There's something about beliefs arising non-linguisticaly that resembles beetles in boxes — Banno

I think a belief is conceptual and concepts are understood linguistically. Without the words there are no beliefs, there are actions, reactions and feelings - there are even motivations, but I think you have to stretch "belief" to extreme definitions to assert they exist non conceptually.

I say this as I watch chimps on the TV, refugees from the laboratory system, meeting for the first time and making friends. I call any of their feelings "beliefs" seems absurd.
There are no words - but there is plenty of communication going on.

When one says beliefs are concepts, it sounds like some explanation has been offered.

But has it? Do you have a better notion of what a concept is that of what a belief is?

I don't think we do. Concepts are just more things-in-the-head.

I call any of their feelings "beliefs" seems absurd. — charleton

Are you saying they do not have beliefs?

I like psychologist George Kelly's notion of construct, which he defines as a way in which two things are alike and differ from a third. It's a notion of concept as a distinction, a discrimination, a categorization, a construction, a symbolization. It doesn't need the overstuffed baggage of belief as a stance on the truth of an event. By this measure of concept as symbolization, animals have concepts, since as Piaget showed, they symbolize.

Interesting. In so far as a distinction, a discrimination, a categorisation, are acts, I could go with that. But I'm more for unstuffing belief. I take it to be a fairly simple notion.

When one says beliefs are concepts, it sounds like some explanation has been offered. — Banno

The dispositional view of Pragmatism emphasises the way that an adequate concept has to bring with it an adequate measurement. So a belief has this dichotomous structure. The idea is separate from its confirmation. However the idea also does itself tell us what kind of confirmation is suitable.

So truth-telling can't transcend its own grounding conceptions. Yet also, the business of truth-telling can improve over time as it becomes measurably less subjective by being measureably more generic and public.

From a nice review of that Misak book...

This might seem rather surprising, given that Ramsey is usually associated with a redundancy or proto-deflationary theory of truth. But Misak argues that, after about 1926, Ramsey saw that an adequate account of truth needs to do more than note the equivalence of “p” and “‘p’ is true”: if one has a disposition toward a dispositional account of belief, as Ramsey did, then it’s natural to ask what sorts of dispositions, in general, go along with believing that p is true.

Ramsey came to much the same conclusion as Peirce: the belief that p commits one to giving reasons for p and considering the evidence for and against it. Thus, on Misak’s reading of Ramsey, “if we unpack the commitments we incur when we assert or believe, we find that we have imported the notions of fact (vaguely conceived), experimentation, and standards for good belief” (230).

Pragmatic approaches to meaning and truth thus offer a tidy, mutually-reinforcing package that is an attractive alternative to the more typical combination of a representational theory of meaning with a correspondence theory of truth—while also offering a meaningful extension beyond the truism at the heart of deflationism.

[Review: Cambridge Pragmatism: From Peirce and James to Ramsey and Wittgenstein, by Cheryl Misak - John Capps]

Every belief is a philosophical construction, that's a bit vague. I read part of that link, I couldn't disagree more. I'm closer to the later Wittgensteinian model, at least as I interpret him. It's true that language is a function of a culture, and that there are no referents in the mind that gives meaning to words, it's social. However, apart from language, we can observe what's going on in a mind/brain by observation. Thus, when we talk about brain states, we are talking about real things that have both an internal and external component. Each of us knows that we have this internal reality. For example, our internal experiences are real, and if I'm experiencing joy, or reflecting on a belief, that is something going on internally. This experience is quite apart from any linguistic representation of it. However, for me to know that others experience the same thing, I need to observe it, either in the actions of others (which can be quite apart from language), and/or through the utterances of others.

Or a difference that makes a difference.

Truth by tautological similarity has all the familiar problems. But if similarity is defined in terms of the set of differences that an observer feels don't really matter, then you have the basis of a useful construct. Now the differences that make a difference pop right out.

That is the Batesonian paradigm that has more traction in psychology these days I would say.

The world is ripe with differences. Everything is different or individuated in some fashion. So the art of cognition is learning how much difference you can afford to ignore. That way, only the significant differences reach your attention.

