Jack's belief is...
Jack's belief is about...
The content of Jack's belief is...

Please, to avoid any possible misunderstandings. Fill in the blanks.

Again you introduce the ambiguity — Janus

No. I repeated what neomac said and you seemed to agree with. Evidently I was wrong, and you do not agree with neo's rendering either.

So, I am asking you to clearly state Jack's belief and then proceed to tell me what Jack's belief is about as well as what the content of that belief is...

So then,

Are you saying that Jack believes of a broken clock that it is working, and that the content of Jack's belief is "That clock is working"?

Granted for further evaluations...

And what is Jack's belief about?

I write something that you agree with. You change what I write. You disagree with and denounce the change, not what I wrote. Evidently, you cannot see.

Great job of denouncing shit that I've not written.

The irony of the earlier sophism attribution.

If we say that Jack believes of that broken clock that it is working, what is the content of Jack's belief and what is Jack's belief about?
— creativesoul

It's very simple; the belief is simply that the clock is working. If he was asked whether he thinks 'the clock is working' is true, he might say 'yes' or he might say, as I said before 'give me a minute and I'll tell you'. Or he might say 'I had assumed that, but on reflection I realize that was a baseless assumption'. — Janus

That does not answer the question I asked. The discussion is all about what counts as the content of some belief or another. So, again...

If we say that Jack believes of that broken clock that it is working, what is the content of Jack's belief, and what is Jack's belief about?

Interesting how different your account of my position is from what I've argued here.

What's your view regarding Russell's clock, Gettier's cases, and Moore's paradox?

Great job denouncing shit that I've not said.

...besides the JTB analysis of "knowledge" challenged by Gettier presupposes (or so it seems) the notion of "belief" as propositional attitude not the other way around. So, unless you have something more convincing to support your claim ("JTB is the basis for belief as propositional attitude"), b/c that is what I asked, then it is fair to say that you are completely wrong. — neomac

Plato is perhaps best attributed with the original conception of JTB. Nonetheless, JTB presupposes belief as propositional attitude, as you yourself have acknowledged. My claim was that JTB was the basis of the rendering.

It's never a good sign when someone simultaneously does both, confirms and denies, something I've written all while denouncing something I'd not. Hence...

:meh:

Gettier. Russell. Moore.

Both Gettier cases, Russell's clock, and Moore's paradox all directly involve and/or include false belief, but none of the three address that aspect as a subject matter in it's own right.




The stopped clock example shows how Russell left out a key consideration; Russell is correct to question whether or not the belief about what time it is counted as a justified belief. It's certainly true, but are we to claim that a false belief counts as good justificatory ground?




Gettier's first case shows how an accounting malpractice of a false belief can lead us astray when taking account of that false belief by virtue of using the rules of entailment. Smith believed that he would get the job and that he had ten coins in his pocket. Entailment allows us to say that he is justified in believing that the man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job, and he is. The issue here is that - when it comes to Smith's belief - "the man" has one referent and one referent only. He's talking about himself and no one else... after-all. So, because Smith's belief is about himself, and because "the man" refers to himself, the only way for Smith's belief to become true is if he got the job. He did not. Therefore, his belief about what would happen was false. This case shows us that the belief and the statement thereof have different sets of truth conditions.

It only follows that the two are not always equivalent.

Gettier's second case shows us the same as above, except it's a bit more complex. Smith believes Jones owns a Ford, and because Smith believes that he also believes that either Smith owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona, but he only believes that the disjunction is true because he believes Smith owns a Ford. He cannot believe it to be any other way. He does not believe that that disjunction is true as a result of the second disjunct. Rather, to quite the contrary, Smith believes the disjunction is true because he believes the first disjunct is true. So, while either disjunct can be true, and that alone makes the disjunction true as a result of either one's being so, Smith's belief is only true if Brown owns a Ford. His belief is that the disjunct is true as a result of the first disjunct being so. It is not. It is true as a result of the second. Smith's belief is false. Again, this example shows us that the belief and the statement thereof have different sets of truth conditions.

It only follows that the two are not always equivalent.



Moore's paradox shows us that we can say of another that they are in error, that they have some false belief or another, but we cannot say the same about ourselves, at least not while still believing the falsehood. That last part is what I've found to be lacking in the explanations of the problem. There are all sorts of reasons for this, self-contradiction being one. However, after becoming aware of our error, there's nothing at all stopping us from admitting that it was once raining outside and we did not believe it, or that we once believed a broken clock was working, or that we once believed that we would get the job, or that we once believed that "Either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona" was true because we believed that Jones owned a Ford.

