What would it have taken in order for Jack's belief that that particular clock was working to have been true at time t1?

If that particular clock at time t1 had been working, Jack’s belief would have been true. — neomac

Is it possible for broken clocks to work?



I've set out two different objections. One is against the idea that all belief is propositional in content, and the other is against the idea that all belief can be rendered as propositional attitude. Language less creatures' belief falsifies the former and false belief negates the latter. The contention between you and I involves whether or not all belief can be accurately rendered in terms of a propositional attitude. The belief in contention is Jack's belief at time t1 when he believes that a particular clock is working, but that clock had stopped coincidentally twelve hours prior to Jack's looking towards it as a means to know what time it was.

I'm saying that at time t1, Jack believed that a broken clock was working. You are objecting to that claim based upon two things; a deviation from your practice of belief ascription, and as a result of your thinking that I'm attributing a self-contradictory belief to Jack, despite my having believed that I've already explained how it is not in multiple different ways. We're working out, currently, which ascription/attribution of belief to Jack is more accurate.

I've objected to the idea of attributing a belief that could be true to a person who has false belief, which amounts to an accounting malpractice. False belief cannot be true. I'm also noting that not a single iteration I've offered is a belief that could have been true. You seem to think that that is a problem.

If a belief is a “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things” in “Jack believes that/a broken clock is working” the belief “that/a broken clock is working” either is connecting words, then it’s a contradiction in terminis, or is taken to connect its referents witch include a clock instantiating contradictory properties (broken as in “not working” and “working”). Either way (at the level of the meaning or at the level of the referents) is a contradictory situation which doesn’t correspond to the belief of Jack (in a simple case of ignorance). BTW you yourself claimed (have you ever read what you write?) that is always false [1] as any contradiction, but since we are not aware of it, then it’s not [2]. — neomac

False dilemma. There are more ways to understand Jack's belief than what you've offered here as the only two...

Perhaps you missed this...

Evidently you do not see the difference between believing "a broken clock is working" and believing a broken clock is working. The former is belief about language use, and the latter is belief about broken clocks. The former has propositional content. The latter has broken clocks as content. — creativesoul

> Is it possible for broken clocks to work?

No. And you know why? It’s because “broken” and “to work” are contradictory properties.
On the other side it is possible for clocks to be working or to be broken.

> I've objected to the idea of attributing a belief that could be true to a person who has false belief, which amounts to an accounting malpractice. False belief cannot be true. I'm also noting that not a single iteration I've offered is a belief that could have been true. You seem to think that that is a problem.

The problem is that:

• False beliefs are not to be equated to contradictory beliefs
• Mere false beliefs can be occasionally false (like "that clock is working"), but they could have been true (counterfactual), while a contradictory belief is always false (as you yourself claimed “a broken clock is working - is always false”).

Here are my questions to you: which one of these 2 claims of mine are you denying? For me any attempt to deny any of these 2 claims is catastrophic.
If you admit both then you are not justified in claiming that "Jack believes that broken clock is working" is not attributing to Jack a belief content that is not contradictory, because the belief content "that broken clock is working" is contradictory,
To attribute a false belief to someone, it's enough to say "S mistakenly believes that p", there is absolutely no need to touch the belief content to convey the idea that S's belief is false. Also because rendering the belief content in such a way that it expresses a false belief (by making it misleadingly look contradictory), it presupposes the identification of such belief content prior to this revisionist rendering, so independently from this manipulation. If you can't identify what someone is aware of believing while believing it, you can not even exactly identify what you claim they are unaware of believing (truth/knowledge assessments about beliefs presuppose belief ascriptions, not the other way around!).




> False dilemma. There are more ways to understand Jack's belief than what you've offered here as the only two...

Then show me exactly what the third option is and how it derives from your own definition of belief as “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things” to also prove that it effectively has explanatory power as you claim.

> Evidently you do not see the difference between believing "a broken clock is working" and believing a broken clock is working. The former is belief about language use, and the latter is belief about broken clocks. The former has propositional content. The latter has broken clocks as content.

I did see the difference. But I find your answer not only unsatisfactory but also fishy. Assuming your convention, you distinguish between quoted (“S believes that ‘p’”) and unquoted belief content (“S believes that p”). The first one is a propositional attitude and the second one is not. Here is the convention applied to the example of Jack: “Jack believes ‘that broken clock is working’” and “Jack believes that broken clock is working”, in both cases the belief content includes 3 items: “clock”, “broken”, “is working”. So it’s true but suspiciously incomplete to claim that the latter rendering of Jack’s belief has broken clocks as content. The non-propositional content of Jack’s belief has 3 items in it, not just broken clock, but broken clock is working.
Besides what kind of entities are these items? Are they linguistic terms? Are they meanings? Are they referents in the real world? What are they? And isn’t there a meaningful correlation drawn between these 3 items since they are the content of Jack’s belief? What is this meaningful correlation? Isn't this correlation supposed to show an impossible situation b/c broken clocks do not work? And how come that it's impossible that broken clocks do not work if not for the fact that the same clock is attributed or appears to instantiate contradictory properties ("broken" and "is working")?
Looking forward to hearing your answers.

