Given the confusions here, I'm not keen on moving on to it quite yet - it presumes quite a bit about the way we might view belief, and won't be understood without those presumptions. — Banno

I agree. But that snippet gives a hint as to why you can't get opacity with behaviorism. You'll end up with a de re reading of everything.

@Count Timothy von Icarus already explained why that isn't the Christian view, here

I don't think either of you are Catholic, though, so you don't have to worry about the consequences of heresy. :wink:

You can't surmise belief from action? Why not? — Banno

Maybe you could. I'll have to think on it. Anyway, if you're interested, this part of Davidson's argument that we can't tell what dog's believe from Rational Animals:

Norman Malcolm tells this story, which is intended to show that dogs think:

"Suppose our dog is chasing the neighbor’s cat. The latter runs full tilt toward the oak tree, but suddenly swerves at the last moment and disappears up a nearby maple. The dog doesn’t see this maneuver and on arriving at the oak tree he rears up on his hind feet, paws at the trunk as if trying to scale it, and barks excitedly into the branches above. We who observe this whole episode from a window say, ‘He thinks that the cat went up that oak tree’2. (Malcolm added, we would say the dog was barking up the wrong tree.)

Malcolm claims that under the circumstances someone who attributed that belief to the dog might well - almost surely would -be right; he would have exactly the sort of evidence needed to justify such an attribution. Let me give a preliminary argument designed to put Malcolm’s claim in doubt. It’s clear that the evidence for the dog’s ‘belief‘ depends on taking belief as a determinant of action and emotional response. We are asked to infer from what we see that the dog wants to catch the cat, that he runs where he does because of this desire and a belief about where the cat has gone, and that he is venting his frustration at not being able to follow the cat up the tree by barking, pawing the ground, and so forth.

The details do not need to be right, of course. The point is so far obvious: if we are justified in inferring beliefs, we are also justified in inferring intentions and desires (and perhaps much more). But how about the dog’s supposed belief that the cat went up that oak tree? That oak tree, as it happens, is the oldest tree in sight. Does the dog think that the cat went up the oldest tree in sight? Or that the cat went up the same tree it went up the last time the dog chased it? It is hard to make sense of the questions. But then it does not seem possible to distinguish between quite different things the dog might be said to believe.

One way of telling that we are attributing a propositional attitude is by noting that the sentences we use to do the attributing may change from true to false if, in the words that pick out the object of the attitude, we substitute for some referring expression another expression that refers to the same thing. The belief that the cat went up that oak tree is not the same belief as the belief that the cat went up the oldest tree in sight. If we use words like ‘believe’, ‘think’, ‘intend’ while dropping the feature of semantic opacity, we are not using those words to attribute propositional attitudes. For it has long been recognized that semantic opacity distinguishes talk about propositional attitudes from talk of other things.

Someone may suggest that the position occupied by the expression ‘that oak tree’ in the sentence ‘The dog thinks the cat went up that oak tree’ is, in Quine’s terminology, transparent. The right way to put the dog’s belief (the suggestion continues) is ‘The dog thinks, with respect to that oak tree, that the cat went up it’ or ‘That oak tree is the one the dog thinks the cat went up’. But such constructions, while they may relieve the attributer of the need to produce a description of the object that the believer would accept, nevertheless imply that there is some such description; the de re description picks out an object the believer could somehow pick out. In a popular if misleading idiom, the dog must believe, under some description of the tree, that the cat went up that tree. But what kind of description would suit the dog? For example, can the dog believe of an object that it is a tree? This would seem impossible unless we suppose the dog has many general beliefs about trees: that they are growing things, that they need soil and water, that they have leaves or needles, that they burn. There is no fixed list of things someone with the concept of a tree must believe, but without many general beliefs, there would be no reason to identify a belief as a belief about a tree, much less an oak tree. Similar considerations apply to the dog’s supposed thinking about the cat. — Donald Davidson, Rational Animals

Sure. But not Davidson, nor any one else under consideration here. Arn't we here considering only those who do attribute belief? — Banno

We were just talking about referential opacity. I told Bongo that we can't get that with behaviorism. He disagreed. Anyway, it just establishes that if we're using the term "opacity" we're in line with folk psychology that affirms full bodied propositional attitudes. We can't be talking about a deflated or reductive version of belief, because you don't get opacity with that.

