Personally, I find no issue between JTB and change. That's what proper indexing/timestamps are for.

Gettier exposed much less familiar and/or commonly recognized issues. One main issue(by my lights) was the notion of belief Gettier worked with. Western convention shares this problem as well. One consequence of that misguided/incomplete notion of belief is that the belief under consideration in many(arguably all) Gettier cases, as well as many other traditional conventional considerations, is not equivalent to the belief of S(whomever that may be). Salva Veritate applies.

The first case, S believes he himself will get the job. "The man with ten coins in his pocket" when severed from a speaker who is only referring to themself has a very different set of truth conditions than when we keep in mind that the speaker was referring to himself. "The man with ten coins in his pocket" was referring to S himself, and no one else. Severed from S, "The man with ten coins in his pocket" refers to any man. A change in truth conditions is a change in meaning, and as such that alone serves as adequate ground to reject that example outright. S never believed anyone other than himself would get the job. We know that. S did not get the job. Therefore, S's belief was false. The lesson: Not all belief is equivalent to propositions. The problem: We treated(and still treat) belief as if it/they were equivalent to propositions.

The second example has Gettier incompletely reporting on S's belief. Belief that Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona is believed to be true because S believes Jones owns a Ford. The proper accounting practice keeps this in mind. Convention/Gettier does/did not. Again, the problem is severing the belief from the person and then treating it as a proposition without attachment to a believer. He believed that the proposition "Either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona" was true because Jones owned a Ford. It was not true because of that. Therefore, S's belief was false and misrepresented by Gettier/convention. Same lesson. Same problem.

:wink:

Carry on.

Interesting that someone who purportedly does not want to "control any markets" guts legislation put in place to protect consumers from all sorts of financial injury knowingly and inevitably caused by certain business practices all of which were possible as a result of a lack of those same regulations.
— creativesoul

I don't know. — frank

Clearly.

Amongst other things, some consumer protection laws used to forbid predatory and other fraudulent financial business practices where otherwise innocent and unknowing consumers trust what's being told to them by whoever is supposed to be providing them a service. Add to that the loosening of the language in banking regulations, as well as loosening of banking rules/restrictions allowing all or most banks to behave like investment banks instead of traditional banks and the sheer lack of oversight after the Clinton administration nixed Glass Steagall(which kept financial institutions from recklessly tanking the market/economy like they had earlier), and you had banks creating and selling financial instruments that 'looked like' traditional safe mortgage-backed instruments. They weren't. Rather, they were based on bad(horrible) loans that every single party involved except the consumers knew were doomed for default/foreclosure. Hence, that's the reason the instruments were created. They even had a name for them. NINJA loans. In the end, the only ones holding the bag were those poor unwitting folk who purchased these mutual funds and the homeowners.

The real estate agents, companies, underwriters, and lending institutions had already made their money.

It was called the financial crash of 2008/09. You may be too young to remember. I'm not.

Trump just dismantled the consumer protections enacted afterwards. He's also systematically firing everyone and anyone who would have oversight over his and other government officials' actions.

On the one hand, he claims to want to root out waste, fraud, and abuse, and on the other he gets rid of everyone who's responsible for doing so.

Yeah. He's full of shit and has convinced all sorts of otherwise unknowing people that he's 'fixing' something. He's fixing it alright. In his and his friends' favor. Just another day in an America where the overwhelming majority of regular blue-collar working-class people are being convinced to vote against their own best interests.

For whatever it's worth...

As a youth, I had a couple of recurring very unpleasant dreams. Someone told me that although I was sleeping, I had the ability to recognize that I was in the dream again. By doing this, I could also just wake myself up out of the dream by counting to 3 and telling myself to wake up.

It worked.

There were a couple of other dreams that I could also 'control' my 'dream self' in. Flying around like Peter Pan was one. I'm pretty sure that it was only after I began waking myself up from the most unpleasant one, that I began this sort of realizing and 'controlling' my dream self.

Fast forward several years, add to the life mix a massive head injury, and now I very very rarely remember anything I dreamed the night before. Just a few times in 40 years.

Donald Trump doesn't want to control any markets, in fact he just gutted regulations that were put in place after 2009. — frank

Interesting that someone who purportedly does not want to "control any markets" guts legislation put in place to protect consumers from all sorts of financial injury knowingly and inevitably caused by certain business practices all of which were possible as a result of a lack of those same regulations. This lack of regulation leading up to 2008 played a key causal role of the 2008 financial crisis that left millions of innocent Americans financially injured without recourse. He gutted the measures put into place to stop such practices.

For someone who claims to be focusing upon waste fraud and abuse... well... that's a bit too fucking rich for my tastes.

Disgusting.

Again, there is a lot going on here. — Banno

I love this thread. When I first started doing philosophy, I despised the historical uses of "necessary", because they discolored the readers' lenses, through which my writing was being read. I remember thinking I needed to invent my own term(s) in order to avoid having my writing filtered through such sense(s).