All of this seems to show some inherent issues with the accounting practices...

Mary's room is based upon the dubious presupposition that we can learn anything about seeing red without seeing red.

Qualia is neither ineffable, nor knowledge.

Earlier you mentioned that one interpretation of believing that a broken clock is working would lead to what seems to be Jack holding self-contradictory belief, and that that was ground for changing the report to something similar to neomac's rendering.

I pose the same questions to you that I just posed to them...

If we say that Jack believes of that broken clock that it is working, what is the content of Jack's belief and what is Jack's belief about?

Meaning is the relationship between cause and effect. — Harry Hindu

An all too common error; the conflation of meaning and causality. The former requires being meaningful to something or someone, whereas the latter does not. The conflation is the basis for many who claim that clouds mean rain even when there is noone around to take notice...

So, I'm curious as to how your account makes sense of the content of the belief as well as what the belief is about...

If we say that Jack believes of that broken clock that it is working, what is the content of Jack's belief and what is Jack's belief about?

FYI I prefer arguments to emoticons. — neomac

Then I suggest you peruse the last couple of weeks worth of posts by yours truly here in this thread, because you seem to have either ignored or missed the arguments that have been given.

:meh:

I too prefer arguments to rhetoric, handwaving, and gratuitous assertions. So far, you've offered the latter three. Got any of the former?

When we say that S holds a belief, has a belief, or forms a belief, what exactly is it that we are claiming that S holds, has, or has formed? When we ascribe belief to another, what exactly are we ascribing? If we do not have an understanding of what belief is, what it consists of, etc., then on what grounds are we to determine which sorts of beliefs can be formed and/or held by which sort of creatures?

There is a common practice of personifying animals. If we follow your advice here, anthropomorphism is acceptable.

You are arguing that because our use of the term predates our thinking about that use that our understanding of what belief is ought somehow fit that use. I'm not disagreeing with that on it's face. What I'm saying is that some belief existed in it's entirety prior to our talking about it, and as such, our common practices could very well be wrong, particularly regarding language less ones as well as ones that are formed and/or held prior to thinking about them as a subject matter in their own right.

Be all this as it may...

My aim currently is to shine a bit of much needed light upon the current failings of our accounting practices. Russell's clock, both Gettier cases, and Moore's paradox all stem from belief as propositional attitude.

My attitude towards your position is clear befuddlement. It is about as preposterous as it can be for us to deny that it is possible to believe that a broken clock is working, or object to the reporting of that simply because your accounting practice cannot make sense of it, because not only is it possible to believe that a broken clock is working, it happens on a regular basis to someone... somewhere. It's happened to me.

The notion of "mental" is problematic for it rests upon dichotomous frameworks, none of which are capable of taking proper account of that which consists of both mental and non-mental things.

Belief is one such thing. As are dispositions.

The white snow is one part of belief and/or dispositions about it.

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

That is false on it's face.

We learned to use the word "belief" in the context of specific linguistic practices, but those practices were not about belief ascriptions.

A theory of belief should fit into a theory of belief ascription not the other way around, the reason being that you as any body else learned the word “belief” and its proper usage in the context of specific linguistic practices about belief ascriptions, prior to any philosophical debate. — neomac

We've been using the term belief for thousands of years. We've been attributing beliefs to ourselves and others for at least that long. Some attribute beliefs to the simplest of animals, such as slugs.

According to what you've said here, we ought make our theory of belief fit such usage.

...the JTB analysis of "knowledge" challenged by Gettier presupposes (or so it seems) the notion of "belief" as propositional attitude not the other way around. So, unless you have something more convincing to support your claim ("JTB is the basis for belief as propositional attitude"), b/c that is what I asked, then it is fair to say that you are completely wrong

:meh:

AS I said this is prone to equivocation. The incoherent interpretation would be equivalent to they believe that "a spherical object is flat" is true. — Janus

There is usually more than one interpretation for any report. That is not a problem, especially when the author painstakingly details what is meant with subsequent explanation as to avoid any confusion.

Equivocation is a charge that the author is using two different senses of the same term in the same argument.

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

Believing is far more complex a process than this thread shows, that's for sure.

The content of belief can be very different than what the belief is about. The content is - strictly speaking - underdetermined by any and all of our accounting practices, but I do think that there are common forms and/or different versions that we can glean a bit of knowledge regarding their basic 'outline' as it were.

An attitude towards some proposition, such that it is true, is but one.