I'm also curious about the implications of identifying with confidence what someone else believes. That's why I was asking how we know Lois believes x. Like, am I saying I'm a mind-reader? Am I employing charity? Is there any way to discover what she believes other than to be told by her?

Yes, and arguably neither is Superman in 'Lois is ready enough to say "Superman can fly"', that that sentence is not about Superman, but about something Lous says. I gather your behaviourist is not inferring any intentionality to Lous or to the parrot. Do you know of any one who proposes such an approach? — Banno

Like B.F. Skinner?

Behaviorism, the doctrine, is committed in its fullest and most complete sense to the truth of the following three sets of claims.

Psychology is the science of behavior. Psychology is not the science of the inner mind – as something other or different from behavior.

Behavior can be described and explained without making ultimate reference to mental events or to internal psychological processes. The sources of behavior are external (in the environment), not internal (in the mind, in the head).

In the course of theory development in psychology, if, somehow, mental terms or concepts are deployed in describing or explaining behavior, then either (a) these terms or concepts should be eliminated and replaced by behavioral terms or (b) they can and should be translated or paraphrased into behavioral concepts. — SEP

Also recall that in Superman III, corrupted Superman physically expels Clarke Kent from his body, who then proceeds to strangle him to death along with the de re/de facto distinction. — sime

:lol:

frank

Haha, cheeky! No we didn't. — bongo fury

Oh, I thought we did.

Isn't the move from
b. Lois is ready enough to say "Superman can fly."
to
c. Therefore, Lois is ready enough to say "Clark Kent can fly."
A supposed substitution? — Banno

Look at this one:

a. Superman is Clark Kent
b. Toto the parrot is ready enough to say "Superman can fly"
c. Therefore Toto the parrot is ready enough to say "Clark Kent can fly"

The rigid designator, Superman, isn't in sentence b. All that's there is a sound the parrot is ready to make.

Behaviorism deflates belief to point that it's simple behavior. There is no content to speech. The rigid designator would be in the content.

So if we assert that Lois believes Sup can fly, we are talking about a propositional attitude toward content, not readiness to make certain sounds.

No. Three persons who each are God, is one God. That’s unique information. — Fire Ologist

I was talking about Plotinus.

Referential opacity shows up in the identity elimination schema;

Identity Elimination Schema

Major: t1 = t2

Minor: ϕ(t1)

Conclusion: ϕ(t2) — IEP

So we would have:

a. Superman = Clark Kent
b. Lois is ready enough to say "Superman can fly."
c. Therefore, Lois is ready enough to say "Clark Kent can fly."

T1 has to show up in the b sentence, and it's not there. There's nothing to substitute.

I'd be surprised to hear Catholics have embraces Spinoza. — Banno

Christianity is built on Neoplatonism. They believed God is everything.

Bongo and I were discussing whether a behaviorist could arrive at referential opacity. We decided not, but then we examined whether we could define belief as a readiness to say a certain sentence. I don't think that will work either.

Yep, and it's the same with predications of the Son. His nature/ousia is God/divine. But he is not "the god," where "the god" means something like the Father or else a generic god-person. The Nicene Creed says, "Consubstantial with the Father," which is the much more traditional phrase. — Leontiskos

Fine. The use of Logos tells that it's related to Plato, the Stoics, and Philo. The basic idea was that God is everything. That's what Plotinus believed. I'm happy to give you the victory over sorting out what Catholics believe.

The Trinity comes from a Jewish guy named Philo. He believed Greek philosophy actually came from the OT. He believed God is everything.

Fine. You're saying John 1:1 is saying that the Word was with the Father, and the Word was divine.

My give a damn is now officially busted.

Try this as your starting point for explaining "is."

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.....

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. — John 1:1-5, 14

The Word is Jesus. Jesus was with God, and Jesus was God. Explain it.

@flannel jesus called attention to this song from The Book of Mormon. I think it will clarify things.

Yes. Quine agrees. Maintain the common attitude by not quantifying in, and hence not trying to reconcile Lois' Superman with ours. Not cashing in on the (future!) "rigid" rhetoric. Not substituting. Not going de re. Not concluding sentence c. — bongo fury

Ok. You just can't do that if you're defining belief as a readiness to make certain sounds. If Quine contradicts me on that, I'd have to read what he says to see what it is I'm misunderstanding.

