I agree with you that scepticism about the value of deduction is not unreasonable and that human beings are fallible.

Ever since Plato got hypnotised by mathematics, there's been a shared discourse in philosophy that takes as its model of certainty deductive reasoning. As you say, this definition of certainty does not, in practice, offer us much, if anything.

Yet, if human beings are fallible, it follows that they are not always wrong. For example, if we know that human beings are fallible, there is at least one thing that is certain.

I deal with fallibilism not by saying that knowledge is fallible, but by saying that if a knowledge claim turns out to be wrong, it should be withdrawn and classified as belief. Fallible knowledge is indistinguishable from belief and so pointless.

We have to acknowledge that human beings are fallible and that we are human beings. But we are not always wrong, and it seems to me that the point of "know" is to signal when we have not failed and to pass on the information.

I can't get my head round fallibilism. If we claim or attribute knowledge and we are wrong, we need to withdraw the claim or attribution. The same is true of every assertion we make. What's the problem with that?

I hadn't thought that my speculation might lead to fallibilism. Perhaps if I said "cases that approximate to the paradigm can be accepted as knowledge provided they are true."?

a shaky premise is always shaky, even if Jones does get hired. — Agent Smith

I take it that a premiss is shaky if it is less than conclusively true and/or it is less than conclusive evidence for the conclusion?

That implies that most of what we think we know, we do not know.

Or perhaps you mean that the JTB is a paradigm of knowledge and cases that approximate to the paradigm can be accepted as knowledge. Something like the relationship between the abstract triangle defined by whatever geometry we are using at the time and the physical objects we accept as triangular. I could buy that.

Yes, that's been my point. They both believe that John shouldn't marry Jane, and if it's true that John shouldn't marry Jane then their belief that John shouldn't marry Jane is true – even if Jane isn't a horrible person and marriage isn't a terrible practice. — Michael

There's something odd happening here. What you say is correct. Did I ever say anything to suggest that I thought something different?

Yep, that should've been obvious. A good justification can't contain a false premise. — Agent Smith

So we agree! :smile:

It follows that Smith’s belief that he is justified is not sufficient; we also have to accept that he is justified. In other words, the J clause, like the T clause, means that attributing knowledge to someone else requires endorsement of the claim. Knowledge is not just a psychological state, as belief is.

(At this point, I have to admit that I’ve got very confused about the name of Smith’s rival – whether is Jones or Brown or Robinson. So I checked. Gettier calls him Jones, so I’m going to stick to that, because I’m a pedant.)

However, suppose that, like Smith, we don’t know that he will get the job. His source – whether it is the president or the interviewer – is such that it is reasonable to believe the information and therefore reasonable to believe his claim to knowledge. Suppose that Jones does get the job. Wouldn’t we accept that Smith knew?

Awkward, I think.

My belief that my car isn't in my driveway is both true and justified, but unlike your (and Gettier's) example, it isn't just coincidentally true. — Michael

There might be all sorts of reasons for liking or disliking an example, but the most important criterion in our context is whether the example is clear and illustrates the point it is designed for. Perhaps you think that the question of coincidence is a distraction. I think that that getting the right answer for bad reasons is at the heart of the Gettier problem.

However, the problem that your case exemplifies is different, I think. Here’s the classic case (first proposed by Jonathan Vogel). Al left his car parked on Avenue A half an hour ago. He knows where his car is. What Al has not thought about, however, is that every day a certain percentage of cars parked on public streets gets stolen. For example, Betty left her car parked on Avenue B half an hour ago. Her car, unfortunately, has been stolen and driven away. Clearly Betty believes, but doesn’t know, that her car is on Avenue B. Now, consider whether Al knows that his car is still parked on Avenue A.

There is a name for this - the Harman-Vogel paradox. But I don't know whether it is in general use.

It’s perfectly appropriate to distinguish beliefs from the reasons for having them. It’s absurd to respond to the above by saying that neither Max nor Jessica believe that John shouldn’t marry Jane. — Michael

It depends how you define “proposition”, i.e. what you count as the same proposition and what you count as a different proposition. For me, a proposition is a sentence with its use in a context. Max and Jessica both believe that John shouldn’t marry Jane, but for different reasons and therefore in different contexts. The situation is perfectly clear. We choose to describe it in different ways; both are legitimate. But I am impressed by the colour exclusion problem; you appear not to be. So I think my description is more accurate than yours and avoids various difficulties (such as the Gettier problems).

If Smith’s belief is justified and true but not knowledge, then the JTB needs revision. If Smith’s belief isn’t justified, then the JTB has no problem. So what are the grounds for saying that Smith’s belief isn’t justified? The only possibility that I can come up with Is that his belief that Brown will get the job is false. In which case, the definition of justification needs revision or qualification. That means either a “no false lemmas” added to the JTB or something else.

An alternative would be to say that Gettier cases are all half-way houses, that don’t fit the mould. That doesn’t mean that the JTB is wrong; every rule is liable to encounter anomalous cases. Anomalous cases need adjudication.

Suppose Smith persuades Brown to accept a bet, that the man who gets the job will have ten coins in his pocket. Smith gets the job and coincidentally has ten coins in his pocket. Smith will argue that he got it right, on the ground that he has been appointed and has ten coins in his pocket but will accept that his prediction was not entirely accurate. Jones will argue that he did not, on the ground that he is right only by coincidence and that he lost.

Smith is right. A bet doesn’t pay attention to the reasons why stakeholders made their choice. So Smith’s grounds, whether they are right or wrong, don’t matter. But the JTB does and Smith has the wrong grounds.

I'm more prone towards agreeing with Quine's idea of a web of beliefs — creativesoul

I’m not unfamiliar with Quine and Davidson, but completely unfamiliar with this part of their output, though I've heard of Quine's "web of beliefs", which has a good deal to recommend it.

Would you consider yourself a speech act theorist along the lines of Austin and Searle? — creativesoul

I learnt about speech acts from Austin. I read some of Searle's and Grice's work, but decided there was nothing worth having down that particular rabbit hole. But I’ve made use of the idea in all sorts of contexts as a useful question to ask in philosophical practice, leaving others to wrestle with the intricacies of a theory. I look up Austin from time to time, but I haven’t read Searle or Grice for years.

Is the clause you're referring to above a "belief that" clause, such that when we claim that someone believes a proposition, we're basically saying that they believe that, or believe that that proposition is true? — creativesoul

Yes.

Could you elaborate on this mention of using "cognitive"? — creativesoul

There’s no great theory behind the suggestion. I was just trying to think of a more convenient way of referring to the class of words that are currently designated “propositional attitudes”. That’s all. I’m taking it to mean “to do with knowledge”.

At least, that's my current understanding of it. — creativesoul

It may just be pedantry, but I prefer to say that beliefs explain actions by identifying the reasons for actions. I wouldn't want to be labelled a causal theorist because I couldn't defend such a theory. I don't think there's much scope for some sort of general classification of which beliefs cause which actions, apart from the case by case identification of reasons for particular actions.

it may serve to eliminate the ambiguity of reference issue underwriting Gettier's Case I — creativesoul

Quite so. The problem is that no example since Gettier’s case I uses definite descriptions, probably because it was accepted that the reference issue is a serious flaw. I think the technique can be adapted to fit other cases, but not all – not even for Gettier’s case 2. But piecemeal refutation of examples is not proof against new examples, so a blanket solution would be preferable.