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

That's where the idea that knowledge claims consist of propositions believed to be true by those justified in doing so came from. It's the whole S knows that P... parsing. Apparently Frege played a major role as well regarding the attitude part. It also makes sense as to how it became the case that false belief, such as the broken clock and both Gettier cases became such a problem for the notion. I could be wrong, but not completely.

I think we might say it is a kind of believing, but not that is it is in the form of 'believing that'. So, as I have argued before, in other similar conversations with you, I think it makes sense to say that animals believe, but not that they hold beliefs. — Janus

Yes, indeed we have had similar conversations about this in past. I remember that. You may find it interesting to know that there is a distinction to be drawn between holding a belief(according to the position I'm arguing for/from) and believing that something or other is true.

...'that they believe of a spherical object that it is flat'... — Janus

So, are you saying here that it seems to you that the above is not self-contradictory, but "they believe a spherical object is flat", somehow is? And that your objection is based upon this purported self-contradiction?

Well, you are trying to make your belief ascription analysis fit your understanding of belief. For me, it should be the other way around. — neomac

:worry:

So you think we ought fit our understanding of belief into our understanding of belief ascription...

I'm going to think about that for a minute here...

What are you ascribing to another prior to having an understanding of belief?

The common denominator between the problematic beliefs in question seems to be that they are all false, unbeknownst to the believer.

The oddest part of all this is that despite the objections to my renderings here, the believers themselves would readily admit that they did indeed hold such belief, but could do so only after becoming aware of their errors, at which point in time, they would no longer believe.

Are the objectors here going to object to that as well?

The interesting part is that they never believed the propositional rendering was true.

It was once believed the Earth was flat. It was not believed that the spherical Earth is flat, because for those people the Earth was not spherical. The belief in propositional terms was " The Earth is flat " is true, not "The spherical Earth is flat" is true. This is analogous to your "broken clock" example. You are conflating actuality with belief and producing a fatally incoherent admixture. — Janus

This is the best yet. Well done. Then again...

So, we cannot say of those people that they believe that a spherical object is flat(there are still flat-earthers, you know).

And yet they most certainly do!

A sentence is semantically de re just in case it permits substitution of co-designating terms salva veritate. Otherwise, it is semantically de dicto.

Jack believes that a broken clock is working.
Jack believes that that particular clock is working.
Jack mistakenly believes that a broken clock is working.
Jack mistakenly believes that that particular clock is working.

I just do not see how this distinction helps anything at all here, particularly with those who object to saying Jack believes that a broken clock is working. I employ Leibniz and salva veritate in my own substitution rules.

Are you of the position that Jack cannot believe that a broken clock is working when he looks at it to find out what time it is?
— creativesoul

Yep that would be my presupposition — neomac

Do you not see the absurdity in this? Can Jack look at a broken clock? Surely. Can Jack believe what the clock says? Surely. Why then, can he not believe that a broken clock is working?

The point of this exercise, on my end anyway, is to show how the consequences of conventional accounting practices are absurd, like saying that we cannot look at a broken clock and believe what it says.

More relevant to our present discussion is that these are puzzles of belief attribution, and not of belief as such. That is, they do not show a problem with treating beliefs as propositional attitudes, but rather with reporting those beliefs. Those who are working on these problems accept that beliefs can be parsed as attitudes towards statements, sentences or propositions.

There are interesting issues here. — Banno

They show interesting issues with our reports, that's true. However, I find that those problematic reports are based - sometimes at least - upon a misconception of belief, as a propositional attitude notwithstanding. Jack believed a broken clock was working, but never did he believe that "the broken clock is working" was true. That's a big problem for the practice of rendering belief as a propositional attitude. Anamoly? Perhaps. Nonetheless, it shows something is wrong with the practice.

Not to mention the issues with language less belief as propositional attitude.

Thank you for the detailed response which is more than I can say about many veteran members on this site.
— Harry Hindu

He'll learn. — Banno

Indeed, he will.

In other words, other folks have come across this tricky conundrum and have set a rule in place to remedy the specific confusion you're wrestling with. — ZzzoneiroCosm

To the best of my knowledge, the broken clock belief has yet to have been properly accounted for in Russell's example. In the defense of convention, the point being made was not about the way that Russell took the man's belief into account. Rather, it was about whether or not we're justified in believing clocks. The fact that it was broken wasn't considered, as a result of the man's ignorance of the fact that it was, and thus his ignorance of the fact that he believed a broken clock.