Because if it did, we'd be able to substitute? — bongo fury

T1 is Superman. It's a rigid designator, which is identical to Clark Kent, also a rigid designator. The b sentence tells us that Lois believes Superman (the rigid designator) can fly.

a. Superman = Clark Kent
b. Lois believes Superman can fly
c. therefore Lois believes Clark Kent can fly — frank

Sentence c, with a de dicto reading, isn't true.

If we do a de re reading of sentence c, we would claim that Lois really does believe that Clark can fly, she just doesn't know she believes that, or maybe she just wouldn't put it that way? So with the endless shenanigans people have played with this problem, there are some views that say it's not a substitution failure.

The normal, everyday, commonly held attitude is that Sentence C is wrong, and as as a result of an invasion of propositional attitudes, we have referential opacity.

The " t1" in "believes t1 can fly" won't have the same reference as the one in line 1. — bongo fury

Why not?

But isnt Quine saying, let it show up in a belief context and transparency will be sacrificed quite as much as if you put it in quotes? — bongo fury

No, you can't put it in quotes. It has to be:

t1 = t2
Lois believes t1 can fly
therefore Lois believes t2 can fly

I think what you're suggesting is a readiness to make certain sounds. That's what you're calling belief. That's fine, it's just that you won't get opacity that way.

Somehow you have to involve t1.

Well, it doesn't say the ascriptions shouldn't be in terms of dispositions to assent and dissent? — bongo fury

In this case, the misapplication is so bad you don't even have a substitution failure. You at least have to have t1 in the b sentence.

Comport yourself so that t1 shows up in the b sentence, and we can evaluate for referential opacity.

And isn't Davidson saying the parrot wouldn't recognise the opacity? — bongo fury

I haven't gotten back to Davidson. I'm still trying to figure out opacity. You're helping. :grin:

More to the point, it's referential opacity. — bongo fury

No, you only get referential opacity if there are mental states involved... specifically of a kind a parrot wouldn't have.

The problem of referential opacity is to explain why a certain inference rule of classical logic sometimes produces invalid-seeming inferences when applied to ascriptions of mental states. — IEP

Let alone that the readiness is to say it "in all sincerity"!

Not sure I see an inherent problem. — bongo fury

You were asking if it would be more surprising if propositional attitudes did not result in substitution failure. I was saying that this would depend on how one understands belief. A behaviorist might have a hard time accepting substitution failure because beliefs reduce to behavior. Evidence for substitution failure would be scarce and unreliable.

You're identifying belief with the readiness of a subject to say S with sincerity. So it's

a. Clark Kent = Superman
b. Lois is ready enough to say S1 with sincerity, where S1 is "Superman can fly."
c. Therefore, Lois is ready enough to say S2 with sincerity, where S2 is "Clark Kent can fly."

This is a misapplication of the Identity Elimination Schema, which goes

Major: t1 = t2

Minor: ϕ(t1)

Conclusion: ϕ(t2) — IEP

The reason it's a misapplication is that neither t1 nor t2 show up in the b sentence. You can't substitute t1 for a mention of t1. If you do that, you'll end up with:

a. Istanbul is Constantinople.
b. “Istanbul” has eight letters.
c. ∴ “Constantinople” has eight letters. — IEP

In other words, if we use your scheme, we'll end up applying Leibniz' Law to the speech of a parrot. Parrots can be ready enough to say S1. What does that have to do with laws of identity?

Edit. Actually, I think I'm wrong about calling that a mention, it's more just an utterance. It's just sound that Lois is making.

How could you tell from watching Ralph's behavior that he's "ready enough to say" something? With behaviorism, we're trying to avoid a God's eye view on Ralph's psyche. In fact, for our purposes (as faithful behaviorists), Ralph has no psyche.

Well, as assent to contradictory sentences? — bongo fury

So we put two flashcards in front of Lois with contradictory sentences on them, and if she nods her head to both, we have referential opacity.

We are not going to explain away the fact that one plus one plus one equals three, and three does not equal one, but that one person is fully God, the other person if fully God, and the other person is fully God, but though there are three persons, there is but one God. If you are looking for some explanation that provides a new math, that may never come. — Fire Ologist

This is in keeping with the traditional Catholic perspective. The Trinity is a mystery beyond human understanding. You alluded earlier to John 1:1. Religion scholars identify that as Logos mysticism. It's cool stuff.

I've looked, but have not been able to locate a good account of opacity. — Banno

The IEP article is terrible. I'll try the SEP article.

