Some folk hold that all belief amounts to an attitude towards a proposition. This seems to be the basis of Banno's arguments as well. I've already levied arguments against that position in the opening argument and first three posts of the debate this thread is discussing.

I'll condense what I see as the main issues...

If all belief are propositional attitudes, then...

All belief are about propositions.
All belief are existentially dependent upon propositions.
Either there are language less propositions or there are no language less belief.

I am still quite content with the first three posts in the debate. If you'd like to discuss these, I'd be happy to oblige and grateful to have piqued a genuine interest.

:smile:

The general structure of beliefs is of the form "φ believes that p" where "φ" is the name of the believer(s) and "p" is some proposition. — Banno

That's the general structure used to describe, report upon, take an account of, and/or make some statement about anothers' belief.

Do you not draw a distinction between the cat's belief and our reports thereof in terms of content? They are not the same things. Clearly.

If there are beliefs that cannot be presented in propositional form, give us an example. — Banno

But why demand this? Who is arguing otherwise? It does not follow from this that the content of all belief is propositional. It follows that the presentation of all beliefs is, but even that hinges upon what counts as a belief being presented. Jack does not present his beliefs to you in propositional form. Be all that as it may, it's an aside, relevant but an aside.

The gist here is that we take account of belief using propositions. I totally agree. That's not the matter in contention. The matter in contention is what belief content is, what belief consists of, language less belief in particular.

In this context I used the term “concept” as equivalent to “notion” so not in theoretically loaded terms as to categorize the type of referents of those notions. And therefore I see this use in this context as philosophically neutral and harmless. — neomac

Understood. Good to know. So many terms are loaded and around here, it's far too easy to get distracted by futile arguing over semantics/definitions, despite such great methods available for deciding which conceptual scheme/linguistic framework is best. There's a bit of that going on in the debate as well. Unfortunately, this time around, after re-reading the debate I was disappointed in myself for several reasons.

If there are any questions you have for me about the position I argue for/from, I'd be happy to answer. It could be quite helpful for you to re-read my posts only. That's the only way to avoid taking on the misunderstandings that Banno was arguing against.

I too find this topic and all that underwrites it very intriguing, and of utmost importance to proper understanding.

A belief is an account... — Banno

That verifies the conflation charge.

So, no such a thing as an account of a belief then?

:brow:

Better tell Gettier.

Nature excludes humans and all we've done?

We think about something, then we think about some other things. Are these things connected in one sense or another? Is there a pattern in our thoughts? Not necessarily logical though. — Agent Smith

A pattern? Not my choice of descriptions...

All thought consists entirely of correlations drawn between directly and indirectly perceptible things. We are the bridge that 'connects' all our thoughts together. Are they always logical? Of course not.

That's not the way I talk. I reject the very notion of 'mental objects'.
— creativesoul

Why would you do that? — Agent Smith

I reject the mental/non mental dichotomy as well as the subject/object dichotomy upon grounds of inadequate explanatory power. Not all things are one or the other. Some things consist of both, and thus are not adequately described in terms of either. Thoughts, and thinking are two such things.

That's odd...

We cannot sensibly swap these words whenever and wherever we chose. That inability to remain sensical when doing so tells me - quite clearly- that all those things you mentioned are not the same.
— creativesoul

Are they not mental objects? — Agent Smith

That's not the way I talk. I reject the very notion of 'mental objects'.

Do we not think about them? — Agent Smith

What does that have to do with anything. We think about trees too, but trees are not thoughts anymore than all those other things you've named are.

The "keyboard" is a construction of the mind on the occasion of sense. I use it to try to approximate my thoughts via word use, such that what I'm thinking now can be evoked in your own mind when reading these words. It's not an exact science, far from it. — Manuel

I've no idea what you're trying to say here. What's the significance of encapsulating the term keyboard in quotes?

Are you referring to the word or what the word picks out to the exclusion of all else? Perhaps, you're referring to all the different ways you use the term? I'm lost here...

Well, I am a firm believer in a causal universe, so strictly speaking if by "random" we mean spontaneously formed completely devoid of prior influence, then I would say that there are no such thoughts.
— creativesoul

Interesting. So on your view, most (if not all) our thoughts follow a causal process? — Manuel

Causality always plays a role. Thought is itself efficacious.