Quite the interesting discussion involving the different senses of "necessity" and "necessary".

The misunderstanding between J and Von Icarus was quite helpful for me. I suspect that such misattributions of meaning/sense often go unrecognized and result in an ongoing unarticulated misunderstanding.

Anway, just complimenting the thread and its participants. I'm very interested and will continue to read along in the background. I've nothing to add. Better listen and learn a bit more about the historical context(s) involving the senses of "necessary" that later plagued the interpretation of my early writing.

Hope you and the wife are happy and healthy.

Cheers.

Rödl's point is that the truth of propositions can't be 'mind-independent' in the way that Frege's objectivism insists it must be — Wayfarer

Interestingly enough, I agree with that. However, my reasons may differ from Rödl's, or I suppose the biggest difference may be methodological. Part of the interest I find here has to do with some of the notions/ideas being talked about and the interplay between them within evidently incommensurate, but coherent views. However, I'm relatively certain that the notion of "mind independence" I'm working from is significantly different from convention. For me, it's a matter of existential dependency/independency.



Riding the coattails of , it seems that some things we say/think are accompanied by what is commonly called a/the subject of the sentence, even when not consciously considered at the time of utterance/thought. In that sense, "I think" certainly accompanies positive assertions(assuming sincere speech), despite it not needing to be articulated silently. If and others are correct and Rödl's target is assertion, and/or propositions, there may be other unexamined problems underwriting the project, such as the accompanying(pardon the expression) common view regarding what counts as the content of the thought/proposition.

I hadn’t responded to this and similar points earlier because it seemed to be based on a misunderstanding and I wasn't sure how to clarify it. The "I think" is not supposed be some simultaneous, conscious "thinking about thought" or "thinking that I am now having thought X." (Maybe the term "the I think" is ill-chosen, since it can suggest that misapprehension.)

But now this occurs to me: Is it possible that you don’t countenance the idea of any thoughts that are not conscious? So therefore the “I think”, on that understanding, would be either present to consciousness or nonexistent? Or another possibility: You countenance the idea of various un- or subconscious processes that accompany thinking, but want to reserve the word “thought” for what happens consciously?

Is any of this close to how you see it? — J

This has been an interesting read for me. Expressing how I see it would involve undermining the entire project. In order to do it effectively, the distinction between thought and thinking about thought would first need to be clearly explained. Then, only after it is obvious that that distinction has been neglected, could the consequences of that error begin to have light shed upon them. The scope is dauntingly broad and exceedingly pervasive. I'm not sure that that is an appropriate path. It's a subject matter in its own right.

I appreciate this thread as well as the general tone within it. Well done! I would not want to dampen it, and so I will not. Better to keep my piece for another time.

Cheers!

Yes. I deal with a number of people on a daily basis that do not seem to understand how worldviews form, grow, and evolve over time and/or how they work.

One reason I opted out of further explanation earlier was based on the succinct manner in which you drew the distinction between self-conscious thought and conscious thought. That was enough to make the basic case against the claim at the heart of the OP.

Kant's failure to draw and maintain the distinction between thought and thinking about thought.
— creativesoul

Truly, I wasn't aware there was a problem... — J

The conversation you are currently having with Russell as well as the last few days' worth of discussion in this thread ought to make you aware. To be clear, neglecting the distinction between thought and thinking about thought is not just and only a problem in Kant's view. The scope of that neglect spreads across the conventional board. It manifests in all sorts of ways within all sorts of very different philosophers' views from the Greeks through postmodernism and everything in between.

"I think" is always metacognitive. The thought/belief(p) that it prefixes is not.

Think about children's thought prior to their ability to think about other minds as well as their own. Their thought is most certainly not prefixable with "I think". When they say "That is a tree" it is not accompanied by any sort of unspoken or implied "I think". It is their thought nonetheless. It is only after we begin to realize that other people have minds that we can begin to think about minds/thoughts as a subject matter in its own right. Last I checked there is an age range spanning a few years when that begins happening. If memory serves me, it's between 3 and 7 years of age. There are several experiments showing that some children in the age range have yet to have drawn a distinction between their own minds and others. Until that happens, there is no "I think" accompanying that mind.

Thought is an activity, — Mww

Indeed. I prefer "process", but probably because I'm trying to eliminate/avoid/exhaust "mental" without using it.

:wink:

Unsurprising. I'm tired, and I may not have understood your objection in its entirety. I'm sure I do not grasp the depth of it. Nonetheless, I was referring to this...

When you ask if the Oak is shedding its leaves, are you thinking that the oak is shedding it's leaves?

If so, why ask the question? — Banno

Roughly, I took this approach to indicate that we do other stuff with words besides state our thoughts/beliefs, to which attaching "I think" is relatively unproblematic. Questions/interrogatives being just one of those other speech acts. Seems odd to attempt to prefix some of those acts with "I think".

Nice clarification. That helped me to understand quite a bit better how narrowly focused the scope of the claim at the heart of the OP really is. I appreciatchya!