> Belief does not imply truth
One obvious consequence of a belief being a relation between an individual and a proposition is that the truth of the proposition is unrelated to the truth of the belief.

This consequence is not obvious at all. And this is related to the reasons clarified here. Indeed also knowledge can be put into a relational form K(S,p) between an individual and a proposition, yet the truth of K(S,p) is not independent from the truth of p. So it is not the relation between individual and proposition itself that guarantees that the truth of the proposition is unrelated to the truth of the belief ascription.

Well, it depends on the context we are seeking about. If you are debating with a theist, I would say for them belief implies truth. for example:
God exists because I believe in their existence. Then, God's existence is true

If you are debating with a theist, I would say for them belief implies truth. — javi2541997

I disagree with that (but maybe you are simply confusing the truth claim intrinsic to any belief with the logic implication between belief and the truth of what is believed): "S believes that God exists" does not logically imply "God exists" (even for the religious believer... if s/he conforms to logic of course).
Besides here one of the assumptions of the formal debate between Banno and CreativeSoul that inspired this thread, is that we are talking about ordinary belief not about religious belief (or faith):

The sort of belief I intend to discuss is not the sort found in church, and that might better be called faith. The beliefs to be examined are the common everyday stuff, that the cup is on the shelf or that the sun is rising. Nothing too transcendent here. But if we start with the everyday, we might work towards such profundity.

(source: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/482145)

we are talking about ordinary belief not about religious belief (or faith): — neomac

I see your point but this only happens when we make the effort to distinguish different types of belief. Thus, only happens when, at least, we destroy the argument of a monotheistic argument. For me, for example, "religious" belief does not even exist because I don't belive on it since the beginning.

I see what you quoted and it is pretty interesting indeed. This thread is so good to learn about.

Regardless of which sensible parsing is being practiced, Jack's belief about that particular clock is false. Jack believes it to be working. It is not. So, there is no contention regarding whether or not Jack's belief is true or false. Jack's belief at time t1 is false. Jack's belief cannot be both true and false at time t1. Thus, it makes no sense whatsoever for us to ascribe belief to Jack that is, could be, or could have been true. False belief cannot be true.

There was one candidate earlier that I find is not guilty as charged above. It's worth discussing for it is founding wanting in another way...

At time t1, Jack believed that that particular clock was working.

Jack was mistaken. It is impossible to knowingly be mistaken. It is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood. Thus, any correct ascriptions of belief attributed to Jack at time t1, must come in a form that it is impossible for him to knowingly believe.

"That particular clock was/is working" simply does not meet that criterion.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!


:smile:

Poor Jack needs to get some rest now, his brain is fried from staring at this clock for weeks.

At time t1, Jack believed of a broken clock that it was working.

This example also seems to come in a form that is impossible for Jack to believe at the time. However, there are a few unnecessary terms. The terms "of" and "that it" are superfluous. We can remove them entirely and lose nothing meaningful. The simplest explanation is the best provided there is no loss in explanatory power. Occam's razor applies. We are left with...

At time t1, Jack believed a broken clock was working.

First three methodological considerations:
1. If you want to answer my questions you should specify which ones by quoting them and then answer them. If you think they are flawed, you should specify which ones by quoting them and explain why they are flawed. I don’t see that you are doing that in your post, even though you explicitly invited me to ask you questions. That looks fishy.
2. If you claim that we can establish if “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working”, based on what we take belief to be, and your definition of belief is “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things”, then I expect you to show exactly how this definition helps you establish “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working”, all the more because you claim that your definition of belief is of “immense explanatory power”. But in your last post you never used such a definition. That looks fishy.
3. In your last post you kept repeating the same claims you already made. But if I didn’t find your claims intuitive nor challenging as they were for the reasons I already explained, it’s pointless to keep invariably repeating them on and on. You should find other ways to make your case look stronger, unless you do not care to promote further your revisionist view, despite you being committed to it (you are the challenger of the common belief ascription practice, not me).

So since we stalled, I’ll make a last attempt to make you sharpen your claims or your reasoning.

Let’s start with these two excerpts:

> Jack's belief cannot be both true and false and time t1 [1]. Thus, it makes no sense whatsoever for us to ascribe belief to Jack that is, could be, or could have been true [2]. False belief cannot be true [3].

> It is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood [4]. Thus, any correct ascriptions of belief attributed to Jack at time t1, must come in a form that it is impossible for him to knowingly believe [5].

As I understand your claims (correct me if I’m wrong), you take claim [2] to be justified by [1] (and/or [3]), and your claim [5] to be justified by [4].