Have I misrepresented the position you argue for/from? You most certainly have just misrepresented mine. Misattributing all those uses of language to me is quite unacceptable. Anyone can see for themselves that I've said none of those things you've attributed to me.

But to answer the question you asked...

No. What you quoted was not my current rendition of our decade long disagreement.

When I'm heading towards the shed out back, the ducks about my residence can and most certainly do believe that they are about to be fed. They do this not as a result of the existence of some non linguistic proposition, but rather they form such belief solely by virtue of the sheer amount of prior correlations repetitively drawn between directly perceptible things such as eating food, my presence near the food bin, the sound of the lid being removed, etc. The notion of a language less proposition is itself a contradiction in terms, a meaningless nonsensical use of language. There quite simply is no need for us to posit language less propositions in order to make sense of language less true or false belief.


It's not a mystery, or all that complicated. When the ducks do end up eating soon thereafter, their expectation about what's about to happen is met/satisfied, and thus the belief becomes or 'ends up' being true solely by virtue of corresponding to what happened. If they do not eat soon after thinking they were about to eat, the belief becomes or ends up being false... solely by virtue of a lack of correspondence to what happened.

So, my question has been and remains...

Where is a need for language here, aside from the ability for us to be able to take the ducks' belief into account? There are no propositions contained in the correlations drawn by the ducks. We certainly need language to know that and say as much, but surely we can all agree that the ducks' belief is neither equal to nor existentially dependent upon our knowledge or account thereof?

Right?

Beliefs are potentially either true or false. Propositions are the bearers of these truth values. The perceptual non-linguistic beliefs you describe have no capacity for truth or falsity, unless there exist non-linguistic propositions. I don't know if I agree about the language acquisition. Been a long time since I learned mine. — emancipate

Upon what ground are you stating that language-less creatures' belief has no capacity to be true or false, unless there are such things as non-linguistic propositions?

What reason is there to hold that there need be such things as truth bearers(propositions) in order for language-less creatures' belief to be true or false?

It's true if it corresponds to the way things are.

If the ducks outside hear the food bin lid being removed, they will immediately go to where it is, all the while displaying all sorts of different behaviours that are put on display during feeding or when they are pleading to be fed.

What reasons are there for us to believe that the ducks cannot form, have, and/or hold belief about being fed unless there are such things as non linguistic propositions, unless we've already placed the fate of our own position into the idea that all belief content is propositional?

That's a common view, quite common actually, given all the work regarding the belief that approach, such as the one Banno relies upon at times. However, you've presented but one set of options here, both resting their laurels upon a premiss that I do not share. It is only if we first hold firmly to the notion that all belief content is propositional, that we come to later find that we must propose such things as non linguistic propositions if we are going to admit that language less creatures can have true and/or false belief.

That's the problem in a nutshell.

Could you pls elaborate more on this "He is more Wittgensteinian than I. Much more actually"? — neomac

He is much more averse to metaphysics than I. He places higher value upon propositional logic than I. He places propositions in a more fundamental role than I. He holds that all belief content is propositional. He holds that we cannot get 'beneath' language. He does not draw and maintain the actual distinction between belief and thinking about belief. He does not draw and maintain a distinction between the content of our accounting practices and the content of what's being taken into account, particularly, to keep in line with the debate topic, when talking about language less creatures' belief he does not discriminate between his account and what's being taken into account. He also leans on speech act theorists as well as Davidson more than I.

Would you be able to briefly clarify how you understand the following concepts and their relation: "sensation", "intentionality", "representation", "perception", "concept", "belief", "proposition"? — neomac

Well, sure I could, but why ought I here? I will say this, the question itself is based upon the belief that all those things mentioned are concepts. I do not share that belief. Rather, much of the time regarding many of the aforementioned things, and I are in agreement regarding historical use of these terms. We're much the same amount of Wittgensteinian, in that regard.

You and I do seem to agree on one salient point. Banno conflates his account of the cat's belief with the cat's belief. Not sure if that is a consequence of unstated premisses underlying his reasoning here, or a personal shortfall, but he's not alone.

I can give examples that more or less follow. Suppose that right now, I have in mind an idea I'd like to convey. I have a computer at my disposal, obviously a keyboard, and some ideas in my head as to what I'd like to say.