Are you assuming that all thoughts could be sensibly prefixed with "I think"?
— creativesoul
Wouldn't an example of a thought that cannot be appended to "I think..." be a thought that could not be thought?

The play here is on the lack of a clear idea of what a thought is. — Banno

:razz:

I see. I wondered where you were headed. I didn't realize you were frolicking. Your example already showed a kind/species of thought that doesn't seem to sensibly accept such an appendage.

Hey Banno!

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. Are you assuming that all thoughts could be sensibly prefixed with "I think"?

↪Leontiskos

Good stuff. Thanks. — Mww

I second that!

The “I think” accompanies all our thoughts, says Kant. Sebastian Rödl, in Self-Consciousness and Objectivity, agrees with this but points out that “this cannot be put by saying that, in every act of thinking, two things are thought: p and I think p.” He calls this a confusion arising from our notation, and suggests, not entirely seriously, that we could devise a more accurate notation “that makes I think internal to p: we may form the letter p by writing, in the shape of a p, the words I think.” He interprets Kant as saying the same thing: for Kant, “the I think is not something thought alongside the thought that it accompanies, but internal to what is thought as such.” — J

However, this whole thread just glosses over the underlying issue. Kant did not draw the distinction between thought/thinking and thinking about thought/thinking. Rödi just assumes and further reinforces that error.
— creativesoul

No, it's the opposite. Here's what I wrote in the OP, with relevant passages bolded: — J

:worry:

The assumption of Kant's error has nothing to do with the parts you bolded. The mistake was agreeing with an error, and that agreement preceded the portions you drew attention to.

If Kant says that "I think" accompanies all our thoughts, and Sebastian Rödl, in Self-Consciousness and Objectivity, agrees with this but points out that “this cannot be put by saying that, in every act of thinking, two things are thought: p and I think p”, then he's still agreeing that "I think" accompanies all our thoughts. He does not disagree with Kant's failure to draw and maintain the distinction between thought and thinking about thought. <----That is to assume Kant's error. Rather, it's only how to best put this that he's disagreeing with Kant about. <-----That is to reinforce the error. Neglecting to acknowledge, let alone directly address, the problem with the agreement between Kant and Rödi is a textbook case of glossing it over.

I've read at least three other valid objections/refutations of the claim at the heart of this thread. I'll leave mine here for now.

I think about things; I don’t think p. — Mww

:smile:

Sometimes we're thinking about propositions, utterances, statements, assertions, etc. Those are things too!

:wink:

Hi M!

the issue is contingent on what one interprets the term “thought” to signify.
— javra

I tend to agree, based on the interesting responses to the OP. The key cleavage seems to be whether thought is meant to be essentially sentential or propositional, as opposed to "representational". — J

Thought could be any of the three, depending upon the sort/kind/type/species of thought under consideration. So, the 'cleavage' is not so much 'oppositional' in nature so much as comparative. They all consist entirely of correlations drawn between different things. Although, I find notions of thought being essentially 'representational' a bit more muddled than sentential or propositional thought. Thought is not 'essentially' any of those though, and that is the point here. It is 'essentially' correlational. That is, it all consists of correlations drawn between different things. All of it, not just some of it. Some is propositional(propositions are part of the content). Some is sentential(though the difference escapes me - sentences are part of the content). Some, I suppose, may be described well enough as "representational", although I'm not privy to any such notion.

Sure it is, or could be. If I thought this had a cut-and-dried answer, I wouldn't be bothering y'all with it. All opinions are welcome. — J

Cool.

So, same question to you as to Banno, earlier: If Pat is correct, does that mean that my #4 is the right response?

Well, if it is the case than not all human thought can be accurately characterized as being two thoughts, p and "I think p" - whether the "I think" is spoken or unspoken - then yes, it cannot be the case that all human thought is both(or two thoughts) p and I think p. So, #4 is 'right' in some way/sense of being right.

Pat is right to deny that that is always the case. However, some of the other answers are also correct, depending upon the specific candidate of thought under consideration.

However, this whole thread just glosses over the underlying issue. Kant did not draw the distinction between thought/thinking and thinking about thought/thinking. Rödi just assumes and further reinforces that error.

There is more than one relationship between p and I think p. It is rather obvious that the "I think" portion is superfluous in nearly the same sense that "I believe" is. It adds nothing meaningful to stating/asserting "P". I would further question your recent addition that truth is not presupposed in each and every use of "I think". In other words 'p', 'I think p', and "I think 'p'" all presuppose truth. The alternative is to deny one's own utterance. That would be to state "P but P is not true", or 'I think P, but P is not true', or "I think 'p', but I'm not thinking 'p'. Of course, there is also yet another sense of "I think" that expresses a significant amount of uncertainty regarding p. So, there's that as well.

Pat is correct. I know this isn't what you're after, but...

The underlying issue is an historical failure to draw and maintain the distinction between thought and thinking about thought.