That is the kind of "Helmholtzian" cognitive architecture that an anticipatory neural network or Bayesian brain seeks to implement.

OK, so a belief is a statement that could be used to explain a behaviour. It is locked in with certain actions.

I'm juxtaposing this to it being a thing-in-the-head plus a set of behaviours.

SO the question I have for the in-the-head theorists is, what is added by the stuff in the head that is not already in the statement? And the answer seems to me to be that the Beetle argument shows that in so far as a belief is private, it drops out of the discussion; and in so far as it is public, it is a statement and associated behaviours.

Further, reaching for concepts does not help, because what I have said for beliefs is much the same as what I would say for concepts: in so far as a concpet is private, it drops out of the discussion; and in so far as it is public, it is a statement and associated behaviours.

Apo, I know you want me to react to this, but it's too far off the topic.

My apologies.

"The art of cognition is learning how much difference you can afford to ignore. That way, only the significant differences reach your attention."
I don't see it as up to you to deliberately determine what is significant for you. That task has already been accomplished the moment you experience any event. You find yourself attending to something before you consciously will it. You attend to what grabs to, draws you out, pops out at you, as you said.
And what is relevant to you is that entitiy that is not so similar in relation to your construing history that it will not be noticed, and not so other that you will fail to assimilate it. The 'too other' is what is experienced via affectitites of fear, anger,etc. that paralyze our ability to go on.
Bateson shared some things with Kelly, but I prefer Kelly's phenomenological stance to Bateson's behaviroistic model of causation. '

When it comes to what we mean by words/statements that something external. But when I communicate a belief, that's my belief, and as such it's part of the internal self. When I communicate that belief using language, the language is social and completely governed by the rules of usage. It's social meaning isn't derived by something internal. It's not as though we can't talk about our internal experiences using language, but that language must be governed by something external (actions), and these actions, these doings, reflect internal experiences. They don't give meaning to language, but we can refer to them. It seems to me that what some want to do is allow the beetle to confer meaning, the meaning of mind states is shown in actions, not the thing in the box. I'm not saying that the meaning of mind states is derived from something private, on the contrary, it's something public, shown in our actions. However, this does not negate what's happening privately, apart from the social.

When I communicate that belief using language... — Sam26

Can I just check an assumption I am making.

There is a model of language that supposes a meaning in the private world of Anne, that is translated into the public language of English, spoken, heard by Beth, and translated into Beth's private world.

I understand Wittgenstein as rejecting this model.

What do you think?

I reject it also. Don't forget the rest of that sentence. :D

Thanks.

It's not as though we can't talk about our internal experiences using language, — Sam26

Sure.

So, since they can be talked about publicly, they are not private in the relevant sense.

They don't give meaning to language, but we can refer to them. — Sam26

Yes!

However, this does not negate what's happening privately, apart from the social. — Sam26

We have beliefs that have not been stated. We do no have beliefs that could not be stated.

SO I agree, with the proviso that what is spoken of in that last quote as happening privately is not ineffable. Nor are any other internal experiences ineffable.

ANd hence there is no part of a belief that is ineffable. No private mental furniture.

I now suspect I am labouring a point on which we agree.

SO the question I have for the in-the-head theorists is, what is added by the stuff in the head that is not already in the statement? And the answer seems to me to be that the Beetle argument shows that in so far as a belief is private, it drops out of the discussion; and in so far as it is public, it is a statement and associated behaviours. — Banno

The issue though, is that "the stuff in the head" is very real, just like the thing in the box is very real. We can call the thing in the head a Belief, and we can call the thing in the box a Beetle, but this doesn't tell us anything about those items.

You can argue that because for each of us, the others cannot see these items, then there is no point in talking about the items, because we will never understand them with any sort of certainty, but that's why we have descriptive terms. So we find ways to describe these things, just like we find ways to describe colours to the blind person. There is no reason why the blind person cannot understand the wavelengths of light, and how they interact with various substances to produce what we perceive as colours. But colour doesn't drop out of the discussion, it is still there, as what is being described.

But obviously colours are not private.

"the stuff in the head" is very real... — Metaphysician Undercover

Please justify this.

