This discussion of language less creatures' belief directly pertains to the topic of truth, because if it is the case that a language less creature is capable of forming, having, and/or holding true and/or false belief, then it only follows that either true belief does not require truth, or truth exists prior to language. We can take this even further and surmise that some language less creatures are capable of forming, having, and/or holding meaningful true belief. It follows that either meaning exists prior to language, or belief need not be meaningful to the believing creature. The latter is absurd.

I'll give an example. Infants, I understand, have a sense of object permanence before they have a sense of object identity. If a toy is moved across their field of vision, passes behind a screen, and comes out as something else, that doesn't bother baby. If it doesn't come out at all, that does.

There's something in the ballpark of the conceptual going on there, I'd say, but what exactly, it's complicated. — Srap Tasmaner

A 'sense' of object permanence or an expectation(belief that something will come out the other side)?

I would go with the latter in that case. There is something similar to the conceptual going on there, but if the situation can be effectively/affectively exhausted without invoking the historically problematic notion of "concept" the better off we are.

Part of the problem is in separating those concepts that have an ontology that is separate from language, and yet part of language; and, those concepts that have an ontology that are strictly linguistic, viz., concepts like true and false. So, concepts like belief, moon, tree, etc., have an ontology that involves extra-linguistic things, but other concepts are strictly linguistic. Part of the problem is placing strictly linguistic concepts in a non-linguistic environment. I think this would be an interesting study. — Sam26

One example I like to use is the fire example. A language less creature, including but not limited to prelinguistic humans, can learn that touching fire causes pain without having a clue how to say, "touching fire causes pain", and without ever having an attitude towards that proposition such that they take it to be true. How can this be the case if believing that touching fire causes pain requires linguistic concepts?

Well, quite simply... it can't be if such belief requires linguistic concepts! Yet language less creature can and do learn and/or believe that touching fire causes pain. We can watch it happen. So, the only conclusion to draw here is that belief that touching fire causes pain does not require language or linguistic concepts. The difficulty in sensibly discussing and/or setting out language less belief is had in what the SEP characterized as...

the difficulty of usefully characterizing their mental lives without relying on the ascription of propositional attitudes...

...which I've recently found to be no problem at all. Although, I do reject the notion of 'mental lives' as a proper characterization of thought and belief. The belief emerges by virtue of the creature drawing correlations between the fire, the touching, and the subsequent pain they feel afterwards. There is nothing here that requires language, aside from our account of what happened. The fire, the touching, the subsequent pain, and the correlations drawn between those things(and others) are all existentially independent of language. That's what the belief consists of:The fire, the touching, the pain, and the correlations drawn between.

Belief that touching fire causes pain consists of the behaviour, the fire, the pain, and a creature capable of performing the behaviour as well as drawing the correlations between the aforementioned things. It is existentially dependent upon all of this. There is no need for language.

We can perform the same analysis with the belief that a mouse is behind the tree, as shown earlier in this thread as well as several others. The debate between Banno and myself also used that example in my opening statements about the content of belief.

There's no need for concepts here.

:up:

Part of the problem is in separating those concepts that have an ontology that is separate from language, and yet part of language; and, those concepts that have an ontology that are strictly linguistic, viz., concepts like true and false. So, concepts like belief, moon, tree, etc., have an ontology that involves extra-linguistic things, but other concepts are strictly linguistic. Part of the problem is placing strictly linguistic concepts in a non-linguistic environment. I think this would be an interesting study. — Sam26

Yes, yes, and yes...

That's much what I was getting at in the world before humans example...

The mouse is in a particular state-of-mind, but it's not equivalent to our linguistic states, in particular, our beliefs as statements. So, the mouse is not believing that there is a mouse behind the tree, as you and I might believe. How could it do that without a linguistic framework to work with. It has no concept tree and mouse. If it did, well, maybe we could also infer the concepts true and false to the mouse also. You seem to be imposing linguistic concepts where there are none. — Sam26

That's the question, right?

How could a language less creature believe that a mouse is behind a tree if it has no linguistic concepts?

When I refer to beliefs (pre-linguistic beliefs in animals or humans), it's completely devoid of any conceptual framework for them, but not for us, as linguistic users. So, it seems that the tendency is to impose our conceptual framework onto them.

Indeed, it is. It is also quite common to conflate our reports of another creature's belief with the other creature's belief. I do not do that. Our report consists of propositional content. A language less creatures' belief cannot.

Saying that talk about true and false amounts to talk about what people believe, is not the same as saying that all belief "amounts to an attitude towards a proposition which represents that belief." — Sam26

Ah, my mistake. That's very true. This is more interesting.

