". There are 3 items in this non-propositional content: "brocken" "clock" and "is working". What are these entities? What is the meaningful correlation that is drawn between them? And who is drawing this meaningful correlation between these 3 parts "broken", "clock" and "is working"? I take it to mean the real-world referents of the words you are using in your non-quoted belief ascription report. Is that right?
"clock" is the real object existing in the world outside of our mind
"broken" is the property this real object in the world truly has
"is working" is the property that this real object does not have.
Is that it? If not, spell out what these 3 items are, because you are using these three items to determine the non propositional content of Jack's belief. You keep saying that Jack's non-propositional content is about a broken clock but you never mention "is working". Yet the non-propositional content is not "Jack believes that broken clock" but "Jack believes that broken clock is working" and if the broken clock is the real world object than what "is working" in the real world? Nothing?
There is no progress if you keep just repeating your distinction between propositional and non-propositional content (without offering an analysis of it) and then projecting it on to me as if I were committed to it, to make me play the role of one who confuses the 2. That's framing and question begging accusations.
What does the word "it" refer to?
So you're saying that those words in quotes are the content of Jack's belief at time t1?
Sure it can adequately express a case of ignorance. I mean, it is impossible to knowingly believe that broken clock is working(treat this as if we are pointing at the clock). So, when one believes that broken clock is working, it is most certainly a case of ignorance. Jack's is precisely such a case.
While it is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood, it is not impossible to believe one. Jack's belief is false. We know this. It cannot be either true or false. Jack's belief can only be false. Therefore, if we say that he believes a falsehood(as compared/contrasted to just being mistaken), then our report of Jack's belief ought produce a candidate that is impossible to knowingly believe. Falsehoods are language constructs on par with false assertions. So...
The candidate "that clock is working" is not impossible to knowingly believe. Jack's belief is false, and all false belief is impossible to knowingly believe. Therefore, "that clock is working" cannot be what Jack believes.
If we say that Jack holds false or mistaken belief, then our report ought produce a candidate that is impossible to knowingly believe.
If, at time t1, we're pointing at the clock and saying Jack believes that clock is working, we could be saying that the content of his belief is not equivalent to a proposition because clocks are not, and his belief is about that particular clock. All of this would be true for he does indeed believe that particular clock to be working. So, our report would seem fine. However, if we're aiming at the most accurate or precise description of the content of Jack's belief, we cannot leave out the fact that that particular clock, which has become meaningful to Jack as a result of his belief formation, is a broken one.
It is as a result of Jack's belief not being propositional in content, that our saying that he believes that that broken clock is working does not attribute a contradictory belief to Jack, because it is only the words that are contradictory. Jack's belief does not consist of those words. Jack's belief that that broken clock is working consists of correlations drawn between the broken clock and his wondering what time it was. Jack's belief that that broken clock is working does not have propositional content. It's not belief about the words I just used to report upon it. It's not belief about assertions, sentences, utterances, or any other language use. It's belief about a broken clock. Broken clocks are not propositions. Thus, Jack's belief that that particular broken clock is working does not have propositional content.
Jack's belief has that broken clock as it's content, in very large part at least. The broken clock is not all there is to Jack's belief(for it is a complex one indeed with other necessary prerequisites), but without that particular broken clock to look at, Jack's belief would not have been formed at all.
Jack's belief would pose no problem at all if it were not broken. Perhaps that's why there is such a fervor to leave that much out.
The former includes propositions. The latter does not.
Quoting neomac
While words are not propositions, on my view, the content of Jack's belief is not words either. The correlations he draws at the time as a means for believing what the clock says do not include language use. Those words are not being thought by Jack at time t1. Jack is wondering what time it is, so he looks towards a clock to know. That's the way it happens. This is well established habit, to the point of it's being nearly autonomous. That is to say that it is something done without much thought at all about the clock aside from believing what it says. We do not look to a clock and think silently or aloud "I believe that that clock is working". We just don't. That's just not how it works. That is a metacognitive endeavor. Believing a broken clock is not.
To give the full non-propositional content is impossible. There's no way to know that much and to set such a standard is unacceptable as a result of this sound consideration. Omniscience is neither possible nor necessary here. I mean, I'm not defending the God of Abraham. By the way, it doesn't matter which notion/sense of "proposition" you're using, they are all fatally flawed. It's just that some are flawed differently than others.
The basic arguments are simple.
Either propositions exist completely independently of all language use in some way such that a language less creature is capable of having an attitude and/or disposition towards them, or language less creatures do not have belief. I've yet to have seen a notion/sense of "proposition" that succeeds here. Hence, many who hold such a view(belief as propositional attitude) reject the idea of language less belief.
Propositions are existentially dependent upon language. Language less creature's have belief. Therefore, belief are not equivalent to propositional attitudes.
Much the same holds good for claiming all belief has propositional content.
Logical notation? The form of belief attribution? "The logic"???
How can anyone establish what counts as acceptable and/or unacceptable attribution of belief to another if there is no standard regarding what counts as belief? We're faced with the dire need for an adequate minimal criterion for belief which, when satisfied by some candidate or another, warrants concluding that that candidate counts as a belief.
What exactly would we be attributing to another when ascribing some belief to them, if we did not already have an idea of what beliefs are?
This especially comes to the forefront when ascribing belief to language less creatures.
Impossible? We are discussing here if "that clock is working" is more or less accurate than "that broken clock is working". The full account I'm asking is about this and only this belief content attribution in this and only this example, not the belief of everybody in the universe present past and future.
So again:spell out what each single item of these 3 items (|broken|, |clock|, |is working|) is, because you are using these three items to determine the non propositional content of Jack's belief in your non-propositional belief ascription rendering. You can start from |is working| , since you keep saying that Jack's non-propositional content is about a broken clock but you never mention "is working". Yet the non-propositional content you attribute to Jack is not rendered as in "Jack believes that broken clock" but as in "Jack believes that broken clock is working" and if the broken clock is the real world object than what "is working" in the real world? Nothing? A property? So spell out what each single item of these 3 items (|broken|, |clock|, |is working|) that are part of the belief content you attribute to Jack in your non-propositional belief ascription rendering "Jack believes that broken clock is working", is. You can start from |is working|
BTW even for the claim "While it is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood" you have yet again to explain exactly why it is impossible to knowingly believe "that broken clock is working".