Most folk approach Gettier's paper as though it is all about justification. — creativesoul

Well, Gettier is taking advantage of the need to adopt “weak” justification in order to avoid the Munchausen trilemma. (See my reply to Agent Smith above if you are not familiar with it.) So it’s not wrong to work on it. But the only solution I can think of is very implausible.

Smith is essentially ignoring a possibility that he shouldn't. — Agent Smith

That is certainly true.

Russell’s stopped clock is similar. It is an example devised by Bertrand Russell in Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits as an example of true belief without knowledge; it is a man who looks at a clock which is not working, though he thinks it is, and who happens to look at it at the moment when it is right; this man acquires a true belief as to the time of day, but cannot be said to have knowledge.

A similar classic problem was produced by Jonathan Vogel. Al left his car parked on Avenue A half an hour ago. He knows where his car is. What Al has not thought about, however, is that every day a certain percentage of cars parked on public streets gets stolen. For example, Betty left her car parked on Avenue B half an hour ago. Her car, unfortunately, has been stolen and driven away. Clearly Betty believes, but doesn’t know, that her car is on Avenue B. Now, consider whether Al knows that his car is still parked on Avenue A. I don't have an acceptable solution to this one.

Both depend on assumptions that turn out to be wrong. But Gettier cases turn on “justified” beliefs that turn out to be wrong. So I tend to see Gettier cases as different from these. One can turn Russell's case into a Gettier problem by adding to it a justification for the assumption that the clock is working, such as having recently heard it strike and having checked it was striking correctly. But that still doesn't include the dodgy logic that "true" Gettier cases rely on.

One has to be careful here. If one insists on conclusive justification for all knowledge claims, including all assumptions, one sets off the Munchausen trilemma. (Forgive me if you know this one already. I include the explanation to save time if you don’t know it.) If it is asked how any given proposition is known to be true, proof may be provided. Yet that same question can be asked of the proof, and any subsequent proof. According to the trilemma, there are only three ways of completing a proof - a circular argument, an infinite regress, or a dogmatic argument (one that rests on accepted precepts which are merely asserted rather than defended.) Gettier’s acceptance that justification. (See Wikipedia “Munchausen’s trilemma)

AGENT SMITH

You are right, of course. But there are complications when you include belief, knowledge and justification in the scenario.

Within this scenario “The man who will get the job will have 10 coins in his pocket” can be interpreted in three different ways, depending on context. This is quite normal for sentences that include a definite description.

1) In a general context, the application is “Whoever will get the job will have 10 coins in his pocket.”

2) In the context of Smith’s beliefs, the application is “Brown will get the job and will have 10 coins in his pocket.”

3) In the context of the objective outcome, the application is “Smith will get the job and will have 10 coins in his pocket.”

The first issue is whether these are three distinct propositions or one proposition with three applications.

If they are distinct, there is no paradox. But sadly, the criteria of identity of propositions are completely unclear. So that is not conclusive.

The second issue is whether he is justified in believing 2) or just believes he is justified in believing 2). Gettier posits that one can be justified in believing a proposition that is false and that that he is justified. Sadly, it does seem that he is right about the ordinary use of “justify” and a strict interpretation of “justify” seems to rule out cases that most people would want to accept.

The third issue is that whether a re-formulation of the J clause or an addition to it could exclude cases like this.

If we describe the situation as Smith believing the right thing for the wrong reasons, that could fall under the exclusion of guessing or luck, which is precisely what the J clause is meant to exclude. But there’s been a lot of discussion about whether luck plays a role in most knowledge and it is not difficult to construct examples. I’m not a fan of this route, because knowledge by luck seems to defeat the point.

On the other hand, it is not difficult to construct Gettier-like cases which do not seem to be problematic. Suppose I’m waiting by a bus stop. I have checked the timetable and traffic reports and have every reason to believe that a bus that will take me where I want to go is due. But there are all sorts of outcomes that don’t correspond to my expectations but would not necessarily undermine a claim to knowledge. For example, a bus turns up but not the bus that was scheduled to fill this slot, which has broken down. Or a bus turns up, but not the route that I was planning; nonetheless, it will take me where I want to go, so I catch it.

I disagree with it at face value. Doesn't this hark back to atomic propositions? — creativesoul

I disagree with it as well. I was specifying a belief that I think Gettier’s practice shows that he holds. Yes, it does hark back to atomic propositions.

How do we square that with the fact that they all hold mutually exclusive beliefs about Michael's birthplace?
Seems to me that belief as propositional attitude has been shown to be lacking in yet another way. Earlier it was found lacking the ability to take proper account of language less belief. I find that rendering all belief as propositional attitude has hindered our understanding. — creativesoul

I don't like "propositional attitude" much either. For me, it is a useful classification that groups together a number of different verbs that share a grammatical feature, that they are require a clause in what grammarians call “indirect speech”. Many, if not all, of these verbs are cognitive and hence of interest to philosophy. I wouldn’t have any objection to using “cognitive”, so long as other people would understand what I mean.

I would like to express the point about "language-less" belief by saying that a proposition is (usually) an expression of a belief, but not necessarily the form of expression used by the believer. Actions, in which the belief is attributed as a reason for the action, are another way of expressing belief. Beliefs are reasons for action, if you like; and since that formulation includes speech-acts, it seems general enough to cover everything it needs to.

But that doesn’t really explain the concept. The core of it is a most the useful property. Without belief, there is no coherent way to say that someone acted for a reason but the reason is false. In other words, attributing beliefs enables the speaker to express an assessment of the truth or otherwise of the belief.

Trying to work out a way of expressing where I think we have got to, I have to start from my understanding of what the standard use of “proposition” amounts to. A proposition, on my account, is a sentence with its use in a context. This implies that each proposition comes entangled in a cloud of other propositions which are essential to understanding it. This includes, but is not limited to, its truth-conditions and its truth-maker (if I may use that term). An attribution of belief includes a proposition but locates it in a specialized context which requires special treatment.

In the case of deductively conclusive justification, I basically agree with you, with some qualifications, which probably don’t matter.

I agree with you also about the type specimen.

But I don’t think this is Gettier’s case. Smith’s deduction is (Brown is the man who will get the job) & (Brown has 10 coins in his pocket) so (The man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket). I want to say that even though this deduction is valid, it is not sound, because Brown is not the man who will get the job, so the antecedent is false. Gettier would accept that, but claim that Smith is justified in his conclusion even though one of the premises is false.

Smith’s evidence for (Brown is the man who will get the job) is that the president told him so - not conclusive but not unreasonable. More like your inductive cases than the deductive cases. So the question becomes whether the events that confirmed Smith’s conclusion (and refuted his premise) are sufficient for us to conclude that Smith knew. I don’t think so (and I’m not sure that Gettier thinks so, either). The puzzle is why not.

It seems to me that there are two options.