Here are my claims. There are 2 distinct tasks in our common belief ascription practices: one is to identify a belief (and report it accordingly) and the other is to assess its truth-value (and report it accordingly). And the latter presupposes the former. Besides, a belief that is not analytically false, can be either true or false (for logic reasons).
Now let’s apply my claims to the usual example:

• At t1, Jack believes that p (first task)
• At t1, p is false (ex hypothesi)
• At t1, Jack mistakenly believes that p (second task)
• if at t1, Jack mistakenly believes that p, then at t1, Jack believes that p (logic dependency between the 2 tasks)
• If the belief content p is ‘that clock is working’, then p is not contradictory (not analytically false) and p can be either true or false.

Now, let’s add your claims [1], [3] and [4] that I render as follows (if I’m wrong, provide the correct rendering):

• It is false that at t1 Jack’s belief content (i.e. ‘that clock is working’) is true and false.
• If the belief content ‘that clock is working’ is false, then the belief content ‘that clock is working’ is not true, and vice versa.
• If the belief content ‘that clock is working’ is false, then it is false that Jack knows that clock is working.

According to our common belief ascription practices, these 8 statements are all perfectly intelligible individually and logically consistent between them. Do you agree?
If you agree, then your claim [1] and/or [3] are not logically sufficient to deduce claim [2], and your claim [4] is not logically sufficient to deduce [5], so some logic requirement is missing in your line of reasoning, i.e. your line of reasoning is not conclusive until you fill the gap successfully.
If you disagree, quote the statements that are logically inconsistent or unintelligible, and explain why.

The terms "of" and "that it" are superfluous. We can remove them entirely and lose nothing meaningful. The simplest explanation is the best provided there is no loss in explanatory power. — creativesoul

Indeed, there is loss of explanatory power, b/c by removing those parts you are attributing to Jack a contradictory belief so you can not distinguish a case of ignorance from a case of irrational belief, nor identify the different scopes in belief ascriptions (the p.o.v. of the one who makes the belief ascription about Jak is different from Jack's p.o.v). Not only, but if we assume that Jack's belief is a case of ignorance and not irrational belief, then your rendering is a case of misattribution, so it's a false explanation of Jack's behavior.
Besides the explanatory power of belief ascription should be based on your definition of belief, as you claimed, this definition is “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things”. But you are not using it at all to prove that there is no loss in explanatory power. So how can you justify the claim that there is not loss in explanatory power?

First three methodological considerations:
1. If you want to answer my questions you should specify which ones by quoting them and then answer them. If you think they are flawed, you should specify which ones by quoting them and explain why they are flawed — neomac

That's neither a methodological concern, nor consideration.

If I spent the limited time available going over all of the problematic and/or invalid questions, concerns, and/or objections that you've raised in order to explain the issues with them, no time would be left for the relevant concerns(of which there are a few). I've already quoted you in recent past, and subsequently explained the problems. The response ignored the issues and aimed at me personally.

If you claim that we can establish if “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working”, based on what we take belief to be, and your definition of belief is “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things”, then I expect you to show exactly how this definition helps you establish “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working”, all the more because you claim that your definition of belief is of “immense explanatory power”. But in your last post you never used such a definition. That’s fishy. — neomac

There you go again, making claims for me that I've not made.

I've already explained Jack's belief in terms of correlations being drawn between a particular broken clock and Jack's own inquisition regarding what time it was. In fact, I've explained Jack's belief at time t1 in as many congruent but different ways as I see possible.




What's fishy is your acting otherwise.

What's fishy is when one individual holds another to a strict standard that they themselves cannot meet.

What's fishy is when one individual makes a concerted effort to cast doubt upon another's notion of belief after handwaving away and/or glossing over the fact that their own notion has been found wanting.

There are 2 distinct tasks in our common belief ascription practices: to identify a belief and to assess its truth-value. — neomac

Jack's belief at time t1 is false no matter how it has been parsed. You've offered and we've discussed some candidates that were true. I've objected to those based upon that.

Besides, a belief that is not analytically false, can be either true or false (for logic reasons)

Some beliefs are the sort of things that can be either true or false. I mean, not all belief are true. Not all belief are false. Not all belief are truth apt at the time. However, no true belief are false, and no false belief are true. So, if it is the case that we know that a belief is false, it makes no sense to say that it could have been true. No. It could not have been.

I mean we would need to stipulate an entirely different set of circumstances with a different clock in order to support such a possible world, and in doing so, lose sight of this one by completely changing the content of Jack's belief.

What would it have taken in order for Jack's belief that that particular clock was working to have been true at time t1?

If that particular clock at time t1 had been working, Jack’s belief would have been true.
— neomac

Is it possible for broken clocks to work? — creativesoul

No... — neomac

Then Jack's belief could not have been true. That particular clock could not have been working, for it was a broken one.

