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. — Banno

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". — Harry Hindu

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. — 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.

I didn't say means are caused. — Harry Hindu

D'oh! I misread your statement. Apologies.

I said meaning is the relationship between cause and effect. (...) What they mean is the relationship between the scribbles existing and what caused them. — 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

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. — 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.

Thank you for the detailed response which is more than I can say about many veteran members on this site. — Harry Hindu

He'll learn.

Maybe Banno has a reference for this info so that we can read about the history of substitution in analytic philosophy. — ZzzoneiroCosm

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.

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. — Banno

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.

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 — Banno

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!

It's found in Frege. I mistakenly assumed familiarity, given that it is so common. — Banno

Thanks.

We all have different backgrounds.

How is this relevant? — neomac

That's not a bad question.

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. — creativesoul

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. — 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?

I don’t see what JTB about knowledge has to do with our understanding of belief ascriptions. — neomac

It has everything to do with it, for it is the basis of belief as propositional attitude.

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). — 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?

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!). — neomac

Is that supposed to be clearer and more accurate somehow than just admitting that we can mistakenly believe that a broken clock is working?

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. — neomac

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:

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. — ZzzoneiroCosm

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.

Thank you for the detailed response which is more than I can say about many veteran members on this site.
— Harry Hindu

He'll learn. — Banno

Indeed, he will.

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. — Banno

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.

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. — Janus

I don't think anything can sway creative at this point but this seems spot-on.

:smile:

It has everything to do with it, for it is the basis of belief as propositional attitude. — creativesoul

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? — 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”.

Is that supposed to be clearer and more accurate somehow than just admitting that we can mistakenly believe that a broken clock is working? — 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.

What would be a de dicto rendering of that toddler's belief? I mean, ought we not all do our own work? — 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.

Like I said:

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. — ZzzoneiroCosm

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.

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. — neomac

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. — 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.

A1) Alice loves Jim
A2) Jim is loved by Alice
B1) Alice aime Jim
B2) Jim est aimé par Alice — neomac

So A1 is said differently than B1, but you say that they are translatable and mean the same thig. How is that so?

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 — 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).

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. — 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).

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 — 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.

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. — Janus

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 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. — creativesoul

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!

The point of this exercise, on my end anyway, is to show how the consequences of conventional accounting practices are absurd — 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.

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? — 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.

@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 — creativesoul

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.

:cool:

Well, you are trying to make your belief ascription analysis fit your understanding of belief. For me, it should be the other way around. — neomac

: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?

...'that they believe of a spherical object that it is flat'... — Janus

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?