Yes, the "justified" would seem to be relevant only to the context in which justification can be given, which would obviously not be the context of pre-linguistic believing. In that latter context not only can a justification for what is believed not be given, the believing cannot even be stated as a definite belief.

↪creativesoul Obviously I agree since I presented pretty much the same critique in the other thread (copied and pasted here in my first comment in this thread). — Janus

To be sure...

Are we agreeing that the thinking/believing creature cannot state it's own thought/belief?

Are we agreeing that the thought/belief of a pre-linguistic creature cannot be in propositional form?

Are we agreeing that the content of pre-linguistic thought/belief cannot have propositional content(it cannot consist of propositions)?

It may not always or even often happen that we agree, but does it follow that when we do there must be something wrong? :joke: — Janus

Nah. There's much to be gleaned here. Nothing wrong with that!

Obviously I agree since I presented pretty much the same critique in the other thread (copied and pasted here in my first comment in this thread). — Janus

The same target. The critiques differ in their sharpness.

the believing cannot even be stated as a definite belief. — Janus

Could you re-phrase this? What is the referent of "the believing"? The process of thought/belief formation? The 'act' of thought/belief formation? The behaviour driven by that?


I would say that we can definitely state what the content of pre-linguistic thought/belief is. It takes the strongest of justificatory ground in order to convince the reasonable skeptic, but it can be done, regardless of whether or not everyone is capable of being convinced by such ground.

There are flat-earthers after-all. We need not convince everyone. Right?

Do we still agree?

:meh:

1.Are we agreeing that the thinking/believing creature cannot state it's own thought/belief?

2.Are we agreeing that the thought/belief of a pre-linguistic creature cannot be in propositional form?

3.Are we agreeing that the content of pre-linguistic thought/belief cannot have propositional content(it cannot consist of propositions)? — creativesoul

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Yes and no. "No" because I am not comfortable with speaking about "content" of "pre-linguistic thought/ belief". I would instead speak about 'the process of pre-linguistic believing' or something along those lines.

Could you re-phrase this? What is the referent of "the believing"? The process of thought/belief formation? The 'act' of thought/belief formation?

We can definitely state what the content of pre-linguistic thought/belief is.

Do we still agree? — creativesoul

As above, for me the referent of "the believing" would be the process or act of believing. I don't feel comfortable with referring to believing in that context as "thought/ belief formation". It may not be problematic, but I think it could be misleading, and I think "believing" is a perfectly sufficient term in any case, and that using a different term when referring to pre-linguistic contexts may help to avoid anthropomorphization and any confusion that might ensue from that. In other words I don't see any advantage, and perhaps no inevitable disadvantage, but I do see possible disadvantages, to be had in referring to the act of believing as an act of "belief formation" when speaking about a pre-linguistic context.

In any case, we've been over this before, perhaps a few times now, I think.

...I am not comfortable with speaking about "content" of "pre-linguistic thought/ belief". I would instead speak about 'the process of pre-linguistic believing' or something along those lines. — Janus

What else could differentiate pre-linguistic believing from post-linguistic believing if not the content?

Sometimes being uncomfortable is not a bad thing.

...we've been over this before, perhaps a few times now, I think. — Janus

Well, we get to here. I do not remember our ever having finished hashing it out.

The caution against anthropomorphism is already well considered.

In other words I don't see any advantage, and perhaps no inevitable disadvantage, but I do see possible disadvantages, to be had in referring to the act of believing as an act of "belief formation" when speaking about a pre-linguistic context. — Janus

Some descriptions of believing can only be had by a creature capable of metacognition(Gettier's cases). That is drawing correlations between past and present considerations(thought/belief). Others can only be had by creatures with pre-reflective thought/belief fostered by language use(believing in Santa Claus). That sort of believing consists of meaningful correlations drawn between Santa and all sorts of other stuff, depending upon the thinking/believing creature under our consideration.

