Seems to be a formalism along the lines of the logic of belief revision?

That approach might be quite informative, although it bothers me that the set of beliefs is closed. And that it is dichotomous. It's different to human belief.

But interesting stuff.

While @Leontiskos and I quibble about whether belief can be formalised, folk such as yourself just go ahead and formalise it. Nice.

"X is Y, not Z" — Leontiskos

That does not strike me as an adequate parsing of what Searle is pointing out. Indeed, it would appear that you are making much the same claim as Searle, the one I expressed as that beliefs range over propositions but that the object of the belief is (usually) not the proposition, but the object of the proposition.

There are, of course, various formal ways to represent beliefs. As with any use of logic, the formalism you choose is dependent on what you wish to do. The point here is not that beliefs cannot be formalised, but that there are inadequacies in just using first order logic to do so.

arithmetic is a consistent discourse that logic cannot fully model or contain. — Leontiskos

Gödel showed that for any sufficiently advanced system (roughly, one that includes counting) there are true well-formed formulae of that logic that cannot be proved within that logic. Note the bolding. The unproven true well-formed formulae are part of the system. So I'm not sure that "arithmetic is a consistent discourse that logic cannot fully model or contain" is quite right.

And the mirror analogy just does not seem to work. Of course one can take a mirror and look at it, rather than what it reflects. One does so in order to clean it, or to check it for scratches. So with language, one can look to the logic of propositions in order to understand their structure.

That's what logic is for.

This conversation does not appear to be progressing.

I would suggest that before settling on a formal representation we need a good understanding of the use of the word in the wild. — Ludwig V

We are supported in understanding the "use of the word in the wild" by formal analysis.

I'm not following your last few posts.

Edit:
So, for example, you say

Searle seems to think it would make sense to say that propositions could be the object of belief. — Leontiskos

despite

The proposition is the content of the belief, not the object of the belief. — Searle, my bolding

And then his example of Bernoulli's principle.

And

Is it inconsistent to say that Lois Lane believes Clark Kent wears glasses, because logic can't say it? — Leontiskos

I don't see where such a proposal fits. Indeed, I do not understand what it claims. It is not inconsistent to say that Lois Lane believes Clark Kent wears glasses, a sentence that can be parsed more formally.

I'm somewhat nonplussed.

Doesn’t logic just set out what it is we can say, consistently?

Let's do some clarification before proceeding.

Relations, in first order logic, have a form such as f(a,b); where "f" is the relation and "a" and "b" are individuals. When I, and I think also Searle, talk of believe not being a relation, it's this we have in mind.

Now it should be clear that belief is not a relation of this sort, since we may not substitute in to a belief salva veritate.

So here's a breakdown of what Searle is about, in the quote above. We might be tempted to analyse beliefs as standing over a proposition and a person, so: "Louis Lane believes that Kent wears glasses" may be parsed as "Believe (Lane, "Kent wears glasses"), which is reminiscent of the form above, f(a,b). But it would be wrong to suppose that this surface similarity shows beliefs to be first order relations. In particular, what the belief is about is not shown by this analysis, since what the belief is about sits within the range of the believed proposition, "Kent wears glasses", which this analysis treats as an individual.

That is, Clark Kent. And not Superman.

This is not a rejection by Searle of the analysis of beliefs as ranging over propositions.

Anyway, more to say, later.

The textbook critique of Descartes' dualism is that by dividing the world into mind and matter, he loses the capacity to explain how mind and matter interact. He cannot explain how it is that a mind manages to raise a hand, nor how a tipple renders a mind insensible.

This critique may be applied to any dualism. So here, the dualism is the evolving physical world on the one hand and intentionality through intentionality on the other. You juxtapose quantity and quality in one thread, and then attempt to solve the dilemma by giving primacy to quality; in another thread you puzzle over the juxtaposition of object and subject.

What I would draw attention to is that inevitably, if one commences with a juxtaposition, thereby constructing a dualism, then one should not be surprised to find oneself in a world divided.

That is the inevitable, logical, outcome of this sort of approach.

Of course, the out, for all three of you, is god. But then there is the problem of invoking god as the solution to a philosophical problem - he can do anything, and hence explains nothing.

@Quixodian takes a similar, although more nuanced, line.

The upshot is that I find not just the present arguments, but this very way of attempting to explain things, from juxtaposition, quite unconvincing not just at the level of the argument presented, but as a method.