If one thinks about the leaves falling from the trees, then they're thinking about leaves and trees. If one thinks about the fact that they're thinking about the leaves falling from the trees, then they're thinking about their own thoughts. Those two examples are directed at very different things. The former is of the sort of thought that does not require a language user for it's formation. The latter is the sort of thought that does, for it is thinking about thought, and thinking about one's own thoughts is something that can only be done after they are picked out of the world to the exclusion of all else, via naming and descriptive practices(language use).

"I think" is always metacognitive. The thought to which "I think" is prefixed is not always.

I'm not sure that dogs have a concept of causality as such. — Ludwig V

I agree but...

Where does the need for having a concept of causality come from? Again, I do not find the notion of concept to be of help. Generally speaking, it seems to be a step backward instead of forward. One can recognize/attribute causal relationships, which is what is meant by "recognize/attribute causality" without having a concept of causality(thinking about causality as a subject matter in and of itself). A creature can believe that X causes Y without having a concept of causality. Recognizing/attributing causality requires only inferring that.

But it's not enough for him to generalize and understand that (1) whenever he kills a chicken, he will be in trouble. He also needs to understand that (2) if he does not kill chickens, Janus wll not be displeased with him.

There's more to Jimi than just recognizing causal correlations. — Ludwig V

Of course there is more to any thinking creature than just the recognition/attribution of causality, but it seems to me that that process, regardless of the creature, is more than adequate for being a case of thinking(thought/belief).

I'm not convinced that Jimi knows he's in trouble, so I question the account above on its presuppositional ground.

It is more than enough that Jimi inferred that his own behaviour caused Janus'. Here, all Jimi needs to avoid killing chickens is to believe that if he does Janus will do whatever Janus did the first time. He does not need to understand that if he does not kill chickens Janus will not be displeased. He just needs to believe that if he does, Janus will do what he did the first time. His belief that his own behaviour caused Janus' comes replete with the further inference/belief/expectation that if he does not, Janus will not do that either. That's how the recognition/attribution of causality works.

For example, when a dog checks out a bowl, because it expects there to be food in it, and is disappointed, I don't suppose it says to itself "Oh, my belief that there was food there is wrong" or anything similar. It simply walks away. But that action counts as a recognition that its belief was false. — Ludwig V

Recognizing that the bowl is empty is not the same as recognizing that one's own belief about food being in the bowl is false. The former is about the food and the bowl. The latter is about one's own thought/belief. The dog can directly perceive the food, the bowl, and its own hunger. Thought and belief are not directly perceptible things. Nor are truth/falsity. Nor is meaning. Nor are social/institutional facts. Nor are any number of abstractions.

I cannot find good ground for claiming that any creature incapable of naming and descriptive practices is capable of abstraction. Recognizing that one's own belief is false requires comparison/contrast between the belief and what the belief is about. That seems to require a skillset unobtainable to dogs.

We are discussing the difference between living with language and without language. — Athena

Yes. That's part of it. There's also the transition between. There are also different kinds of languages consisting of different kinds of meaningful behaviours, marks, utterances, etc.

Indeed, what counts as language matters in more than one way.

I think Ludwig V is right because the dog remembers the bowl is where it found food — Athena

Knowing where to get food is not the same as knowing that one's own belief is false.

The claim was that walking away from an empty food bowl counts as recognition that the prior belief(that the bowl had food in it) was false.

What is involved in the process of recognizing that one's own belief about whether or not there is food in the bowl is false? It requires drawing a distinction between one's own belief and what the belief is about. This process, at a bare minimum, requires thinking about one's own belief as a subject matter in and of itself, which in turn requires a way to do so. We do that with words, which stand in as proxy, for the belief. How can an animal without naming and descriptive practices invent/create a meaningful utterance which stands in place of its own belief? That must be done prior to comparing that belief to the world. It is only via such a comparison that one can recognize that their own belief is either true or false.

Do you deny that some animals other than humans, as well as some predating humans have(form, have, and/or hold)belief?

When you move to a world where there are no humans, the bridge breaks. — fdrake

Indeed. Such is one consequence of conflating belief statements with all belief.

Creatures are capable of those things. If logical/valid conclusions contradict that, then the presuppositions/unspoken assumptions underwriting that train of thought are somehow mistaken.
— creativesoul
Some people might call that begging the question... — Ludwig V

That's their problem. I call it making sure a position is commensurate with the facts; what's happened or is happening; everyday events; etc. Many animals other than humans are clearly capable of problem solving. We can watch it happen. That's been proven over and over. So, either problem solving is something that can be done by a thoughtless creature(which amounts to saying that problem solving does not require thinking) or some non human creatures are capable of forming, having, and/or holding thought.

Since it is the case that some other animals problem solve, and problem solving is thinking, then it is not the case that only human are capable of thinking.

The conventional problems underwriting this matter stem from i) an abysmal failure to draw and maintain the actual distinction between thought and belief and thinking about thought and belief, and ii) parsing truth as nothing more than a property of true sentences.