In this situation, in which I'm in front of an object, with a goal in mind, I can find a connection between the ideas of transmitting these thoughts, via a keyboard, being careful as to avoid a typo and so on. I see individual letters in my keyboard, which I can use to form words that convey an impression from my head into yours.

This can be accounted for by the circumstances I'm in now. The ideas of a computer, a keyboard, letters and what example to use can be pointed to concretely to account for the connection of my thoughts. — Manuel

Aren't you merely using the keyboard to state your thoughts? Are you merely expressing your thoughts about thought here via common language use?

You see, that's one place where philosophy proper has failed miserably. They've yet to have taken into proper account the differences between thinking about thought and thought. As simple as that sounds, it is a major flaw that has led to the inherent inability for current conventional understanding to arrive at a notion of thought that is amenable to evolutionary progression.

In another circumstance, say I'm walking around in my neighborhood listening to music, I can be thinking of, the war in Yemen in one instance, onto the favorite part of the song that is playing, then thinking about Hume, my dinner with my friends and what I should do tomorrow.

In this latter circumstance, it's less clear to me how to account for how the ideas I have when walking and thinking form a connection or follow. It could be totally random. I'm a bit skeptical on this conclusion, but it's possible.

Thought is most certainly an autonomous process. We need not turn it on. We cannot turn it off. We can, however, influence it, intentionally and accidently. Random thoughts? Well, I am a firm believer in a causal universe, so strictly speaking if by "random" we mean spontaneously formed completely devoid of prior influence, then I would say that there are no such thoughts. Well, at least not once we've begun the mastery of common language. The simplest of thoughts must begin free from prior influence, but those kinds of thought are the most basic kind of simple elementary composition... the basics that begin to develop into what we call "minds", and those do not include language use. The correlations are not drawn between language use and other things.

If you're asking me about what 'connects' our thoughts to each other, I would only say that that seems to presuppose some need for something other than us to perform the 'task' of connecting all our thoughts. That's a dubious assumption. Aren't all our thoughts always already connected by virtue of being what they are; our own prior, current, and future correlations. We are the bridge between.

Sleep well.

All thought consists entirely of correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things. Memory is but a repeat of correlations previously drawn.
— creativesoul

Sure, this follows when dealing with "ordinary objects", what about between thoughts? How do we account for correlation here? — Manuel

Could you elaborate? Are you referring to the time period between thoughts?

I'm not sure we're on the same page here. What I wrote there was simply the most basic claim that I've been able to arrive at over the years that seems to be universally applicable; i.e., an adequate, albeit very basic, description of all thought, regardless of complexity.

I believe I can understand, to an extent, that everything "depends on the physical" to mean... — Manuel

What I mean is that all thought is existentially dependent upon physical things. The periodic table of elements and all that that current conventional understanding entails. Physical stuff was first, and other stuff(not simply physical) came after... simply put.

Ideas, concepts, hypotheses, theories, dreams, words (their meaning), and so much more, are thoughts. — Agent Smith

That's odd...

We cannot sensibly swap these words whenever and wherever we chose. That inability to remain sensical when doing so tells me - quite clearly- that all those things you mentioned are not the same.

It's terminological at this point. — Manuel

What we're attempting to describe existed in it's entirety long before we began attempting to take it into account. Sure, the terms we use are pivotal to our success, but I do not see how any more focus upon that is helpful, unless we're somehow violating our own prior use, or some other issue resulting from our use arises...

How to account for thoughts...

All thought consists entirely of correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things. Memory is but a repeat of correlations previously drawn.

Scientific reasoning has it's limits. Those are often ignored by some using scientific knowledge. Science, for example, has nothing at all to say about what we ought do in some circumstance or another. Since so much of our interdependent lives rely heavily upon such considerations, science simply cannot tell us what to do. It can, however, inform our reasoning with relevant facts.

We agree that morality is enforced. What next?
— creativesoul
Therefore, talks about objective or subjective or relative morality is moot. — L'éléphant

Well, that doesn't follow from what's written, but I do agree. Such discussions are a waste of time. — creativesoul

What doesn't follow? — L'éléphant

See where you began with "therefore"? We use that term to indicate that a logical conclusion comes next. What you wrote after "therefore" did not follow from what I said and you agreed to.

Does anything at all follow from a morality by reason of majority? — L'éléphant

We've already established that it is not always a majority's morality that is enforced. So, the above question is moot.

Well, that doesn't follow from what's written, but I do agree. Such discussions are a waste of time.