No. In the example "Jack believes that clock is working", the belief content is the fitness condition expressed by the completive clause, so it's the state-of-affairs (i.e. the object "clock" and its property "is working") in the real world that would make that belief content cognitively accurate or, to simplify, true. There might be something else misleading in talking like this though.
> Logical notation? The form of belief attribution? "The logic”???
By “logic” here, I’m generically referring to the rules of our common belief ascription practices.
> How can anyone establish what counts as acceptable and/or unacceptable attribution of belief to another if there is no standard regarding what counts as belief?
Of course there is a standard, but it’s implicit in our belief ascription practices. What is hard it is to spell it out. Also grammar rules are implicit in our language practices, but it’s a non-trivial task to abstract them. So there are cognitive rules that are implicit in our common belief ascription practices to identify beliefs, and my theoretical effort is to abstract those cognitive rules from our common belief ascription practices. But rule abstraction presupposes rule application. Yet again there might be something else misleading in talking like this though.
> What exactly would we be attributing to another when ascribing some belief to them, if we did not already have an idea of what beliefs are?
Right, this idea however is implicit in our common belief ascription practices. Indeed one learns the usage of the word “belief” from those competent speakers that utter belief ascriptions in the given circumstances.
Look, I won't answer any more your questions if you do not answer my previous post. Coz it's the 4th time in a row that I'm asking the same question (that I already asked other times) but you avoid to answer it, which is fishy. So:
Quoting neomac
No, I'm not.
Quoting neomac
No, it is not.
You are conflating the content of my report with the content of Jack's belief.
The content of Jack's belief are correlations drawn by Jack between directly and indirectly perceptible things. That would include the broken clock and his wondering what time it was, amongst other things less relevant. That's at least the fourth time I've said that and answered your question. It's fishy that you act as if I've avoided it.
Could you elaborate?
Then quote yourself when you explain what "is working" stands for. Because this is what I asked. And if you not find it, that's because you did not answer my question.
So try again (5th time):
Quoting neomac
try again (6th time):
Quoting neomac
I might conflate whatever you see me conflating if you continue to frame my questions. But I will return to such a claim of yours later because I suspect you are committing yet another big mistake.
Anyway you wrote this:
Quoting neomac
I'm asking you (7th time): in the belief report that you claim more accurate, namely "At time t1, Jack believes that broken clock was working.", I see 3 items: broken, clock, was working. Explain what each of them stands for. Start from was working.
It's always the same question, but I removed the part that triggers your framing (i.e. "belief content").
P.S.
Too often the questions of mine you think you are answering, are not my questions but the questions that you misunderstand as a consequence of framing my position.
That's not true. You're mistaken.
I'll answer whatever questions you like, so long as they follow from what I'm arguing or are just plain ole simple questions about basic facts that seem to cause an issue for my position if and when my position is held in light of those facts. I've no problem at all bearing the burden of my claims. Questions based upon non sequiturs are another matter altogether.
Quoting neomac
Here's what you've done...
You've broken down the basic belief report that I am arguing for(At time t1, Jack believed that that broken clock was working) into disparate bits of language use, which is to say that you're not focusing upon the meaningful set of marks I've presented, as I've presented them. Then... you're really asking me what the words "is working" stand for, as if - when isolated from the rest of the report - they stand for something that I bear the burden of elaborating upon?
What is it that you believe can be gleaned here by virtue of this procedure of yours? What does that question have to do anything we've discussed? Explain to me the relevance of the question. If it is relevant, I'll be glad to answer it. Teach me something new. I'm always game for that.
You've been asking, in more than one way, how I've tied this novel understanding of "belief" that I have into my report/account of Jack's belief. You held two claims(well... parts of them anyway) beside one another, basically asking me to explain their congruence. You asked about Jack's belief in terms of correlations drawn. It seemed that you wanted to know how I made sense of belief as correlations when it came to Jack's belief at time t1. I've obliged. I've set that out a number of times. The response was basically rhetorical huffing and puffing followed by some insults and handwaving. Simply put, you've ignored and deflected.
All belief consists entirely of correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things by a creature capable of doing so.
At time t1, Jack believed that a broken clock was working. Jack's belief consisted of all the meaningful correlations he drew while wondering what time it was and then looking at a broken clock to find an answer to his question. The content of the correlations Jack drew at that time are the content of Jack's belief at that time. So, I simplified the answer for ease of understanding. The non propositional content included Jack's wondering what time it was, and a broken clock. That satisfies the criterion perfectly.
It is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood; to knowingly be mistaken; to knowingly form, have, or hold false belief. Jack's belief is false. Thus, when Jack's false belief is put into proper linguistic form, it will be impossible to knowingly believe.
Propositions are not.
> I'll answer whatever questions you like, so long as they follow from what I'm arguing or are just plain ole simple questions about basic facts that seem to cause an issue for my position if and when my position is held in light of those facts. I've no problem at all bearing the burden of my claims. Questions based upon non sequiturs are another matter altogether.
What I always asked you to argue from the start is to prove the following claim of yours:
Quoting creativesoul
So I’m following your arguments as long as they focus on what I’ve asked you to argue: to provide support for precisely that claim, and nothing else. And you should expect that kind of questions, because you are challenging our common belief ascription practices. So if you do not make your challenges worth following, I will simply dismiss them.
Besides you have a default tendency of framing other people’s claims by assuming correct your assumptions, which again would simply make pointless any philosophical debate because you are begging the question. And, not surprisingly, this complaint of yours proves it once more: since I removed the part that triggers your framing attitude (like the expression "belief content"), then you accuse me of "non sequiturs" (even when I'm simply quoting your claims and asking questions about them) because you can not trap me in your frames to easily accuse me of conflating things.
So my questions are either conflating things (when you can frame me) or arbitrary (because you can not frame me), therefore you are right. This is not how I understand philosophical debates, this is just your way to preventively censor any potential objections against your philosophical assumptions. Trying to retrain your interlocutors to conform their claims to your theoretical language, to validate your own claims is not philosophy, but - at best - brainwashing.
> What is it that you believe can be gleaned here by virtue of this procedure of yours? What does that question have to do anything we've discussed? Explain to me the relevance of the question. If it is relevant, I'll be glad to answer it. Teach me something new. I'm always game for that.