One is to deny Smith’s premise, not on the grounds that it is less than deductively certain, but on the grounds that one component of it (Brown will be appointed) is certainly false. So his justification fails. Smith does not know that is so and has evidence that it is true. Is he justified in believing it, or does he just believe that he is justified in believing it? I believe the latter, but many don’t.

The other is to deny that the proposition that Smith believes the same proposition as the one that is true. In this case “the man who will get the job” refers to Brown in the context of Smith’s belief but to Smith in the context of the final outcome. But the criteria of identity of propositions are not well formulated. So it is no surprise that not everyone seems to accept that there are two distinct propositions here, even if there are two distinct uses of the sentence in two different contexts. In any case, it isn’t clear that the same objection will apply to all the Gettier cases constructed since the original article. (I read somewhere that there are over a hundred of them, all constructed specifically to get round one objection or another.)

"Michael was not born in Germany" cannot stand alone as S's belief about Michael's birthplace. Current conventional practice leads to our claiming otherwise, and in doing so it also results in saying that all three individuals share the exact same belief about Michael's birthplace.

They - quite clearly - do not.

The only way to properly discriminate between the three individuals is to report their belief as Q because P, where P is any of the three beliefs written above. Upon doing so, we find Gettier's problem dissolved. Justified false belief is not a problem for JTB. — creativesoul

Well, that clarifies a great deal, and I agree that this dissolves the Gettier problem.

But I do have qualifications.

First, is this a diagnosis that you would accept? Gettier thinks that beliefs, propositions and sentences neatly align with each other. Each belief, proposition and sentence is clearly distinct from all other beliefs, propositions and sentences. I doubt that he would accept that, but his formulation of the problem sweeps all the complexities under the carpet and trades on the resulting ambiguities.

Second, if you focus on "Michael was not born in Germany" and the fact that all three people would agree on that, you will think that they all have the same belief, and with reason. If you focus on the fact that they each have a different reason for believing that, you will think that they all have different beliefs, and with reason. So I prefer to stick with what I have just said and refuse to adopt either that they do, or that they do not, have the same belief. So long as the situation is clear, which it is, the classification doesn't matter very much. Or at least, I need to be persuaded that it matters, and for what purposes.

I observe that this issue seems to me to parallel the problems that Wittgenstein had with the colour exclusion problem - which, if I have the history right, eventually led to him abandoning logical atomism.

Third, (the Gettier problem seems to have a kind of gravity in that one cannot help returning to it), I think that there is a real problem which he also exploits. The quickest way to articulate this is through an example.

Suppose S is waiting at a bus stop and observes to T that the bus will arrive soon, meaning in the next five minutes. S is justified in believing this, because he has checked the timetable. The bus arrives six minutes later. Was S right or not? Did S know, or not? Again, suppose that the bus that was supposed to arrive has broken down and a replacement bus has been sent out and manages to arrive within five minutes. Was S right or not? Did S know or not? One could invent such cases indefinitely.

Another example, drawing on Gettier's first case. (I should look up the article here, but I'm going to chance my arm and work from memory). The target proposition in this case is "The person who is appointed will have ten coins in their pocket". This proposition turns out to be true, but not in the way that S expects. In this case, S's belief and the truth are nested in different contexts and I would say that the differences are such that Smith does not know. I think (though it is hard to be sure) that all Gettier problems turn on this issue.

The point here is an application of what we've agreed about beliefs. Sometimes belief/knowledge may be confirmed in ways that S has not taken into account; such cases may or may not impinge on a knowledge claim, and even result in an undecidable case. In practice, what we say will depend on the context, particularly what matters to our project at the time.

That's an imperfect formulation of the issue but I hope it takes us forward a bit.

Thanks for your reply. There's no deadline for this. Whenever you are ready.

I'm glad we have got the farmer sorted out.

I look forward to your help with the last paragraph.

I don't want to get in amongst the weeds of the Gettier problem, but there's a link between the last paragraph and Gettier and it sits behind that last paragraph. If S is justified in believing that p and p implies q, is S justified in believing that q? Even if if p is false? I want to say no, but I'm not sure I can.

I apologize for my silence. Life has been rather busy and pre-occupied for the last couple of weeks. You may have lost interest by now, but just in case, here are my replies.

Does the farmer do all those things if he does not believe that that particular piece of cloth is a cow? I think not. I suspect you'd agree. How does focusing upon his actions tell us anymore regarding exactly what his(and all) belief are? — creativesoul

I don't think we need to focus on S's actions to understand belief. I do think we need to recognize that belief is shown by actions just as much as words. Certainly ordinary life pays attention to both and people often claim that when it comes to divining what people believe, actions speak louder than words. In addition, belief is extremely useful in making sense of actions that would otherwise be nonsensical. I can't think of another way of doing it.

I'm also still curious about why you think my view is too rigid to cope with how the appropriate expression of a belief is affected by the believer, an author/speaker reporting the belief, and the reader/listener.
8 days ago — creativesoul

Because your view can't make sense of actions that are based on false beliefs or actions that are not expressed in language. "Embedded beliefs" seems a neat way of describing them. But I don't clearly understand what your view is, so perhaps I'm wrong.

I think that this line of thought would be well served by introducing a bit more regarding how the relationship emerges, how the relationship persists, what the relationship consists of/in, what the relationship is existentially dependent upon, etc. — creativesoul

Well, that would be needed if I wanted to create a Theory or an Ism. For various reasons, I just don't see that happening.

I don't understand what "how the relationship emerges" means. The relationship between propositions, belief and action isn't hidden. The relationship between the three persists for as long as S's belief persists. The relationship between belief and action is the relationship between reason for action and action and depends on the mental state of the believer - and, yes, that seems to conflict with my remark that it is not a question of the mental state of the believer. That remark over-simplifies the complex relationship between the mental state of the believer and the way that someone else may report it.

One thing that puzzles me is whether a belief that p implies a commitment to all the analytic implications of p. On the one hand, if S believes that p, it would seem that S must understand p - in some sense of "understand". On the other hand, it seems quite unlikely that most people understand all the implications of any proposition they believe. A similar point could be made about the causal implications of specific facts or events. There's another complicated issue for philosophy about disentangling beliefs that have values built in to them (such as the belief that X committed murder or that COVID is dangerous) and their factual content.

I'm not sure that it is quality that matters most to me. There's a lot of very different kinds of stuff going on, but that allows me to be selective. What I'm looking for is what interests and stimulates me. Quality is a secondary consideration.

I don't live in a philosophical community, as the academics do, (though an academic department can be very limited) and there are few people locally who have the faintest interest in philosophy. Reading and thinking about stuff on my own is a bit stultifying after quite a short while. So engagement with other people is crucial.

I think that the screen medium and the endless material tends to lead to me scrolling through stuff without really taking any of it in, and I find myself doing that here, too. But scrolling through stuff here is better than doing the same thing on the more popular sites. That is guaranteed to be a waste of time.