It makes no sense to me to wonder what 'connects our thoughts'. Very very roughly put:Our thoughts connect us to that which is not as well as ourselves, by virtue of leading up to an initial understanding of the world and ourselves("worldview" is more palpable to me).

Some of our thoughts are products of a process commonly characterized or described as thinking, imagining, pondering, wondering, remembering, envisioning, etc. However, those are much more complex thoughts than the much more simple ones we first began with; those that the capable beasties still have in spades. Human thought has evolved over time as has everything else. It began simply and grew in it's complexity over time. A proper adequate notion of thought ought be able to adequately take all that into account; it ought be readily amenable to be rendered in terms of it's evolutionary progression.

I've no particular conventional understanding in mind. Indeed, philosophy proper hasn't gotten much right at all as far as human thought goes.

I work from a strong methodological naturalist bent. Dennett's work is impressive, however, I do not think that everything is physical. I would, however, readily agree that everything - including thought - depends on the physical. I also reject many another historical dichotomy, on the same grounds of inadequate explanatory power. For example, the subject/object dichotomy, the internal/external dichotomy, the mind/body dichotomy, the physical/immaterial, the physical/mental, etc.

For nearly twenty years(when I first began studying and reading philosophy), I've been developing my own understanding of human thought and belief and all that that includes and/or leads to.

Point being, I don't see that we've improved on his reasoning in this topic, we don't know what it is that connects our thoughts. — Manuel

I think we have, considerably. The notion of "what connects our thoughts" is problematic itself. It's based upon an understanding that led itself to a question about our thoughts that it could not answer because of the inherently deficient framework underwriting the question itself(because of the fact that Hume worked from a misunderstanding, an inherently emaciated notion of human thought/understanding).

Banno and myself have very similar views, but there are crucial differences. He is more Wittgensteinian than I. Much more actually. However, although I am quite confident that where we disagree I am correct and he's not, I must admit that Banno is remarkably efficient at making his points. I admire his brevity.

We agree that morality is enforced. What next?

:brow:

Can you explain how thought works other than in terms of association, whether logical, metaphorical, magical, poetical, or whatever? — Janus

I've explained my objection above, for the third time. Yes, I can explain how thought works. I would not talk in terms of "thought connections" for all the reasons mentioned heretofore.

Well, in Hume's famous Appendix to his Treatise, he concluded that:

"In short there are two principles, which I cannot render consistent; nor is it in my power to renounce either of them, viz. that all our distinct perceptions are distinct existences, and that the mind never perceives any real connexion among distinct existences. Did our perceptions either inhere in something simple and individual, or did the mind perceive some real connexion among them, there wou'd be no difficulty in the case. For my part, I must plead the privilege of a sceptic, and confess, that this difficulty is too hard for my understanding."

He's probably right. — Manuel

Well, as astute as Hume was regarding some things, his notion of thought is found sorely wanting. His understanding worked from the notion of perception commonplace at the time. "Perception", as was used historically, was fraught.

See the problem?
— creativesoul

No. What is the problem?

The issue is random thoughts but according to Ramsey theory, true randomness doesn't exist. — Agent Smith

The 'problem' amounted to conflicting understandings is all. I mean, yours and my own, respectively. We have two very different notions of what counts as thought at work. It's as if we're working from two incompatible definitions of the term "thought". Oh, and apologies are on order here. The problem actually wasn't one with what you wrote, per se. Unless of course, I'm right. You see, I am of the belief that all thought consists entirely of correlations, and since correlations are akin to connections such as they are, when I see another write something like "thought connections", I cringe because, on my view, that would be like saying "correlations connections" or even "connections connections". So, my apologies for failing to spell that out clearly enough in muh first post.

Now, to this 'issue'...

We cannot say what a random thought even is, unless we first know what a thought is, for the former is a kind of the latter, a sort of sub-species, so to speak. So, circling back to the differences of notions or definitions here, I'm curious to know what you mean when you use the term "thought".

I don't know enough about "Ramsey theory" to comment about that aspect of your issue.

If morality is always about what should or should not be done in some particular situation or another, and a society is a group of individuals that have commonly shared values and beliefs, then what makes a society what it is are commonly held/shared moral beliefs (that which is considered to be acceptable/unacceptable behaviour by enough of the members as to maintain stability). Morality, then, amounts to the codified rules of societal behaviour. We could call these laws without issue. So, if an individual breaks the law, it is a crime against the moral/ethical code (one of which presumably most members agree).