The relevance is that this is a claim of yours that I find questionable (indeed absurd), so until you provide arguments to support it, I’ll take to be unproven your claim that your belief report is more accurate. The reason why I find it questionable is because you are reporting of Jack that he believes something, which is contradictory because “broken” and “is working” represent contradictory properties of “the clock” (let's see if you can frame this). Indeed it must be so because this is the proper linguistic form which you claim it is impossible to knowingly believe.
Quoting creativesoul
Jack can not knowingly believe that broken clock is working because “that broken clock is working” is a linguistic form of a contradiction.
> At time t1, Jack believed that a broken clock was working. Jack's belief consisted of all the meaningful correlations he drew while wondering what time it was and then looking at a broken clock to find an answer to his question. The content of the correlations Jack drew at that time are the content of Jack's belief at that time. So, I simplified the answer for ease of understanding. The non propositional content included Jack's wondering what time it was, and a broken clock. That satisfies the criterion perfectly.
I have objections against this claim too, and I have objections also against the claim that “It is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood” but let’s do a piece at a time and do not mix everything since you can not clearly follow my objections.
So once more (8th time): is “that broken clock is working” in your report “Jack believes that broken clock is working” a contradiction? Or, if you prefer, does “that broken clock is working” in your report “Jack believes that broken clock is working” have the linguistic form of a contradiction? If not, why not?
The sentence "That broken clock is working" is a contradiction in terms.
I'm not talking about the sentence "That broken clock is working", I'm talking about the proper linguistic form that you claim to be impossible to knowingly believe when put into the belief report "Jack believes that broken clock is working". Isn't this proper linguistic form representing an object ("the clock") with contradictory properties ("broken" and "is working")? Because if it is not the case, then you should explain why it is impossible to knowingly believe it when using this proper linguistic form in your belief report.
The above report is in proper linguistic form. It is accurate. It is true. It is impossible to knowingly believe that a broken clock is working. That's all that was meant by "proper linguistic form". Jack was mistaken. It is impossible to knowingly be. Thus, a proper rendering of Jack's belief will come in a linguistic form that is impossible to knowingly believe.
Well yes and no. Jack cannot knowingly believe "that broken clock is working" is true, because it is a contradiction in terms, necessarily false, etc. That's all about language use. Jack's belief is not.
It is impossible to knowingly believe that a broken clock is working, because if we know it is broken, we also know it is not working, and thus we cannot believe that it is. That has nothing to do with the sentence being a contradiction and everything to do with knowing that broken clocks do not work.
Quoting neomac
:yikes:
See above. There is no need for further explanation. I've more than adequately explained several times over in a variety of ways.
> Jack cannot knowingly believe "that broken clock is working" is true, because it is a contradiction in terms, necessarily false, etc. That's all about language use. Jack's belief is not.
Why are you changing the example again?
You should write: Jack cannot knowingly believe that broken clock is working
And not: Jack cannot knowingly believe “that broken clock is working” is true
> It is impossible to knowingly believe that a broken clock is working, because if we know it is broken, we also know it is not working, and thus we cannot believe that it is. That has nothing to do with the sentence being a contradiction and everything to do with knowing that broken clocks do not work.
Why are you changing the example again?
You should write: It is impossible to knowingly believe that broken clock is working
And not: It is impossible to knowingly believe that a broken clock is working.
> There is no need for further explanation. I've more than adequately explained several times over in a variety of ways.
That’s because probably you do not understand what I’m asking you to explain. Even though you should have understood because I gave you examples of the kind of answer I was expecting. Anyways, what you are doing is just joggling with truth claims such as:
And you evidently take this joggling explanatory, because you take as your philosophical task to simply make such claims, contrast their usage so that others do not conflate them, and enforce their usage on your interlocutors without further questions to make you happy. But that has more to do with brainwashing than philosophy to me. And it shows that you are not open to challenges (while challenging others’ views), so why should others be open to your challenges?!
When I ask you for an explanation, I’m asking you about what grounds the truth of all these truth claims of yours. What grounds the truth of all these claims must depend on relevant facts or logic/analytic rules that govern our representations. And if you want to compare the validity of your claims against other claims you should ground your arguments on relevant facts and inferential/logic/analytic rules that govern our representations that must be shared to make our views commensurable. That is why it's utterly pointless to constantly remind us your list of truth claims to prove anything at all. And that's why I keep you telling to not change examples and to provide the truth conditions for your claims in a way that is understandable to us without using your truth claims (which would beg the question) [1]
Now since you insist to distinguish between sentences and belief reports with appropriate non-propositional linguistic form, and you still avoid to answer the very specific question I already asked you 8th times in a row (by changing examples and shifting attention from one truth claim to the other), instead of asking you the same question for the 9th time in a row, I'll ask you:
[1]
Quoting creativesoul
This is a perfect example of begging the question argument (twice fallacious b/c besides begging the question, it’s also deductively badly formed, as it is!). You take as premises that “Jack believes that broken clock is working” is an accurate report and that that report is in proper linguistic form b/c it is impossible to knowingly believe that a broken clock is working, to conclude that Jack’s belief’s report is accurate b/c it is in a linguistic form that it is impossible to knowingly believe.
The problem is that the claim that “Jack believes that broken clock is working” is an accurate report of Jack's belief, is precisely what needs to be proven, so you can not use it AT ALL as a premise of a probative argument. Indeed what needs to be proven must figure in the conclusion not in the set of premises !!!
Here another objection for you: you claim that “At time t1, Jack believed that broken clock was working” [1] is accurate based on the idea that the proper rendering of a false belief should be put into a proper form that it will be impossible to knowingly believe [2] .
Then here are some belief reports put into a form that it will be impossible to knowingly believe:
1. At time t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working
2. At time t1, Jack believes that clock is working and that clock is broken
3. At time t1, Jack believes that is not the case that clock is either broken or working
4. At time t1, Jack believes “that broken clock is working” is true [3]
3. At time t1, Jack believes that broken clock is not a broken clock
5. At time t1, Jack believes that broken clock is not a clock
6. At time t1, Jack believes that clock is not a clock
7. At time t1, Jack believes that clock that CreativeSoul knowingly believes to be broken, is working
8. At time t1, Jack believes that he knows that broken clock is working
9. At time t1, Jack believes that he knowingly believes that clock is working and that clock is not working
10. At time t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working and 23765.3456 * 23.456 = 557439.9463936
11. At time t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working and planet Earth is flat and all elephants fly
12. At time t1, Jack believes that working clock is broken
13. At time t1, Jack believes that clock is working and a butterfly is not a butterfly
14. At time t1, Jack believes that 0 / 3 = 5
Since all 14 reports satisfy your requirement of being in a form impossible to knowingly believe, are they all equally accurate report of Jack’s mistaken belief?
