The "hard problem" is so hard because it's built upon the idea that we can solve all the easy ones, but what's left... that... that is the hard problem.

There is no light switch. No "on" and "off". Consciousness - as we know it - emerges via biological mutations and time. It begins with avoiding danger and gathering resources and grows in it's complexity over enough time and mutation. We know that consciousness - as we know it - is existentially dependent upon certain brain structures as well as all sorts of other biological machinery.

There is no "aha there it is!" moment. The "hard problem" is all in the name and the purported criterion of consciousness that is being taken into consideration.

I think having the discussion about the pre-predicative I highlighted, in an exploratory fashion, would. — fdrake

If the aim is at what all predication is existentially dependent on, there is much room for growth in all the right directions within this discussion.

I do not think it makes the right kind of sense to invoke things like getting stabbed with a spear as something that counts as being pre-predicative. It's also not the right kind of sense to invoke some feelings someone has just prior to speaking about them, or one's sitting in silence. That's the wrong kind of privacy, ineffability, and pre-predicative things to be taking into consideration. The notion of "pre-predicative" that makes the most sense to discuss involves what predication itself is existentially dependent upon.

Language less experience is pre-predicative. It is ineffable one the one hand(the language less creature cannot express it via language), but if we - as language users - get meaningful experience(meaningful thought/belief) right... we can talk about what is otherwise ineffable to the believing creature in much the same way that we can talk in great detail about another's false belief despite their inability to do the same while holding it.

The distinction between what pre-predicative belief/experience consists of and what our report of that consists of needs to be drawn and maintained. Some linguistic frameworks are incapable of doing so.

When determining whether or not an action is good, we can ask ourselves what the world would be like if everyone did that. That's a pretty good rule of thumb.

No worries about the delay. This conversation may have many. I'm very busy as well. Too busy to offer anything other than this at the moment...

:wink:

Cheers. Happy Holidays, happy new year, and all that jazz!!!

I'm not sure what makes you think that my view cannot make sense of actions based on false belief. The farmer believed a piece of cloth was a cow. He acted just like someone who believed that. His subsequent speech act could very well have been "Oh, there's a cow in the field". That is exactly what I would expect someone to say if they mistook cloth for cow.

The last paragraph in your reply deserves more attention than I can currently give it. I want to, but it will have to wait. Again...

Cheers!

But does temperature equate to (the sensation of) heat? — Banno

Cannot. Sensation consists - in part at least - of biological machinery, whereas temperature needs none.

Cheers .

Happy New Year!

Nice job managing these threads lately! I'm taking notes on that for months down the road when I'll have more time. :wink:

For now, I'll just read... time permitting.

Banno So, you're saying that I can use a name correctly even if I don't know who or what it refers to? — Janus

...we can use proper names correctly even when we do not have a suitable definite description. — Banno

Seems we were thinking of the Russian word for snow without thinking of snow at all, at least until we Googled it. — Banno

Google helped you two draw the correlation between the name and the thing being named.




There are many correlations shared between worldviews as well as each person having their own unique total set of meaningful correlations(personal worldview). Knowing what someone else means requires drawing the same sorts of correlations between the same sorts of things.

The notions of privacy and ineffability are fraught. Dennett's intuition pumps were remarkably effective at allowing me to realize how.

Language users' experience includes language use and all sorts of things that are themselves existentially dependent upon language. Not all experience does. Language less creatures have experience. All experience is meaningful to the creature having the experience.

Bridging the gap between language less creatures' experience and language users' experience requires a notion/conception of meaning that is amenable to terms of evolutionary progression. Correlations are the only candidate I'm aware of that are capable of sensibly being attributed to language less creatures as well as language users. The framework is capable of explaining the evolution of complexity regarding beliefs over time.

Not here though.

Banno's thread. I've no time.

Happy Holidays!