I think we are still waiting for an explanation of what the "is" in the Trinity is, and why.
— Banno
I think that is the crux of the discussion! I am waining too! — MoK

I was thinking the same thing. Why is there silence on that question?

The guts of Davidson's article is the difference between "Superman is Clark Kent" and "Lois believes that Superman is Clark Kent". The former is a relation of identity between two characters, the latter a belief on the part of a third character. The two are very different things. — Banno

Sorry, I was vague about that. The OP is from an IEP article on referential opacity. I was struggling to understand all the aspects of it. Davidson's article is called Rational Animals. I felt like I needed to understand opacity better before I digested his argument.

A behaviourist wouldn't necessarily deny belief or opaqueness, though? — bongo fury

To support that, you'd need to explain how a substitution failure cashes out in terms of behavior.

Wouldn't it be more a cause for wonderment if it created referential transparency?

Then the Superman of Lois' beliefs could be relied on to share all his properties with the actual fictional one? — bongo fury

It depends on how you explain belief. A behaviorist would say that what we call belief reduces to certain actions. Since Clark is Superman, we can substitute all day long, because there is no hidden object in Lois's head. There is no opaque reference. The behaviorist goes with the de re reading:

Normally, we understand such ascriptions in the way that does not, which is why we reject (2b), but if cajoled enough (“look, she does believe Clark can fly, she just wouldn’t say it like that”), we may switch to a reading that allows substitution. In the usual terminology, this is called the de re reading, contrasting with the more common de dicto reading, which disallows substitution. Other terminology for this reading is relational, contrasting with notional; transparent, contrasting with opaque; and wide scope, contrasting with narrow scope. We turn now to explaining what distinction these labels attempt to mark. — IEP

As I mentioned, it's been said that God is like a coffee cup. The handle is an analogy. The mind is the index finger. In other words, the mind can only grasp God in a limited way.

Analogy in the knowledge of the mysteries of faith. The Fathers of the Church always emphasized the inability of the human reason to discover or even to represent adequately the mysteries of faith, and insisted on the necessity of analogical conceptions in their representations and expressions. St. Thomas, after the Pseudo-Dionysius and Albertus Magnus, has given the theory of analogy so applied to the mysteries of faith. (Cf. St. Thomas, Summa, Theol., I, Q. i, a. 9; Q. xxii, a. 1; In Librum Boëthii De Trinitate Expositio.) The Vatican Council set forth the Catholic doctrine on the point. (Cf. Const., Dei Filius, cap. iv; cf. also Conc. Coloniense, 1860.) (1) Before Revelation, analogy is unable to discover the mysteries, since reason can know of God only what is manifested of Him and is in necessary causal relation with Him in created things. (2) In Revelation, analogy is necessary, since God cannot reveal the mysteries to men except through conceptions intelligible to the human mind, and therefore analogical. (3) After Revelation, analogy is useful to give us certain knowledge of the mysteries, either by comparison with natural things and truths, or by consideration of the mysteries in relation with one another and with the destiny of man.

Thanks for the response. I don't have anything to add.

But I’d ask for a small step back from you as well in some form of confession that your original post with it’s reference to lobotomies and belittling caricatures of Christianity might have been a factor in the hostility on the thread. — Fire Ologist

Sure. All cards on the table, the inspiration for the OP was the fact that there were two open threads attacking the OT, one on the basis that some of the folktales in it don't seem possible, and one complaining that the OT deity seems vengeful. I was like, did you guys think the NT makes sense? Because it doesn't.

As for whether I'm responsible for the hostility of others, that's a complicated question. Everybody gets stressed, and sometimes a certain attack is the last straw. Emotional immaturity takes over, and a counter-attack is inevitable. That aspect of humanity shows up at the heart of the message of Jesus. He was saying that you don't have to let other people control you in that way. You're free. When someone attacks you, just stop and see that they're just like you. Maybe they have taken on the last straw, and they're passing it on to you. Break the cycle. Stand up out of that web of grief and rage. You do it by the grace of God. You do it through love. One of the advantages of this is that when you drop your own rage, you can see people more clearly for who they are.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. 16 Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion.

17 Repay no one evil for evil. Have[e] regard for good things in the sight of all men. 18 If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. 19 Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 Therefore

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
If he is thirsty, give him a drink;
For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.”