It's all too easy for us to conflate our report(and what it takes) of the mouse's belief with the mouse's belief(and what it takes). There is a very long history and/or philosophical practice of treating these as one in the same. The report is existentially dependent upon language, for it is language use.
— creativesoul
Yes, and that's important. For example, when a dog checks out a bowl, because it expects there to be food in it, and is disappointed, I don't suppose it says to itself "Oh, my belief that there was food there is wrong" or anything similar. It simply walks away. But that action counts as a recognition that its belief was false. — Ludwig V

I find it curious that you agree and then immediately misattribute meaning to the dog, based upon the dog's behaviour. Your dog's walking away from an empty food bowl may count as a recognition that it's
belief was false according to your criterion for what counts as such belief, but not mine.

The dog knows there's no food in bowl. The dog may have believed that there was prior to going to check. He checked. There was no food in the bowl. The bowl did not have food in it. That's what he believed. In order for him to recognize that his belief was false, he would have to first be capable of thinking about his own belief. As I've painstakingly set out heretofore many times over, thinking about one's own thought is a practice that is itself existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices replete with some proxy for the dog's own thought/belief. Dogs do not have what it takes.

Do you have any argument whatsoever for any of the claims you've been making? Do you have a valid objection to my own? Do you have a bare minimum criterion for what counts as thought or belief such that all thought and belief satisfy it?

How does a dog(or any other animal without naming and descriptive practices) pick its own belief out of this world to the exclusion of all else in order to compare it to the world?

Current convention is chock full of practices that clearly show we have not gotten some rather important bits of this right. That is clearly shown by the inability for many a position to admit that other creatures are capable of forming, having, and/or holding thought and belief.
— creativesoul
How do you know that current convention is wrong in not being able to admit that creatures are capable of those things? — Ludwig V

Creatures are capable of those things. If logical/valid conclusions contradict that, then the presuppositions/unspoken assumptions underwriting that train of thought are somehow mistaken.

Many people accept the conclusion that they are not.

Indeed they do. Some folk must if they are to remain free from self-contradiction.

So before you can demonstrate they are wrong, you must already have a clear and correct criterion.

I'm not even sure what you're claiming here. I'll add this...

If it is the case that creatures capable of having meaningful experiences roamed the earth long before the first language users like us(those employing naming and descriptive practices) did, then any and all acceptable notions/conceptions/uses of "thought", "belief", and/or "meaningful experience" must be able to take this into proper account. Lest they be found sorely lacking.

It is the case. Some positions cannot admit this. Thus, those positions must be rejected.

Jimi most definitely is capable of recognizing and/or attributing causality. That's um... sometimes as far back as we need to go. I'm puzzled at the response though. Are you averse to the idea that dogs are capable of recognizing causality?

It seems that Jimi did learn to leave the chickens alone - even when Janus was not there - from the experience. So his future behaviour does not correlate with either a dead chicken or with Janus' presence - much less on the presence of both. — Ludwig V

I'm not sure what this is supposed to be aimed at. Looks to be made of straw.

Sure. Jimi's learned from his experience. Such experience was meaningful to Jimi by virtue of his having drawn correlations between his own behaviour and Janus's behaviour afterwards. Chickens became a bit more significant to Jimi as a result. Jimi learned that killing chickens has unwanted consequences. He can learn much the same lesson after touching fire.

The thing is, there's more than one correlation in play. He might have correlated the dead chicken, or the dead chicken and Janus' presence - or both together- with the displeasure. — Ludwig V

There is more than one correlation being drawn. Some are efficacious too. Some have been drawn and continue to influence subsequent behaviours afterwards.

That's not a problem.

Claims beginning with Jimi "might have" presuppose a world in which Jimi could have. It's that logically possible world that needs set out. What else must also be the case in order for it to be possible for Jimi to draw correlations between the dead chicken, Janus' presence, and Janus' displeasure?

How does the dog drive a wedge between Janus' displeasure and Janus' presence?

In order to connect three things, they must first be somehow disconnected.

How does Jimi disconnect Janus's presence from Janus' outward unhappy behaviour?

The chicken is in its own place. Jimi is as well. So too, is Janus. Janus' presence and Janus' displeasure do not share such clearly different spatiotemporal locations. Jimi does not think about Janus' displeasure in contrast/comparison or as a separate thing to/from Janus' presence. One must do so prior to connecting them(drawing a correlation between them).

Concepts of concepts. Nah.

What is a concept of a tree if not thought and belief about trees(if not correlations drawn between trees and other things)? What is a concept of food if not thought and belief about food(if not correlations drawn between food and other things)? I do not see how the notion helps us to understand our own minds let alone other species'.
— creativesoul
It looks to me as if you have a reasonably clear concept of what a concept is. So there's no problem with that idea. — Ludwig V

"Thought and belief" exhaust "concept", but not the other way around.

