creativesoul

If John had fleas, he flead something. If John had bad hair, he bad haired something. If John had apple pie, he apple pied something. If John had smar...

I'm not sure if there is agreement, given the fact that you do not always seem to believe what you write...

If you say "John believed" then your report must have an object... John believed what? You state what you claim John believed. Your report is not John...

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Belief is not a verb. Belief is a noun.

Good. Focusing upon how we report upon our belief aims at the wrong target.

What is the notion of "object of belief" doing here aside from unnecessarily overcomplicating the discourse?

If that is a rule which sets forth how to sensibly, correctly, and/or properly use the term "belief", then it is itself based upon an emaciated unders...

A report is not equivalent to what's being reported upon. A belief is not equivalent to a report thereof. The above seems to neglect this.

On object of belief is precisely what grabs the agents' attention. An object of belief is but one necessary element within thought and belief formatio...

I'm a bit befuddled here Sam. I find it quite problematic to look at every conception of the term belief as a means for 'understanding the concept'(sc...

It is worth noting that javra and I may get into exactly what I alluded to being the first step in determining how we further discriminate between com...

Poisoning the well as an opening doesn't warrant further consideration... Throwing a bunch of shit against the wall makes a mess. Clean up your though...

What more is there to understanding meaning if not drawing the same correlations; making the same connections; associating between the same things as ...

What more is there to understanding another creature's belief and behaviour(assuming it is thought and/or belief driven) if not drawing the same corre...

A taste... All examples of belief consist, in part at least, of sense perception(physiological sensory perception). Not all examples of sense percepti...

So then belief is not a phenomenal state.

Do not confuse yourself. When one communicates, it is done intentionally. It requires shared meaning. Shared meaning is language. All communication re...

Well said Sam. But I fear you've missed the importance of it all. Sure, we can observe non-linguistic creatures and infer that they hold belief. If th...

The question was crucial... How do we further discriminate between competing explanations of non-linguistic creatures' belief? I posit that a good pla...

The term "subjective" adds nothing but unnecessary confusion. All interpretation is such. We can get it wrong. That tells us something important. What...

Knowing is not equivalent to interpreting.

Since when is language limited to only verbal? Whistle a true tune...

All communication IS language. WTF???

Care to reconcile this?

The notion of being state-able is misleading. Creature's that cannot state anything can have belief. That belief is unstate-able in one important sens...

I'm still a bit curious though Banno... What is the relation between Jack and "The food bowl is empty"? Are you saying that the relation is Jack's bel...

One problem I see, and I'm sure I'm not alone, is how we can know what the non-linguistic creature's belief is. I mean, one could come up with a varie...

So, it seems that the only significant difference between our views is the importance being placed upon what belief consists of...

Good. My apologies. What does Jack's mind consist of? Ah, nevermind. Belief is adequate. Nevermind "mind"...

Make an argument for it. I could easily make one against it. "The bowl is empty" is a statement in English. Jack doesn't know English. Therefore...

Yes. We can report upon non-linguistic creature's belief.

How then can you claim to know what you're saying about it?

The argument is that the belief of a non-linguistic creature must be meaningful to the creature. "The bowl is empty" is not meaningful to Jack, it's m...

To the above I wrote: Then came this... Uh, no it's not. The differences matter tremendously. That's why the charge of 'nitpicking' reveals neglect on...

I'll take your word for this Sam. I'm not aiming at Witt. There's many a book about and/or of his writing that I have in my possession but have yet to...

Well no. I have no burden in this thread regarding that. It's not about the differences between our notion of "concepts". It's about belief. If you wa...

Banno, You avoid talking about mind like the plague... and yet began a topic in the forum section dedicated to philosophy of mind... funny that. A pla...

Uh... No. No. No. Read the paper...

Ask a relevant question, and as always... I'm more than happy to bear any burden. Aside from that, I'm not interested in your typical rhetorical drive...

Well Sam... Given that Witty worked from the conventional notion of JTB, and that notion claims that the content of belief is propositional, then what...

Well, that's what the conventional historical notion of belief claims... that the content of belief is propositional. That's also what the conventiona...

The point I'm attempting to make here, with you, is that some things that we call "concepts" are prior to language. Others not. Do you agree? If so, t...

Think about what has been claimed as the belief(s) of non-linguistic creatures...

Jack's belief consist of that which is meaningful to Jack.

Right. However, if we claim that some statement or other is Jack's belief, well... We're wrong. The content of non-linguistic belief cannot be proposi...

Sam, I am fairly certain that you and I agree upon much. I'm having trouble understanding why you don't like the phrase "meaningful to the believer".....

My position doesn't require mentalese...

Name them, and we can parse this out...

If the content of belief is propositional, then the content of non-linguistic creatures belief is meaningless to them. That is also assuming that prop...