Knowing requires a justification which is a subjective interpretation. — Hanover

The term "subjective" adds nothing but unnecessary confusion. All interpretation is such. We can get it wrong. That tells us something important.

What are we interpreting? That which is already meaningful.

So, what are you saying here anyway?

What does interpretation have to do with non-linguistic belief? There are different explanations. These are all based upon interpretation. Interpretation is the attribution of meaning. If we correctly attribute meaning, the explanation is true. If we mis-attribute meaning, the explanation is not.

So what?

The question was crucial...

How do we further discriminate between competing explanations of non-linguistic creatures' belief?

I posit that a good place to start would be to examine how we do it with competing explanations of other peoples' belief. The problem, of course, is that we cannot expect Jack to correct us if we get it wrong, whereas some people are quite capable of letting us know when we get their belief wrong...

For me it's simple, and not as complicated as most people are making it. We see the actions of animals and humans, and based on these actions we can reasonably infer that they have beliefs apart from statements/propositions. When we communicate these beliefs with one another we use language, but beliefs aren't necessarily dependent on language. Beliefs are only dependent upon language if we want to communicate that belief.

Another way to put it is the following: Pain behavior is not dependent on language, but our talk of pain behavior is. Pain can be observed apart from language, and so can beliefs, both are shown in the acts of both humans and animals.

So to answer your question, "How can I claim to know...?" - I can claim to know based on observation. I don't need to know every aspect of what a belief consists of to draw this conclusion. If you want to be more precise about it that's fine, but just remember that it's not necessary to have a precise definition to be able to talk about these concepts, we do it all the time. The word belief spans a wide array of language-games, so precision, although important, may escape you.

Well said Sam. But I fear you've missed the importance of it all.

Sure, we can observe non-linguistic creatures and infer that they hold belief. If that wets your whistle enough, far be it for me to suggest otherwise.

But that is just plain utterly inadequate for any in depth discourse about that belief.

So a person's smile, a dog's growl, and a snakes rattle are all linguistic? Some might disagree, such as those who uphold that language is properly speaking the conveyance of words, be these auditory, tactile, written, or via sign-language ... So next question: what is language? — javra

Do not confuse yourself.

When one communicates, it is done intentionally. It requires shared meaning. Shared meaning is language.

All communication requires shared meaning.
All shared meaning is language.
All communication requires language.

What part are you both denying and prepared to validly argue against? More importantly, what does this have to do with belief?

I'm going to indulge in labeling for once and call this empiricism. Would you be cool with that?

What puzzles me a little though is that you want to call those foundational phenomenal experiences beliefs. How do you see the connection between sense experience and belief?

I'm currently thinking about my belief that I live in the state of Georgia. We'll call this Phenomenal State 1.

I'm sitting around eating popcorn and watching cartoons, not thinking about where I live. We'll call this Phenomenal State 2.

Do I believe that I live in Georgia while in State 2? Sure, I guess, only because I have the same reasons to believe it when I'm thinking about it even when I'm not, but State 1 is different from State 2. — Hanover

So then belief is not a phenomenal state.

You can have all the phenomenal states you like. I'm pointing out that if they are private, then they are irrelevant; and if they are public, they are just the everyday stuff we already talk about - colours and beliefs and such.

How do you see the connection between sense experience and belief? — Srap Tasmaner

A taste...

All examples of belief consist, in part at least, of sense perception(physiological sensory perception).
Not all examples of sense perception include belief.
Sense perception is not existentially dependent upon belief.
Belief is existentially dependent upon sense perception.
Sense perception is a necessary elemental constituent of all belief.

What more is there to understanding another creature's belief and behaviour(assuming it is thought and/or belief driven) if not drawing the same correlations; making the same connections; associating between the same things as the creature???

What more is there to understanding meaning if not drawing the same correlations; making the same connections; associating between the same things as the other creature???

Witt says "Look!".

In looking we draw one connection(a block). In hearing the word "block" spoken aloud, yet another.

It's not that difficult for one to draw a mental correlation between the two.

My cat does the same thing with certain sounds of certain plastics and getting treats.

Do not confuse yourself.

When one communicates, it is done intentionally. It requires shared meaning. Shared meaning is language.

All communication requires shared meaning.
All shared meaning is language.
All communication requires language. — creativesoul

When animals express themselves—such as a rattlesnake’s rattle—they do so without intention? If someone answers yes, a large bias is showing—if only in terms of the evolution of the CNS/brain and its associated behaviors. I’ll leave the philosophy of mind component out of this. But I’d be interested to hear of the argument for animals behaving unintentionally, if there is one that doesn’t by its own standards then equally apply to other humans.