I imagine that when I have been a member for years, I will have experienced times when it gets boring and times when it isn't. Nothing is forever - except death and taxes, I suppose.

if we could develop a deep enough theoretical understanding of the mechanics of brain, we would be capable of having direct experiences of those processes, the sensation of neural events. — Pantagruel

In principle, this is just taking the computer analogy seriously, and I wouldn't argue that that analogy is not useful. In the case of the machines, if we understand the mechanics well enough, providing the experience of seeing Niagara Falls require simply copying a "JPG" file to another computer. But in the case of the machine, we know that the software and ancillary information that is involved in interpreting the file is (more or less) identical. We don't know that in the case of a human brain.

All I'm saying is that my expectation of the computer analogy is that it will be helpful, but, like any other analogy, there will be limits. It may even be unhelpful. Pragmatism, not truth.

More accurately stated, one cannot ask for something behind the phenomenon at all, since what the phenomenon gives is precisely that something in itself (Heidegger 1985: 86). — Joshs

Husserl urges us to face up to the fact that our access to as well as the very nature of objectivity necessarily involves both subjectivity and intersubjectivity.” — Joshs

I'm not at all sure, but it looks to me as if these two quotations contradict each other. On the other hand, the contradiction may not be important, since both views agree that we cannot leave the phenomena alone, but need to find something more. One suggests that we need a more complex understanding ot what we already have; the other suggests that we need access to something different. This fits with my prejudice, which is probably the result of an old-fashioned education, that metaphysical differences always reduce to linguistic differences and consequently make no difference, since everything that can be said can be said in both languages. To put the point another way, what is at stake here?

However, I'm very much in agreement with Husserl that objectivity, subjectivity and inter-subjectivity are mutually interdependent. For a start, since "objective" and "subjective" are polar concepts, defined by their opposition to each other, then if everything is subjective, "subjective" has lost its meaning.

That's all certainly true.

I remember seeing quoted from Hacker. According to him, a description of an experience will be of a tickle, a twinge, a pain, with some adjectives like stabbing or dull. Our vocabulary for this is quite meagre, really, nothing like as powerful as the technique we adopt when there isn't a word for it - the smell of coffee, the touch of silk and so forth. Here the experience is being described by comparison with some that can produce the experience - not necessarily an object - it could be an action. Hence, my awkward feeling that he is changing the subject, is, in a sense, correct.

But maybe answers can be found. But if they are in the form of propositions, I think the questions about qualia will not be quenched. That problem needs a different kind of answer - hence my attempt in my post. I like Wittgenstein's answer to his interlocutor objecting that there is great difference between someone else experiencing pain and me experiencing it. He says "What greater difference could there be?", and no more. Which doesn't answer the question.

I'm sorry I have taken so long to respond to your posts. I am distracted by the approach of Christmas with all that entails and my time for philosophy will be limited for the next week, at least.

I follow those psychologists and philosophers who think we should take a cue from other animals and be clever enough to get rid of the syllogism as the paradigm of ‘rational belief’. — Joshs

Thank you for your post and the time it must have taken to write.

A first response.

This seems to be like the approach that is known as enactive, or phenomenologically enactive, psychology. Am I right about that? I have came across it recently, and found it very interesting indeed. So I would welcome an exploration of that, though I would need to do some reading before I could contribute intelligently. I have some reading lined up.

It occurs to me that, while the proposed beliefs that are not merely factual in the traditional sense but also emotional or at least value-laden or at least giving rise to a response without progressing through a process corresponding to the traditional syllogism will be very hard to characterize in the way(s) that are currently accepted in philosophy. I’m sorry that’s such a convoluted sentence, but it is very hard to work out a better way right now.

But I think we need to acknowledge that an embedded belief which is not consciously verbalized is very hard to characterize anyway. A given proposition is embedded in a network of other propositions and concepts which we do not often bother to characterize. Partly, it is about the grammatical (philosophical sense) relationships based on the understanding required to use language and partly about empirical relationships, deriving from memory and observation. An articulation by the believer has a special status because it will be informed by the most relevant background and so provides something of a benchmark. Where that benchmark is missing, it is will be much more difficult to be sure that a given articulation is accurate. I don’t have a solution to this.

And insofar as the generally accepted and historically transmitted consensus about "what we are" is realized, beliefs are constitutive of that thing (which is actualized in that way, which I see as a good general description of consciousness). — Pantagruel

Your general description of consciousness is attractive. I take it that by "realized" you mean that people conform to the general consensus - or something like that.

I think there are difficulties about the “hard problem”, which on my understanding is understanding the difference between description of experience and experience of experience, which I think of as the question of “ownership”. But I suspect that it is not a problem with a solution. There is something very odd about the demand to give a description of having an experience which captures the difference between experiencing something and describing it.

We've got into a very complex and difficult debate. It isn't just a matter of empirical research, but of interpretation of the results and the principles of interpretation are contested. I suppose that everyone will agree that all of this is based on our paradigmatic example of a person - a human being, with all the complex legal and moral questions that follow. What else could it be based on? The question is about how far that paradigm can be extended to similar cases, what kinds of similarity are required and how far and under what circumstances extension can go.

In the background, we have another complex problem, which is also already live - extension to machines. This depends on a different range of similarities, centring on linguistic capacities.

Also, I'm inclined to think that the issue is not simply metaphysical, but also ethical.

If it is possible, I wonder if we could return to the question we started with - the question of embedded beliefs? I'm happy, for present purposes, to shelve these larger issues for the time being and to restrict our discussion to human beings.

For example, we are agreed - aren't we? - that there is a real need to separate attribution of beliefs (and hence knowledge?) from articulation of beliefs in language, whether externally, by saying something or internally, by saying something to oneself.

In that case, surely we need to think of explanations of (rational) action as a structure to be completed, rather than a process, whether internal or external. The pratical syllogism is the only paradigm we have for this, so perhaps our question turns into an exploration of that.

I don't see animals asking questions, let alone answering them. — Mikie

Have you never seen a dog or a horse tentatively sniffing at something? For me, that often amounts to asking the question whether the something is edible - which is confirmed when they eat, or turn away.

Whether one believes the world is fundamentally hostile or not can determine how one treats others. — Mikie

Have you never seen a bird constantly looking round to ensure that no predator is looming?

I predict that eventually we will come to see that the cognitive differences between us and other higher species is more a matter of degree than of kind. — Joshs

I'm not sure that we will necessarily all come to see that. It isn't a straightforwardly empirical question, but an issue whether to include animals in the scope of complex language game, that is, whether to interpret their behaviour in certain ways. But there are certainly differences. With any decision like this, there will always be borderline, difficult cases.

If you can accept that animals and other creatures are sentient, then it seems to me that the question whether they have beliefs and if so, what beliefs is at least open. I don't think that anyone would suggest that animals believe that the earth is round, or flat. I think that lobsters do feel pain, but I'm not at all sure that they feel fear, which involves the belief that something is dangerous.

Lower order of beliefs, lower order of consciousness. — Pantagruel

One has to be very careful about how one describe the complex similarities and differences between human and animals and animals and fish and so on. "Lower" here is a metaphor and somewhat dangerous. In the past, it has been interpreted in ways that most people would find completely unacceptable now. I suppose one must have some way of summarizing the complex differences between animals and humans as far as sognition foes, but I prefer "simpler".