Pre-linguistic believing can only be had by a creature capable of drawing correlations between different things. All of the content of pre and/or non-linguistic thought/belief is directly perceptible.

Perhaps things look a bit differently now?

What else could differentiate pre-linguistic believing from post-linguistic believing if not the content? — creativesoul

The fact that the latter has determinate content, insofar as it can be expressed verbally.

TBH I'd rather dispense with belief/ believing and stick to thought/ thinking, particularly when trying to address pre-linguistic scenarios.

The problem with the term 'belief' and 'believe', even in the linguistic context, is that they seem to carry a kind of extra baggage that 'thought' and 'think' do not. I can't see any logical difference between 'I think X is the case' and 'I believe X is the case'.

But there could be a difference between thinking X and believing X, so the former seems to somehow carry extra weight, and although I don't think that impression of extra weight is really based on anything substantive; there just seems to be a quality of extra commitment associated with the term 'believe'. So, particularly when referring to animals who I don't think are committed to any of their thinking beyond their mere act or process of thinking, it seems even more problematic.

So maybe knowledge (in the propositional) sense could be said to be JTT: justified true thought. :grin:

Pre-linguistic believing can only be had by a creature capable of drawing a correlations between different things. — creativesoul

See, again here I'd rather just say "a creature capable of associating different things" because the association may be (I'd venture to say probably is) in terms of visual, audial or motor "imagery", so the term "drawing correlations" seems too linguistically oriented to me. But of course there's no absolute right or wrong about this, it's really just a matter of preferred locution. The association of different things in the animal mind or brain may be nothing more than a neural one for all we know.

What else could differentiate pre-linguistic believing from post-linguistic believing if not the content?
— creativesoul

The fact that the latter has determinate content, insofar as it can be expressed verbally. — Janus

The determinant content of thought/belief that is prelinguistic cannot be propositional. Nevertheless, the content of all thought/belief can be expressed verbally, just not always by the thinking/believing creature. We are more than capable of taking proper account of that much. We can know what pre-linguistic thought/belief consists of by virtue of knowing what linguistic thought/belief consists of and taking it from there.

It must be meaningful to the creature in question, and it must somehow be capable of presupposing it's own truth somewhere along the line.

This is all perfectly satisfied without any unwanted anthropomorphism.

Mental correlations(associations works fine too) drawn between different things.

It's the content of the correlation/association that matters most here.

The association of different things in the animal mind or brain may be nothing more than a neural one for all we know. — Janus

If it's true for our earliest stages...

I really must away so I'll have to leave it until tomorrow, creative. :smile:

Indeed!

We'll pick up later.

Be well.

I don't think this is right; there may be justified false beliefs, — Janus

Of course. And that will always be the case. That's how we work in science. This is what the evidence suggests. Nothing seems to contradict it. It fits with our models. Other scientists receive the same results. So we add X to our body of scientific knowledge. But there is the chance that later it will turn ou to be false. I am not saying we should not use the word true. But if adding the word true means that it can never ever turn out to be false, who are we to say that?

Another example: the ancient's belief that the Earth is flat could be counted as a justified false belief. There would be countless examples of justified false belief. — Janus

Of course. And any of our current beliefs may turn out to be false. That's why in the JTB formulation, I think it is irrational to use the word true. Not in other contexts, but because the addition of the word true implies that we know, somehow, beyond our justification.

And yet there are justified false beliefs. — creativesoul

Sure, see my post above to Janus.

I don't understand this at all. What in the world does "access to truth" mean?

We can look to see if a cup is on the table. That's access enough, right? — creativesoul

Sure, in a naive realism. Not if this is a simulation or you are in a coma dreaming. And look I am not arguing that we can never take something as knowledge. I am saying that if we have criteria for knowledge and the first one is justification...

You justify your belief that the cup is on the table - explain your realism, good vision, ability to distinguish cups from other things, cite other witnesses.....

There's your justification.

There is no other process you go through where you now decide if it is true. Those things that justify your belief also make you think it is true.