...one specific proposition gets its meaning from its relationship to the other propositions in the system... — Ludwig V

I think that this line of thought would be well served by introducing a bit more regarding how the relationship emerges, how the relationship persists, what the relationship consists of/in, what the relationship is existentially dependent upon, etc.

The role of the users, in as precise a manner as possible.

as a rule of thumb, sociology considers any suriving regular social behaviour an institution.
— Dawnstorm — Moliere

the difference between a grunt and an utterance is exactly that the utterance makes use of an institution... it counts as a warning or an admonition or some such. It has a normative role. — Banno

We don't know why certain noises or marks count as utterances. — Moliere

We know how. Correlations drawn between(amongst other things) those particular noises or marks and the term/word "utterance" by a plurality of people capable of doing so.

This and the other... good threads Banno.

<raised beer mug>

Maybe.

The core issue is the stark difference between our notions of "belief". Your last reply shows a few more as well.

While I agree with rejecting belief as something in the head(mind), I differ on how to best handle that.

Does the farmer do all those things if he does not believe that that particular piece of cloth is a cow? I think not. I suspect you'd agree. How does focusing upon his actions tell us anymore regarding exactly what his(and all) belief are?

I'm also still curious about why you think my view is too rigid to cope with how the appropriate expression of a belief is affected by the believer, an author/speaker reporting the belief, and the reader/listener.

Perhaps, but it does invoke an extra entity.

What other form could moral facts take? — ToothyMaw

That skirts the key question here, does it not? Before we can make any sense of what counts as a moral fact, we must already have some criterion for what counts as a fact, for a moral fact is a kind/species of fact.

What do all facts have in common - if anything - such that having it is what makes them count as a fact, rather than not?

It seems to me that your standard amounts to all facts are true statements. Is that right?

It makes sense that the fewer barriers to something being true, the more likely it is to be true. — Down The Rabbit Hole

That does not make much sense to me. What sort of barriers are you referring to?

Occam's razor is commonly used against the explanation "God did it".

The main objection that I levy against current convention is that the conventional notion of belief as propositional attitude cannot bridge the evolutionary gap between language and language less creatures' beliefs.
— creativesoul

I agree that there is a problem about that, and that it is annoying. — Ludwig V

That puts it very lightly, to say the least. It looks to me to be a very serious foundational problem. If we think about it in terms of explanatory power and/or adequacy, "propositional attitude" language games are incapable of explaining how language less belief works. If language less belief existed in its entirety prior to language, and with enough time and/or mutation, gave rise to both language and the belief of language users, it only follows that we've gotten belief wrong at a very basic level.

I'm not sure how to square the public promotion of talking in terms of propositional attitude with an equally public rejection of propositions. I'm left feeling quite a bit puzzled about that. I do agree with you about propositions though. At least, I think we do. The notion is certainly fraught. From my vantage point, it would have been much better had we not attempted to use "propositions" as an ad hoc explanation for shared meaning(how meaning exists independently from and/or travels between language users).

Meaning is another thing convention has gotten historically wrong. That is an inevitable consequence of having gotten belief wrong, for meaning is itself a bi-product of belief formation, as is correspondence to what's happened, is happening, and/or will happen, as well as the presupposition thereof.<-----that last bit is directly relevant and pertains to an idea that you may agree with; that all belief presupposes its own truth.

It seems you're promoting the belief that approach. I am fond of it as well. It is very useful. I'm not at all certain that anything I've been arguing here inevitably conflicts with it or belief as propositional attitude, so long as we further qualify that (some belief(s) are equivalent to a propositional attitude - not all). I think that much of current convention is amenable to and/or dovetails perfectly with my view. I'm growing particularly fond of much of Davidson's work.


Pertaining to Witt...

I admire Witt for having shaken some philosophical sense into philosophy proper regarding the importance of paying attention to how people use language for more than just communicating thought and/or belief to one another. However, while there is merit to the notion of language games, and plenty of it, it is still based upon an inadequate notion of meaning, and that clearly shows up, to me anyway, in the quote below...