The bear to which the rattlesnake rattles does not share the meaning of what the rattle signifies with the snake? Takes a philosopher to argue that there is no shared meaning between the two, typically via the argument of “if I cannot explain it in my own terms then it must not exist even though all empirical indications present it as so”. The bear would be dead otherwise—leading to only those animals being alive that can share the meaning with the snake. That stated, the bear can understand the snake's intentions just as well as the snake in this one regard, and the snake can understand the bear’s intention (to attack or to leave it alone) just as well as the bear. This is a shared meaning between species.

So we answer “no” to both these questions: animals behave intentionally and animals can share meaning across species via their behaviors. Given this:

Therefore, the rattlesnake’s rattle is linguistic???

Personally, I’m OK with all information (of which sentient beings are in any way informed) being conceived of as language in a very broad and poetic sense, as in the Ancient Greek concept of Heraclitian Logos, but even I acknowledge that so upholding is not in keeping with common standards.

Have a look at communication (exchanging information between entities; this definition coming right after that of things such as the communication of smallpox) and language (words and ways of combining them) ... granting that there is significant overlap in subsequent definitions, notably in definitions 4-8 of "language".

More importantly, what does this have to do with belief? — creativesoul

Well, I was replying to a “WTF???” comment made by you know who in relation to what I intended by the term “state-able”.

That being said, this issue of language and communication might well have significant implications on what propositions are. A dog’s and a cat’s moving of the tail hold different meanings (at minimum to dogs, to cats, and to humans); are their tail movements conveying different propositions held by each animal type when so moving their tails? Were the behaviors linguistic, the answer would seem to be a necessary "yes". Were the behaviors only communicational, it would remain an open-ended issue contingent on how one first defines propositions.

Poisoning the well as an opening doesn't warrant further consideration...

Throwing a bunch of shit against the wall makes a mess. Clean up your thought and get back to me with something short, sweet, valid, and true.

It is worth noting that javra and I may get into exactly what I alluded to being the first step in determining how we further discriminate between competing explanations for non-linguistic belief.

Notice all of the question marks in javra's reply to me above. Those aren't questions regarding what I've claimed. I am being reminded of Plato's 'dialogues'.

Notice as well that the argument wasn't addressed.

Doing a Nietzsche thing by saying something intended for no one and everyone: even if politely replied to, a series of ambiguous declarations assumed to be sound without justification or clarification does not an argument make. Or else we speak different language games, and I’m not interested in playing. Enjoy.

But that is just plain utterly inadequate for any in depth discourse about that belief. — creativesoul

It's not inadequate, inadequate to whom? And what is inadequate here? You seem to want to get to the essence of the belief. Here's how I see what we're talking about: Let's again use Wittgenstein's example of a game. I'm looking at baseball, chess, patience, monopoly, children playing catch, etc., as examples of games, which is the same as looking at people and animals doing a variety of things apart from language that are examples of beliefs. One can say, but there's much more to the game than these examples, the intentions of people, the correlations being made, the poor gamesmanship, the coach, but, I don't need to know all of this to properly use the word game. It seems to me that you are over-analyzing the word as if you're trying to find some precise definition that gives the word belief some final meaning, or some meaning that is special to your idea of belief. It doesn't exist. You also seem to be making the mistake that Wittgenstein said was one of the cardinal problems of philosophical analysis (viz., definitions and theories), i.e., that there is some final analysis that explains these concepts, but that's like looking at a family and thinking that there's some final analysis that will explain the many family resemblances there are between family members.

So your response that my use of the word belief is inadequate as I use it to say this or that example IS an example of a belief, is like saying that the word game is inadequate as I use it to say this or that IS an example of a game. Moreover, even your use of the word inadequate is improper. All you're saying is that it's inadequate to you. Can I use the word chair, without completely analyzing what the chair is composed of, or what examples of things we sit on are really examples of chairs? And how is the statement "That's a chair," as simplistic in it's use as it is, inadequate? It's not. The same is true of my contentions about beliefs.

As Wittgenstein pointed out in PI 66, "And the result of this examination is: we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail." And in PI 67, "But if someone wished to say: 'There is something common to all these constructions - I should reply: Now you are only playing with words. One might as well say: 'Something runs through the whole thread - namely the continuous overlapping of those fibers'.