And if only 1 is the accurate report of Jack’s mistaken belief (or you exclude any of them as accurate), then your requirement is at best necessary but not sufficient to determine the proper belief report of Jack's mistaken belief.
And you have to specify what the missing requirement is b/c otherwise you didn't prove yet At time t1, Jack believed that broken clock was working” from your own explicit assumptions!!!.
[1]
Quoting creativesoul
[2]
Quoting creativesoul
[3]
Quoting creativesoul
That question makes no sense on my view.
Quoting creativesoul
Quoting neomac
:worry:
Which is all it takes to show how convention has been in error...
Either works for me. I'm not picky about it. The only difference is that one is more general while the other(the one you prefer) is about a particular broken clock.
> That question makes no sense on my view.
Then we need your theory of meaning and truth for you to establish when sentences are true, false , or necessary false. Or do you mean that sentences are true, false or necessary false as a brute fact? And, BTW, shouldn't the belief content you attribute to Jack in your report "At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working" match the belief content as you describe it in your claim below in order to be accurate?
Quoting creativesoul
Well if we accept all your premises (and I haven't accepted any so far) maybe you are right, yet it doesn't prove that your report is accurate. I pointed that out b/c this is a problem internal to your theory, not b/c it's enough to prove that our common belief ascription practices are wrong (indeed I think the opposite).
Let's not forget that you made the following claim:
Quoting creativesoul
So I would expect you to prove that "Jack believes that broken clock is working" is an accurate report of Jack's mistaken belief based on your definition of "belief" [1]. Instead you are trying to support that claim based on a knowledge requirement [2].
Now either your knowledge requirement is based on your definition of belief, but you didn't provide any (valid) argument that deduces this requirement from your definition of belief.
Or your knowledge requirement is not based on your definition of belief, then your claim that "what counts as belief" would set a standard for comparing belief ascriptions is unjustified.
[1]
Quoting creativesoul
[2]
Quoting creativesoul
Quoting creativesoul
I misunderstood your argument because this is how you presented it:
[i]Jack believes that broken clock is working.
The above report is in proper linguistic form. It is accurate. It is true. It is impossible to knowingly believe that a broken clock is working. That's all that was meant by "proper linguistic form".Jack was mistaken. It is impossible to knowingly be. Thus, a proper rendering of Jack's belief will come in a linguistic form that is impossible to knowingly believe[/i]
So from the way you presented it, it wasn't clear where the argument was supposed to start.
But if I misunderstood you, then I'll take back my objection that this specific argument was begging the question. One objection less against this specific argument.
Yet I have another objection. Now that you made clear that your argument is only this:
Jack was mistaken. It is impossible to knowingly be. Thus, a proper rendering of Jack's belief will come in a linguistic form that is impossible to knowingly believe.
Then your argument (as it is) is a perfect example of non sequitur, logically speaking. I'll formalise it for you:
premise 1: Jack was mistaken (p)
premise 2: It is impossible to knowingly be mistaken (q)
conclusion: a proper rendering of Jack's belief will come in a linguistic form that is impossible to knowingly believe (c)
p
q
-------
c
This is not a valid logic deduction!!! And it's not only fallacious, but it is still far from being conclusive because the conclusion is not that "Jack believes that broken clock is working" is an accurate report of Jack's mistaken belief, as I asked you to prove. So you simply provided a fallacious argument to prove a general claim about how Jack's mistaken belief should be rendered.
In other words, you have yet to provide a deductive argument in a valid form (if that's what you are trying to do), which ends with the right conclusion. And once you did, then we still have to see if it is sound.
This objection is maybe based on my poor phrasing. I re-edited my text to better express what I wanted to say.
Maybe I am right if you do not.
:brow:
A true belief cannot be false. A false belief cannot be true. It is impossible to knowingly be mistaken. It is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood.
Do you agree with all four of the above tenets?
:brow:
Has nothing to do with failing to read the next few lines...
Much, arguably most, of the groundwork has already been offered, here in this very discussion...
Cats sometimes believe that a mouse ran behind a tree...
It makes no sense at all to me to say that the cat's belief has content that expresses the cat's point of view.
This notion of "belief" cannot take account of language less, mistaken, and/or false belief.
A mistaken creature's point of view does not - dare I say, cannot - include the mistake. Hence, when we ask Jack at time t1, what he's doing immediately after looking at the clock, he will not say "I believe that that broken clock is working". Rather, he will say something about finding out what time it is/was.
He is unaware of being mistaken. He is unaware that he believes that a broken clock is working. From's Jack's point of view at time t1, the mistake is unknown.
Inform Jack of what he needs to know and upon recognizing his own mistake, he will readily admit to having made it unbeknownst to him at the time. He will readily admit to having once believed that that broken clock was working.
> Maybe I am right if you do not.
Of course, your claims may be correct even if you didn't demonstrate to me any good argument to support them. What I meant it's just that you didn't demonstrate to me you are right. To do that one has to provide a valid and conclusive argument from some assumptions. I didn't accept any of the assumptions specific to your view (your definition of "belief" and your knowledge requirement) nor I saw any valid and conclusive argument that from those assumptions concludes that "At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working" is a more accurate report than "At t1, Jack believes that clock is working" wrt to the example of Jack you gave us (which is a case of ignorance of the relevant facts)
> A true belief cannot be false. A false belief cannot be true . It is impossible to knowingly be mistaken. It is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood.
I totally agree with the part in bold, for semantic reasons: true and false are contradictory terms.
Concerning the part not in bold, I'm not sure how you understand it. If it simply means that any of the 2 following claims is necessarily false or contradictory:
Then yes, I totally agree, and that again for semantic reasons: the notion of "knowledge" presupposes that "p" is true or that p occurs, but "true" and "false" are contradictory terms as much as "occur" and "does not occur", so those 2 claims are contradictory or necessarily false.
If the part not in bold means something else (as it seems from your later posts) or the same but for different reasons, then you have to spell it out to me, coz I can't justifiably agree to something I do not even understand.