...one specific proposition gets its meaning from its relationship to the other propositions in the system... — Ludwig V

I do not outright disagree with the thrust of what Witt was said to be doing there. I mean, I wholeheartedly agree that many propositions become meaningful solely by virtue of being used in conjunction with other(different) propositions(in their language game). I just do not find that explanation/descriptive practice to be adequate enough. It's correct enough in the main. I mean, we can say the same about all sorts of words as well. It's useful as well. Here though, I'm thinking particularly about several dichotomies that have been used in academia throughout the history of Western philosophy, where they amount to being akin to being two sides of the same meaningful coin. All of which clearly have their use. None serve as adequate terminological frameworks for taking proper account of that which consists of both, and is thus, adequately described by neither side of the dichotomy.

Belief is one such thing.

The result of attempting to use those dichotomies as a means to properly take account of belief has been a self-imposed bewitchment(nod to Witt, of course). Flies in bottles.

When you translate all of that into the context of belief or knowledge, it becomes something of a mess. — Ludwig V

Indeed. That is evidence that there are inadequate conceptual schemes, linguistic frameworks, language games at work attempting to take account of that which existed in its entirety prior to them all.

I'm not altogether convinced by your way of handling it; it has admirable clarity and certainty, but I think it is too rigid to cope with the complexities of the language game with propositional attitudes, specifically the fact that the appropriate expression of a belief is affected not only by the believer, but also by the person uttering the sentence/proposition and by who is receiving it.

Whether you agree or not, I hope that is reasonably clear.

I think that I understand you. It seems we understand one another, by and in large. It would be both helpful and interesting, to me anyway, to unpack that last bit above.

Are you referring to current belief attribution practices when mentioning "the appropriate expression of a belief"?

Those accounting practices have not been clearly discussed here as a subject matter in their own right. They are certainly worthy. However, because those practices are clearly in use regarding Gettier's paper, and very much a part of the problem, I'd like to hear more about why you think my view is too rigid to cope with how the appropriate expression of a belief is affected by the believer, an author/speaker reporting the belief, and the reader/listener.

Thank you for the interesting avenue.

It's not just about aesthetics. It's about methodological approach. It's about warrant. It's about further discriminating between competing explanations.

Occam's razor is about reducing the likelihood for error. The fewest unprovable assumptions is best. The fewest entities is best.

The hitch seems to have been forgotten though...

...so long as there is no loss in explanatory power, the simplest explanation is the best.

... there are no atomic propositions. — Ludwig V

Indeed.

Individual beliefs are picked out of an ongoing process. As a result, as with events, we have to draw a line somewhere. I'm showing that the conventional line that is drawn severs S's belief about Michael's birthplace into pieces, setting the foundational pieces aside. The piece being treated as though it counts as S's belief about Michael's birthplace(the proposition "Michael was not born in Germany") is not equivalent to S's belief about Michael's birthplace, or S's belief about the proposition(the dissected piece), or S's attitude towards that particular proposition.

It does not follow from the fact that S takes "Michael was not born in Germany" to be true or to be the case, that "Michael was not born in Germany' is equivalent to S's belief about Michael's birthplace. What makes S's belief true is strikingly different from what makes the proposition true. It only follows that they are not the same thing. Nevermind that one consists entirely of meaningful marks and the other does not.

The emergent nature of belief formation carries along with it an existential dependency between the different elemental constituents of any given belief. S's belief about Michael's birthplace is not equivalent to the proposition "Michael was not born in Germany". S believes the proposition is true because Michael was born in France. That is not the case. The proposition is true because Michael was born in England, contrary to S's belief. Severing "Michael was not born in Germany" from "Michael was born in France" severs S's belief about Michael's birthplace into pieces. They count as different propositions. They are both irrevocable elements of S's belief; namely that Michael was not born in Germany because he was born in France.