I've mentioned on multiple occasions that the conversation was in dire need of a clear criterion and/or standards by which we can judge/assess whether or not a candidate is or is not capable of forming, having, and/or holding some thought or another.
— creativesoul
How do we assess whether a proposed criterion or standard is clear and correct? By submitting cases to it. (Examples and counter-examples). — Ludwig V

Sure, but only after it's already in front of us.

When it comes to being capable of correctly attributing thought, belief, and/or meaningful experiences to ourselves and other capable species, we must first have knowledge of the processes involved. It's not just a matter of what they believe, it's also a matter of how.

I've explained as best I can, and I'm fairly happy with my part. There's promise/potential. I'm content.

Methodological approach needs attention.

As early on as possible I suggest examining the justificatory ground(or lack thereof), the scope of rightful application, the explanatory power, the coherence and/or terminological consistency of the standard under scrutiny. There are some things that are perfectly clear. We're looking for knowledge of thought and belief that predated humans. Such thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience existed in its entirety prior to our knowledge thereof. That is only to say that prior to knowledge that there were thinking and believing creatures roaming the earth prior to ourselves, there were thinking and believing creatures roaming the world. A correct standard/notion of "thought", "belief", and/or "meaningful experience" will be amenable with/to those prehistoric facts.

We can prioritize working from the fewest possible dubious assumptions. We can demand that our position posit the fewest possible entities necessary. We can insist that spatiotemporal flexibility be shown/proven by virtue of being capable of spanning the evolutionary timeline. Our standards/notion of "thought and belief" must be amenable to evolutionary progression such that it is clear how creatures begin attributing meaning to sights, sounds, and such. That's what thinking about the world does.

This sets out some of the standards I'm working from. Methodological approach. I think I have a very strong methodological naturalist bent.

What do all thinking and believing creatures have in common such that it this set of common elemental constituents that makes them what they are? They are all capable of drawing correlations between different things. Biological machinery finds a timely home at this point in the discussion.

Thought and belief are always meaningful to the creature drawing the correlations(forming, having, and/or holding thought and/or belief). Some thinking creatures inhabited the earth long before we did. Any and all acceptable notions of "mind", "thought", "belief", and/or "meaningful experience" must take proper account of this.

We find ourselves becoming strikingly aware that some meaning is prior to any and all notions of "meaning". The same is true of thought and "thought" as well as belief and "belief".

Her coming to you after you call her name is inadequate evidence for concluding that she knows which dog you want to respond. I'm certain that that sequence of events is ritualistic. Her drawing correlations between her name being called, her own behaviour(s), and yours afterwards more than suffices.
— creativesoul
The sequence of events - call, coming, praise - could does have a similarity to a ritual. Those correlations do indeed suffice. After all, the training consists of establishing associations between her name being called, her behaviour and the subsequent reward, and teaches he what her name is, i.e. which dog the name refers to. This training also enables her to know (after a little more training) what to do when she hears "Judy, sit" as opposed to what she should do when she hears "Eddy, sit". (At times, I have had more than one dog.) — Ludwig V

Still seems too unsupported for my tastes.

It may strike some as odd, but I'm not convinced any dogs know their own name in the exact same way that we do. I would deny that altogether. Some know how to act when they hear their name being called in certain familiar scenarios. Some are still learning how to behave when they find themselves in such circumstances. Some live nameless lives.

We learn our names by virtue of how many times it is being used during a short duration of time spent. Dogs do as well. Some dogs, if rewarded well, can learn to do all sort of things. I'm okay with saying she has learned to behave in some ways sometimes. She has learned how to behave/thrive/survive in many different situations. Name calling events being one of many.

The question is - and always has been - what does it take in order for some creature or another to be capable of thinking about its own thought and/or belief?
— creativesoul
It would help if we could clarify whether we are talking about a creature being capable of thinking about its own thought and belief or about a creature that is capable of thinking about the thought and belief of other creatures. Or both. (The cases are somewhat different.) — Ludwig V

That's fair and certainly worthy of explanation.

While I agree that the cases are different, they differ in their respective targets. They differ regarding what the creatures focus upon. The target is different individuals' thought and belief. That's three different ways to say much the same thing. The similarity takes precedence here. They both are metacognitive endeavors. Thus, I do not see the relevance of that particular distinction when it comes to drawing and maintaining the distinction(s) between thought, belief, and experience that consists of correlations drawn between language use(and other things) and thought, belief, and experience that does not. Nor does it seem relevant to the distinction between thought and belief that is existentially dependent upon language use, and thought and belief that is not. <------that's the earlier peculiarity mentioned a few posts back. I could further set that out if need be. I've just recently come to acceptable terms with it myself.

The point was that Jimi trembled as a result of drawing correlations between his behaviour and Janus'. That's all it takes.
— creativesoul
I grant you that Jimi's fear might be triggered by Janus' return. But let's think this through. It might well be that he only started trembling when Janus came through the door. The trigger, then, would be the chicken plus Janus. That would explain why he killed the chicken. But it doesn't explain why he was still sitting beside it. Surely, an innocent, oblivious dog, would either start eating it or would wander off in search of something more amusing. I think the dead chicken reminded him of the previous occasion; Janus' arrival was the crisis, so he may well have got more anxious as he came in.