The core of my thesis takes teleology and puts it inside of sentient beings, human beings specifically. — ucarr

yet

Intentions and teleology are internal and essential to all forms of life. — ucarr

Is it for humans, or for viruses too?

The thesis remains unclear, and prima facie incoherent.

Well, I sometimes suspect that the capacity to giggle might be more common than the capacity for rationality.

I don't have much background in Aristotle, but suspect that logic has come some way since his time.

Each premise is potentially falsifiable. — ucarr

No, they are not; for instance, "For every organism there is some purpose" is a classic all and some, neither falsifiable nor provable. Failure to locate a purpose for some particular organism does not imply that it has no purpose, nor does locating a particular purpose for some organism entail that all organisms have a purpose.

But one should not expect such a cosmology to be falsifiable.

The accusation that evolution entails teleology is common, and basically, with some nuance, wrong.

In addition to the problems already cited, we might add

...that can, with reason, be called a creator. — ucarr

...which suffers the same problems as Anselm's "and this we all call God".

I could go on, but that might suffice. Cheers.

"unknown/unproven/unprovable". — alan1000

Generally, if we are using standard logic, that'd apply for be belief, or knowledge, or some such; not truth.

I reckon sausages explode when they have too much water in them. Cook 'em slow, on low.

"argument" — 180 Proof

Like the quote marks.

There are a few arguments on the forum at present that start by assuming that such-and-such is irreducible, and then pretend to discover that it must have some ontological priority - @Bob Ross does this in his threads, as do others. Here goes with intentionality, or teleology, or both...

Sad.

Goodness, a resurrection from five years ago. This thread was an analytic response to the vast amount of rubbish written about belief on these fora. As such the OP is a summary of what I take as the standard understanding of belief found in recent literature.

It did little to head off the generally feeble treatment belief receives hereabouts.

For the most part my view hasn't changed, although the Searle stuff is more recent. It was provoked by Making the social world, p.27:

Each intentional state divides into two components: the type of state it is and its content, typically a propositional content. We can represent the distinction between intentional type and propositional content with the notation "(p)." For example, I can believe that it is raining, fear that it is raining, or desire that it be raining. In each of these cases I have the same propositional content, p, that it is raining, but I have them in different intentional types, that is, different psychological modes: belief, fear, desire, and so on, represented by the 'S'. Many intentional states come in whole propositions, and for that reason those that do are often described by philosophers as "propositional attitudes." This is a bad terminology because it suggests that my intentional state is an attitude to a proposition. In general, beliefs, desires, and so on are not attitudes to propositions. If I believe that Washington was the first president, my attitude is to Washington and not to the proposition. Very few of our intentional states are directed at propositions. Most are directed at objects and states of affairs in the world independent of any proposition. Sometimes an intentional state might be directed at a proposition. If, for example, I believe that Bernoulli's principle is trivial, then the object of my belief is a proposition, namely, Bernoulli's principle. In the sentence "John believes that Washington was the first president," it looks like the proposition that Washington was the first president is the object of the belief. But that is a grammatical illusion. The proposition is the content of the belief, not the object of the belief. In this case, the object of the belief is Washington. It is impossible to exaggerate the damage done to philosophy and cognitive science by the mistaken view that "believe" and other intentional verbs name relations between believers and propositions. — Searle, my bolding

This struck me not as something novel, but as a clarification. In particular it relates to a conversation with @Sam26 and @creativesoul as to whether beliefs can all be expressed in words, or somethign like that. I had not expressed this clearly enough.

Stipulating definitions is treacherous, as I've shown elsewhere, and this thread should be read as analysing belief rather than providing a definition. If I were to choose the aspect of belief that is, as it were, most central, it would be that beliefs explain actions. Given that, while "to think with assent" has its merits, it is insufficient in that sometimes we act without thinking - that is, not all our beliefs are explicit. You believe, arguably, that I am not writing this while floating in space in the orbit of Jupiter, yet until now that belief had not been explicated.

Anyway, let's see where that leaves us. Welcome, it is pleasing to hear from someone with a bit of background in the topic.

I deny that “sucking on one teaspoon of sugar” is a quantitative process. — Bob Ross

Thought you might. So consider this proof that the world is quantitative:

P1: A qualitative process cannot produce a quantity. [p → !q]
P2: Quantities exist (e.g., more than one letter in this sentence). [!!q]
C1: The world (which has such quantities) cannot be qualitative processes. — Bob Ross

Same argument you invoked, used to prove the opposite.