Thanks for that. Very interesting. I like the piece about AI working out what penguins believe.

Being only a philosopher, I can't resist commenting that, strictly speaking, these experiments only reveal what the animals know. To identify what they believe, you would have to catch them when they behave in a way appropriate to some "information" that they have got wrong. That would be a tougher call, but I wouldn't put it past them.

Thanks for the references. Very interesting and I'll certainly follow them up when I can.

Take the "seeking and sucking" behaviour of a new-born mammal. It certainly seems to be embedded but I would be reluctant to attribute that to a belief
— Ludwig V

Neither would I. But still a great deal of human behavior can be viewed in this light. It's not the only light, of course. — Mikie

I'm sorry I wasn't clear. The idea was to suggest an example that might have been an embedded belief, but wasn't, as a way of exploring the boudaries, not as a counter-example to the idea.

I don't consider animals as having beliefs, tacit or otherwise. I think that's an anthropomorphic projection. — Mikie

There is a danger of anthropomorphic projection in attributing beliefs to animals. But they are sentient and conscious, like human beings. So they are distinct from inanimate objects. It's a question of where to draw the line. I don't have a problem attributing some beliefs to them. .

Yes, and perhaps the answers to philosophical questions that these beliefs imply. — Mikie

I hadn't thought of that possibility. Can you give me an example?

Phenomenologically-informed enactivist psychology — Joshs

I like this much better than the "popular view". Can you suggest anything I could read to learn more about it?

Of course, and I think we should all try our best to be aware of our implicit biases and subconscious conditioning. — praxis

It would be very helpful if there was a way of encouraging people to try to acknowledge and confront biases and subconscious conditioning. Many/most people are, I think, really quite reluctant to do that. It pays, I've found, to listen carefully to what other people say - even if it isn't comfortable.

This extends down to bodily reactions to stimuli. . . . It is not truly instantaneous at all -- there are judgments and interpretations being made despite appearing as natural reflexes. — Mikie

It is popular these days in psychological ( Haidt) and anthropological circles to posit that cultural values and ethical norms originate in inherited evolutionarily adaptive affective preferences , such as disgust. — Joshs

We need to go very carefully here. In the end, detailed analysis and explanation will have to be based on empirical science.

There is good reason for distinguishing between paradigmatic action - the paradigmatic considered, even planned, action and a reaction, which occurs without conscious thought. Amongst reactions, there is a significant difference in stimulus-response reactions which may have a genetic basis, a cultural basis, or even a basis in individual experience. I guess those reactions which have a genetic basis would not be open to explanation through beliefs, but only through evolutionary pressure.

One looks at a corpse and instantaneously reacts with fear. — Mikie

The corpse is deemed aversive fundamentally not due to a belief but an inherited affective response, and the socially constructed beliefs are overlayed onto this biological ground. — Joshs

For what it's worth, the one time that I actually saw a human corpse, I didn't react with fear or even disgust, but with something more like curiosity. I'm pretty sure that wasn't a culturally based reaction. But then, it might depend on the exact circumstances. I've seen and handled a number of animal corpses (pets), but experienced no fear of them, either.

Is it useful to view human behaviour this way? — Mikie

Depends on what goals/result one is after. Yes, one can learn more about human behaviour by viewing it this way, but such academic knowledge is perhaps not the goal. — noAxioms

Beliefs can be embedded to the point of being instincts. Or traditions. Or superstitions. Or habits. Or, rarely, reasoned and practiced efforts. — Pantagruel

It depends what counts as useful, what goals one has in mind. Or there is the point that common life often attributes beliefs in circumstances when the philosophical paradigm of reasoned effort is clearly not plausible. At least, the philosophical paradigm focuses almost exclusively on beliefs that can be expressed in language by the believer with an occasional condescending nod to animals. But common sense attributes a wide range of beliefs to animals, not to mention infants who have not yet learned language. So perhaps academics would do well to take the issue seriously.

Not that it is particularly easy. The range of what might be considered embedded beliefs is very wide and it is unlikely that they will all fall into the same classes when accounts of them are given. In other words, much might depend on how you define "embedded".

Take the "seeking and sucking" behaviour of a new-born mammal. It certainly seems to be embedded but I would be reluctant to attribute that to a belief; it seems more plausible to classify it as a reflex, which will, no doubt, soon become a conditioned reflex. Its origin, presumably, will be genetic, since evolution must surely favour the new-born with a seeking and sucking reflex over one that doesn't; hence, an instinct. The ability to form conditioned reflexes itself must surely also have a genetic, and therefore an evolutionary, basis, though I'm not sure I would call it an instinct. Why not? I don't know. But I do know it is purposive, even though not an action in the paradigm sense.

Habits are another interesting kind of case. Is stopping at a red light a reflex or a habit or an action. Take stopping at a red light; I can think of reasons why it might be classified as any of those - it depends on the circumstances.

Mikie's example is different from either of these and no doubt will need a different kind of explanation, again.

Traditions and superstitions are in a different class, I suppose. But actions in accordance with them do not, in my opinion, qualify as paradigm cases of actions.

:smile:

Well, how about starting with this:-

Starting with two observations:-

First, our ways of talking about actions constitute a language game, a practice and a (let's say) paradigm. Part of this paradigm is the idea that an action is explained (on one level) by the idea of a reason for doing something. "Believe" (and other words) play a part in this because they identify (potential or actual) the reasons for a particular agent doing something.

Second, although one can, for some purposes, think of language as consisting of propositions or, better, the equipment for constructing expressions of propositions, it is nothing without its practice, i.e. people uttering sentences. (The best definition for me is that a proposition is a sentence with its use in a context that includes actual and/or potential audiences.) In some uses, that is not very relevant, but in the case of "believe" and "know" it is very relevant.

Returning to our original case

Suppose our long-suffering farmer stands by the gate to his field, looking out over it. Without speaking, he turns, goes back to his Land-Rover and emerges with a length of rope. He comes back, opens the gate and walks out into the field towards a piece of cloth. How do we make sense of his action? We know a good deal about him, so I say to you that he believes that the piece of cloth is a cow that is in the wrong place and he is going to rescue her and return her to her right place. This has nothing to do with anything that it is in his mind, though we could infer something about what he would say if we asked him. But this is not about what he would say; it is about what he is doing.

I'm afraid I got lost in the business about where Michael was born, so I won't comment on that, beyond saying that the propositions (!) you were discussing are clearly in a network and the relationships between them are quite complicated and even more complicated if you include "believes" in the mix.

I haven't worked out exactly how this would apply to Gettier cases, except that Gettier treats beliefs as if they were in precise correlation with propositions and as if propositions presented themselves one by one in a neat row and I don't really accept either proposition (!!)

There are lots of questions and obscurities, but perhaps that it is basis for discussion?

The main objection that I levy against current convention is that the conventional notion of belief as propositional attitude cannot bridge the evolutionary gap between language and language less creatures' beliefs. — creativesoul

I agree that there is a problem about that, and that it is annoying. I suppose it is inevitable that philosophers who believe that philosophy is all about language will tend to focus on language. But I agree that it is clear that dogs and horses etc. do have beliefs even though they cannot express them in language. They express them through their actions and reactions - non-verbal behaviour. That does mean they do have ideas and concepts.