At t1, Jack believes that p (first task) — neomac

Believing that a broken clock is working is not something that can be properly taken account of by such practices. If we use them and correctly attribute the belief that a broken clock is working to Jack, we end up saying that he believed the proposition, which is a contradiction in terms. This is what you are doing, not me. Hence, you keep claiming over and over again that I am attributing a contradictory belief to Jack when I am not. You are.

You presented "a broken clock is working" as a contradiction. Going on to then say that I am attributing a contradictory belief to Jack by saying Jack believes that a broken clock is working at time t1.

I did not say that Jack believed "a broken clock is working".

Evidently you do not see the difference between believing "a broken clock is working" and believing a broken clock is working. The former is belief about language use, and the latter is belief about broken clocks. The former has propositional content. The latter has broken clocks as content. The former is amenable to and basically amounts to saying that Jack believes the statement at time t1, or that Jack holds some attitude or disposition towards that particular proposition at time t1. Neither of those claims are true.

I am rejecting that parsing of Jack's belief altogether. Jack's attitude and/or disposition is neither about nor towards a proposition. To quite the contrary, Jack's belief is all about the trustworthiness of one particular broken clock. His disposition and/or attitude, if he can be said to have one, is towards the clock, not propositions about or involving the clock.

There are mistaken and/or false beliefs such as these influencing our lives, thoughts, and behaviours that we are completely unaware of. Jack has exactly such belief. These sorts of beliefs are those which we could not knowingly believe. Such beliefs cannot be anything other than mistaken and/or false. Hence, when reporting upon another's false belief, our accounting practices, if the gold standard is accuracy or truth, ought produce examples of belief that cannot be knowingly believed/held.

If you claim that we can establish if “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working”, based on what we take belief to be, and your definition of belief is “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things”, then I expect you to show exactly how this definition helps you establish “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working”, all the more because you claim that your definition of belief is of “immense explanatory power”. But in your last post you never used such a definition. That’s fishy. — neomac


There you go again, making claims for me that I've not made. — creativesoul

So you do not claim that “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working”? Because if you don’t then we do not need to revise our common belief acription practices, while I thought you wanted to challenge them.
Or you do not claim that your claim that “At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working” is more accurate than “At t1, Jack believes that clock is working” is based on your definition of belief as “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things”? Then why did you claim "We can set all the other stuff aside for now and focus upon what counts as belief"? [0]
What is exactly that you did not claim that I misattributed to you in my quotation?


Again, you didn't answer my questions.
You claim that you do no have time to answer them, really any of them? you didn't need to answer all of them all at once, you could have answered just few but properly, and in my last two posts there was but one question. Instead you have time to repeat your claims at length and search my past quotes. Besides if you do not have time to answer question then why do you invite me to ask you questions?
You claim that I attribute to you claims you didn’t make (even when I quote you!!!) without specifying what exactly these misattributions are, nor immediately providing an adequate rectification.
You claimed to have already explained things (even in many ways), but I already questioned that they are successful for reasons that I already explained, and you didn’t challenge any of my objections as I have articulated them yet. And I can do it again: if you want to give an explanation of why your rendering of Jack's belief is better than what provided by common practice based on your definition of belief, then you have to take the 2 renderings, the one you claim right (e.g. "At t1, Jack believes that broken clock is working"), and the one you claim wrong (e.g. "At t1, Jack believes that clock is working"), and compare them based on your definition of belief as “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things”, b/c this is what I did based on my definition of belief [1]. In your explanation you talked only about your rendering, i.e. there was no comparison (that's fishy). And you also changed the relevant example (that's fishy) [2]. In addition to that, also my last post was explanatory in the sense that it provided a list of claims conform to our standard belief ascription practices that are logically consistent with the assumptions you employ to justify your revisionist view and this shows that your assumptions are not sufficient to justify your revisionist view. I also explained why you are attributing a contradictory belief to Jack in the relevant example (both in the case of quoted and unquoted belief content), while you just kept repeating that is not contradictory without explaining why (something you should have done wrt to both your definition of belief and your quoted/unquoted belief report style [2][3]). While you, instead of addressing my objections to your claims for both quoted and unquoted rendering, as I articulated them, you just keep repeating your claims (e.g. "Evidently you do not see the difference between believing 'a broken clock is working' and believing a broken clock is working") again without clarifying why a quoted belief content like "'that broken clock is not working'" can be contradictory while an unquoted belief content like "that broken clock is not working" is not contradictory (and yet represent an impossible situation!) as I asked. That's fishy.
Finally you keep using your standard rendering (distinguishing between quoted and unquoted belief contents ) based on assumptions that are under question, so it’s utterly pointless to use it to prove the strength of those assumptions (since it would bag the question).