We do not examine your belief in the cup first to see if it is justified, then to see if it is true.

In the specific case of saying we are going to base knowledge on these criteria

is it justified
is it true

we have no extra process to test the latter. Whatever process that is is included in the former.

That's access enough, right?

And let's look at this again. When I read this question it is as if I am saying y ou cannot consider the cup being on the table to be the truth. Like I am a radical skeptic.

No.

What I am saying is that when we determine what is knowledge and we start with justification (which is the first adjective) we investigate the justification for the belief
and this will include ALL the reasons why we believe something.

There are no other things we check to see if it is true, after we checked to see if it was justified.

I don't doubt your abilities to identify cups, nor am I raising brain in a vat scenarios. I am looking at what we do when we decide something and we don't have two criteria we check off. We have the justification one.

I am happy to say this or that is true. I am talking about using jtb and I think it is silly to have two criteria, as if we check one and then the other. It is nto what we do when creating communal beliefs or knowledge. It is not what scientists do, for example.

And yet there are justified false beliefs. Paradigm shift happens by virtue of peeling them away from conventional certainty. Copernican revolution. Einstein's On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies and General Relativity are exactly such cases which show that what were justified beliefs held to be true were not true, but were justified nonetheless. — creativesoul

And those who believed them would have said they were true. And any belief we have now that we consider extremely well justified in science may turn out to be false. In fact that is an foundational idea in science. So this would mean we could never consider anything knowledge ni science since consensus science now might turn out to be incorrect on issue X. So that would mean we could never use the t, since it might get revised. I don't think that's a useful model for knowledge. Unless you are saying that we know forever that General Relativity be found the be lacking as much as Newton's was. And then, how do you know that?

That's the false belief. But there’s also the true belief that Mary is married to a postman. — Michael

You don't have a true belief that Mary is "married to a postman, any postman." Your belief is that she's married to the postman who happens to be you. In your mind, "postman" stands for "me." It doesn't stand for any arbitrary person with that title.

I have a false belief (that you know that I slept with your wife) that justifies a true belief (that you will punch me). And in the same way I have a false belief (that Mary is married to me) that justifies a true belief (that Mary is married to a postman). — Michael

That's similar in that you only believe that he will punch you because of a particular reason. You don't actually believe that he'll punch you for some arbitrary reason, whatever it might be. It's wrong to characterize it as a belief that he'll punch you <isolated>/divorced from why you believe that he'll punch you. Because that's not actually a belief that you have.

That's why these sorts of examples don't work. They mischaracterize how belief works.

Nevertheless, the content of all thought/belief can be expressed verbally, just not always by the thinking/believing creature. We are more than capable of taking proper account of that much. We can know what pre-linguistic thought/belief consists of by virtue of knowing what linguistic thought/belief consists of and taking it from there. — creativesoul

I don't share your confidence about this. We can impute, from the standpoint inherent to our linguistically based reasoning, particular thoughts or beliefs to animals and pre-linguistic humans, but it will always remain a projection that cannot capture the reality of animal experience. In other words I think the nature of animal experience and even of our own experience prior to linguistic mediation is indeterminate; we can gesture at it, but that is about all.

Of course. And that will always be the case. That's how we work in science. This is what the evidence suggests. Nothing seems to contradict it. It fits with our models. Other scientists receive the same results. So we add X to our body of scientific knowledge. But there is the chance that later it will turn ou to be false. I am not saying we should not use the word true. But if adding the word true means that it can never ever turn out to be false, who are we to say that? — Coben

OK, but the point for me is not that we can know, with any absolute certainty, that our beliefs are true in any absolute sense; but rather to unpack the logic that is inherent in the ways we think and speak about truth. So, past false beliefs may have seemed at the time to be justified true beliefs, but if they were indeed false, then they were false then, just as they are false now. (Of course truth and falsity for us is always going to be contextual, not absolute, so for example to say that the Earth is flat or that the Sun traverses the Earth may be true in a restricted context relative to the initial untutored human perception of the world, but false in other contexts).