Your claim is that if (1) is true then (3) is false. — Michael

I've neither stated that, nor does anything I've claimed only lead to saying that.

My claim is that if (1) is true then (3) is true. I think my claim is supported by common sense logic: (1) entails (2) and (3).

I'm pointing out that you're treating propositions as though they are equivalent to belief. They are not. They are not equivalent to propositional attitudes either.

"I believe that Michael was not born in Germany because he was born in France but I do not believe that Michael was not born in Germany" is an absurd claim.

Indeed it is. Who has said that or written anything that only leads to saying that?

Seems Moore's lesson has been forgotten.

You seem to be disagreeing about the criteria of identity of beliefs. But there are none, so far as I know. — Ludwig V

Are you sure? It seems that there are several commonly used notions of "belief". They are not on equal footing. I think it plain to see that there does not seem to be much agreement on that front though. Convention has been plagued by the inevitable consequences of having gotten that wrong. It is a century's old problem.

I would not say that there are no criteria(no standard regarding what counts as a belief) being employed though. It's a matter of unpacking everything to see them.

Hume openly admitted having no clue. The fire example refutes Hume's speculation about the nature of causality. It takes touching fire only once in order for a toddler to learn from experience and immediately come to know that touching fire causes pain. It does not require language in any way shape or form to come to know that touching fire causes pain.

Epistemology led to propositional attitudes. The fire example refutes that as well.

The main objection that I levy against current convention is that the conventional notion of belief as propositional attitude cannot bridge the evolutionary gap between language and language less creatures' beliefs. We can grant the notion and see where it leads...

If all belief is equivalent to an attitude towards some proposition or another such that the candidate under our consideration takes it to be true or to be the case, then either language less creatures have no belief, or propositions exist in such a way that a language less creature can have an attitude towards one such that they take it to be true or to be the case.

Convention has largely chosen to deny that language less creatures form, have, and/or hold belief... on pains of coherency alone.

"Michael was not born in Germany."
"Michael was not born in Germany, because he was born in France."

According to the argument you offered earlier, which of the above is an accurate report of S's belief regarding your birthplace?
— creativesoul

Both. Someone who believes the latter also believes the former. They are not mutually exclusive. As I have said, you need to show that someone who believes the latter doesn't also believe the former. You haven't done that. — Michael

I'm charging you and convention with getting S's belief wrong. I'm saying that you're treating S's belief as though it is equivalent to the proposition.

All I need to show is that it is not. The mutual exclusivity between those two propositions or any lack thereof has nothing at all to do with whether or not the proposition is equivalent to S's belief.

S does not just believe that you were not born in Germany.
— creativesoul

I do not just believe that Joe Biden is President. — Michael

Perhaps I should not have left such a low hanging fruit. That's cute.

S does not just believe that "Michael was not born in Germany" is true. S believes "Michael was not born in Germany" is true because you were born in France.

The proposition "Michael was not born in Germany" is equivalent to neither S's belief about that particular proposition nor S's belief about your birthplace. The proposition is true regardless of where you were born so long as it was not in Germany. S's belief about your birthplace as well as their belief about that proposition are true only if, only when, and only because you were born in France.

S believes the proposition is true because you were born in France. The proposition is true because you were born in England, contrary to S's belief.

You're treating S's belief about that proposition and the proposition as though they share truth conditions. They do not.

"Michael was not born in Germany" is not S's belief.

If that does not convince you, nothing will...

It's been fun. Hate to run, but have a real, life changing emergency situation to deal with. No worries, just needs settled. I'll return after the dust does the same.

Joe believes you were born in Croatia. Dan believes you were born in Ireland. Veronica believes you were born in Utah. Kevin believes you were born in British Columbia. John believes you were born in Egypt.

None of them believe the same thing about your birthplace.

The proposition "Michael was not born in Germany" can be attributed to each of them according to current conventional belief attribution practices. That would be to say that they believe the same thing.

None of them believe the same thing about your birthplace.

