There are two kinds of belief. Linguistic and non linguistic.
— creativesoul
Perhaps you would be better served to simply say 'those which are expressed linguistically and those which are not". — Janus

Nah. There are no non linguistic beliefs that are expressed linguistically. So, the suggestion ends up focusing upon only linguistic beliefs... those uttered and those not. That is of no help here.

Care to set out these basic ideas? I'm unsure what you're talking about. — creativesoul

I recently read The Social Construction of Reality, which is summarized:

Their central concept is that people and groups interacting in a social system create, over time, concepts or mental representations of each other's actions, and that these concepts eventually become habituated into reciprocal roles played by the actors in relation to each other. When these roles are made available to other members of society to enter into and play out, the reciprocal interactions are said to be institutionalized. In the process, meaning is embedded in society. Knowledge and people's conceptions (and beliefs) of what reality is become embedded in the institutional fabric of society. Reality is therefore said to be socially constructed. — Wiki

It doesn't matter if we call it 'culture' or 'spirit' or 'form of life' or an 'understanding of being.' It's the patterns in our doings that make us intelligible to ourselves and to one another, simultaneously.

For both Heidegger and Wittgenstein, then, the source of the intelligibility of the world is the average daily practices through which alone there can be any understanding at all. — Dreyfus

As I read this, we co-enact the world. The tribe and its conventions (including language) is the condition of possibility for the individual thinker.

There are various passages in Hegel on this theme. Here's one.

The very essence of spirit is action. It makes itself what it essentially is; it is its own product, its own work. Thus it becomes object of itself, thus it is presented to itself as an external existence. Likewise the spirit of a people: it is a definite spirit which builds itself up to an objective world. This world, then, stands and continues in its religion, its cult, its customs, its constitution and political laws, the whole scope of its institutions, its events and deeds. This is its work: this one people! Peoples are what their deeds are. Every Englishman will say, we are the ones who navigate the ocean and dominate world commerce, who own East India and its wealth, who have a parliament, juries, and so on. The function of the individual is to appropriate to himself this substantial being, make it part of his character and capacity, and thus to become something in the world. For he finds the existence of the people as a ready-made, stable world, into which he must fit himself. The spirit of the people, then, enjoys and satisfies itself in its work, in its world. — Hegel

To me this 'substantial being' is whatever strange kind of being we want to attribute to 'the social.' I think we agree that 'mental' is misleading, given how embodied and externalized culture has to be, as a social phenomenon. The temptation is to obsess over the brain and the sense organs and ignore that this obsession takes place in a code that is not biologically local. The 'space of reasons' has a certain 'virtuality' which tempts us to speak of ghosts in the machine.

Feuerbach wrote in his dissertation that thinking is not an activity performed by the individual, but rather by “the species” acting through the individual. “In thinking”, Feuerbach wrote, “I am bound together with, or rather, I am one with—indeed, I myself am—all human beings.”

That's somewhat optimistic, in that it assumes a singular form of life, but the point that even thinking itself is not (in an important and neglected sense) an individual achievement seems crucial here. Not I, but Christ my inherited culture's patterns through me. Noteworthy individuality is difficult, rare, and allows for the slow drift of a form of life.

Well, yes, in the end it is presumably something physical...

But how, that remains an unknown.

For me, the 'relation' that houses are bigger than apples is in my brain — Isaac

Isn't it also "in" the house and the apple? The size relation between apples and houses makes no sense without apples and houses.

I'm more incline to embodied cognition...

Indeed, I'd be incline to look even further afield, to seeing cognition as embedded in the world; after all, language is best seen as being so embedded.

But I suspect you have less realist, more idealist sympathies.

Something is off here... — creativesoul

I see a difference in scope. Understanding that the floor is solid is straight forward. Understand that "The floor is solid" is true requires that one refer to the proposition that the floor is solid; it's a reflexive use of language, and not something a cat is able to do. Much the same as that the cat can understand that its human will feed it, but not that its human will feed it next Tuesday.

I recently read The Social Construction of Reality... — path

A text to be treated with great caution.

Reality tends to delineate what we can and cannot construct, despite our best efforts.

Nah. There are no non linguistic beliefs that are expressed linguistically. So, the suggestion ends up focusing upon only linguistic beliefs... those uttered and those not. That is of no help here. — creativesoul

That's right; there are obviously no non-linguistic beliefs which are expressed; you have simply uttered a tautology that tells us nothing. The only purported beliefs we can "focus on" are those which are somehow manifested; either by utterances or actions. Not all of those are linguistic beliefs, again obviously; the examples of what we take to be animal beliefs are cases in point; if animals have beleifs, then they are non-linguistic and expressed in the animals' actions.

So, their are no beliefs which could not be, at least in principle, expressed; either linguistically or non-linguistically. This leads to the conclusion that there are two kinds of beliefs; those which are expressed linguistically and those which are not, but are instead manifested in action.