The philosophical game I find interesting to play does not consist in making claims to popularise what one finds intuitive and repeat it ad nauseam, but to provide compelling arguments to support such intuitive claims using appropriate analytical tools like logic inference, conceptual clarifications and definitions. You can challenge my views either by questioning the truth of the assumptions (impossible to do b/c the evidences are the linguistic facts of our common belief ascription practices that you intend to challenge) or the consistency of my reasoning based on those assumptions, or you can challenge it by proving that your views can do a better job than mine (e.g. in terms of explanation power). You catastrophically failed both tasks b/c your philosophical approach is flawed methodologically and substantially: substantially b/c of reasons I already explained around 15 posts ago of mine [4]. Methodologically b/c you can't support your claims other than by making question bagging claims (and framing my replies accordingly), suggesting preposterous propositional calculi [5], making more preposterous claims (let’s not forget these arguments [6][7]!) or attacking me personally with a behavioral pattern typical of those who are in denial (none of which are adequate analytical tools, of course). And I dragged this exchange now long enough to make definitely clear that you do not have any better dialectical strategy than repeating ad nauseam your preposterous claims and self-indulging accusations to my articulated and very specific objections.

I spared you my sarcasm so far but I won't spare you my conclusion: you have literally nothing challenging to offer against our common belief ascription practices. And here I rest my case.

[0]

We can set all the other stuff aside for now and focus upon what counts as belief. Then, we will see how much sense it makes to ascribe belief to another, because we will have some standard of belief for comparing our ascriptions/attribution to. — creativesoul

[1]

I'm attributing a belief: beliefs are intentional cognitive states/events with intrinsic mind-to-world fitness conditions expressed through behavioral attitudes in a given context. These intrinsic fitness conditions constitute - broadly speaking - the p.o.v of the believer. So I take the task of identifying the intrinsic fitness conditions of a given belief in a given context as equivalent to providing an explanation of P’s behavior in a given context based on her cognitive intentionality. Since what better explains the cognitively-guided behavior of P at time t1 based on cognitive intentionality (i.e. P's belief at t1), to me, is the p.o.v. of P at t1 than any other alternative (like the p.o.v. of Q at t1, or the the p.o.v. of P at t2), then belief ascriptions about P at time t1 are accurate in so far as they match the p.o.v. of P at time t1. — neomac

The terms "of" and "that it" are superfluous. We can remove them entirely and lose nothing meaningful. The simplest explanation is the best provided there is no loss in explanatory power. — creativesoul

Indeed, there is loss of explanatory power, b/c by removing those parts you are attributing to Jack a contradictory belief so you can not distinguish a case of ignorance from a case of irrational belief, nor identify the different scopes in belief ascriptions (the p.o.v. of the one who makes the belief ascription about Jak is different from Jack's p.o.v). Not only, but if we assume that Jack's belief is a case of ignorance and not irrational belief, then your rendering is a case of misattribution, so it's a false explanation of Jack's behavior.
Besides the explanatory power of belief ascription should be based on your definition of belief, as you claimed, this definition is “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things”. But you are not using it at all to prove that there is no loss in explanatory power. So how can you justify the claim that there is not loss in explanatory power? — neomac

[2]

↪creativesoul


> Jack draws correlations between a broken clock and the time of day while believing a broken clock is working. Jack does not believe "a broken clock is working". Jack believes a broken clock is working.

Seriously?! I don't get the structure of this argument at all, if it has one. For sure it is not a deduction. BTW what happened to the “meaningful correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things” in the case of “Jack does not believe ‘a broken clock is working’” and why are we talking “Jack does not believe ‘a broken clock is working’” instead of “Jack believes that a clock is working”?! — neomac

[3]

I did see the difference. But I find your answer not only unsatisfactory but also fishy. Assuming your convention, you distinguish between quoted (“S believes that ‘p’”) and unquoted belief content (“S believes that p”). The first one is a propositional attitude and the second one is not. Here is the convention applied to the example of Jack: “Jack believes ‘that broken clock is working’” and “Jack believes that broken clock is working”, in both cases the belief content includes 3 items: “clock”, “broken”, “is working”. So it’s true but suspiciously incomplete to claim that the latter rendering of Jack’s belief has broken clocks as content. The non-propositional content of Jack’s belief has 3 items in it, not just broken clock, but broken clock is working.
Besides what kind of entities are these items? Are they linguistic terms? Are they meanings? Are they referents in the real world? What are they? And isn’t there a meaningful correlation drawn between these 3 items since they are the content of Jack’s belief? What is this meaningful correlation? Isn't this correlation supposed to show an impossible situation b/c broken clocks do not work? And how come that it's impossible that broken clocks do not work if not for the fact that the same clock is attributed or appears to instantiate contradictory properties ("broken" and "is working")?
Looking forward to hearing your answers. — neomac

[4]