Joe believes you were not born in Germany, because you were born in Croatia. Dan believes you were not born in Germany, because you were born in Ireland. Veronica believes you were not born in Germany, because you were born in Utah. Kevin believes you were not born in Germany, because you were born in British Columbia. John believes you were not born in Germany, because you were born in Egypt.

None of them believe the same thing about your birthplace.

"Michael was not born in Germany" is not equivalent to Joe, Dan, Veronica, Kevin, and/or John's belief about your birthplace.

As far as I know, the rights to free speech end when that speech is being used to defraud the United States of America.

Let's consider a situation where we have five different people who believe that you were born in five different places. None of these people believe that you were born in Germany. None of these people believe that you were born in England.

According to you(and current convention's belief attribution practices) all of them have the same true belief about your birthplace.

You and current convention are wrong, because none of them believe the same thing and all of their beliefs about your birthplace are false.

"Michael was not born in Germany."
"Michael was not born in Germany, because he was born in France."

According to the argument you offered earlier, which of the above is an accurate report of S's belief regarding your birthplace?

We both know that the second is. You want to say that because he believes the first, the second entails the first, and the first is true, that his belief about your birthplace is true even though you were not born in France, because the proposition is true regardless of where you were born, so long as you were not born in Germany.

S does not just believe that you were not born in Germany. Academia neglects to keep that in mind, and in doing so conflates a naked proposition with S's belief by virtue of conflating what it would take for them to be true. S's belief about your birthplace(and thus about that proposition)does not share the same truth conditions as the naked proposition. S's belief about your birthplace(and that proposition) is true only if, only when, and only because you were born in France. S believes the proposition is true because you were born in France. The proposition is true because you were born in England, contrary to S's belief. S's belief about your birthplace is justified, valid, and false. What S believed to be the case was not.

I'm not familiar enough with Searle's notion to know whether or not I agree with it. I've been watching Searle's lectures though.

My own personal notion of what counts as a moral fact is different. Moral things can be talked about in two very distinct ways. The most common one is that "moral" is equivalent to good, so it's used as a means for assent or to condone behaviour whereas immoral is used to condemn some behaviour or another.

Another use of "moral" is as a means to discriminate between kinds of things, whereas all moral situations/circumstances/facts involve what counts as acceptable/unacceptable behaviour. That approach is riddled with difficulty, but it seems worth the effort.





So, because you cannot charge me with violating Hume's guillotine, it is somehow a problem?

You haven't shown that someone who believes “Michael wasn’t born in Germany because he was born in France” doesn't also believe “Michael wasn’t born in Germany”. — Michael

Nor need I. What I have shown is that "Michael was not born in Germany" is not equivalent to believing that Michael was not born in Germany because he was born in France, which is precisely what S believes. The charge made by me was one of an academic accounting malpractice of S's belief. I've more than shouldered that burden.

The fact that “Michael wasn’t born in Germany because he was born in France” isn’t equivalent to “Michael wasn’t born in Germany” doesn’t mean that someone who believes the former doesn’t also believe the latter. — Michael

Right.

For your argument to work you must show that everyone who believes the former to be true doesn’t believe the latter to be true. You haven’t done that, and I don’t think you can.

Well, no. In order for my argument to work, I need to show that what you're claiming is S's belief is not equivalent to S's belief and that the difference between S's belief and your report is clearly shown by virtue of looking at the differences in what it takes for each to be true.

I can and have done that.

I didn't mention moral facts, but rather that moral claims are propositions, and that the way you used "ought" wasn't the way it is typically used in moral claims. In a moral claim, the object of the "ought" or "ought not" is typically not an inanimate thing, but rather a behavior or action. — ToothyMaw

I'm not following this. Do you take issue with how I used the term "ought"? Is that the basis of your objection?

What is the standard or criterion you're using in order to say that something counts as a "moral fact?"