Meaning? "Thus" expresses the idea that you are logically inferring your claim "a proper rendering of Jack's belief ..." from "Jack was mistaken" and "It is impossible to knowingly be", aren't you? If so then your argument [1] (as it is) is deductively invalid (in particular, it's a perfect example of non sequitur) and inconclusive (because you didn't conclude with the claim that you were asked to prove). In other words, there is literally nothing else to logically understand in there. Unless you are claiming that the "next few lines" weren't supposed to be an argument to logically support your claim that "At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working". But then what else? Can you spell it out?
For now your argument looks nothing more than a wishful thought.
[1]
Quoting creativesoul
Where? can you give me a few links?
Quoting creativesoul
The challenge is: can you justify that claim in a way that is understandable to me (based on assumptions that we both share)?
> This notion of "belief" cannot take account of language less, mistaken, and/or false belief [1].
A mistaken creature's point of view does not - dare I say, cannot - include the mistake [2].
[…] He is unaware of being mistaken [3]. He is unaware that he believes that a broken clock is working [4]. From's Jack's point of view at time t1, the mistake is unknown [5].
I agree with claims 2, 3, 5. But totally disagree with claims 1 and 4.
More specifically:
So your claims 3,4,5 put together look twice equivocal: in the first place, wrt to the notion of "awareness" (if it is to be assimilated/correlated to the notion of "knowledge"); in the second wrt the content of such awareness (p or the belief that p?).
> Inform Jack of what he needs to know and upon recognizing his own mistake, he will readily admit to having made it unbeknownst to him at the time. He will readily admit to having once believed that that broken clock was working.
I myself can be mistaken and I can figure out what is proper or improper to claim of myself if I were in the situation of Jack. Now, after putting myself in his shoes, even when I recognize that I’m mistaken, I wouldn’t be "ready to admit" to having once believed that broken clock was working. And if I were so disposed it would be only for pragmatic reasons, not for accuracy concerns. So the “unproblematic understanding” argument does not prove to me that your philosophical understanding of Jack’s hypothetical situation is right.
The major problem of your definition of “belief” [1], among others, is that - in a case of belief based on ignorance of the relevant facts - it either does not prove that “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” is a more accurate belief report than “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working”, or it proves rather the opposite, i.e. that “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working”.
Here is why:
- At a first glance, both competing belief ascriptions present Jack as drawing meaningful correlations between the perceptible clock , his wondering what time it is, and whatever other evidence necessary to find out what time it is with that perceptible clock. According to this coarse understanding of your definition of belief, one is allowed to use indifferently “that clock” and “that broken clock” to refer to the clock, as you do when talking indifferently about “a clock” and “a broken clock” [2]. But that means that both belief reports are equally accurate!
- However, according to a narrower understanding of your definition of belief (which we must prefer to be more analytical), then it is true that Jack drew meaningful correlations between that perceptible clock, his wondering what time it is, and whatever other evidence necessary to find out what time it is, but Jack didn’t draw meaningful correlations between that clock and the evidences of its being broken, b/c otherwise we couldn’t claim that he ignored that that perceptible clock was broken! Therefore “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” for a case of ignorance of the relevant facts, indeed the former is true while the latter is false precisely because the former accurately reports between what relevant evidences Jack was drawing correlations [3], while the latter fails to do that!!!
BTW, this line of reasoning shows another wider problem of your definition of belief. Indeed your definition of “belief” doesn’t allow you to distinguish true from false beliefs: since in both cases the believer draws meaningful correlations between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things.
These two objections help better understand the probable reasons why you can not rely on your definition of belief (as you presented it) to prove your belief ascription claims. Indeed your definition of belief (despite being still very inadequate) is more apt to express the p.o.v. of the believer (or what the believer is aware of believing) then your notion of "unaware" belief based on a (for me, equivocal and unjustified) knowledge requirement [4]. And in fact, to support your belief report accuracy claims you still need a suitable linguistic report of the belief content we are aware to believe (which is captured by your definition of "belief") as input for the manipulative rendering of the belief content we are unaware to believe (that's how you select the proper linguistic form for a given belief content)!!! And this is already enough to show how self-defeating your line of reasoning is wrt to your own assumptions!!!
Unfortunately due to the inadequacies of your notion of belief, you feel pushed to rely on another assumption (the knowledge requirement for belief ascriptions) to discriminate true from false beliefs and identify putative "unaware" beliefs to be reported.
[1]
Quoting creativesoul
[2]
Quoting creativesoul
[3]
Indeed this also consistent with your claim about not being aware of our own mistaken beliefs
Quoting creativesoul
[4]
Quoting creativesoul
I've much more important matters to be involved in.
Look, I didn't mean to wreck your self-confidence. You put yourself into a corner, despite my repeated warnings, and started beating yourself with such an embarrassing determination that it's a bit unfair to make me feel guilty for how bad your catastrophic views look to yourself now.
Quoting creativesoul
Sure, thing! And may Jack be with you!
At time t1, an individual capable of telling time wonders what time it is. Like all other folk who know how to read the hands of a clock, they look towards one. However, unbeknownst to the individual, they looked at a particular clock that had just so happened to have stopped working exactly twelve hours prior. While looking at the clock, the individual formed belief about what time it was based upon exactly what it said. The clock said it was three o'clock, and the individual believed it was three o'clock. The belief about the time was true, but that belief is not concerning. Rather, it is their belief about that clock that is of utmost importance.
At time t1, the individual believes that that particular clock is a working one. It is not. The individual's belief is false. False belief cannot possibly be true. Therefore, the individual's belief cannot possibly be true. "That clock is working" can be. It only follows that "that clock is working" cannot possibly be what the individual believes.
Twat.
That's quite a knot.
I suggest yanking out these two sentences, which are only tricky, rickety embellishments:
1.Quoting creativesoul
Everyone knows that. There's no need to state it. It only muddies the logic.
2.Quoting creativesoul
There's no need to state this as we've already asserted that his belief is false. It's tacked-on, unnecessary and it muddies the logic.
Quoting creativesoul
Strike this. This absurdity no longer follows. We've eliminated an absurdity. :party: :party: :party: :party:
That leaves us with:
Quoting creativesoul
A much more reasonable statement.
If you choose to keep these two sentences, to my view the burden is yours to justify their inclusion.
This is a very messy argument. But before tossing it into the trash bin (along with all your other catastrophic arguments), let’s clarify a few points.