So, we can know, within suitably circumscribed contexts, whether a belief is true or false. For example it certainly seems vanishingly unlikely that the justified belief that the Earth is roughly spherical will ever turn out to be false. But when it comes to truth considered as absolute, then we can say that what we consider to be justified true beliefs may or may not be so, but that we can never know with certainty.

I think it's also worth considering that the pragmatist (Peircean) conception of truth which is something like "What the community of inquirers will come to believe when there is no longer any reasonable doubt" is also perfectly compatible with the JTB model. The point of this thread though, which I agree with, is that Gettier objections are facile and hence toothless insofar as they trade on a de-natured model of belief.

You're all over the place. There's one basic disagreement between us that is worth discussing here, because it's what piqued my interest regarding what you wrote. You claim that the truth criterion is redundant when regarding JTB. You further state and imply that there's nothing more about the "true" aspect of JTB than what we have regarding the justification aspect.

I'm saying - flat out - you are mistaken.

The ground for my saying that is that justification is inadequate for truth. If the aspect of being true were redundant regarding JTB, then there could be no such thing as justified false belief. But there is. The reason that there is and that there can be is quite clear. They are two different criteria.

I understand that science keeps our own fallibility in mind, and in doing so allows for the possibility of future evidence/observation to displace current convention. That's irrelevant here. Science is based upon truth as correspondence. That is precisely what verification/falsification techniques are looking for.

It took a few years to verify General Relativity. They looked at a particular area of space for a particular celestial body during a particular set of circumstances and they saw exactly what Einstein's equations predicted would be seen.

Einstein's predictions corresponded to what happened/what was happening. They became true.

His justification was in the paper.

A justified belief is not equivalent to a true one.

Wow, I actually agree with what you are saying here. Or rather what you are saying is a reiteration in different words of what @creativesoul and I have been saying. But, in any case, it's a marvel: agreement nonetheless!

I'd be interested to know if there are any academic papers presenting the same devastating critique of Gettier that the three of us here apparently agree upon, and if not, why not?

TBH I'd rather dispense with belief/ believing and stick to thought/ thinking, particularly when trying to address pre-linguistic scenarios.

The problem with the term 'belief' and 'believe', even in the linguistic context, is that they seem to carry a kind of extra baggage that 'thought' and 'think' do not. I can't see any logical difference between 'I think X is the case' and 'I believe X is the case'.

But there could be a difference between thinking X and believing X, so the former seems to somehow carry extra weight, and although I don't think that impression of extra weight is really based on anything substantive; there just seems to be a quality of extra commitment associated with the term 'believe'... — Janus

You know Janus, I've given you more flack over the above considerations than anyone deserves. I mean, without question I am the one in the minority here. So, I want to give this the attention that it deserves... that you deserve, especially given the steady improvement of our dialogue.

You are absolutely within the bounds of good reason(valid critique) to point out that there is a remarkable difference between some thought and belief, and some use of the terms. Kudos. You've worded the above well. There is an additional/extra sense of commitment(certainty?) typically associated with the terms "believe", "believing", and "belief" that is not always associated with the term "think", "thinking", and "thought". This is easy enough to understand. I mean, one can follow a train a thought to it's conclusion without believing any particular statement within it. However, one cannot follow the same train of thought to it's conclusion without thinking.

So...

This is actually a good time to draw and maintain this distinction between thought and belief, because it helps to situate different complexity levels of thought/belief along the evolutionary timeline. That distinction between thought and belief requires creatures with an ability to take account of their own thought/belief. That ability is facilitated by complex language use.

However, surely you can now better understand that that difference only matters when we're reporting upon creatures who have the ability to suspend their own judgment during complex metacognitive considerations. Aside from that, there is no difference to be had. Even that difference dissolves at the basic level of correlations.