It is a fact that if I promise to plant you a rose garden on Sunday, then on Monday there ought be a rose garden. It is a fact because that's exactly what those words mean. They have no other meaningful use. When making such a claim the speaker is voluntarily entering into a commitment to make the world match their words.

That's just what promises are.

What does your last reply have to do with any of that? I do not understand how your response was relevant/valid.

S is justified in believing that you were born in France. We can validly infer/deduce that you were not born in Germany based upon knowing that you cannot be born in two separate places at the same time and already believing for good reason that you were born in France.

So, if asked whether or not you were born in Germany, S would answer in the negative because they believe you were born in France. If explicitly asked exactly that, S would readily confirm. The belief about whether or not you were born in Germany is one about your birthplace, and it is based, in very large part at least, directly upon S's pre-existing beliefs about the same.

"Michael was not born in Germany" is an utterly inadequate report of S's belief.

As written, S's attitude towards that particular proposition would be one of general assent/agreement. It does not explicitly contradict S's pre-existing belief about your birthplace. Rather it is commensurate with it.

However, the proposition "Michael was not born in Germany" is not equivalent to S's belief about your birthplace. The proposition is not true only if, only when, and only because you were born in France. S's belief about both, your birthplace and that proposition, is.

People believe more than one thing. Beliefs about one thing entail beliefs about another. I believe that Joe Biden is President. I believe that only one person is President. I believe that Donald Trump isn't President. I believe that Barack Obama isn't President. I believe that creativesoul isn't President. I believe that an emu isn't President. And so on. — Michael

We're in agreement.

You want to rephrase all these beliefs as being "I believe that an emu isn't President because I believe that Joe Biden is President and that only one person can be President and that non-human animals cannot be President and... [whatever else there is]".

Here you've mistaken your report of my mental ongoings with my mental ongoings.

Your objections are replete with enemies of your own making. From my view, your belief about why an emu is not president is irrelevant regarding both, why and how, S believes either the disjunction, or conjunction.

If I promise to plant you a rose garden on Sunday, then on Monday there ought be a rose garden.

Is this correct? Is it a moral claim? Seems to me that the answer is clearly yes to both questions, so some moral claims can be correct.

1. If I was born in France then I was not born in Germany
2. You are justified in believing that I was born in France
3. Therefore, you are justified in believing that I was not born in Germany — Michael

It seems to me that 3 is more accurately rendered as...

S would be justified in believing that you were not born in Germany because you were born in France.


S's belief would be true only if, only when, and only because you were not born in Germany because you were born in France. If you were not born in Germany because you were born in England, then S's belief would be justified, valid, and false.

S's belief is not equivalent to the proposition you're reporting, claiming, asserting, and/or implying is equivalent to S's belief(you were not born in Germany). That's the underlying issue with Case II, and Case I as well. The difference is clearly shown in the truth conditions.

S's belief is that you were not born in Germany because you were born in France.

. Your argument seems to be that if I believe a conjunction then I don't believe each of its parts, which is false — Michael

My 'argument' is that S believes that you were not born in Germany because you were born in France, and that your accounting practice is leaving out the most important part of S's belief.

S's belief is not just that you were not born in Germany. It is that you were not born in Germany because you were born in France.

That is not true.

1. If I was born in France then I was not born in Germany
2. You are justified in believing that I was born in France
3. Therefore, you are justified in believing that I was not born in Germany

Trying to argue that (1) is false if I was not born in France seems unreasonable. Maybe you mean to argue that (3) is an invalid inference? If so then your issue isn't with entailment but with "justificatory closure".

Although I would disagree with you. (3) appears a valid inference to me. Thalburg's objection doesn't apply to this example given that being born in France and being born in Germany are mutually exclusive, and so the conjunction "I was born in France and not born in Germany" is not less likely than the singular "I was born in France". — Michael

I do not see an issue here different from Case II.

If you were not born in Germany for any other reason than being born in France, then S's belief would be justified, valid, and false.