First point, it seems you are comparing here 2 things:
- The individual's belief that that particular clock is a working one, at time t1
- And the statement “At time t1, that clock is working”
You apparently need this comparison to establish correct belief reports wrt your understanding of the difference between propositional and non-propositional belief. Let’s not forget however that this argument must be understood within your specific theoretical framework, because my theory doesn’t require any truth assessment of a belief for proper belief ascription at all (indeed such a requirement of yours suggests a confusion between logic requirements and epistemological requirements!). In addition to that, I also questioned that you can successfully identify the right belief report without running into some inconsistencies internal to your own theory for reasons that affect also your current argument. Anyway, in this post, let’s put all the latter considerations aside and focus on your last comparative argument as it is.
Second point, if the individual's belief is claimed to be false ex hypothesi, then also the statement “that clock is working” must be claimed to be false ex hypothesi. In addition to that, you made a general claim such as “False belief cannot possibly be true”, but since you did not explain the truth conditions of this claim (my idea is that it’s a contradiction in terms), one can find it as evident as “False statements cannot possibly be true” (which is also a contradiction in terms). Unless you can argue otherwise, if you wish so.
Third point, let’s assume now that we can validly infer [3] from [1] and [2] (even though the structure of your argument - as it is - does not correspond to a logically valid deduction yet, so it’s a non sequitur!):
[1] The individual's belief is false (ex hypothesi)
[2] False beliefs cannot possibly be true (contradiction in terms)
[3] Therefore, the individual's belief cannot possibly be true (conclusion)
Then we can also validly infer [3’] from [1’] and [2’] b/c the above argument and the following one share the same (il)logic structure:
[1’] The statement “that clock is working” is false (ex hypothesi)
[2’] False statements cannot possibly be true (contradiction in terms)
[3’] Therefore, the statement “that clock is working” cannot possibly be true (conclusion)
Therefore either [4] or [3] must be rejected !!! And in either case it only follows that also [5] must be rejected !!!
In other words, you should compare (assessed) false beliefs with (assessed) false statements, not (assessed) false beliefs with (unassessed) statements!!! So your messy argument amounts (among others) to an ignoratio elenchi fallacy.
[quote=“creativesoul;661764”]Twat.[/quote]
Try harder, dude! ;)
Clearly.
The irony.
At time t1, an individual capable of telling time wonders what time it is. Like all other folk who know how to read the hands of a clock, they look towards one. However, unbeknownst to the individual, they looked at a particular clock that had just so happened to have stopped working exactly twelve hours prior. While looking at the clock, the individual formed belief about what time it was based upon exactly what it said. The clock said it was three o'clock, and the individual believed it was three o'clock. The belief about the time was true, but that belief is not concerning. Rather, it is their belief about that clock that is of utmost importance.
At time t1, the individual believes that that particular clock is a working one. It is not. The individual's belief is false. False belief cannot possibly be true. Therefore, the individual's belief cannot possibly be true. "That clock is working" can be true. It only follows that "that clock is working" cannot possibly be what the individual believes.
QED
It only follows that the belief you ascribed to Jack is not Jack's belief.
> At time t1, the individual believes that that particular clock is a working one. It is not. The individual's belief is false. False belief cannot possibly be true. Therefore, the individual's belief cannot possibly be true. "That clock is working" can be true. It only follows that "that clock is working" cannot possibly be what the individual believes.
You just fetched the same argument from the trash bin, where it should have rested for ever and ever. So I must re-toss it into the trash bin for exactly the same reasons I already explained here. Evidently you fail to understand my objection as well as how valid deductions work. The problem is not in the piece of narrative you reported about the genesis of that belief but in what you feel so ridiculously confident to infer from. This confidence comes from some preposterous assumptions that are neither properly spelt out nor properly argued, and that you simply brainwashed yourself to accept, hoping to do the same with me (or us). And you failed that too. Philosophy, as I understand it, it's the opposite of brainwashing.
> QED
Fremdschämen. That's what I feel, sir.
My sentence was creatively chopped out by a deranged soul.
Taken in its context, my claim was referring to a different example from the one we are handling here, and only in order to clarify some implications of your views, not mine. (But now that you made me think about it, I would not be surprised if also on that occasion you were already committing a similar ignoratio elenchi fallacy ).
If all propositions can possibly be either true or false, and true belief cannot possibly be false, then propositions are not equivalent to true belief.
Both of your claims sound correct as much as the 4 following ones:
However, differently from your former 2 claims, what these latter 4 claims make more evident is that:
And this shows where your ignoratio elenchi fallacy (as discussed here, see third point) is coming from:
And that's why if you want to pertinently compare propositions and belief, then:
If all A's can possibly be true or false, and false B's cannot possibly be true, then A's are not equivalent to false B's.
If all A's can possibly be true or false, and true B's cannot possibly be false, then A's are not equivalent to true B's.
The above puts what I wrote into simpler form. I'm comparing two distinctly different things, propositions and belief. As clearly shown below, the critique is not. Rather, the critique compares different kinds of the same thing. Salva veritate. There is an obvious substitution error here.
Quoting neomac
If all A's can possibly be either true or false, and false A's cannot possibly be true, then A's are not equivalent to false A's.
If all A's can possibly be either true or false, and true A's cannot possibly be false, then A's are not equivalent to true A's.
In the first rendering they compared kinds of propositions. In the second, they compared kinds of beliefs. Both have the form above. Neither shares the form of the claims I made. Those claims are what is purportedly being critiqued. Hence, it is an irrelevant critique, as a result of critiquing something other than what I wrote. Given that what followed, as copied below, is based upon a fatally flawed rendering of what I wrote, there's a bit more irony involved yet once again.
Quoting neomac
emphasis above is mine
Differently from my claims...
Indeed!
A logic reader will understand that you simply failed to understand the purpose of my critique.
Quoting creativesoul
A logic reader will understand that your highlighting is pointless. Indeed I'm not misattributing any of my claims to you, since I'm explicitly stating that my 4 claims are different from your 2 claims, except for their logic structure which is the one you reported here [1]. But what my 4 claims show more clearly than your 2 claims, it logically holds also for your 2 claims.
Quoting creativesoul
A logic reader will understand that it is relevant to show:
[1]
Quoting creativesoul
A logic reader will understand that I'm not conflating anything. And it's precisely b/c I'm not conflating belief and statements that I can prove where your reasoning logically fails.
When an author is critiquing something other than what I've wrote, and/or something that quite simply does not follow from what I wrote, it is an irrelevant critique.
A logic reader will understand that you are not logic.
Brilliant.