I use the term "propositional attitude" because it groups together a collection of terms with a common feature - a "that" clause - (grammatically known as indirect speech, which it can be, but isn't always). That group starts with "believe" and "know" but there are many others. They are mostly to do with cognition, which is why they are philosophically interesting.

But I'm not a fan of the concept of a "proposition" for several reasons, one of which is that the crtterion of identity seems to be that two sentences with the same meaning express the same proposition. But that is a very weak criterion and I notice that philosophers very seldom, if ever, rely on it. There's a particular problem about this criterion because it is not clear whether two sentences that are logically related express the same meaning.

One result of this is the colour exclusion problem, much pondered by Wittgenstein between the two world wars in the first half of the last century. "This is red all over" and "This is blue all over" clearly do not express the same meaning, but are nonetheless logically related, because each excludes the other, that is it logically follows from "This is red all over" that it is not blue anywhere. Hence, Wittgenstein concluded, propositions are organized into systems and one specific proposition gets its meaning from its relationshipi to the other propositions in the system. Hence, the abandonment of logical atomism and the development of the concept of language games.

When you translate all of that into the context of belief or knowledge, it becomes something of a mess. I'm not altogether convinced by your way of handling it; it has admirable clarity and certainty, but I think it is too rigid to cope with the complexities of the language game with propositional attitudes, specifically the fact that the appropriate expression of a belief is affected not only by the believer, but also by the person uttering the sentence/proposition and by who is receiving it.

Whether you agree or not, I hope that is reasonably clear.

Reading this discussion has been an interesting and instructive experience. I hope I won't be messing up the discussion if I add some comments.

Philosophical discussion often sets its terms around theism, with atheism as its opposite and religion as its subject. But I think that the focus on God misses the point. A religion (or sect) is a way of life, and it is as much about what one does as what one believes. Nonetheless, since the beliefs add up to a way of thinking about the world and the concept of God is meant to be a foundation of that, the beliefs are important. Beliefs and actions interact of course, so there is no separation, just a complexity. The social conditions in which the religion must exist are, of course, an additional complexity.

Not that science and religion are incompatible. There are, are there not, many people who are scientists and have a religious belief. We tend unthinkingly to adopt the idea that there is some sort of competition between the two. This serves the purposes of extreme atheism but is a really relic of ancient battles which do not need to be fought any longer. There are plenty of conceptions of God that allow for peaceful co-existence, from science as reading the mind of God via God as the sustainer of all natural laws to "God, or Nature".

Is science a way of looking at and living in the world - in short a way of life? It seems to have many of the features.

Could atheism be considered a religion? I don't think it is associated with any particular way of life, so my answer is no.

Having said that a religion is a way of life, it does seem to me that, whatever a religion aims to be, it becomes a field across which the tendencies of human nature play out. Sectarian divisions often reflect a personality type, (fundamentalism, liberalism, and so forth) so what exactly the way of life of Christianity (for example) is, becomes difficult to discern.

One problem that I've been worrying about a great deal lately is this. Each religion sets out to be a complete way of life and sees no need to make room for alternative belief-systems. Since it is set up as a minority in a hostile environment, that seems inevitable. Exclusivity is common to all (or at least many) of them. Add to this the belief that the real foundation of religious belief is not argument or evidence or any of that. It is faith (or perhaps "commitment"). What bother is me is that "othering" non-believers seems to be inherent in that. (Hume's argument against miracles - section 10 in the Enquiry - is a good example, if you read it carefully to the end.) So intolerance seems built in. I realize that in practice many religious people are perfectly, generously, tolerant. But the tendency seems built in and history seems to show that it will surface from time to time.

I think of it more as an executive function that can assume control. — Pantagruel

OK. But that assumes some kind of continuous monitoring, doesn’t it?

I believe, that to say my actions were caused by an addiction, or by some physical event, rather than admitting that it was my will, is just to try and make an excuse for one's wrongful actions. — Metaphysician Undercover

Pantagruel said something similar somewhere in the discussion. Well, to me, that doesn’t explain anything and justifies a most unhelpful dismissive attitude to people who are wrestling with what they experience as a great difficulty. You and Pantagruel are entitled to your beliefs. But since you don't want to accept any involvement in their problems, what you believe doesn't really matter.

However, whenever things are being carried out for a purpose, implying the existence of intention, then the will is active. This would include things like breathing, and the beating of the heart. — Metaphysician Undercover

OK. But then what is the role of consciousness? And what makes this will my will? Why can’t my heart and lungs just get on with what they need to do? (Breathing, of course is more complicated than the heart, but there are lots of other things that are fully automatic, like digestion.) In my book, my heart-beat is not a freely willed act and even though it has a purpose, it is certainly not intentional (or unintentional). To put the point another way, my impression is that the will as the source of action was designed to distinguish between conscious and unconscious action, on the basis that distinction would explain why some of the things that go on are free and others are not, and this explained what we are responsible for and what we are not responsible for. On this account, the will no longer identifies that distinction and no longer answers those questions.

The point is that to be consistent, the will must always be the cause of action. It would make no sense to say that sometimes the will causes a human action, and sometimes it did not. Then we'd have to differentiate between which actions are caused by the will, and which actions are caused by something else. In reality though, we see that all human actions have a similar source, and it is not the case that some are derived from one place, and others from another place — Metaphysician Undercover

That depends on how you define an action. I thought that the point of the concept of the will was to distinguish between actions, which can be free, and "events" caused by something else, which can’t; that’s why we are reluctant to call the latter “actions” at all. Of course, there are many complex cases and so we sometimes stretch the term. It may be true that all human actions have similar sources, but it does not follow that they all have the same source. My observation is that actions are not all alike, but have different reasons, values, aims, objectives and purposes.

Each set of circumstances at each moment of time is unique. . . . . . — Metaphysician Undercover

I guess there is a paradox involved here, in that two things that cannot be discerned as distinct must be the same thing and, contrariwise, if two things can be discerned as separate, they must be two things, not one. It then seems as if the only true or real case of identity is a thing’s identity with itself, which is a limiting case and not typical. You can use the words that way if you choose to do so. But the standard use is different. When we say that two things are identical, we mean identical in relevant respects, (relevant means appropriate to the context). In a similar vein, we can justify applying a single general principle where situations are similar in relevant respects, because it is not merely useful but fundamental to understanding things.

I don’t think this is a question of true or false, right or wrong. Your way of describing things, like Punos’, has its advantages. For example, it gives a basis for respecting everything in the world and that would be a great improvement in the way that humans live; exploiting the planet’s resources and dominating each other and the non-human world are a big problems for us now. But I don’t think that’s enough to justify your approach, since it sweeps all differences and details under a carpet labelled “the will” and prevents understanding the phenomena in detail and working out what we can do something about and what we cannot change.

An observation: – we started out, didn’t we? – asking what the will is. We’ve identified lots of things that the will does. But have we answered the question what it is? In the case of the train driver, I can identify the driver independently of his activity. How can I identify the will? If we can't do that, then the will becomes just a disposition (or potentiality) to do certain things and a label for what we do not understand.

