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. — Janus

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.

you didn’t clarify why JTB is the basis for belief as propositional attitude. — neomac

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.

"they believe a spherical object is flat" — creativesoul

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? — creativesoul

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.

I could be wrong, but not completely. — creativesoul

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.

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. — Janus

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.

...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:

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. — neomac

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.

...you as any body else learned the word “belief” and its proper usage in the context of specific linguistic practices about belief ascriptions... — neomac

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 have a cat for the pigeons.

( 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.

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. — creativesoul

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. — 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.

FYI I prefer arguments to emoticons. — neomac

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 ) — fdrake

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) — 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),

( 12 ) The semantic content of "This snow is white" is equivalent to the white snow. (assumption) — 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.

You did not answer the question I asked about the charge you're levying. — creativesoul

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. — Banno

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?

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. — neomac

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) — neomac

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. — 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.

> 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. — neomac

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. — 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?

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. — Banno

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. — 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.

Perhaps you are poking at "Snow is white" being extensional but not "Fdrake believes that snow is white". — 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.

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. — Janus

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.

@creativesoul

> 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:

...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: — 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.

Indeed this is what I already — neomac

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 — 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. — fdrake

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" — 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.

What is the content of a proposition? And is it propositional?

@creativesoul & others.

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?

@Harry Hindu

> 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.

What is the content of a proposition? And is it propositional? — bongo fury

A good question.

A proposition is the content of an uttered sentence.

Ok then, what is it? (Genuinely curious.) And is it sentential?