A text to be treated with great caution.

Reality tends to delineate what we can and cannot construct, despite our best efforts. — Banno

I think I understand your concern and agree. We do not 'construct reality' as a painter works with a blank canvas. We work within constraints, and 'the real is that which resists.' (Though that description of the real is hardly exhaustive of our somewhat vague notion of what constrains us.)

Reading it, I was often stuck by its philosophical naivety. It used 'subjective' and 'objective' with a certain innocence, etc. At the same time, I think the sociological approach is basically right.

This leads to the conclusion that there are two kinds of beliefs; those which are expressed linguistically and those which are not, but are instead manifested in action. — Janus

Or perhaps we could think in terms of a continuum. If I say 'hello' to an answering machine (if anyone remembers those), I'm making a noise. It's not unlike a kitten running to the sound of a can opener, even when tuna is not being opened but only kidney beans.

This leads to the conclusion that there are two kinds of beliefs; those which are expressed linguistically and those which are not, but are instead manifested in action. — Janus

Hrmph. It's potentially deceptive to say these are two kinds. Beliefs which have not been "expressed linguistically" can be expressed linguistically...

It's not a difference between kinds of belief so much as a difference in what has been done with those beliefs.

Yes, it's true that linguistic expressions are also actions.

Perhaps 'kinds' could be thought to be somehow misleading to the unwary. Substitute 'categories' if it will make you feel better. Another, somewhat related, issue is that there are beliefs which are mediated by language, beliefs which can arise only because there is language.

This brings us back to the idea of the "social construction of reality". And this idea is not problematic as long as you remember that construction is not creation in any ex nihilo sense.

If you like. @creativesoul wants to make this a pivotal distinction. I think it small.

More interesting is that there cannot be an inexpressible belief; all beliefs are beliefs that such-and-such.

This is important because it sits in the same place as Wittgenstein's pivotal distinction between showing and saying.

More interesting is that there cannot be an inexpressible belief; all beliefs are beliefs that such-and-such. — Banno

I agree that there cannot be inexpressible beliefs, but I would not say that all beliefs are beliefs "that such-and-such". Instead I would say that all beliefs are such that they can be expressed in the form "that such and such".

Ok.

I see a difference in scope. Understanding that the floor is solid is straight forward. Understand that "The floor is solid" is true requires that one refer to the proposition that the floor is solid; it's a reflexive use of language, and not something a cat is able to do. Much the same as that the cat can understand that its human will feed it, but not that its human will feed it next Tuesday. — Banno

When we're talking about understanding that the floor is solid, we must discuss what that takes, or what it takes in order to be able to do that.

I think that we agree that it does not take language.

Would you agree?

Beliefs which have not been "expressed linguistically" can be expressed linguistically... — Banno

That does seem to be the case. We can often articulate an enacted 'belief,' and it's tempting to think of the enacted belief as made of something like unconscious mental stuff. Instead I'd suggest that the conscious, verbal version of the belief is a fresh creation.

Instead I'd suggest that the conscious, verbal version of the belief is a fresh creation. — path

Music to mine ears.

:strong:

Yes, it's true that linguistic expressions are also actions. — Janus

Right, but I guess I'm trying to point out that we might take 'consciousness' too much for granted. There's a common background assumption that verbal behavior has some kind of intense proximity to meaning, but what we witness is just the further use of the our linguistic skill if asked what we 'mean.'

Roughly, I don't think we know or even can know exactly what we mean by 'meaning' -- or by 'exactly.' In Wittgenstein and others it's as if philosophy discovers it limits, its enacted and somewhat ineffable and un-masterable foundation.

Music to mine ears. — Banno

I thought maybe you'd agree. I also like the notion of embodied cognition, which you mentioned above.

The distinction I would make regarding meaning is that between signing or signalling and symbolic or abstract meaning. The latter is a human phenomenon (as far as we can tell) of symbolic language use, and, associated with that, the visual arts.

OK. But do you not think that it's difficult to draw a line? Is 'how are you?' really a question?

This is related to an anti-skepticism post I made recently. The Cartesian skeptic who doubts the outer world already assumes the unity of a 'mind' or 'inner' voice as an 'I' that is knee deep in 'meaning.' Of course this is all intuitive enough within our form of life, but perhaps it's mostly a habit, a kind of background sedimentation.

Here's a distinction worth making - that between beliefs about how things are, and beliefs about what is believed.

On the one hand we have the cat believing that the floor is solid, or if you prefer Creative believing that the floor is wood.

On the other we have the cat believing that the statement "the floor is solid" is true; or Creative believing that the cat believes that "the floor is solid" is true. We might call this second, reflexive beliefs.

These reflexive beliefs are about propositions, and hence require language. Whereas the belief that the floor is solid is about the floor, and hence does not require language.

An interesting exercise would be to link this in to Searle's analysis of brute and social facts, in The Construction of Social Reality. Social facts might prove to be comparable to reflexive beliefs.

This brings us back to the idea of the "social construction of reality". And this idea is not problematic as long as you remember that construction is not creation in any ex nihilo sense. — Janus

Right. It's not ex nihilo. And the actual text is shrewder than its eye-catching title. One could even accuse it of being too assuredly realist in its approach.

Sorry, but that last response has left me wondering how much we're on the same page, or perhaps if we're talking about the same things. Namely, I am left wondering if we agree about the basic notions that different philosophers like Heidegger, Hegel, and Witt(to name a few) have skirted around throughout history. I say skirted intentionally, because I do not think that any of them actually put their finger on it.

In keeping in line with this thread, although a bit of a tangent, for my part I was referring to Heidegger's notions which - if I understood them correctly - were meant to pick out and/or describe all the different ways that language affects humans. In his doing so, he pointed out that we are basically already embedded in a meaningful world. He is not alone in that belief. I would venture to say that everyone here agrees with that much. Witt most certainly did.

I share Banno's sentiments regarding the notion of a socially constructed reality.

Here's the salient point from my position... or regarding it actually...

I invoked the distinction between linguistic and non and/or pre linguistic belief. I strongly advocate for keeping that distinction in mind, and doing so in terms of the content of the belief. All belief consists of correlations drawn between different things. The distinction is only meant to pick out the kind of belief based upon whether or not it is formed by a language user, and perhaps more importantly - exactly what that belief consists of(the content of the correlation). "Linguistic belief" is a term that picks out correlations between language use and other things. "Non linguistic belief" does not include language use.

The distinction is basically meant to provide an outline and/or a criterion from which to work.

OK. But do you not think that it's difficult to draw a line? Is 'how are you?' really a question? — path

I'm not sure we are coming at this from exactly equivalent angles. I am not proposing anything beyond the distinction between linguistic forms of expression where the words "stand for" things in a general sense, and other forms of expression which are merely signs of, for example emotional states, or signals of danger, and so on.

This is related to an anti-skepticism post I made recently. The Cartesian skeptic who doubts the outer world already assumes the unity of a 'mind' or 'inner' voice as an 'I' that is knee deep in 'meaning.' Of course this is all intuitive enough within our form of life, but perhaps it's mostly a habit, a kind of background sedimentation.

Right, but the "sedimentation" is, I think biological at base. So, I suspect some (perhaps most?) animals have a sense of self, but, lacking symbolic language, they have no generalized, absract idea of self. We have both, and our having both is on account of us being language users.

One could even accuse it of being too assuredly realist in its approach. — path

I haven't read it, but I'll take your word for it. :smile:

That's right; there are obviously no non-linguistic beliefs which are expressed; you have simply uttered a tautology that tells us nothing. The only purported beliefs we can "focus on" are those which are somehow manifested; either by utterances or actions. Not all of those are linguistic beliefs, again obviously; the examples of what we take to be animal beliefs are cases in point; if animals have beleifs, then they are non-linguistic and expressed in the animals' actions.

So, their are no beliefs which could not be, at least in principle, expressed; either linguistically or non-linguistically. This leads to the conclusion that there are two kinds of beliefs; those which are expressed linguistically and those which are not, but are instead manifested in action. — Janus

As I already said, there are linguistic beliefs that are not expressed linguistically. So, using this suggestion we are inevitably going to conflate unexpressed linguistic beliefs with non linguistic belief. There's no getting around that conflation, my friend. If we were to employ a Venn diagram the overlap is obvious. However, they are not the same as far as their elemental constituency(the content of the correlations).

Thus, I reject that approach. If I may ask, regarding this...

What's the difference, on your view, between a language less creature's belief and an unexpressed linguistic one as far as it's content goes?

I disagree because I would count all linguistic beliefs as having been already expressed; otherwise how would they count as linguistic? A linguistic belief might not be expressed out loud in a particular instance, but that is another matter.

Here's a distinction worth making - that between beliefs about how things are, and beliefs about what is believed.

On the one hand we have the cat believing that the floor is solid, or if you prefer Creative believing that the floor is wood.

On the other we have the cat believing that the statement "the floor is solid" is true; or Creative believing that the cat believes that "the floor is solid" is true. We might call this second, reflexive beliefs.

These reflexive beliefs are about propositions, and hence require language. Whereas the belief that the floor is solid is about the floor, and hence does not require language. — Banno

We're in agreement regarding this particular rendering. This one avoids the the problem stemming from taking it is be the case that a proposition is true... which is what you stated earlier that caused me concern. The above is much better. Although you have intermingled between linguistic and non linguistic in the first example, you've done so without error. Indeed, even on my view - which stresses the kind of belief based upon the linguistic content of the correlation(or not) - the above is a perfectly acceptable/amenable rendering.

:smile:

Language users and non language users alike can have belief about the way things are.