I hesitate to add to your discussion which is difficult enough already. But perhaps it has got to the point where there is not much to lose.

You seem to be disagreeing about the criteria of identity of beliefs. But there are none, so far as I know. People seem happy to accept that belief, like knowledge and a number of others, is a "propositional attitude" and I use that term because it groups together a number of concepts which have interesting features in common, as well as a striking grammatical feature - the "that" clause.

So it seems to be widely accepted that a belief is an attitude to a proposition, and hence that identity of proposition is the criterion of identity of beliefs. Fair enough. What is/are the criteria of identity for propositions? The only one that I've ever seen is sameness of meaning. And the criteria for that?

My point is that there are no criteria of identity for beliefs. The best I can do is define a proposition as a sentence together with its use in a given context. But then we have to face the fact that the context of a belief-sentence is complicated, so that we have to take account of, for example, the de dicto/de re distinction, where the speaker may be the believer, but may be someone reporting the believer's belief to someone else.

In spite of all this, I'm still confused about whether "John is a bachelor" and "John is unmarried and male" are the same proposition or different ones. A complicated definition may not be fully known or understood by a particular speaker, or a speaker may not be aware of the definition of various terms s/he uses, so you can't take for granted that the two sentences will mean the same to everyone.

Another feature which is not clear affects your discussion directly - and analysis of the Gettier problem. Standard definitions would say that the truth-conditions of a proposition/sentence are part of its meaning. It is perfectly possible that a proposition can be verified by quite a wide range of states of affairs, not all of which are required at the same time. So you might recognize me by my face or by my voice. If you recognize me by one of these - say my face - it is called a truth-maker or truth-making condition. Now, what is not clear whether the truth-maker on a particular occasion of a proposition is part of the meaning of the proposition in that use. If it is, I expect you can see that this dismembers a Gettier package so that the paradox does not work.

But your argument seems to be yet more complicated because it is a case like to the colour exclusion problem. Forgive me if you know about this already. It was the turning-point or the rock on which WIttgenstein eventually began to abandon the logical atomism of the Tractatus. In essence "this is red (all over)" and "this is blue (all over)" cannot both be true, yet they are not contradictory. Similarly, "Michael was born in France" and "Michael was born in Germany" exclude each other and yet are not contradictory. This problem is created by treating simple propositions as atoms, which are completely independent of each other, logically speaking. WIttgenstein finally developed the idea that propositions are not true or false independently, but as part of a system - i.e. there are no atomic propositions.

I've gone on for long enough, but I hope this helps to clarify why you could not agree.

I am asking whether the initiation of action goes like this, at least sometimes: -

(Act of Will) leads to (Reasoning) leads to (Act of Will) leads to (Judgement/Choice) leads to (Act of Will) leads to (Action)

Or a variation.

You say that the will is continuously active and even while asleep. That is a surprise to me. On the other hand, sleep is not like a coma, though there is a question whether what I do while asleep is really an action comparable to an action while conscious. Actually, I would think that when I do something absent-mindedly, my will not engaged (the clue is in “absent”), but I suppose you would disagree. I assume, though, that if someone is in a coma, you would agree that the will is not active.

But I don’t see what the activity of the will consists of once it has started an action off. Are you saying that the will is like the driver of a train, who always monitors, but only acts when required, or that it is like the driver of a car, who has to control the car every second it is moving? I assumed the will just gave a push to start things off and the action was performed without its intervention.

Two other points: -

1) I don’t think there is any problem about how habits are acquired. A repeated cycle of stimulus and response is enough. Pantagruel was right about that. Practice is needed for a different group of activities – skills. Admittedly they enable automatic actions and are displayed in specific circumstances, so they are like habits. Instincts are different and are often prompted by specific stimuli; in a sense, they are not actions, although, insofar as we can control them, our responses might be classified as actions.

2) I’m not at all sure that Plato’s "thumos" is equivalent to our will. For one thing, Plato does not think that "thumos" is the only precursor of action. "Epithumia" is another. But that’s a side-issue. It was a surprise that you think that my will doesn’t necessarily align with my desire. I think most people think of the times when physical events take over, as in addiction, extreme hunger, pain, what I then do is not done by me, hence not the result of my will.

I think that the role of belief is to believe accurately. So when people pour extravagant amounts of energy into defending the belief that the earth is flat, for example, they are mis-believing, or believing in bad-faith. — Pantagruel

Yes, that is a case where there are serious questions to be asked and there are conspiracy theories about that give me the same feeling. But I'm an agnostic, so I think that the amount of time and effort people spend on their religious beliefs is disproportionate. But I don't necessarily think that they are in bad faith. (I don't know what mis-believing means, I'm afraid.)

Yes, as I describe in people who can violently defend clearly absurd positions, will can be misused. For me, they would be self-consciously acting in bad-faith at some level. — Pantagruel

I'm not sure that I can be described as using or misusing my own will, because that implies an act of will as the beginning of the act of will, which will give rise to an infinite regress.

You are very trusting of people's rationality and your own if you are sure that people defending positions that you find absurd must be self-consciously acting in bad faith.

The judgement does not necessarily lead to further action, so it is not properly called an act willing. It is the result of an act, the effect, rather than the initiator, or cause of an act. The act of willing is properly positioned as prior to the reasoning process which result in the conclusion, as initiating, or causing that process. — Metaphysician Undercover

So the act of will starts a reasoning process which can lead to a judgement, but the judgement doesn't necessarily initiate any action. So is it correct to say any action must be initiated by another act of will? Does there have to be another reasoning process for this second act of will?

This leaves the will as separate, being the source of actuality, which is responsible for the act, as cause of it. — Metaphysician Undercover

So am I right to conclude that an act of will is necessary to start even a habitual action? So how come I find myself carrying out habitual actions even when I don't want to?

If I imagine myself driving a car along a road, I think of myself carrying out all sorts of actions, cognitive and executive, all of them habitual. Are they the result of a single act of will, for example wanting to go to the supermarket, or are there multiple acts of will? Does each adjustment of the steering wheel involve an act of will?

Forgive me if these questions are naive. This is new territory to me.

If we focus too closely on the idea of will - pure or not - we will simply circle round the mystery. If we explore allied topics, we will get a better perspective and maybe some enlightenment. But there is a lot going on here.

On altered states of consciousness, there are phenomena here and a self-certifying experience is hard to resist. But not all self-certifying experiences are what they seem, so both Zen and Carlos Castaneda (not that I would trust him very far) identify the need for a guide or guru. There's a similar story in connection with the introduction of LSD into Western Culture; the first pioneers thought that one should always have an experienced guide when taking it until one had acquired experience. It's a difficult choice to make, but if one can find the right person, outcomes will be better - or so it is said. The experience of total certainty also falls into this category.

In the end, it all comes back to ordinary life and the effect on the people around you.

The existentialists were right to high-light the importance of commitment (or leap of faith) as a way of dealing with the absurdity and confusion of the world as we are thrown into it. However, as far as I know, which is not far, they aren't very explicit about how commitment is reached. They seem to want to treat it as something that we can decide to do, but that doesn't make any sense to me; I'm inclined to see it as something that happens. We can decide to try to be committed, but whether that sticks or not is another question and only the outcome will answer it.