I don't see it as up to you to deliberately determine what is significant for you. That task has already been accomplished the moment you experience any event. You find yourself attending to something before you consciously will it. — Joshs

Yes. The "you" I have in mind is not some conscious being. This is about the cognitive architecture of brains. So what catches our attention is what fails to be dealt with at a habitual level of processing. A lifetime of experience serves as enough of a filter so that most of every moment can be left to automatic pilot. Attentional resources are reserved for the differences that make a difference at a habitual level of response - the ones that can't be assimilated to the similarity that is ... a habit.

And what is relevant to you is that entitiy that is not so similar in relation to your construing history that it will not be noticed, and not so other that you will fail to assimilate it. The 'too other' is what is experienced via affectitites of fear, anger,etc. that paralyze our ability to go on. — Joshs

Yep. Things could be too outside of normal experience not to be assimilable even by attention-level processing. But even then, eventually we reach some kind of adjustment. We "conquer our fears" by forming some construct to which a class of events can be assimilated too.

So the general principle applies. The mind doesn't build constructs by focusing on what thing have in common. Concepts are constraints on variety. They are about learning the differences that can be ignored, so as then to highlight the differences that are then key.

Concepts are filters rather than collectors. They separate signal from noise.

Maybe this is the difference between hoarders and minimalists? One can't bear to throw away anything - it all matters. The other is selective and finds order in becoming disinterested in inessential variety. :)

Bateson shared some things with Kelly, but I prefer Kelly's phenomenological stance to Bateson's behaviroistic model of causation. ' — Joshs

How do you mean Bateson's behaviourism? I would have thought his informational/hierarchical feedback approach was pretty anti-Behaviourism.

Behaviourism treated nerve networks as chains of physically triggered nodes. Sensory energy gives a network of poised physical connections a jolt, then that shot of energy just rattles around the circuit in mechanical fashion.

But cybernetics stressed the informational aspect of neural action. And seeing networks as hierarchies again completely changes the paradigm. Now a jolt of sensory energy can only disturb the state of the system to the degree the system lets it. Through top-down constraint, it can damp the "input" just as readily as it amplifies it.

Do you just mean that Bateson was overly physicalist by comparison to Kelly? That could be so. I only mention Bateson because he coined some good phrases, not because I find him totally reliable on all matters psychological. Clearly, as with schizophrenia, he could really screw up.

And I've only faint familiarity with Kelly. But checking Wiki, I see his approach is exactly the dichotomy-based approach to categories that I take....

Kelly defined constructs as bipolar categories—the way two things are alike and different from a third—that people employ to understand the world. Examples of such constructs are "attractive," "intelligent," "kind." A construct always implies contrast. So when an individual categorizes others as attractive, or intelligent, or kind, an opposite polarity is implied. This means that such a person may also evaluate the others in terms of the constructs "ugly," "stupid," or "cruel."

So you find a person cruel to the degree that the person is not kind, and vice versa. That is, an individual or particular is located on the spectrum of possibility created by a complementary pair of generalities. This is that to the degree it is not the other.

So a construct would be the spectrum that allows the binary judgement - an assimilation of a particular instance to one or other generality. But still, generalities are constraints, in my book. They assimilate the particular by ignoring irrelevant differences rather than collecting together the sufficiently similar.

Is a three-legged rabbit still a rabbit? Why not if every rabbit has got some kind of difference and the loss of a leg doesn't make any essential difference. But maybe a race of three-legged rabbits exists. They are known as ribbits. Now it matters if our candidate was born one way or the other.

The point about a constraints-based approach is that it demands the least work. To pick out the sufficiently similar is a lot of work. Each individual has to be inspected according to some checklist. They will always be different and so it is going to be a judgement whether the difference matters anyway.

But it instead it is presumed that everything is the same until something critically different manifests, then that makes for efficient processing. And a dichotomous or bipolar construct spells out what "critically different" means at the level of absolute generality. It is the exact opposite of whatever pragmatically defines "sufficiently alike".

Every beautiful person is a little bit ugly. But rather than fuss about the classification problem that appears to cause, we just take a broad-brush approach of accepting every person as beautiful until - in binary fashion - a person seems to fit better the folk who are in the class of "every ugly person is a little bit beautiful".

We can of course add intermediate categories - the people who are just middling. But a constraints-based principle is still the low-effort approach. It doesn't demand every detail be judged for similarity. Only some general weight of "poor fit" has to be judged. Then the categorisation can flip over to its other pole.

Please justify this. — Banno

You could very well have a look into your own head Banno, to find the truth about that. But that would not be justification, and that's why there is a difference between justification and truth. And it's also why what's in my head is not "knowledge" in the sense of JTB, and what's in your head is not "knowledge", these are just ideas. That they are not properly called "knowledge" does not mean that they are not real though.

If you do not allow for the reality of what's in the head, you'll never have any truth, because the meaning of any statement is dependent on context. And the true context is in the head of the author. Without the true context you have (as meaning) only a multitude of subjective interpretations. Wittgenstein demonstrated this quite well, in the sense that there is a multitude of interpretations of what he wrote. Unless there is a "what he meant" which is determined by what was in his head at the time (context), then there can be no truth or falsity to anything he said, just multiple subjective interpretations.

So, the claim "the stuff in the head is very real", is justified. The reality of the stuff in the head is demonstrated by a person's actions. The actions of the individual demonstrate that the person is thinking, and has real ideas within the head. To me, this qualifies as justification.

Since my definition of knowledge is justified true belief, I want to address the Gettier problem since many believe that Gettier demonstrated that there are inherent weaknesses with the definition of knowledge as justified true belief. I always believed that there were problems with Gettier's examples, and Lozanski illustrates these problems in the following quote:


The first example Gettier comes up with has to do with Jones and Smith applying for a job. If Smith had strong evidence that Jones will get the job (for example if the boss said Jones will get the job) and also that Jones has ten coins in his pocket (for example, Smith counted the coins in Jones’s pocket), then he might assert the following proposition:

A) Jones is the man who will get the job, and Jones has ten coins in his pocket.

This proposition entails that:

B) The man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket.

If Smith sees this entailment and accepts proposition B on the grounds of proposition A, then with the given evidence, Smith is justified in believing proposition B. It turns out that Smith himself will unexpectedly be offered the job, and by random chance Smith also has ten coins in his pocket. Now B is true even though A is false. Thus, proposition B is true, Smith believes that B is true, and Smith is justified in believing B is true. However, Smith does not know that proposition B is true. He doesn’t even know how many coins he has in his own pocket. He bases his belief on the number of coins in Jones’ pocket. So, says Gettier, Smith has a justified true belief in proposition B, but he doesn’t know proposition B.

Even if we allow Gettier to make proposition B (a very broad statement) on the grounds of proposition A(a very specific statement); and even if we allow Smith’s evidence to be sufficient for true knowledge (basing his beliefs on what someone says without any further proof or evidence for that claim), other problems arise which cannot be overlooked.

Gettier makes a very specific statement (Jones is the man who will get the job, and Jones has ten coins in his pocket), and from that he deduces a very generalized statement, (The man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket.) However, it is not clear who ‘the man’ refers to here. If ‘the man’ refers to Jones then the statement is false, because Jones is not the man who gets the job. If ‘the man’ refers to Smith, then Smith would be making a statement without any justification, since he believes that Jones will get the job. The first possibility violates the truth requirement for justified true belief, while the second case violates the justification requirement. Gettier has tried to use semantic obscurity to trick the reader into believing that justified true belief is not enough for knowledge. However, it can be seen that in this case the ‘knowledge’ was either not justified or false, and thus never constituted knowledge in the first place.

Gettier’s second example starts with Smith having strong evidence for the following proposition:

C) Jones owns a Ford.

Then we are told that Smith has a friend, Brown, whose whereabouts he does not know. Smith then selects three locations at random to construct the following propositions:

D) Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Boston;

E) Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Barcelona;

F) Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Brest-Litovsk

Propositions D, E and F are all entailed by C. Smith realizes this entailment and accepts D, E and F on the basis of C. Smith is justified in believing all of these propositions because he’s justified in thinking that Jones owns a Ford, even though he has no idea where Brown is located.

It turns out that Jones no longer drives a Ford, and by coincidence Brown is in Barcelona. In this case Smith does not know that proposition E is true, even though proposition E is true, Smith believes E is true and Smith is justified in believing E is true by having strong evidence for Jones owning a Ford.

Again, ignoring the fact that we cannot be sure Smith has adequate evidence for Jones owning a Ford (in the original paper Gettier says Jones has owned a Ford his whole life – in my opinion not much evidence at all), a serious problem arises.

This second example cannot be accepted because it contains an inherent logical flaw. Gettier uses an example in the form of ‘either a or b, not a, therefore b’. However, this form of logic can ‘prove’ an infinite number of impossibilities. For example, I have reason to believe that Brown is in Barcelona, so I say “Either cows fly or Brown is in Barcelona.” It turns out Brown is now in Amsterdam, therefore, cows fly. This is obviously impossible, thus showing that the formula can’t be used to prove anything ­– or else it could be used to prove everything! You cannot claim here to know a proposition which randomly happened to be true just because its complementary proposition which you thought was true wasn’t. This is the wrong ‘justification’. Conclusions derived using this logical sleight-of-hand cannot be considered knowledge.

One problem that it isn’t necessary to look at in order to undermine Gettier’s paper still deserves to be considered; this problem being what constitutes adequate justification. In both cases, justification for Smith comes from empirical evidence. Now, if someone has 100% (irrefutable) evidence for X and believes X is true, then that person is justified in believing X and is considered to have knowledge of X. On the other hand, if the person has 25% evidence for X and the person believes that X is true, then the person is not (adequately) justified in believing X and does not have knowledge of X. Justification depends upon evidence, and where we draw the line of when something is adequately justified based upon sufficient evidence is unclear (would 51% evidence for X be sufficient justification?). Gettier makes the assumption that the evidence presented justified Smith’s beliefs. However, Gettier makes no attempt at saying how strong the evidence is, and if we can infer anything it is that the evidence is quite weak, and it could be argued that in both cases Smith was not justified in making the statements of knowledge he made.

The problem of reference-muddling in example one and the inherent logical flaw in example two show that Gettier problems are no threat to ‘knowledge as justified true belief’. The classical definition of knowledge as justified true belief doesn’t have to be changed, and no extra premises have to be added.

© Lukasz Lozanski 2007

This is found at the following link: https://philosophynow.org/issues/63/The_Gettier_Problem_No_Longer_a_Problem

Thus, proposition B is true, Smith believes that B is true, and Smith is justified in believing B is true. — Sam26

I would not say that Smith is justified in believing B, because his reason for believing B is A, that Jones will get the job. And Jones is not getting the job so A is false. Therefore Smith's belief of B is not really justified because the supposed justification is based in a falsity.

However, it is not clear who ‘the man’ refers to here. If ‘the man’ refers to Jones then the statement is false, because Jones is not the man who gets the job. If ‘the man’ refers to Smith, then Smith would be making a statement without any justification, since he believes that Jones will get the job. — Sam26

This is what I told Banno, truth depends on the meaning of the statement, and meaning requires interpretation. If there is to be a "true interpretation" it is the one which puts the statement into the proper context, and this is what is in the mind of the speaker. If Smith is the speaker of the statement, then "the man" refers to Jones, because Smith believes that Jones is the man who will get the job.

Gettier has tried to use semantic obscurity to trick the reader into believing that justified true belief is not enough for knowledge. However, it can be seen that in this case the ‘knowledge’ was either not justified or false, and thus never constituted knowledge in the first place. — Sam26

That's exactly right, Gettier has produced ambiguity with respect to who "the man" refers to, and uses this ambiguity in his argument. The argument is really an argument from equivocation. A states univocally that Jones is "the man" who will get the job. Later, it is suggested that "the man" might be considered to refer to Smith. To allow this is to allow equivocation.

In both cases, justification for Smith comes from empirical evidence. — Sam26

But this cannot be the case in "Jones is the man who will get the job" because the job has not yet been rewarded so Smith cannot be justified by empirical evidence in this belief.

the stuff in the head is very real", is justified. — Metaphysician Undercover

The obvious problem here is that when folk chop up heads, they find grey goo. The do not find beliefs and memories and such.