Looks to me that you've juxtaposed qualitative and quantitative and then trapped yourself in a word game.

P1: A quantitative process cannot produce a quality. [p → !q] — Bob Ross

But sucking on one teaspoon of sugar (a quantitative process) will produce the sensation of sweetness (a quality). So P1 is not right.

The world contains both qualities and quantities.

And you.

:smirk:

The test for whether someone knows where the socks are is not their reliability, honesty and integrity, but their interactions with socks - variously finding, returning, mending, washing and so on.

We want to be able to sort people first by what knowledge they have and then test the theory that knowledge is predictive of performance. — Srap Tasmaner

Well, no. Knowledge is shown in performance, including linguistic performances. Induction does not seem the right notion to use here.

And around we go. — Srap Tasmaner

Indeed, and around again, if knowledge is understood only as mental furnishing. Knowledge is enacted.

Why is it so hard to tell the difference between someone who knows where your socks are and someone who thinks they know? — Srap Tasmaner

It is?

Ask 'em to get you a pair of your socks; if they succeed, then that'll do, won't it?

That'd be Dewy, not Peirce.

Initial acceleration of an object due to gravity of a primary is mass independent. I mean, F=ma, which if substituted directly into F=GMm/r² gets you A=GM/r², something independent of m altogether. — noAxioms

Yep.

...the mass of a falling object is negligible... — unenlightened

Not quite; as noAxiom shows, the mass of the falling object is irrelevant.

There are a few ways to not know where your socks are kept. One is pragmatism, in which the location of your sock draw can never be known, but only approximated asymptotically. Such brilliance derives not only from Charles Sander Peirce.

In a recent variation, due to Kant, Hoffman and others, you do not know where your sock draw is, but instead you construct an arbitrary mental video game that supposes the sock draw, allowing you and your ancestors to find their socks and hence survive, presumably by fending off frostbite. But you cannot know that there are socks.

Some will allow you to know where your sock draw is, but only relative to your own understanding. They will have an utterly different approach to socks, based on there own culture or their different experiences, and so develop beliefs about socks that are utterly incommensurate with your own, to the extent that in their world there may not even be sock draws.

Presumably this explains sock puppets.

I'd define reality as "The sum of everything that is objectively true right now." — Cidat

Firstly, how is "objectively true" any clearer than "reality"?

Secondly, this implies that subjective stuff, pain, joy, thought, is not real.

And third, why render things that happened in the past not part of reality?

I think you know the difference between what is real and what is fake, or illusion, or counterfeit, and so on, so why do you need a definition?

Because having a special page for solipsists (plural) would contradict solipsism. After all, there is only one.

So the question is, why isn't there a special page for the solipsist?

And the answer is, all pages are special pages for the solipsist.

Thank you for your kindness.

Far and away the best posts hereabouts come from @Ciceronianus, @Tobias and @unenlightened.

...think it's a mistake to think that the only people who can do philosophy are those trained in philosophy. — Sam26

Sure. But generally, those with no training do not do it well.

Philosophy is not done well by dabblers. You have spent years studying and writing about Wittgenstein, and it shows in the quality of your threads, yet you have spent time answering objections from folk with no more than a superficial appreciation of what are broad, complex and difficult topics.

I'll also disagree with the view that philosophy consists in presenting arguments for what you believe. Any sophist can do that. To move from sophistry to philosophy, one must then expose one's arguments to critique. As with unexamined lives, so with unexamined arguments.

Philosophy isn't just making shite up; it's also tearing it back down.

The fora are occasionally blighted with mostly Christian, but occasionally Islamic, Buddhist or Hindi folk who present their religious panacea. There are also many of what I have come to think of as "retired engineers" who operate in a similar vein. The worst show themselves quickly and the mods, to their great credit, remove them.

But despite these efforts, there is a persistent background of idolatry, and so 's point is valid, and indeed can be generalised beyond Mere Christianity.

You should be banned. — Noble Dust

Yep. Not sure why I am still here, in this increasingly superficial chatfest. I guess the mods haven't noticed me.

These last few months the retired engineers have been fucking around with the forum more than the Christians, apart from a sudden rash of god-related nonsense in the last day or so

I’m not suggesting censoring anyone or deleting anything. — Mikie

I am.

Ah.

hu?

But conversely, the tendency to take the whole content of religion in the history of ideas is also a pretty dogmatic attitude, and it's often on display here. — Quixodian

Hu?

Some explicit demarcation is needed, as a guide to newbies and as a tool for mods.