The issue is that all truth apt belief is either true or false, and that is the case regardless of whether or not we further qualify them during our metacognitive endeavors.
So, when we know that an individual's belief is false, we can also know that it cannot possibly be true, and that the individual cannot knowingly believe whatever it is that they do at the time. If we then make the further metacognitive claim that they believe something that can be true, or something that is believable, then we've just ascribed a belief to the individual that they cannot possibly have.
If convention has issue putting what I've presented into logical notation, it is not a flaw of what I've presented, rather it is the accounting practice that is found lacking.
Reminding the reader of the notion of belief you're working from again...
The contents of an individual's belief, according to your own words, "express the point of view" of the individual believer. "That clock is working" is a proposition and/or statement which expresses of the individual's point of view at time t1, according to what you've been arguing here. You've also claimed that that proposition/statement could be true, and hinted at possible world scenarios...
False belief cannot possibly be true. The statement you've been arguing in favor of can.
So, yes you are.
Unfortunately for you, my objections to your ignoratio elenchi fallacy do not depend on my theory as I clearly stated:
Quoting neomac
Quoting creativesoul
Which I'm not questioning. Indeed also false statements cannot possibly be true. And that depends on the meaning of truth and false, not on the meaning of belief and proposition or statement, as I already explained.
You're such a moron. The objection was based upon a conflation of belief and statements. I do not conflate belief and statements. The objection was based upon what you did, not I. What you did is irrelevant.
The irony is still strong...
Quoting creativesoul
The problem is that you can not soundly prove your claims. You can not soundly prove that I'm conflating statements and beliefs, that I'm misrendering your claims, and that my arguments are irrelevant. At best you can insult me when you fail to brainwash me. And you failed on all grounds.
Additionally, the more you insult me or try to brainwash me (by repeating the same claims ad nauseam without even understanding the logic implications of what you yourself are claiming and related objections), the more you prove my point.
Look, if you are tired of debating with me, there is no need to get hysterical, just ignore my posts and my arguments.
On one side, claim [1] can be applied to both beliefs and propositions, so it can not be used to distinguish them (if this is the aim of such considerations). On the other, against claim [2], we can claim of a belief (or proposition) that is proven to be true (or false), that it could have been false (or true). Any belief (or proposition) capable of representing the world in a given way is contingently either true or false (unless they are contradictions or tautologies). This is perfectly consistent with the claim that both beliefs and propositions can be understood independently from their truth-value assessment. Besides truth-value assessments are fallible, so the same belief can be assigned different truth values by the same person at different times or by different subjects at the same time. In other words, identifying a belief is a distinct task from assessing its truth-value and indeed the latter task presupposes the former task.
> If convention has issue putting what I've presented into logical notation, it is not a flaw of what I've presented, rather it is the accounting practice that is found lacking.
If you have issue understanding logic, it is not a flaw of logic, rather it's you who are found lacking.
Quoting neomac
Arriving at incoherence is a sign of self-contradiction and/or equivocation. You've littered the thread and this conversation with such things. I've just been far too busy attempting to be a charitable reader to care enough to point out all of the flaws in what you've offered here. There is plenty to choose from. The irony though is that nearly all of your critiques and/or objections are invalid. You do know what that means right? They do not follow from what I've said, but rather, they follow from your interpretations thereof and/or your own linguistic framework. You've demonstrated a deeply ingrained habit of assessing my claims based upon a framework other than the one I'm employing.
How many strikes do we get again in your game before being counted out?
I am very well aware of the difficulty inherent to what I'm setting out. I am very well aware of the affront that it exemplifies, particularly against propositional logic as well as paraconsistent logic. That's okay though, because neither of those practices have ever gotten belief quite right to begin with. I suppose you also hold the rules of logical entailment as a standard also, based upon what I've seen here.
All the shit you've said about me and logic is far less convincing when you employ practices that permit changing the truth conditions of belief as well as outright attributing belief that could possibly be true to an individual that has belief that cannot possibly be true. That you do not see that as a problem is typical though, you do follow the conventional practices that allowed Russell's clock, Moore's paradox, and Gettier the footholds that they still have to this day.
The sole purpose of logic(the rules of correct inference) is to preserve the truth of the premisses. The sole purpose of logical notation is to take proper account of human thought, belief, and/or statements thereof. It is claimed that there is some basic form that that comes in. Logical notation is purportedly setting that out. Currently, convention fails on both counts. That's no secret.
The structure was different. That is exactly what I pointed out. So, they are not just different except for that structure. To quite the contrary, they are different structures altogether, as I've already pointed out clearly enough for the average person to grasp.
:smile:
The above presupposes that you have a good grasp of my view. I'd like to see you offer a comprehensive summary of the position I hold and have been arguing in favor of. I mean, in order to levy valid objections against another's viewpoint, that viewpoint must be first understood rightly. So... show me.
Where is the contradiction? Where is the equivocation? Can you exactly spell it out? First of all notice that the subjects are different: “false belief” and “belief” (qualified vs unqualified subject). Secondly, notice that also what is predicated is in different verb's mood (i.e. “cannot possibly be…” vs “could have been…”). But I get that some intellectual effort (which you are evidently incapable of) is necessary. So here are some additional hints (and if they are not enough I'll sharpen them at the next round): the claim that you apparently need so badly is “False belief cannot possibly be true” but this is a misleading claim, because - among others - its truth conditions (which you did not specify [1]) depend on the meaning of the word “true” and “false” (which are contradictory terms) not on the meaning of “belief”. In other words, reasoning in terms qualified subject (i.e. “False belief”) is ambiguous wrt what we can infer from "being a belief" or from "being false"). To avoid this ambiguity we can better render your claim (“False belief cannot possibly be true”) as a bi-conditional:
Notice that in this latter statement, the subject is unqualified. Of this unqualified subject we can claim at the same time without contradiction:
And BTW the same holds for propositions/statements (i.e. “False propositions/statements cannot possibly be true”):
Do you agree with these conclusions? If not, can you spell out exactly why not in substantial terms (i.e. meaning, truth conditions, logic implications or presuppositions)?
