Banno

Well, one's beliefs, for a start.

What?

Yes - but is there some particular aspect of this that cannot be written? There is a difference between saying everything can be spoken of and saying ...

Yes - and falsehood.

Yes. Hence belief and language go together.

My beetle is red. Yours?

Neither can I. Hanover seems to think I deny internal experiences. I don't. I'm saying that if they can not be shared, spoken about, then they are irr...

Again, if that is the case then their experiences are not ineffable. So what is the problem?

SO they are not ineffable? Then what is the problem?

If they are ineffable, how could you know this?

And contrasting true belief against false belief allows us to enter into language games that correct errors. If the world were transparent in such a w...

So we have talked about two ways that beliefs are used; the first was in explaining actions, the second is in contrasting the true against the false. ...

You understood. Well done.

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 re...

I noticed a bit of discussion about propositions. There is no such thing as a proposition, of course. It's a philosophical reification used to stand i...

There's so much here that is muddled, much of the muddle caused by equating different experiences with different phenomenal states, while trying to ma...

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 bel...

Austin, "Are there a priori concepts?" https://archive.org/stream/philosophicalpap013680mbp#page/n11/mode/2up Let's throw out concepts and universals ...

I don't think I understand. I don't see why is not just translatable as "X is larger than Y"; but from what you say here: that's not what is being arg...

Are you suggesting that there were no books in his time? Of course not. The point is the quite simple one that if something is shared we can check it,...

You have utterly missed the point.

...and written material and video and so on. It's external, analysable. Unlike your private mentation.

With cats and dogs we have a clear shared referent. So, in your account, where a belief is in your mind, what is this shared referent? It seems it is ...

Of course not.

I make plenty of mistakes. Some even on these pages.

The dynamics of belief Suppose that our beliefs change over time. But we don't notice.

I'm beginning to think you are better at it than I. Sam made a mistake; move on.

I'm just checking, so we don't get our roles confused.

The dynamics of belief Our beliefs change over time. How do we tell?

Of course they will be. They will be seeing the same images. That's rather the point of the thought experiment you set up. But further, they can talk ...

No need to be a dick, Frank. That's my job.

See Sam. We use grammar in a way that seems to point to mental furniture; but that is an artifice of our grammar.

Yes! Once the spell of a grammar that leads us to treat beliefs as mental individuals is broken, our view is vastly more fluid. And now I want to ask ...

You can have all the phenomenal states you like. I'm pointing out that if they are private, then they are irrelevant; and if they are public, they are...

SO you accept a reality external to your phenomenal experience. Not all hope is lost, then.

I have other things to compare the paint to. You have nothing with which to compare your private mental furniture, except more private mental furnitur...

Funny thing is, ofttimes when we both look at the same thing, we agree as to the details. It's the privacy of your imagined "phenomenal states" that l...

Suppose that your belief changes over time, but that you do not notice. It what sense can your belief be said to be the very same, over time? It cease...

We both see the beetle. We do not both see your mental furniture.

Indeed; but that's all there is. They are as yet only half-composed, hinted at and ill-defended. THis thread is a doing, not an expounding, of philoso...

I'm tempted to say that while the brain might be in the head, the mind isn't - at least not entirely. In a way that is an (extreme?) outcome of Wittge...

:up:

I have no clear notion of where you want to go. Are you agreeing with me? Disagreeing? How? About what?

And? This is like pulling teeth.

How?

It's more likely that contradictory statements would get you a million bucks.

I'm lost. You are all over the shop. OVer here is not over there. But we do not need a sharp line drawn at an exact point in order to know this.

Sam, I do think I take the beetle argument further than you do. Exactly where and how remains unclear. I gather that you, Sam, would agree with me tha...

At the least, we ought strive for consistency. One's beliefs ought not be contradictory.

I've said all I thing is interesting here - a thermostat does not have beliefs, an adult does; there is a gradation of cases in which we would attribu...