I'm pointing out that if they are private, then they are irrelevant; — Banno

I don't think Hanover meant his mental states can't in principle be communicated. It's hard to argue that there can be belief without some accompanying mental state. Its the object of belief: the proposition that is the same across believers, not the experience of believing.

It's hard to argue that there can be belief without some accompanying mental state. Its the object of belief: the proposition that is the same across believers, not the experience of believing. — frank

I wouldn't deny that there is mental activity going on in all language users, what I would deny is that how we use words in language, and the associated rules of use, is done in the open (socially); and there is nothing in your head, i.e., any mental activity that's going to give the word it's meaning other than how we use it in different statements. Correct usage is not mental, but linguistic, so as you express what's going on in your mind, it's governed by the correct usage of words within a rule governed activity.

Think of playing a game of chess, you think about the moves in your head, but what governs those moves (brings them into the open) is not some internal mental activity, but the rules of chess as it's played with others. What's going on in the head is governed by rules so that we can share our private mental activity. Without language, and the rules of use, you wouldn't be able to share your thoughts. So language has a use quite separate from what's going on in the mind/brain, there is nothing in the head, that gives meaning to the words you use. You simply use language to get the mental activity out in the open.

A bit wordy, but I think you get the idea.

Well put. I want to draw attention to the verb to believe. It's an action along the lines of endorsement. The believer is saying: "This is true. This is real."

The this portion is a proposition. A proposition contains that special verb to be.

What we have is logical or honorific actions that are no doubt bounded by linguistic rules, but are not strictly linguistic objects.

Maybe i can say that more clearly later.

What puzzles me a little though is that you want to call those foundational phenomenal experiences beliefs. How do you see the connection between sense experience and belief? — Srap Tasmaner

Your attempt here is to catagorize qualia, and I'm just resistent to it because it's not how the internal state works. I don't just experience a bird as a single raw image, devoid of beliefs, ideas, anxiety about work, hunger from not having breakfast, etc. A phenomenal qualitative state is an entire experience presenting however it does. It's my internal state at a given time.

The this portion is a proposition. A proposition contains that special verb to be. — frank

I'm not sure what your background is, but when philosophers use the term proposition, they're referring to a particular kind of statement, viz., one that can be said to be true or false. You seem to be using this term differently.

I'm a totally amateur philosopher. Tumbleweed education (wherever I drift).

A proposition is a statement (unless we're operating with Austin's altered wording). The same statement can be expressed by multiple sentences and diverse utterances, demonstating that a statement is not identical to any particular sentence or utterance. Its something else.

The following is something I want to put in my thread A Wittgenstein Commentary, but it has important implications for what's being said here too.

In PI 304 Wittgenstein replies to the following: "But you will surely admit that there is a difference between pain-behaviour accompanied by pain and pain-behaviour without any pain" - Admit it? What greater difference could there be? "And yet you again and again reach the conclusion that the sensation itself is nothing." Here is Wittgenstein's response that I think is important - he continues with..."Not at all. It is not a something, but not a nothing either! The conclusion was only that a nothing would serve just as well as a something about which nothing could be said. We have only rejected the grammar which tries to force itself on us here.

"The paradox disappears only if we make a radical break with the idea that language always functions in one way, always serves the same purpose to convey thoughts - which may be about houses, pains, good and evil, or anything else you please."

Note that Wittgenstein does not deny the mental goings on, but denies how our grammar forces us to think about the mental goings on, in the same way as thinking the word chair applies to the object we are pointing at. It's not the same, but the grammar fools us into thinking it is.

The use of the word statement is much broader in scope than the use of the word proposition. A statement can be a proposition, for example, "The earth has one moon," is a statement, but it's also a proposition, in that the statement/proposition can be said to be true or false. However, statements also include the following, which are not propositions.

A command: Stand there!
A question: What is that?

These are statements, but not propositions.

Just a note: Questions aren't statements or propositions. This was an error.

You can have all the phenomenal states you like. I'm pointing out that if they are private, then they are irrelevant; and if they are public, they are just the everyday stuff we already talk about - colours and beliefs and such. — Banno

But here you're agreeing with me, so either you've shifted or we've talked past each other. A claim of irrelevance simply claims that the issue is unimportant for your purposes. If you're trying to figure out what words mean to someone other than yourself, you are necessarily limited to observing how they are used, considering we all concede that you aren't capable of reading the internal workings of my mind. This is just a basic behavioristic claim, claiming that you cannot bother with reading minds, but none of this is suggestive that the phenomenal state is not what gives rise to my behavior and that my beliefs are not mental furniture, as you say.