A leap of commitment is just as dangerous as being swept away by a self-certifying experience.

I'm not well read on Fichte, but the act of self-positing is important here. There is something that is right and important in this idea, but it would be a mistake to think that making oneself is anything like making a cake.

It seems to me that this is all the territory of the concept of will. The concept of the will encourages a strong focus on the individual as in control and capable of making choices. I feel that the role of the social and physical world in which we live in making us who we are is very important and should not be neglected.

Does that take us any further forward?

Intervention by someone else may or may not be helpful. But one can at least try.

There are great differences in the determination that people display in pursuing their aims and objectives. We often refer to that difference by talking about strength or weakness of will. But that, so far, is just a name. One wants an analysis of it. That’s where the mystery comes in.

It is odd, I think, that we usually seem to think that a strong will is a good thing and a weak will is a bad one. I’m not at all sure about that. It is easy to come up with examples in which a strong will is not a good thing, but actually destructive. If the determination of an addict or an obsessive to get or pursue whatever their object is the result of a strong will, it is clearly a bad thing. Yet I find it difficult to come up with examples in which a weak will is a good thing. Perhaps this is a side issue at this stage.

If the language we use in relation to actions is anything to go by, this is bound to be a complicated enterprise.

I can offer three observations which may or may not help.

1) Thinking about the will in relation to actions, it occurred to me that it is not always associated with determination. For example, if I’m willing to move to New York (in pursuit of career advancement), that is quite different from wanting to move to New York. If I’m just willing, I will move in pursuit of something, but I won’t necessarily actively pursue it. If I want to, I will actively pursue it. Again, if I’m offered a plate of cakes and point to one and say “I’ll have that one”, I’m not necessarily expressing any great determination. Or am I misinterpreting something?

2) The basics of motivation are values and reason, which together make up a practical syllogism. That seems quite clear. The mystery is, however, that one can put together a perfectly clear rationale for an action, but yet fail to undertake it. Sometimes, this can be explain by reference to priorities, but not always, as anyone who has tried to break a habit knows. Perhaps the will bridges that gap?

3) Do we need to understand the will in relation to all the other terms we have to point to the origin of actions – I mean wanting, wishing, desiring, yearning, intending and so on? Willing something doesn’t quite fit alongside them, which is puzzling. The closest I can think of is what people sometimes say about willing something to happen. The odd thing is, they usually say that when they can’t actually bring it about.

Does any of that help at all?

Aren't you forgetting that God loves us (at least the Christian God does - I don't know enough about the other candidates), even though that's an incomprehensible mystery. I'm sure you're familiar with the way that loving somebody makes everything they do and say fascinating.

I'm not sure whether to take Popper's remark seriously. Anyway, what he actually says is that the most improbable theory is to be preferred because it is the easiest to falsify. That's a good reason if one's project is to falsify theories. One could chalk up many successes quite quickly that way. However, colleagues might feel that I had misunderstood the point of research. But I suppose one might gradually zero in on something that was hard to falsify.

If Popper's point is that a good theory needs to take risks in order to score, there is something to be said for this. Safe theories are easy to construct, but not very helpful. Surely, in the end a theory needs to be assessed on its relation to the evidence and to the problems it is meant to solve. Wild guesses might meet Popper's criterion, but they wouldn't get far on the grounds that they are risky alone.

I've just spent 10 minutes trying to believe the theory that the moon is made of cheese. I couldn't. Does anyone know any exercises (apart from Lewis Carroll) that would help me improve?

Thanks very much for your explanation. It seems to me that is close to my approach, though I can't describe how it all fits together clearly.

"Of that piece of cloth" opens up another issue. I mean that as well as "believe of that piece of cloth", there is the use of believe as in "believe in". I'm not at all sure that either has any relevance to Gettier, and most people, confronted with them, want to reduce them to propositional beliefs of the traditional kind. I'm not at all sure about that. There are nuances going on here that I don't have any grip on.

I'm afraid I don't have any ideas about where we should go next.

I do understand and share the difficulty you have in fitting in the demands or ordinary life alongside pursuing philosophy. They explain why I sometimes disappear for a while. It's an inevitable part of the medium we are working in.

Smith believed the disjunction was true because Jones owned a Ford (because P was true). The disjunction was not true because P was true. It was true because Q was true. Smith's belief was false. — creativesoul

I agree with this. There's a question you don't include in your summary - whether Smith was justified in believing that Jones owned a Ford. Gettier's answer is that he was. That's the situation that generates the confusion that people feel about these cases.

Belief that "'P or Q' is true because P" is not equivalent to belief that "P or Q" is true. — creativesoul

But surely is one part of a disjunction is true, the whole disjunction is true. "Jones owned a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona" is true if Jones owned a Ford. Yes? Also "Jones owned a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona" is true if Brown is in Barcelona. Yes? That's all I'm saying.

Seems to me that all Gettier cases show problems with the conventional accounting practices. — creativesoul

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you mean by conventional or unconventional accounting practices. Can you please explain?

I agree to the extent we can derogate to the de-dicto way of reporting beliefs, as explained. — neomac

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean by the de dicto (or de re) way(s) of reporting beliefs. I do know what di dicto and de re mean. Can you please explain?

My apologies for not recognizing what all you've said here. — creativesoul

No problem. Thanks for your reply.

Ought we report what the farmer believes (that a piece of cloth is a cow), or what the farmer would likely say at that particular time (that he believes a cow is in the field)? — creativesoul

"Report" implies that we are talking to someone other than the farmer. So we report in the first way. If we were talking to the farmer, he would obviously not recognize what we would say. But to repeat to him the words he would use would suggest that we share his belief, so I can't use those. Before I can say anything to him, I have to ensure that we both understand the reference of the sentence. I must correct his mistake. “You know that cow in the field? Well actually it’s a piece of cloth.” or “I’m afraid that cow in the field is actually a piece of cloth” would do the trick.

I'm afraid I'm one of those who people who see every sentence as a (potential) speech-act so the context, including the audience, always needs to be considered.

I don't understand your diagnosis of Gettier's case 1. I think you've misremembered it. If I understand you rightly (and I'm not sure I have), your diagnosis of Case 2 is complicated by the fact that "P or Q" is true iff P is true or Q is true. So, according to Gettier and me, if Smith believes that P, they are justified in believing that P or Q. But, as you say P is false, yet, as Gettier tells us, Q is true. Smith's justification relies on P and the truth relies on Q. It's that mismatch that creates the problem. My solution to this example is to point out that Smith's justification fails and so he cannot know P or Q, which can be summarized as "no false lemmas".

I agree that at first sight it seems possible to construct an example without false lemmas. On second thought, however, I can't see how an example could be constructed without a false belief, so I am very sceptical of the possibility. There are some attempts, but they haven't convinced me.

In short, it seems to me that Gettier case ought to be possible. Perhaps the real Gettier problem is why it is so hard to develop one that commands general agreement or to articulate a general solution.