21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. — Paul in Romans 12:14-21

Or, the frank-approved MSG version:

Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.”

20-21 Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good. — MSG version

@Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm curious if we can start over without hostility or mistrust. If you will, read the following from the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, and see if you can understand how a person would get the impression that the Catholic Church holds the Trinity to be beyond human understanding. There is definitely some ambiguity to the concept of mystery, and that's mentioned here. Mystery is not synonymous with incomprehensible. The very fact that they point this out demonstrates that some have taken the word to mean that, but it goes on to say that everything we know is incomprehensible if you dig deeply enough. So the Catholic Church does warn that the mystery at the foundation of all things is unknowable. On the one hand, a believer can be said to know the Trinity, because it has been revealed, but on the other hand, the Trinity is above finite intelligence. We can only grasp it by using analogies. We can't directly understand it.

In conformity with the usage of the inspired writers of the New Testament, theologians give the name mystery to revealed truths that surpass the powers of natural reason. Mystery, therefore, in its strict theological sense is not synonymous with the incomprehensible, since all that we know is incomprehensible, i.e., not adequately comprehensible as to its inner being; nor with the unknowable, since many things merely natural are accidentally unknowable, on account of their inaccessibility, e.g., things that are future, remote, or hidden. In its strict sense a mystery is a supernatural truth, one that of its very nature lies above the finite intelligence.

Theologians distinguish two classes of supernatural mysteries: the absolute (or theological) and the relative. An absolute mystery is a truth whose existence or possibility could not be discovered by a creature, and whose essence (inner substantial being) can be expressed by the finite mind only in terms of analogy, e.g., the Trinity. A relative mystery is a truth whose innermost nature alone (e.g., many of the Divine attributes), or whose existence alone (e.g., the positive ceremonial precepts of the Old Law), exceeds the natural knowing power of the creature.... — New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia

In this passage, there is an attempt to refute Christian Rationaists. Notice

The existence of supernatural mysteries is denied by Rationalists and semi-Rationalists. Rationalists object that mysteries are degrading to reason. Their favourite argument is based on the principle that no medium exists between the reasonable and the unreasonable, from which they conclude that the mysterious is opposed to reason (Bayle, Pfleiderer). This argumentation is fallacious, since it confounds incomprehensibility with inconceivableness, superiority to reason with contradiction. The mind of a creature cannot, indeed, grasp the inner nature of the mysterious truth, but it can express that truth by analogies; it cannot fully understand the coherence and agreement of all that is contained in a mystery of faith, but it can refute successfully the objections which would make a mystery consist of mutually repugnant elements. — New Advent

In other words, they're drawing a distinction between incomprehensibility and inconceivableness. At first glance, it doesn't seem that such a distinction is supportable. Don't these two words mean the same thing? When the topic is mystery, the answer is no. A mystery is incomprehensible, but not inconceivable. They're denying that the Trinity is a contradiction, but they admit that it's superior to reason. Another way to say that is that it is beyond reason.

I think it's probably the case that the reason the word "contradiction" is rejected is that this makes it sound like the Trinity is impossible. Though the "mind of a creature cannot, indeed, grasp the inner nature of the mysterious truth" knowledge is available through analogies. An analogy is like the handle on a coffee cup. Your mind is the index finger that holds the cup by as much as the finger can grasp.

Allow me to risk being idiotic, but perhaps part of the solution lies in thinking "Lois believes that Superman can fly" is not a property of Superman. It's a fact that you can say, but it's not a property as such.

Seems more like that statement is about a property of Lois lane — flannel jesus

Yes, I misspoke. Leibniz's Law gives us the expectation that we can substitute t1 and t2 in the Identity Elimination Schema (here)

The schema itself isn't an expression of Leibniz's Law.

I'm going to be examining an argument that says language is required for rationality. It's going to be rejecting the idea that dogs have beliefs, specifically because we have no way to be sure what they believe.

If referential opacity is drawn into the argument, which it is, then it's fair to tinker with the gears in that object.

You stipulated that she does. I trust you. If you now want to bring that in to doubt, go ahead, but I don't much see the point in doing so. — Banno

I don't think it's a stipulation in that context. We know what Lois believes because we know the story. It's from the narrator's point of view. That isn't available in real life.

Another angle on the same question would be: how do you ever know what other people believe? If it's charity, do you extend that charity to dogs? Why or why not?

How do you know Lois believes it?