My reformulation was aiming at rescuing your proposal also from the line of reasoning you just drafted, which I find simply catastrophic, even if we forget the aforementioned objections. Why? Because “accuracy” as an intrinsic fitness-condition of beliefs is what grounds our expectations about our honest reports, like the expectation that a factual report about facts at time t1 should match them, and the expectation that a belief ascription to P at time t1 should match the belief prospective of P at time t1 (i.e. the way P would express her belief at time t1). While what you are trying to do is to blend the 2 distinct expectations in a belief ascription that matches neither the prospective of the believer nor the relevant facts: a broken clock is working is neither a fact nor the perspective of P at time t1, just a blend of what you take to be a correct description of the relevant facts ("the broken clock") with P’s perspective (“is working”). The utmost preposterous consequence of your approach is that all false beliefs are equated to contradictory beliefs (since, the belief ascription subordinate clause "a broken clock is working" is a contradiction). This amounts to a categorical confusion between epistemology and logic: a false belief is not a contradictory belief (!!!), since a contradictory belief is always false, while a false belief could have been true, and this depends on the relevant facts not on its internal logic. Indeed this would also make the believers look always irrational, when they could have been simply ignorant about the relevant facts.
Why would you do such a catastrophic move? My impression is that you are misled, by your unaccounted knowledge claims (“we find ourselves discussing another's belief that they themselves do not know that they have”), into thinking that belief report accuracy is based on knowledge (track knowledge or lack thereof). This is wrong for 2 reasons: 1. belief ascriptions by S are themselves beliefs and do not warrant S’s knowledge of the relevant facts, nor need for such a warrant 2. knowledge ascriptions about P presuppose belief ascriptions about P (and not the other way around). In other words, a theory of belief ascription can not settle issues about belief and belief ascription by presupposing knowledge, b/c knowledge presupposes belief, therefore accurate belief reports should be understood in terms of intrinsic fitness-condition of belief, not in terms of extrinsic fitness-condition of belief (as knowledge is). — neomac

[5]

Can Jack look at a broken clock? Surely. Can Jack believe what the clock says? Surely. Why then, can he not believe that a broken clock is working? — creativesoul

[6]

>It is not contradictory at all, not in least little bit, to believe that broken clocks are working while doing so. so. The reason why is simple:when believing such things we do not knowingly do so! We are unaware of the fact that we believe what a broken clock says when we do. We cannot knowingly do so.

What did you just write?! That’s the craziest thing I’ve heard so far! Contradiction has to do with logic not with your awareness. The fact that one does not realize to have a contradictory belief doesn’t make it, not in least little bit, less contradictory. And the problem is not that we are not aware of a contradictory belief, the problem is that a false belief is not a contradictory belief! (Not to mention, again, the unaccounted knowledge ascriptions…) — “neomac

[7]

> Do you not find it odd that Jack would agree, if and when he figured out that the clock was broken?

Seriously?! By “Jack” you mean a fictional character in a story that you just invented? Oh no, that’s not odd at all, it would be indeed much more odd if you invented stories where fictional characters explicitly contradict your theories, and despite that you used those stories to prove your theory. — neomac

Uh, isn't this a lot of parsing for no real good reason? If we were not trying to study language and, specifically, the Proposition, for clues as to Reality, why would we care?

Which is to say, if we presume that Jack and his clock are both in the Physical Universe (as described by the Standard Model Of Cosmology), then the Proposition, "Reading it's face at 11:00 that morning, Jack believed the clock was working;" must be true, since it refers to nothing but our clock-watcher's own conviction.

If the Proposition becomes "Reading its face ... was working, though it was not," then, presuming the narrator honest, we have another simple, true statement or Proposition, and Jack, we thus learn, was Mistaken.

And if the Proposition, lastly becomes, "Reading its face...Jack, though he knew it was broken, still believed the time shown was accurate," we then are presented with a simple dilemma hinging on the question as to whether Jack had any other way of knowing the present time, and, if so, whether the actual time was the same as shown on the clock-face; leading us to conclude that if the times were coincident, Jack was merely amused at the brief moment of accuracy in the broken clock, or, alternatively, that Jack is Mad.

Once we place our little thought experiment starring Jack of the Broken Clock into the Real World, the variations on the Proposition are simple and limited, and any confusion arises simply from inelegant expression; it is only when we are absurdly trying to parse propositions for different flavors of reality that this becomes silly and confusing.

How about this, there ain't no such thing as a Consciousness that didn't evolve in a Material Universe, so all of this is Real and language problems are just bad rhetoric and confusions of nuances.

At time t1, Jack believed of a broken clock that it was working.

This example also seems to come in a form that is impossible for Jack to believe at the time. However, there are a few unnecessary terms. The terms "of" and "that it" are superfluous. We can remove them entirely and lose nothing meaningful. The simplest explanation is the best provided there is no loss in explanatory power. Occam's razor applies. We are left with...