...there are three things that identify a move from a philosophical enquiry to mere theology: — Banno

• claiming that god is the answer to a philosophical question
• using scripture, revelation or other religious authority in an argument
• entering into a philosophical argument in bad faith.

These merit deletion or banning.

99.99% certain — Vera Mont

Ah, a number. That must make you feel so much more confident...

my own knowledge is never absolute. — Vera Mont

Are you certain of this?

I said, we have plenty of knowledge, both individual and pooled, that's accurate enough for practical used, but it's never prefect, complete or absolute. — Vera Mont

Maybe. Or maybe you hadn't actually considered what you were claiming. We know you read my post, since you replied to it - it's too later for you to pretend otherwise.

Knowledge is not green either, and was never meant to be. Was it ever meant to be "perfect, complete or absolute"? Perhaps such terms are no more applicable here than "green"...

All this by way of pointing out that we do know things, and not just for practical purpose. Reliance on pragmatism comes from looking only at a limited set of cases. We know lots of things.

A thread such as this is always amusing.

There's the argument, never quite made explicit, that since we can put "absolute" in front of "knowledge", it follows that we don't actually know anything. seems to think something along these lines, although perhaps their argument is that because we are occasionally mistaken about what we think we know, we therefore do not know anything. It's a bit of pop philosophy, a bowdlerised fablsificationism or simplified pragmatism. But it's wrong.

Because you do know stuff. Like which draw your socks are in and what your phone number is and occasionally even where your keys are. It takes training in philosophy to deny this. And even more philosophy to learn otherwise.

There's the view of philosophy as needing a foundation of certainty, a replacement for the by now mortally dismembered Cogito. It doesn't occur to folk that we might start with the location of the socks and keys, with the confidence of our everyday activities; such things just don't seem sufficiently profound. And philosophy is no fun if it is not profound. So off we go, .

And there are the many sages, mostly retired engineers, it seems, who suppose of a sudden that a lifetime spent working with databases and counterweights has uniquely prepared them to answer the many questions those silly philosophers have been unable to solve, but who mostly havn't understood the question in the first place.

And there's the occasional curmudgeon, grumping about the good old days when the quality of posts was so much higher and how the young folk nowadays wouldn't know a bad argument if it hit them in the arse.

Not I, of course.

How many beliefs does one mind hold? — Moliere

A very good question, one that overlaps a conversation I am having with @Sam26 in PM. Beliefs are not discrete pieces of mental furniture, despite our tendency to treat them as such.

For the rest, that's a neat argument; I like it. So, that we do agree as to some things is insufficient to conclude that we agree on most things. Lovely!

But I will maintain that even given this problem, there is good reason to suppose that our points of agreement far outnumber our points of disagreement. Taking again the Assange case mentioned by @Tom Storm above, those who think his freedom has not been unreasonably curtailed will agree as to his role in Wikileaks and at least the outline of the events surrounding "collateral murder", and that there was a broader military engagement, that certain videos were shared, that Assange's organisation was involved, as were the Ecuadorian Embassy and so on - pretty much all the events listed int eh relevant Wiki pages.

And I think it reasonable to suppose that this case can be generalised, such that if in any conversation we were to list the points of agreement against the points of disagreement, it would be unusual to find the former to be shorter than the latter.

This is of course a simplification of Davidson's more rigorous argument concerning the incommensurability of conceptual schemes, from which I am convinced, contrary to the popular view, that talk of the map not being the territory mis-pictures what is going on; that in the case of language one cannot distinguish the map and the territory in this way.

And that's what I think is in error in the posing of the question in the title.

...absolute knowledge... — Cidat

Are you asking, what is indubitable? Beyond doubt?

There's a lot of work to be done here, sorting out knowledge from certainty and belief and doubt and truth and so on.

Has anyone looked at The metaphysics within physics, Tim Maudlin's collected essays?

Nothing I've said contradicts any of that. — Janus

Perhaps, but nor does it emphasis it.

The target here is not you, but the notion that what language is for is "mapping" the world. We do far more than just that. As if a map were the same as a bushwalk.

We are not passive absorbers of sense data. We interact with the world around us, not just knowing but doing. We don't just observe cups, we fill them, drain them, clean them, pass them around and smash them. Only in forgetting this could someone come up with "we don't know whether the physicality of things is or isn't a truth beyond our experience".

This is philosophy by caricature. — Janus

I'd say satire rather than caricature.