Jimi cannot compare his own behaviour to the rules in order for him to know that his own behaviour did not comply. Jimi did not suddenly realize that he had broken the rules upon Janus' return. He was suddenly reminded(drew the same correlations once again) when it all came together again.
— creativesoul
I'm trying to think what dog behaviour might distinguish complying with the rules from knowing that s/he is complying with the rules. Nothing comes to mind, so I'll give you that one. However, I'm reasonably sure that if they are complying with the rules, they know what the rules are. Jimi's killing of the chicken suggests that he had forgotten what the rule was. There's no doubt that he remembered at some point after the event. The question is, what triggered his memory and hence fear? — Ludwig V

Correlations drawn by Jimi between his killing the chook and Janus's behaviour afterwards is more than enough. The correlation drawn is one of causality. Jimi attributes causality(draws a causal connection between what he did and what Janus did afterwards). Granting Janus' story is true, it took more than one occasion for him to alter his own behaviour accordingly(to stop killing hens).

Jimi's behaviour afterwards, complies with what Janus wants of Jimi's behaviour, but not as a result of Jimi's knowing what the rules are. Rather, it 'complies' because it fits into Janus' wants regarding Jimi's behaviour. Jimi stopped killing chooks because he did not want Janus to do whatever Janus did the first time. Jimi believed his behaviour caused Janus'.

What is the standard and/or criterion you're using to decide/determine/judge what sorts of beliefs language less animals can and/or cannot have?
— creativesoul
Roughly, the same ones that I use to decide what believes human beings have when I cannot ask them.
— Ludwig V
Care to elaborate?
— creativesoul
I can try. My thought is roughly this. I fear that if I talk about "words" here, you'll think I'm talking about words in a narrow sense and miss the point. Fortunately, concepts relate to specific words or terms in language and there are rules about how they are to be used. But in many cases - I expect there are exceptions - some of the rules are about how we should apply them in our non-verbal behaviour. A bus stop is where one congregates to catch a bus; a door bell is there to be rung to announce our arrival; etc. We often use this feature to attribute beliefs to humans when we cannot cross-question them. I don't see any reason to suppose that this feature enables us to attribute our concepts to dogs. The concept of food is not just about it can be idenitified and analysed, but how it is to be treated - cooking and eating. Hence, although dogs cannot cook food or analyse in the ways that we do, it can certainly identify it and eat it. This fits perfectly with the idea that our ideas and language about people can be stretched and adapted to (sentient and/or rational) animals. — Ludwig V

I think the use of "concept" is problematic. What does it clarify? Nothing as best I can tell.

What is a concept of a tree if not thought and belief about trees(if not correlations drawn between trees and other things)? What is a concept of food if not thought and belief about food(if not correlations drawn between food and other things)? I do not see how the notion helps us to understand our own minds let alone other species'. It seems to me that it unnecessarily adds complexity where none is needed, and hence only adds confusion.

Successfully navigating the world requires successfully distinguishing oneself from the rest of the world. Slime molds do this. Bacteria. All forms of life avoid danger and gather resources and thus... successfully navigate the world while they survive.
— creativesoul
Yes, I'm aware that the idea of autonomy can be applied to any living creature, including bacteria and moulds. (There are complicated cases, like lichens.) I didn't include those in what I said, because they are neither sentient nor rational. In fact, I think of them as indistinguishable from autonomous machines, apart from their ability to reproduce. — Ludwig V

Indeed, and this skirts around the very heart of the matter, but I'll nitpick first.

Autonomy is not an idea. Calling things "ideas" is quite unhelpful. Earlier you did the same with "the idea of metacognition".

Metacognition is not an idea. It's talking about our own thoughts.
— creativesoul
Well, animals are not capable of talking, so that's not hard. The question is, then, is whether they are capable of knowing what others and themselves are thinking; if that means they are capable of thinking about their own and others thoughts, then so be it. — Ludwig V

Talking about our own belief and others' is how we begin to think about them. Thinking about thought and belief is one thing that is required for knowing what others are thinking. Getting it right is another. Is talking about thought and belief required for thinking about it? I certainly think talking about it is required for getting it right. However, not all notions of "thought" and "belief" get it right.

The question is - and always has been - what does it take in order for some creature or another to be capable of thinking about its own thought and/or belief?

We do so by virtue of naming and descriptive practices. That is how we do it. That's what talking about our own thought and belief involves. Thinking about one's own thoughts and beliefs requires isolating them as subject matters in their own right. We do that with naming and descriptive practices. We use "minds", "thought", "belief", "imagination", etc. Are there any other ways of(processes for) thinking about thought and belief, if not as subject matters in their own right? How else would/could a creature capable of forming, having, and/or holding thought and/or belief also be capable of thinking about its own thoughts?