Quoting creativesoul
All right, I missed to properly address this part. I’ll do it now. The distinction of A and B as 2 variables ranging over values in 2 different domains respectively, serves your specific purpose of comparing propositions and beliefs. So what your objection is highlighting [2] is the logic structure of your comparison as such. That’s fine and since I didn't clarify well enough what I took to be the same or different in the logic structure of your 2 claims wrt my 4 claims, your objection is understandable. The point is that it's grounded on a misunderstanding due to my poor phrasing. Indeed my comments were pointing at some implicit assumptions embedded in the logic structure of your 2 claims (so that's relevant for your own theory), and that do not depend on the comparison between beliefs and propositions: namely the contrast between qualified and unqualified subjects (do you deny it? [3]). Now, my 4 claims - as I said - “made more evident” this aspect by using variables ranging in the same domain. Clarified the misunderstanding, the point is that the contrast between qualified and unqualified subjects (which holds for my 4 claims too) should be relevant also in guiding a proper comparison between beliefs and propositions. And, indeed, this is the ground for my objection to your ignoratio elenchi fallacy (as discussed here, see third point). So, despite your excusable misunderstanding, my objection still holds (along with all others I made, of course [4]) .
You can however try to deny the validity of my 4 claims, for example do you deny the following ones? If yes, can you exactly spell out why in substantial terms (i.e. meaning, truth conditions, logic implications or presuppositions)?
Quoting creativesoul
It's a bit late for that. In my game you lost a while ago. And there is no way to recover it. We are just reviewing how badly you lost. And we can continue as long as you enjoy it. Unless I get bored, of course.
[1]
you keep repeating the following claim without specifying anywhere its truth conditions:
Quoting creativesoul
What does the modal predicate "cannot possibly be" mean here? Are you saying if an individual's belief is false in the actual world, then it is not true in any possible world? In other words, if any individual's belief is false, then it is necessarily false, and if any individual's belief is true, then it is necessarily true, so there are no contingent true/false beliefs only necessary true/false beliefs? And if you do not mean that, what else do you mean exactly? Can you spell it out?
Besides do you also believe when we know that an individual's statement is false, we can also know that it cannot possibly be true? if not, why not?
[2]
Quoting creativesoul
vs
Quoting creativesoul
[3] "all A's can possibly be either true or false" would be a contradiction in terms if "all A's" meant "all true A's and all false A's".
[4] Here is a list of entry points to my main objections to your preposterous claims and arguments:
Right, but what if you do not have a good grasp of your own view?
Quoting creativesoul
I'm quoting you when I make my objections and then I spell out in detail what I have to object to your quotations, as well as why it is relevant (here is a good example to prove my point). So this already shows what I understood about your views (unless you expect from me to parrot your claims or to fill up a questionnaire). And I expect you to do the same every time you have something specific to object against my claims or arguments. But you on the contrary waste lots posts and words in recycling the same generic objections, dismissive remarks and compulsive framing accusations, that either miss my point and its relevance, or miss what I argued to support it, or simply prove your intellectual dishonesty [1]. That's why, not surprisingly, any objection to your claims and arguments are either conflating or irrelevant according to you, no matter how preposterous your arguments and claims evidently look to everybody else.
To prove once more what I just said, your most recent posts [2] do not offer any support to the target of my objections: the ignoratio elenchi fallacy (as discussed here, see third point). Instead they point out, at best, some flaw in the way I presented my argument, and that helped me just sharpen my objection.
Another example of your shallowness is here:
Quoting creativesoul
Where you accuse me of self-contradiction and/or equivocation without spelling out in detail where the contradiction or the equivocation is. You just slam your preposterous claims, and then you move on with your dumb rant as if it was enough to quote me to make your point!
Finally let's appreciate the scale of your methodological failures (practically, as catastrophic as your substantial claims and arguments): if you think I'm misunderstanding you, you can always rectify or answer my request of clarifications. But you do not address many of my pressing questions [3] and take as rectification, just repeating the same preposterous claims or arguments that I already quoted and you claim I've misunderstood. This is a very dumb dialectic strategy because if I failed to understand your claims (even when I'm directly commenting your quotes) as you state, what's the point in reiterating them? On the other side, if I don't understand, that may only depend on the non-evident logic or meaning or truth conditions of your claims wrt shared assumptions between me and you, so it's dumb just to repeat your claims (which are under question or misunderstood) and provide examples on how to apply them (as you did here ), all the more if you so candidly admit "I am very well aware of the difficulty inherent to what I'm setting out". You should instead prove your claims with logic tools and clarifications about meaning/truth conditions/logic implications or presuppositions consistent with shared assumptions between me and you [4]. If you do not do this, you are not making your view look more convincing, but simply incommensurable wrt more standard views. Indeed it's the dumbest philosophical strategy to challenge a view with claims and arguments that are unintelligible within that view, and reiterate ad nauseam until brainwashing interlocutors holding that view succeeds. And you do know what that means right? That you literally proved nothing substantially valid to support your views since the beginning of this exchange [5] up until now, especially wrt your central claim [6].
To recapitulate and not lose focus, here are the main important claims/assumptions that you didn't prove yet wrt what I questioned:
So spare me your sermons, insults and brainwashing sessions, and do some actual philosophical work, if you really care.
[1]
Quoting neomac
[2] Here is a bunch of them:
[3]
Like the following one. You keep repeating such kind of claims:
Quoting creativesoul
But why is it impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood or to knowingly be mistaken ? What is "knowingly" supposed to mean here? Can you spell it out?
[4] As I did for example here :
Quoting neomac
And I take to be shared all other substantive claims I made which are relevant for my objections and that you didn't directly nor specifically question, like this one (referred to “False belief cannot possibly be true”): Quoting neomac
Indeed I took also your remark about the logical structure of your 2 claims, as a valid observation, because I can understand it wrt our shared assumptions, even though it didn't substantially affect my objection. And since you are proving to be so sensitive about logic structures, then there is still hope you will readily acknowledge that this other argument of yours is a non sequitur:
Quoting neomac
[5]
Quoting creativesoul
Quoting creativesoul
[6]
Quoting creativesoul
Quoting fdrake
Quite right. Good post. :up:
Quoting fdrake
Another good post. I will have to read you on something I care more about. :grin:
Quoting fdrake
Aye.
Quoting fdrake
Prophecies are always better when they are written down. :lol:
Quoting Banno
Famous last words.
But the curious thing is that I tend to think Banno's position is correct—the non-tautologous variety. I would want to render propositions this way:
Quoting Leontiskos
Obviously I am not thinking about propositions in terms of statements, for I am including unformulated affirmations or acknowledgments. But regardless of the conception of propositions, there seems to be a substantive disagreement with @creativesoul here.