At time t1, Jack believed a broken clock was working. — creativesoul

There is loss of explanatory power, b/c by removing those parts you are attributing to Jack a contradictory belief so you can not distinguish a case of ignorance from a case of irrational belief... — neomac

I've not attributed contradictory belief to Jack. It's always a case of ignorance when one believes a broken clock.

a false belief is not a contradictory belief — neomac

False belief cannot be knowingly held.

The practice you've been using sometimes attributes true belief to one who holds false belief.

So it seems that one thing you want is to compare/contrast the respective renderings of Jack's belief at time t1.

At time t1, Jack believed that clock was working.

At time t1, Jack believed that broken clock was working.

You're claiming the first is more accurate. I'm claiming the second is.

Prior to continuing... Do you agree with that much?

Uh, isn't this a lot of parsing for no real good reason? If we were not trying to study language and, specifically, the Proposition, for clues as to Reality, why would we care? — Michael Sol

It's about belief. Get that wrong and you have gotten all sorts of things wrong. I could not care less about the failings of convention. It just so happens that, weirdly enough, many of the problems are dissolved by my understanding of belief.

Belief is not equivalent to propositions, or attitudes towards them. Convention has yet to have figured this out, evidently.

CreativeSoul - You said:

"It's about belief. Get that wrong and you have gotten all sorts of things wrong. I could not care less about the failings of convention. It just so happens that, weirdly enough, many of the problems are dissolved by my understanding of belief."

We are talking about the beliefs underlying the terms of the proposition, right? So we have to read it as if it makes sense, as in "At 11, Jack believed that the clock [of indeterminate working condition] was working," is understood to be the same proposition "At 11, Jack believed that the [unbeknownst to him] broken clock was working," the Reader supposing of Jack sanity and so refusing equivalence to what would have to be "At 11, Jack believed that [what he knew to be a] broken clock was working," because that would infer that Jack was delusive. right?

Are we not then, as a rule, that we must infer in Jack a meaning to his utterance that is logically correct in a Commonly Perceived Reality?

We are talking about the beliefs underlying the terms of the proposition, right? — Michael Sol

I'm not even sure what that is supposed to mean, so I hesitate to answer either way.

The matter under contention was whether or not all belief content is propositional. That was what the original debate between Banno and myself was about. The current discussion began by my claiming that conventional practices cannot properly account for belief like Jack's. The alternative renderings have all sorts of problems like some have left the broken clock out of Jack's belief altogether. Others are true belief, when we know Jack's was false. Others add words that do not change the fact that Jack believed what a broken clock said(so to speak).

There are only a couple of alternatives that are not guilty of at least one of these errors. Those are the interesting ones to me. Neo seems to be grasping at the straws of misattribution as a means to find flaw in what I've been presenting. There are a few simple true statements about belief that go a long way in supporting what I've been arguing here in addition to driving a death knell into the coffin of the idea that all belief are equivalent to propositional attitudes.

True belief cannot be false. False belief cannot be true. It is impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood. It is impossible to knowingly be mistaken.

The tenets directly above place any and all attempts at rendering false belief in terms of propositional attitudes in serious trouble.


Jack is unaware that he believes a broken clock while he does. Jack's not talking about it at the time. Jack's also not even thinking about his own belief at the time.

I'm also not all that impressed with what counts as being "logically correct" these days. I reject the purported rules of 'logical' entailment, for example. I can and have shown how they are in error. Gettier and all...

What seems to be an underlying issue here is whether or not it makes sense for me to say that at time t1, Jack believes that a broken clock is working. It does, but that does not seem to have been rightly understood. Some have argued that I am attributing a contradictory belief to Jack. That argument is based upon a fair amount of misunderstanding, all of which stems from a reading of my accounting practice based upon the mistaken tenets of mutually exclusive accounting practices.

As they are written, the words "a broken clock is working" could be rightly said to introduce a nonsensical utterance if and when that judgment is based upon the obvious failure of using the terms in congruence with everyday linguistic practices. I totally agree that such an utterance is either meaningless nonsense or else incoherent if and when we're judging the coherency of the language use(the words as they are written). We do not use the term "broken" to describe things that are not. It is also the case that such an utterance simply cannot be true. It is never true. It is incapable of being so for other reasons as well. It is literally a contradiction in terms.

So...

Based upon all this, some have concluded that when I say that at time t1, Jack believes a broken clock is working, that I am attributing to him a belief that is nonsensical and/or contradictory, and that it is impossible to hold such a belief. It is not impossible to hold such a belief. It is only impossible to knowingly hold it. Jack does not know that he holds it. They do not understand that I am not attributing those words to him as though his belief consisted of those words, which would be contradictory and/or nonsensical. Rather, as I said in so many words at the very beginning of this particular dispute, I am attributing to him an attitude towards the broken clock such that he believes it to be a reliable source of information regarding what time it was. That's what we do when we look to clocks to tell the time.