That said, the focus is on pre-linguistic thought/belief(thinking/believing is acceptable too), and here at this very early stage, there is no ability to either doubt or suspend judgment, and thus there is no difference between thought/belief.

I agree that our dialogue has been steadily improving; which is a good thing. And I have begun to enjoy our conversations, and to learn and sharpen my thinking from participating in them.

I also agree with pretty much everything you say above, and it is the very fact that, as you point out, thinking and believing would not seem to be distinguishable in the case of animals that leads me to want to talk for the sake of parsimony, in that context, only about thinking.

As you say, and as I have also suggested, it is in the light of the logical difference that obtains between merely thinking and actively believing some proposition that the distinction between thinking and believing, between thought and belief, becomes necessary.

I agree that our dialogue has been steadily improving; which is a good thing. And I have begun to enjoy our conversations, and to learn and sharpen my thinking from participating in them.

I also agree with pretty much everything you say above, and it is the very fact that, as you point out, thinking and believing would not seem to be distinguishable in the case of animals that leads me to want to talk for the sake of parsimony, in that context, only about thinking. — Janus

And yet, as we agree, belief has that something extra, that additional commitment that thinking doesn't have. Could it be that our metacognitive accounts merely caught up with and began to account for rudimentary thought/belief? If thinking is drawing correlations, and it is, and believing is that and more, then when Pavlov's dog drew correlations/associations between the sound of the bell and eating, it was thinking. However, the involuntary salivation shows us that the aforementioned 'something more' that we typically associate with belief but not always with thinking is had by the dog!

Expectation.

The dog believed that he was going to be fed after hearing the bell. The dog's thought/belief consisted entirely of correlations drawn between the sound of the bell and eating.

As you say, and as I have also suggested, it is in the light of the logical difference that obtains between merely thinking and actively believing some proposition that the distinction between thinking and believing, between thought and belief, becomes necessary.

Indeed. This must be kept in mind throughout, ad rightfully applied when the context demands.

Wow, I actually agree with what you are saying here. Or rather what you are saying is a reiteration in different words of what creativesoul and I have been saying. But, in any case, it's a marvel: agreement nonetheless!

I'd be interested to know if there are any academic papers presenting the same devastating critique of Gettier that the three of us here apparently agree upon, and if not, why not? — Janus

None that I'm aware of.

Typically, convention conflates propositions and belief, and has for centuries. I blame it on the church. The vestiges thereof remain in conventional notions of thought/belief. Philosophy proper has not gotten up to evolutionary speed regarding thought/belief. There are more reasons for that aside from the church.

All this talk about "consciousness" and "experience" doesn't help either... but it sells!

However, the involuntary salivation shows us that aforementioned something more that we typically associate with belief but not always with thinking...

Expectation.

The dog believed that he was going to be fed after hearing the bell. — creativesoul

Interesting! That seems to raise a question: if at the non-linguistic cognitive level of the dog there is no distinction between thinking and believing, such that we would not say that the dog could be thinking an association between the sound of the bell and eating with no expectation, then would it not be sufficient to say that the mere association inevitably produces the expectation?

It's lateish at night where you are I think, but here its 2 PM, and unfortunately I have to go and do some things, but I'll be back tomorrow.

Perhaps. But that would obligate us to admit that all correlation/association inevitably 'produces expectation'. I do not think it does... pace the difference between thinking and believing on the agreed upon metacognitive level.

It offers support to the notion that thought/belief begins simply and grows in it's complexity. Doubting and suspending one's judgment are kinds of thought/belief that are more complex, as they have as their own subject matter... pre-existing thought/belief.

However, the involuntary salivation shows us that aforementioned something more that we typically associate with belief but not always with thinking...

Expectation.

The dog believed that he was going to be fed after hearing the bell.
— creativesoul

Interesting! — Janus

I thought you may find that interesting. It's reminiscent of Hume. He struggled with belief, by his own admission. He did mention expectation. I won't offer my usual critique of his mistake(s).

:wink: