We commonly take a believer’s perspective on a given situation as a fundamental accuracy condition for belief ascriptions about him, and intensional belief ascriptions are designed for expressing this understanding — neomac
All I can say is that the most accurate report of someone’s belief at time t1 is the one that best matches the point of view of the believer at time t1. Why would I pick the point of view of some person P at time t2 (or some other person Q at time t1) as a criterium of accuracy for reporting P's belief at time t1? — neomac
Yet one can wonder if all intensional belief ascriptions can be in principle replaced by extensional belief ascriptions without omitting the believer’s perspective. How? By rendering the believer’s perspective in terms of metalinguistic belief ascriptions (belief about the truth-value of some propositions).
This is why one can claim as valid both <Jack believes a broken clock is working> (extensional belief ascription) and <Jack believes the proposition “a broken clock is working” false> (extensional belief ascription rendering the believer’s perspective in metalinguistic terms).
Where is the benefit? At least, in preserving truth-value through substitution of co-referent terms, even for belief ascriptions, and without giving up on the believer’s perspective. — neomac
Indeed I reported that premise (there was a typo: I wrote “intenTional” instead of “intenSional”), b/c if you want to make a philosophical proposal that is appealing to me, or those holding the conventional view of belief ascription, you should feel intellectually compelled to show understanding toward what we are concerned about (de dicto report are necessary for rendering believers' p.o.v.), and prove by that that we are not talking past each other. The burden is on you, b/c it’s you who wants to challenge the conventional view, not the other way around.
Otherwise our exchange will just end up in butting heads against the wall of our diverging intuition pumps. It’s pointless. So we can work out our different views better if we start from common grounds or at least reciprocal concessions. — neomac
In my comment, I contrasted P’s belief prospective at t1 with both Q’s belief prospective at t1 and P’s belief prospective at t2 (when she understood her belief at t1 to be wrong). And I said our report is accurate when it matches P’s belief prospective at time t1. — neomac
The philosophical task, as I understand it, consists precisely in looking for what justifies one’s intuitive assumptions and not giving them for granted, all the more if they are not shared (like in your case). — neomac
... it seems you are distinguishing 2 cases (belief ascription by Q at t1, and belief ascription by P at t2) even though there is no such difference with respect to what is ascribed to P at time t1 in both 2 cases, according to your belief ascription report (at t1, P believes that a broken clock is working, for both Q at t1 and P at t2). — neomac
You state this as though it is a problem. My report about Jack's belief at time t1 matches Jack's own report at time t2 of his belief at time t1. If that does not count as matching Jack's point of view then nothing will.
Secondly, since for me there is no difference in belief ascription failure between Q at t1 and P at t2, then you are not satisfying my standard, b/c at least in case of Q at t1 - you claim - there is no need for matching. Not to mention the fact that even the belief ascription by P at t2 is not satisfying my standard either, as I intend it: P at t2 is not offering any accurate report of P at t1 if she used your belief ascription report.
Have you never believed a clock that was not telling the right time? — creativesoul
Jack believed that a broken clock was working” can be explained also by our common understanding of belief ascriptions, — neomac
My problem is only with the claim that this belief report “P (mistakenly) believed that a broken clock was working” is not only accurate, but even more accurate than “P (mistakenly) believed that a clock was working”. — neomac
Pls focus: “a broken clock is working” is a contradiction (!!!). — neomac
> What are you attributing(ascribing) to another prior to having a standard for what exactly counts as belief?
I don't get the sense of this question. — neomac
Show me again, because thus far you've changed Jack's belief in your translation. — creativesoul
You're the one who has issue with the fact that we do sometimes believe that broken clocks are working. — creativesoul
While believing that a broken clock is working is not.
It's the difference between understanding that believing a broken clock is working is not the same as believing "a broken clock is working".
The latter is how those who hold all belief as propositional attitude would render Jack's belief that a broken clock is working. Not all belief can be successfully rendered as such. — creativesoul
What exactly are you attributing/ascribing to another when you say that they believe something? — creativesoul
We can set all the other stuff aside for now and focus upon what counts as belief. — creativesoul
So from whom did you get the idea that beliefs as propositional attitudes are by definition attitudes toward sentences to be reported in quotation marks (as in “S believes that ‘p’” instead of “S believes that p”)? Until I don’t have a convincing answer to that, your claim is another unacceptable example of framing the issue in a way that presupposes your understanding as correct. — neomac
What exactly are you attributing/ascribing to another when you say that they believe something?
— creativesoul
I'm attributing a belief: beliefs are intentional cognitive states/events with intrinsic mind-to-world (cognitive) fitness conditions expressed through behavioral attitudes in a given context. These intrinsic fitness conditions constitute - broadly speaking - the p.o.v of the believer... — neomac
Now it’s your turn to clarify what belief is. However, I would still like to hear at least your answers to my 3 questions b/c it helps clarify your ideas about belief. — neomac
Does believing a clock is working (without quotation marks) have the same truth conditions of believing “a clock is working” (with quotation marks)? If they differ, what is the difference? — neomac
If “a clock is working” is true, does this imply that “Jack’s believes that a clock is working” is true? If not, why not? — neomac
Take the statement “Jack believes that a broken clock is working” and the statement “a broken clock is working”, do they share the same content? — neomac
If they differ, what is the difference?
Now it’s your turn to clarify what belief is — neomac
Believing a clock is working is something that happens as a result of knowing how to read a clock and looking towards one as a means to know what time it is. Things such as these are not the sort of things that we say have truth conditions. Rather, they are the truth conditions of statements about what's happened, and/or is happening. — creativesoul
OK, so you are contrasting statements and things happening outside statements, and claim that truth values can be attributed only to statements and not to things that happen. Since beliefs are something that happens in the world, they do not have truth values. Is that it? — neomac
...since the thread focus is on your & Banno’s positions, not mine, I prefer to keep it that way. — neomac
A good deal of objections I made to your position are not directly linked to my specific understanding of belief, but more on the way we intuitively use belief ascriptions (so on linguistic facts), on what I take to be common knowledge about the debate on belief as propositional attitudes, or propositional calculus, or the internal logic of your claims as far as I understood/misunderstood them.
the same objection you are making to me can be retorted to you. "Jack believes that a broken clock is working" would be true for any broken clock at time t1. — neomac
The claim that “Jack believes that a broken clock is working” is not accurate, is not directly linked to my specific understanding of belief. — neomac
All right, so for you “believing” is an activity with no truth-value while belief is the representational result of the activity “believing”, representational b/c it can be true or false. Is that it? — neomac
What is the difference between a proposition and a belief as a “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things”?
What is naming and descriptive practices if not the use of symbols to refer to things that are not symbols (or else you'd have an infinite regress of readers never getting at what you're naming and describing)‽Propositions are existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices. The same is not true of all belief. — creativesoul
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