As you know, I do believe, along with you, that beliefs in themselves, are not necessarily linguistic. For example, if we are referring to beliefs that dogs have, those beliefs are only true and false for us, not for them. They have no concepts of true and false, their beliefs are completely devoid of propositional content

If we're saying that a dog's belief can be true, we're not necessarily saying that the dog is aware of that. The dog has no language. We agree there. The dog has never used "true" or "false". We agree there. The dog's belief is completely devoid of propositional content. We agree there. Our account of the dog's belief consists of propositional content. I strongly suspect we agree there as well.

My post prior to this one begins to address how true and false belief could exist in their entirety prior to the concepts of "true" and "false". I'm curious to get your take on that. I see that you have in the meantime while I was writing this...

I don't see how you can have true and false apart from propositional content... — Sam26

Imagine the world before humans...

In this world before humans, if it is possible for a mouse to be behind a tree, and it is possible for a language less creature to believe that a mouse is behind a tree, then it is possible for a language less creature to have true belief(assuming the mouse is behind the tree) and/or false belief(assuming the mouse is not).

Okay. That's the conventional view when it comes to belief as propositional attitude. I agree that propositional content is necessarily linguistic, but I see no reason to agree that all our belief amounts to an attitude towards a proposition which represents that belief such that we take the proposition to be true.

For example, if one believes that a sheet is a sheep(a common cottage industry Gettier example), they do not have an attitude towards the proposition "a sheet is a sheep" such that they take it to be true, but they most certainly believe that that sheet is a sheep.

Maybe.

I just think that talking about truth and talking about belief are quite distinct in their focus. There is also a possible unspoken presupposition and/or implication that I'm curious about.

Is your position such that there is no such thing as true belief beyond people and their linguistic forms of life?

Do you deny and/or reject language less true/false belief?

When we talk about truth, we are talking about what people believe, or what they believe to be true. — Sam26

What are we doing when we talk about belief if not referring to what people believe(to be true)? — creativesoul

I'm not sure if it's an equivocation of "true" or a way to show that both correspondence and coherence are exhausted. The latter would be very unique.

...no precedent for taking legal action against a former president. — Merkwurdichliebe

There will be.

If having no precedent were ground for taking no action, there would never be any precedent for anything at all.

When we talk about truth, we're referring to what people believe. — Sam26

That surprises me coming from you.

What are we doing when we talk about belief if not referring to what people believe?

Seems to me that people can believe things that are not true and/or clearly and demonstrably false. Truth cannot be not true and/or demonstrably false. What people believe can. Thus, truth is not equivalent to what people believe.

There is an aura of absurdity when crybabies moan and shout about reverse racism or reverse sexism (against white people and men, respectively). — _db

Taking pride in the negative effects/affects that racism can have upon another, regardless of their race, is rather racist in and of itself...

There is an aura of absurdity when crybabies moan and shout about reverse racism or reverse sexism (against white people and men, respectively). — _db

It's only 'reverse' to them because they are white, on the other side of it, and they do not know what racism is to begin with!

:lol:

It is a perfect opportunity to help those out, should they be capable of being helped and there is someone capable of helping them. Sadly, there is no universal method applicable to everyone successfully. Getting through to some people requires much different approaches than others, and also requires certain kinds of people doing the approaching...

The point, lost, is that there seems to be nothing in common in the correspondence in each case.
— Banno

I don't see that; — Janus

Me either. That each corresponds to and/or is consistent with different facts does not mean that correspondence is not the commonality between them.

"Snow is white" is not a fact; it is a sentence. That snow is white is how things are, and so, it is a fact.

Now the bit in the above sentence that I italicised is a string of letters, "snow is white", and it is not dissimilar to the bit I bolded.

I'm emphasising that the very same thing can be marks on a screen, a string of letters, a sentence and a fact.

Do we at least agree on this? — Banno

Only if facts are true sentences/statements. If facts are situations, circumstances, states of affairs, or what's happened and/or happening, then the answer is "no", because none of those things are marks on a screen, strings of letters, or sentences.

If there is a mouse behind the tree, then the fact consists of a mouse, a tree, and the spatial relationship between them from some frame of reference/vantage point. That fact is no more a sentence, string of letters, or marks on a screen than the tree, the mouse, or the spatiotemporal relationship is.

Its truth value can only be known if its meaning is first known. — RussellA

Sounds right to me. My granddaughter knew what "there's nothing in there" meant, thus she knew it was false when someone said it about the fridge. Given she was barely able to string two or three words together at the time, it shows us that we can know what some statements/sentences/claims mean long before we're able to vocalize and/or utter them. It also shows us that knowing what a statement means and/or whether or not it is true or false does not always require metacognition and/or doubt that is informed by thinking about our own thought and belief as a subject matter in its own right.

"Snow is white" is true IFF snow is white, and
"Snow is on the ground" is true IFF snow is on the ground, and indeed
"Snow is turquoise with purple polkadots" is true IFF snow is turquoise with purple polkadots

are all true. — Banno

Not true in the same sense that any of the left side utterances are though.

Interesting.

It doesn't seem that either (3) or (5) can fully account for self-referential sentences. — Michael

I think the T schema only works with sentences that begin with a universal quantifier. I cannot make much sense of my saying that, but it seems to me that I'm just repeating something Davidson and Quine said during a discussion between them about Tarski's definition and disquotation model.

Truth value gaps...

The living being's actions are influenced by, and affected by... — Metaphysician Undercover

Therefore... they are not free...

Exactly. Sounds like there's quite a bit of overlap in our positions regarding that.

Another interesting bit of etymology concerns the notion of "false" which came about as a means to denote anything contrary to Christian doctrine, after the Church absconded with the notion of truth. Interesting that subsequent generations of speakers retained the notion of "false" as being contrary with/to truth even if and when they were secular.

That came long after the first known uses of "true" and "truth"...

I don't think this is about hinge's, at least not how I interpret hinge's — Sam26

You may be right, I just thought that her belief that stuff was in the fridge was well grounded, true, and required no further subsequent justification method.

justification, sensory justification. — Sam26

If being justified means being well grounded, then sure. If it means providing reasons to support a knowledge claim, then no.

I tend towards justification as being well grounded, which does not necessarily require language use.

I think that that real life example tells us quite a bit about how we autonomously 'employ' correspondence long before ever being able to talk about it. It may tell us something about unreflective thought and belief and the presupposition of correspondence within it.

Correspondence is primary.

With regard to Witt's notion of hinge propositions, does her knowledge require any more subsequent justification?

There's some sort of bedrock there, I would think.

Perhaps just knowing what the words mean is enough.

Did you miss the anecdote about my granddaughter? You may appreciate it greatly.

I could not have imagined or wished for such a great real life example. I laughed so hard as a result of her opening the door to show that stuff was in there... The way she uttered "ders dat, nnn dat, nnn dat, nnn dat.... She was so emphatically serious.

:lol:

"The man with ten coins in his pocket" refers to Smith and Smith alone, because it is Smith who is doing the thinking. Smith's belief is true only if, only when, and only because Smith gets the job. Smith did not believe anyone but himself would get the job. Gettier's accounting malpractice would like us to believe otherwise.

In the second case, Smith believed Jones owned a Ford. He did not believe that Brown was in Barcelona. It is only as a result of believing that Jones owned a Ford that he would believe "Either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona". He believed "either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona" was true because Jones owned a Ford. Gettier leaves out the last bit, which is the most important bit of Smith's belief in the second case.

Again, an accounting malpractice of Smith's beliefs. Smith's belief was justified false belief in both cases. False belief is not a problem for JTB.

To be clear, it's not a charge against Gettier so much as it is a charge against the convention he used. He followed the rules. The rules allowed the accounting malpractice.

This stuff is complex. — Banno

Ought it be?

My twenty-seven-month-old granddaughter understood just fine when she heard someone say something about the fridge that was not true. Her behaviour showed that beyond a reasonable doubt. The interesting aspect of that was that at the time she was barely capable of stringing two or three words together, but she knew right away that "there's nothing in there" was false when an adult said that talking about the fridge.

You also find this in the Gettier examples... — Sam26

Accounting malpractices of human belief. That's what they all amount to.

Ah, playing with the T-schema.

Not even sure what you're trying to do there...

...logic excludes temporality. Not that it should do so -- but that's the idea. — Moliere

That's a flaw in my view for what it is attempting to take into account does not always exclude temporality.

The reason why the Liar is not truth apt is because it has no truth conditions.

Sure. I situate logic differently in that logic is an accounting practice. When taking account of that which already existed in its entirety prior to being taken into account, different sort of considerations arise... Such considerations are only established more along the lines of a priori reasoning.

Banno calls me an anti-realist as a result of the stance I take regarding what sorts of things can be true and what makes them so. A prediction is neither true nor false at the time it is made because it is about what has not yet happened. Correspondence to(consistency with) what has happened(fact, in the original sense of "true") plays a major role in my thinking. Seems to me that most academic circles realize that any substantial notion of truth needs to be able to account for or be amenable to correspondence... somehow.

The liar's paradox is not capable of being true or false. Neither are predictions at the time they are made.

The exercise here is to find an appropriate grammar that explicates what is going on. — Banno

That would need to be done with normal everyday language use.

T sentences are shorthand. I've an issue with the very notion of propositions, so clearly with the accounting practices involving p are included in that, but I'm very fond of the simplicity of Tarksi's formulation, despite not placing as much or the same sort of value upon logic as folks like yourself.