That's irrelevant, logic is what justifies.

There are a variety of ways of justifying a belief, and the use of logic is only one way, i.e., it's more than just using inductive and deductive logic. This, it seems to me, is clearly seen in the many uses of the word know, or the many ways we justify a belief. First, we use sensory experience to justify a belief. For example, you might ask how I know the orange juice is sweet, and I may respond with, "I know it's sweet, because I tasted it." Second, we may have knowledge of something based on linguistic training. I know that's a cup, because that's what we mean by cup in English. Third, we can have knowledge based on testimony. In fact, much, if not most of what we know is arrived at in just this way. Fourth, pure reason or pure logic, which is another way of justifying what one believes. For example, "Either Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the U. S., or he was not the 16th president" is true due to it's logical structure, "X or not X." Fifth, as was already mentioned, we justify beliefs by inference, or in logic what's called an argument (inductive or deductive). These are just some of the ways we make claims to knowledge, there are probably more.

I call any of their feelings "beliefs" seems absurd.
— charleton

Are you saying they do not have beliefs? — Banno

Why don't you ask them?

↪charleton When one says beliefs are concepts, it sounds like some explanation has been offered.

But has it? Do you have a better notion of what a concept is that of what a belief is?

I don't think we do. Concepts are just more things-in-the-head. — Banno

If you cannot express a belief as a concept then you don't have a belief.
How could you have a belief you cannot conceive of, let alone express?
I have a Wittgenstein quote bubbling up...
Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent.

We accept certain things as part of the ground of our experience. Like chess players accepting the chess pieces and the chess board as part of that which allows the game of chess to take place. Then there are the rules that govern how we experience the game, viz., how we interact with others within the confines of the pieces, the board, and the rules. The rules are quite separate from the pieces and the board. The pieces and the board form the backdrop, or the foundation in which to apply the rules. The language of the game of chess is described or defined by the rules. A move in chess is similar to a language-game. Apart from the rules of grammar, there are rules that govern how we use words and/or statements within a social activity. Note that a linguistic activity also has a backdrop, that backdrop is the reality in which we find ourselves, viz., the world, and facts in the world (states-of-affairs).

The point is that there is a foundation for our experiences, and for our linguistic activity. One doesn't doubt the foundation of our world any more than one doubts the pieces in a chess game. Just as the game of chess is built around the pieces and the board, so too is our language built around the reality in which we have our life. There are certain fundamentals that are generally not doubted. For example, that I live on the Earth, or that I have hands, or that I am a humans amongst other humans. These things are fundamental, and allow our linguistics to thrive.

Just as the rules of chess are built on top of and around the pieces and board, so too is language built on top of our world, and the things in the world. Thus, my approach to language, and the language-game of epistemology, is that there is foundational support for any epistemology, and this foundational support is quite separate from epistemological language generally. This can be seen if we refer back to Moore's propositions, and what Wittgenstein says about these propositions. Wittgenstein attacks Moore's use of the word know in reference to Moore's claim that he knows he has hands. Wittgenstein points out that Moore's claim to know doesn't make sense in the context of Moore's claim, and Wittgenstein illustrates this by reflecting on what it would mean to doubt that one has hands in Moore's context. Wittgenstein points out that there is something fundamental, basic, or bedrock to Moore's claim that is generally outside epistemological language-games. However, the claim is that this is generally the case, because as Wittgenstein points out, there are cases where it would makes sense to doubt that this is my hand. Thus not every statement of the form "I know this is a hand," would fall into the category of being outside of our epistemological conversations.

Read OC 285, in which Wittgenstein talks about beliefs quite apart from language, i.e., it points out how our activity reflects what we believe.

285. If someone is looking for something and perhaps roots around in a certain place, he shows that he believes that what he is looking for is there.

Not especially relevant to to I was saying I think.
Such a person could vocalise what he believes to be there.

It is relevant because this is how we would know that prelinguistic man has beliefs. Beliefs aren't tied down to linguistics, they are tied down to linguistics and/or actions.