It seems you're saying (and I might be reinterpreting you to make you comport to my views, so please do correct me if I'm misstating) all that you know of my belief is what you see, so you wish to label that "belief" for your purposes, and the fact that I know my belief to encompass far more than what you see and what you've labeled is irrelevant to you because there's nothing you can do with what you're unable to see.

And so what have we now? I have this internal belief with all its uncommunicated elements that I shall call X and you have these observations of my beliefs you shall call Y, and yet we both run in circles calling them both "beliefs"? I can only say that X <> Y, that X causes Y, and that Y is a limited and very rough estimate of X. But to the extent your linguistic science must disregard as irrelevant that which cannot be publically seen and measured, fine.

I can have all the phenomenal states I like, and you can measure all the events you like.

The following gets to the point I'm making Banno...

"'But you surely cannot deny that, for example, in remembering, an inner process takes place.' - What gives the impression that we want to deny anything [important point]? When one says 'Still, an inner process does take place here' - one want to go on: 'After all, you see it.' And it is this inner process that one means by the word 'remembering'. - The impression that we wanted to deny something arises from our setting our faces against the picture of the 'inner process'. What we deny is that the picture of the inner process gives us the correct idea of the use of the word "to remember". We say that this picture with its ramifications stands in the way of our seeing the use of the word as it is (PI 305).'"

So the point again is not that there is no inner process, is that the use of words are not objects in the mind. As Banno likes to say, "They're not mental furniture."

Also keep in mind the Tractatus, which associated words with things or objects, and here Wittgenstein is showing us that it's not the case, especially in reference to the mental.

A command: Stand there!
A question: What is that?

These are statements, but not propositions. — Sam26

A statement can be defined as a declarative sentence, or part of a sentence, that is capable of having a truth-value, — IEP on propositional logic

You just have to make sure you know how the words are being used. I think the closer you get to the roots of AP the more "statement" is used in a mathematical way.

Were you concerned about the way I was using "proposition"?

A statement can be defined as a declarative sentence, or part of a sentence, that is capable of having a truth-value, — IEP on propositional logic

Yes, that's another way to word it.

The this portion is a proposition. A proposition contains that special verb to be. — frank

Ya, this seemed inaccurate to me.

,That's another way to word it. — Sam26

Not to put too fine a point on it, but no, a command is not a statement under this definition of "statement." The IEP did not provide alterative wording to what you said, it directly conflicts. As I said, you have to pay attention to what a particular author means by "statement."

For reasons related to an attitude you recently expressed, I'd like you to acknowledge that.

, this seemed inaccurate to me. — Sam26

I was trying to express something about propositions as they relate to belief. You can have various verbs in an eternal sentence, but the fact that it's declarative seems to me to draw in the issue of existence.

I don't just experience a bird as a single raw image, devoid of beliefs, ideas, anxiety about work, hunger from not having breakfast, etc. A phenomenal qualitative state is an entire experience presenting however it does. It's my internal state at a given time. — Hanover

Sure, but here you're not saying the phenomenal state is the belief, or that having a certain belief means being in or having been in a certain phenomenal state.

Taking a step back here: phenomenal states are complex and fleeting; beliefs on the other hand can be simple and persistent. They don't look like the same sort of thing, do they? It's one thing to say that our phenomenal experience is generally accompanied by beliefs, but quite another to say our beliefs are those experiences.

Taking a step back here: phenomenal states are complex and fleeting; beliefs on the other hand can be simple and persistent. They don't look like the same sort of thing, do they? It's one thing to say that our phenomenal experience is generally accompanied by beliefs, but quite another to say our beliefs are those experiences. — Srap Tasmaner

A belief is an experience and I suppose there are differing sorts of experiences. Me seeing the computer screen before me is one, but it is accompanied by all sorts of beliefs, some not even articulated but just as much a part of the present experience as anything else. If attempting to replicate this exact phenomenal state I'm having this exact second in five years from now, I would need to be sure that my current worldview, opinions, and beliefs were duplicated without change in five years so that my experience at T-1 and T-1 plus five years was the same.

I'm just not following the need to create categories within the phenomenal state, with some being more vivid and others more vague, others being fleeting and others being constant. I could say the same of physical objects: smoke floats off into the sky and the rock of Gibraltar doesn't. They don't seem like the same sort of thing, and I guess they're not at a superficial level, but metaphysically they are both physical objects.