I'm still not at all confident in calling all law breaking "crimes against society" for the simple reason that there ought be a distinction drawn between the amount of injury that the crime results in addition to who exactly is injured. For instance, there's quite a bit of difference, one would think, between the harm that jaywalking causes and say the amount of harm that defrauding the American people about the integrity of the 2020 election causes. Placing these two crimes on the same level trivializes the severity of injury that the latter has caused, while elevating the severity of the former by association alone.

So, while I generally agree with what I think your saying, I suspect that there's some much needed refinement so as to avoid painting the picture with too broad a brushstroke. There are also very different kinds of societies where the majority do not have much say in the laws.

Cannot. That is exactly the point. Talking in terms of "thought connections" like the OP chose to do is an inadequate method for better understanding what thought is and how it works.

Perhaps there will be less of a surprise.

The problem is that Trump and his supporters in the House and basically the entire right wing conservative media apparatus have convinced a very large portion of the American population that the election was stolen. That belief is false, yet it is no less a powerful one.



Generally speaking about one deeply embedded problem in American government...

Trump benefitted from the fact that America has the best system money can buy, and he did so from both sides of that corrupt reality. He bought politicians, and publicly bragged about it on national television in front of some of those who he had previously bought, in their presence no less. That happened during the public debate during the primary season of the election

The fact that were no objections to that was astonishing to me at the time.

Plutocracy is not the representative form of government set up by the Constitution. It is closer to what we have than one of officials who represent what's in the best interest of all Americans.

We no longer have a government that places the best interests of the overwhelming majority of Americans at the top of the priority list when making policy decisions. We legalized government bribery in the seventies by changing how it is described, in the guise of characterizing unlimited campaign contributions by very rich individuals as an exercise in an individual's first amendment rights to "free speech". Now there are all sorts of counterarguments that outright reject that argument and do so convincingly, but this is not he place or time. I digress, the SCOTUS set the precedent for legalized bribery to manifest with that decision. Then, president Nixon placed the attorney who argued that case on the court itself. A few years later the court then expanded the ability to bribe elected officials to include a corporation's ability, because corporations are people too. Then, of course, Citizen's United not that long ago...

The current American government is tremendously corrupt, and that is well known and out in the open. That common knowledge is part of what allowed Trump to rise in power amongst all those American citizens who've suffered the results of the aforementioned court cases.

Conflict of interest be damned...

The interests of very large corporations and wealthy donors took and are still currently taking precedent over the overwhelming majority even now. Look at the government response to the pandemic, or look at what has happened to legislation that would have tremendously improved American's lives and livelihoods in all sorts of ways that was completely funded by taxing the richest corporations and Americans(those making over half million per year.)

What I would really like to do is explore the possibility space on the matter of thought connections. Is it that only logical connections between ideas reveal truth/sense/reality? — Agent Smith

What would happen to this endeavor if all thought consisted of connections? We would be exploring the possibility of connections connections...

See the problem?

It seems more and more evident that there certainly was an attempt to stop the peaceful transition of power, and that that effort was coordinated on many levels, all of which were/are based upon false claims about the integrity of the 2020 presidential election. Those claims were the basis of over 60 different court cases, none of which survived the disclosure/evidentiary stage. Claims made. Evidence asked for. None offered. Case dismissed. Some of those attorneys have been found to have broken the ethics of the BAR and have been recommended for being disbarred as a result of knowing that there was insufficient evidence for the charges prior to wasting the courts' time.

Those claims are still being made as a means to manufacture public consent for all sorts of things.

The power of belief has been known by myself for quite some time. The Trump years have put it on display for all to see. For a half century, America has slid away from the importance of truth and truth telling, while having simultaneously exonerated, rewarded, and even glorified blatant deception and the telling of falsehoods...

Trump was not and is not the problem. He is a symptom.

Witt is wrong. The limits of our language do not represent the limits of our world. They most certainly do represent the limits of what we can sensibly talk about.

In response to the OP...

The cloth was not a cow. The farmer believed the cloth was a cow. All Gettier problems are accounting malpractices of an other's belief. Plain and simple. All of them.

As it must be, it is a set of universally applicable principles...