So, you've now invoked sentience which carries ethical considerations along with it. I'm not at all opposed to drawing and maintaining the distinction between sentient and non-sentient creatures; however, I do not see how we've established the basis to include such considerations in this discussion... yet. Sentient beings are capable of forming, having, and/r holding thought and belief about the world, but so too are all thinking/believing creatures. Do all creatures capable of thought count as sentient? That's yet another assessment that does not yet have a basis from which to draw a clear conclusion. The point was to show that simple differentiation between oneself and the rest of the world is something that is successfully done by creatures that are clearly incapable of knowing what your wants are. Hence, the fact that your dog distinguishes between herself and other dogs does not lend support that she knows what your wants are. <----that was the presupposition I was rejecting.

Successfully navigating the world requires successfully distinguishing oneself from the rest of the world. Slime molds do this. Bacteria. All forms of life avoid danger and gather resources and thus... successfully navigate the world while they survive. — Ludwig V

When I recall my dog, I call her name. Supposing that she has no understanding of self and others, when she hears me call, how does she know which dog I want to respond?
— Ludwig V

I see no ground for presupposing she is comparing your wants to anything. — creativesoul

I'm not at all clear what you mean about comparing wants to things. It was usually pretty obvious when she wanted something and when she had got it. — Ludwig V

Your original claim above was not about you knowing her wants. It presupposed that she knew yours. How does she know which dog you want to respond without comparing your wants to your calling her name? I'm placing the presupposition/assumption that she knows which dog you want to respond when you call her name in question. That's precisely what needs argued for.

Her coming to you after you call her name is inadequate evidence for concluding that she knows which dog you want to respond. I'm certain that that sequence of events is ritualistic. Her drawing correlations between her name being called, her own behaviour(s), and yours afterwards more than suffices. I would bet that your tone plays a role as well, in that certain tones do not mean the same things to her that others do, despite all of them being cases of calling her name. She can draw correlations between your tone. She cannot draw correlations between your wants. They are not the sorts of things that are directly perceptible. Nor is time. Nor are the rules governing here behaviour.




We began by discussing which sorts of thought and belief other species can and/or cannot have with one specific sort of thought/belief in mind at the start, rational thought/belief. The conversation seems to have been everywhere but has gotten little to nowhere. It is my considered opinion that the methodological approach being used by many if not most participants was/is not up to the task at hand. I've mentioned on multiple occasions that the conversation was in dire need of a clear criterion and/or standards by which we can judge/assess whether or not a candidate is or is not capable of forming, having, and/or holding some thought or another.

That endeavor(establishing a criterion/standard from which to judge/assess our own and others' thought and belief) involves doing quite a bit of philosophy.

We must begin by examining and/or assessing ourselves. It is imperative that we get some rather important things right(that we correctly identify what thought and belief is; what it consists of; and/or how it emerges onto the world stage; how it persists; etc). Current convention is chock full of practices that clearly show we have not gotten some rather important bits of this right. That is clearly shown by the inability for many a position to admit that other creatures are capable of forming, having, and/or holding thought and belief. Those positions/linguistic frameworks work from inadequate conceptions/notions of "thought" and "belief" that are incapable of taking account of other creatures' thought, belief, and/or meaningful experiences. The results range from outright denial to anthropomorphism.

Belief that approaches are all about epistemological claims, in that they attempt to show how truth is presupposed in all belief statements and/or knowledge claims. As useful as they are in helping us to think about such things, they are useless in determining and/or acquiring knowledge of what language less thought and belief consists of.
— creativesoul

Upon a rereading, I'm less happy with this now than I was then, and I remember not liking it then. — creativesoul

Even less now.

It's all too easy for us to conflate our report(and what it takes) of the mouse's belief with the mouse's belief(and what it takes). There is a very long history and/or philosophical practice of treating these as one in the same. The report is existentially dependent upon language, for it is language use. The latter is existentially dependent upon language use as well, as set out earlier in this post(beers and fridges). However, the latter does not require being talked about in order for it to exist in its entirety. This peculiar set of facts results from the overlap(shared world) between creatures without naming and descriptive practices and things that are existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices.

It renders the qualifications of "linguistic" and "non linguistic" when applied to beliefs suspect, at best. I used to use such language.
— creativesoul
That I agree with. But I would have thought that impinges on the distinction between what requires being talked about and what "exists in its entirety" without being talked about. — Ludwig V

Here, you've used some of the same words in different ways than I do. I'll try to further clarify...

...I set out how a creature without naming and descriptive practices can form, have, and/or hold belief about distal objects that are themselves existentially dependent upon language users. Those objects are part of the content of the correlations being drawn(the content of the candidate's belief).

The mouse can draw correlations including the beer(between the beer and other things). Beer is existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices. Therefore, the mouse(a creature without naming and descriptive practices) can indeed form, have, and/or hold belief about some of that which is existentially dependent upon language use. Not all. That is the case regardless of whether or not anyone ever talked about it.

This is segue into similarity I think you and others may find interesting. I do.