It seems that my objectors/detractors do not understand that the content of Jack's belief is not propositional. He is not drawing correlations that include the words "a broken clock is working". It is only if he were doing so, it is only if I said he were doing so, that I would be guilty as charged regarding attributing a contradictory belief to Jack. Jack's belief does not come in propositional form, unless "a broken clock is working" counts as a proposition. I do not think that it does, regardless of which sense of "proposition" we're considering.

It seems that my objectors do not understand that all false belief, each and every one, is had by a creature completely unaware of having it while they do. They do not understand that it is impossible to knowingly have false belief, to knowingly believe a falsehood, and/or to knowingly be mistaken. But we have false belief, we believe falsehoods, and we are most certainly mistaken at times, nonetheless. They do not understand that when we become aware that some belief we have is false, it is no longer even possible to continue having it.

They do not understand that an accurate report of false belief will provide that which is and would be impossible to knowingly believe.

Propositions are not.

the content of Jack's belief is not propositional. He is not drawing correlations that include the words "a broken clock is working". — creativesoul

No, he isn't. Jack is "drawing correlations that include the words 'a [ ] clock is working.'" So his belief is propositional.

Regardless of how you've decided to formulate it, it remains true that Jack's belief can be formulated proposition-wise in the usual way: Jack believes "a clock is working" is true.

So Jack's belief is in some sense propositional, regardless of this non-conundrum you're at.

Ok, I was talking about Jack's beliefs in the figure.

How can a belief, how can anything but nonsense, not be propositional? What non-propositional statement has any meaning? Am I missing something? If I'm not attributing something to something else, than am I saying anything?

My point is, if we accept the objective reality of the material universe, Jack either knew the clock was broken or he did not; he either knew the time or did not; and the time on the face of the clock at that instant was either coincident with the actual time, or it was not; and from these possible conditions we can make any of the possible statements:

Jack, not knowing the clock was broken, thought it to be Eleven.

Jack, knowing the clock was broken, wondered if it could actually be Eleven, as shown on the broken clocks face.

Jack, knowing the clock was broken, checked his pocket watch, and was amused that the working and broken clocks agreed that it was Eleven.

Jack, knowing the clock was broken, and knowing that the actual time was different, yet still thought that, in some strange fashion, the clock was working, and that its time was somehow more accurate than the one that agreed with Greenwich.

Is there some variant to the explication of "At 11, Jack thought the broken clock was working," that I'm missing? If I am, let me know; but the point is, in Reality, the Proposition can only have a very limited number of very clear meanings.

So why are we spending so much time in parsing the nuances of Propositions to see if we can make them seem Absurd? Why all the fuss about language?

So let me say this again, in an Objectively Extant Material Reality all of the Referents of speech are to real objects in the real world, all of which operate according to the fundamental, eternal, necessary and unchangeable laws of Physics, and so any confusion between Consciousnesses over their communications is solely due to poor definitions and poor or untenable propositions....

And none of this Linguistic Confusion has any Metaphysical significance whatsoever...

At time t1, Jack believed that clock was working.

At time t1, Jack believed that broken clock was working.

You're claiming the first is more accurate. I'm claiming the second is.

Prior to continuing... Do you agree with that much? — creativesoul

Yes I do.

I am attributing to him an attitude towards the broken clock such that he believes it to be a reliable source of information regarding what time it was. — creativesoul

Notice that this claim is a de re belief ascription analogous to "Jack believes of that broken clock that is working" (which I was talking about a while ago) where the expression "the broken clock" is outside the completive clause of the predicate "to believe", and within the semantic scope of the one who makes the belief ascription. You are using it to disambiguate your own claim against the putative misunderstanding of others. In using it, you are proving that this form is more understandable than your own rendering. But even if you used it just as a temporary concession, what is more critical, is that this rendering allows you to keep unclear what constitutes non-propositional belief contents. Which is what you should still explain to support your claims.

It seems that my objectors/detractors do not understand that the content of Jack's belief is not propositional. He is not drawing correlations that include the words "a broken clock is working". It is only if he were doing so, it is only if I said he were doing so, that I would be guilty as charged regarding attributing a contradictory belief to Jack. — creativesoul

You have to prove that part in bold of your claim. What is exactly the non-propositional belief content that Jack is not aware to hold, namely "that broken clock is working" (without quotes)? Can you spell it out right away? Between what kind of things is Jack drawing correlations when you are attributing to him the non-propositional and unquoted content "that broken clock is working"? I see 3 items in there ("broken", "clock" and "is working"), what do they stand for as parts of a non-propositional content? Not words (b/c otherwise they would be propositions), then what else?

No, he isn't. Jack is "drawing correlations that include the words 'a [ ] clock is working.'" So his belief is propositional. — ZzzoneiroCosm

You've just attributed true belief to Jack. Jack's belief is false.

We have the ability to use propositions to talk about Jack's belief, as well as language less creatures'. It does not follow that the belief is propositional in content. It follows that our reports are.