A toddler runs toward a woman walking with her partner in a park, the toddler’s father runs after him, and, knowing that couple from the neighbourhood, explains to the surprised partner: “my sun believes that your wife is his mum”. Of course the toddler knows nothing about the marital relationship between the partner and the woman, he doesn’t even have the concept of “marriage”, nor “motherhood” for that matter, as shared by adults, therefore the father’s belief ascription is not de dicto (what would be a de dicto rendering of that toddler’s belief?), yet this de re belief ascription is epistemologically plausible to the father and the couple based on their background and shared understanding of the situation. — neomac

You're the one invoking the dichotomy. I'm guessing it's an utterly inadequate one, like most other historically philosophical ones.

You tell me...

What would be a de dicto rendering of that toddler's belief? I mean, ought we not all do our own work?

:wink:

Your claim is misleading for 2 reasons: 1. De re belief ascriptions make absolutely sense in some cases (e.g. when we try to solve belief ascriptions ambiguities wrt other subjects’ contextual and shared background understanding of the situation [1]), yet it’s not correctness the ground for de-re belief ascriptions! 2. Your de re belief ascription about Jack is based on a de-contextualised assumption that the description “that brocken clock” is correct by hypothesis (an assumption that nobody would take for granted in controversial real cases b/c even your belief ascriptions are beliefs after all!). — neomac

Is that supposed to be clearer and more accurate somehow than just admitting that we can mistakenly believe that a broken clock is working?

I don’t see what JTB about knowledge has to do with our understanding of belief ascriptions. — neomac

It has everything to do with it, for it is the basis of belief as propositional attitude.

Your understanding of belief ascriptions is biased by your philosophical understanding of propositional attitudes. While de dicto/de re belief ascriptions have an appropriate usage and make sanse to competent speakers independently from your ideas about propositional attitudes.
And there is a strong reason to prefer de dicto belief ascriptions over de re ascriptions b/c the former ones generally explain better believers’ intentional behavior, than the latter (assumed they are both correct). — neomac

My understanding of belief ascriptions is based upon my understanding of belief; how it is formed. how it becomes meaningful to the creature, what it consists of, what it is existentially dependent upon, and so forth...

Are you of the position that Jack cannot believe that a broken clock is working when he looks at it to find out what time it is?

Jack believed a broken clock was working. While holding such a belief, Jack cannot have an attitude towards the proposition "a broken clock was working" such that he believed it to be true. It could be rightfully rendered as such - but only in hindsight after becoming aware of his error. At that point in time, he would no longer believe that a broken clock was working.

He never believed "a broken clock is working" was true. — creativesoul

Jack believed a broken clock was working.
— creativesoul

Sure. But jack did no believe that: a broken clock was working. All you have done is to stuff up the parsing of Jack's belief. — Banno

First you agree with my saying that Jack believed a broken clock was working, then you add a colon and claim he did not believe a broken clock was working...

Is that a magic colon? I mean, does it somehow change Jack's belief?

Help me out here. I think we agree, based upon your "Sure..." answer.

It seems that we both agree that although he believed a broken clock was working, during the time he did, that he would not assent to that belief if rendered in propositional form. In other words, while believing that a broken clock was working, he would not have an attitude towards "a broken clock is working" such that he believed it to be true. Furthermore, that after becoming aware of his error, he would no longer hold the belief, but would readily acknowledge that he had indeed believed that a broken clock was working.

Are we in agreement here?

Jack's mistaken belief that the clock is working when it actually isn't doesn't imply that beliefs are nonpropositional. Am I missing something here? — Agent Smith

No. Jack's mistaken belief has propositional content. A cat's cannot. Both can be rendered using propositions.

We know that substituting within the scope of a propositional attitude need not preserve truth value... — Banno

That is one of the places where convention goes wrong. That's Gettier's foothold as well. Jack believed that a broken clock was working. Smith believed that he would get the job. The substitutions made changed the truth conditions and thus the meaning of the beliefs. In both cases, as explained earlier, when we make such substitutions, we are no longer talking about Jack's or Smith's belief.

Take a couple of English sentences with their relative translations in French:
A1) Alice loves Jim
A2) Jim is loved by Alice
B1) Alice aime Jim
B2) Jim est aimé par Alice
I would take all 4 statements to be about the same state-of-affairs (and you?). Yet B1 is a correct translation of A1 only, and B2 of A2 only. If it was true that the translation is based on reference to the same state-of-affairs then both B1 and B2 would be equally good translations of A1 or A2 indifferently. — neomac

The all share the same set of truth conditions. So, in that sense they're about the same things...