- The actual propositional content of a belief seems to be identified with the possibility of being put in propositional form [9][10][11], and that sounds like claiming that the actual content of a glass is water because one can pour water into the glass.



[9] What we take to be true is what forms the content of a belief. What we take to be true can be expressed in a proposition. Hence, the content of our beliefs is propositional.

[10] beliefs are always about what can be put in propositional form. And this can be rephrased as that the content of a belief is propositional.

[11] My contention is that the content of beliefs are propositional. What is believed can be stated, and is held to be true. — neomac

Yes, it seems that Banno thinks that because belief can be put into propositional form, and has been for centuries, that all belief content is propositional and all belief is an attitude towards that particular proposition.

There is a conflation between reporting upon and/or taking an account of anothers' belief and anothers' belief. The opening post in the debate covers this thoroughly. There are three basic kinds of belief, and believing that some proposition or other is true is but one kind.

It also does not follow from the fact that we can state the cat's belief, and do so using propositions or statements which are truth-apt, that the cat holds those to be true. The cat cannot believe such things, for the cat has no language. The cat believes that the mouse is behind the tree, but quite simply cannot believe that the proposition "the mouse is behind the tree" is true.

- Implicit beliefs [8] can’t be verified until properly expressed (e.g. stated): “holding a belief true” can have both a dispositional and a non-dispositional account. In any case, considerations about truth-functional implications or equivalences based on propositional contents are fallible ways for belief attribution, because there are also irrational beliefs, conceptual indeterminacies and background knowledge that affect doxastic dispositions.



[8] I take it that you believe that you have more than one eyelash. But I suppose that up until now, you had not given this much consideration. If that example does not suit, perhaps you might consider if you believe that you have more than five eyelashes, or less than 12,678. Or you might bring to mind some other belief about something which you had up until now never considered …

The point is that we each have innumerable beliefs that we have never articulated, indeed which we never will articulate, but which nevertheless we do hold to be true. All this to make the point that there are unstated beliefs… — neomac

Here Banno was attempting to support the notion of propositions which had never been proposed, but somehow existed nonetheless as something a believer somehow holds to be true despite never having articulated the proposition or witnessing it having been articulated. To me, that is patently absurd. It amounts to claiming that one can believe something that they have never thought of before ever thinking of it. Such a parsing completely neglects the need for the believer to be a part of the process, and makes a complete muddle of the sequences of events that lead up to forming, having, and/or holding that some proposition or other is true.

seems to think that the position I argue for/from is somehow guilty of reifying belief. The notions of reification or misplaced concreteness work from basic taxonomy which I reject. Not all things can be properly taken into account with a dichotomy such as real/abstract, physical/non-physical, real/imaginary, physical/mental, etc. So, when Banno claims that I hold that beliefs are in the head or mind of the believer, or that they are mental furniture, he's quite mistaken. Belief, like many other things, are not the sorts of things that can have a spatiotemporal location, for the content of one individual's belief can be spread across the globe, indeed the entire universe. Or in the example of the mouse running behind a tree, the content does not have a precise location. The tree, the mouse, and the relationship between them are most certainly not inside the skull of the believer. Any dualist account or dichotomy such as internal/external, mental/physical, and the like is doomed to fail here for the belief is a result of a process that includes the individual who draws the correlations, the tree, the mouse, and the relationship between the mouse and tree.

Philosophy proper has not really recovered from Gettier. That failure is solely as a result of getting belief wrong to begin with, and it's led to approaches like Banno's. While I certainly do understand the need for the JTB account, especially during the time, for some reason or other, that line of thought has been stretched beyond what's warranted. That's where the notion of all belief as propositional attitude comes from. Moore's paradox also shows how that accounting practice is found wanting.

And we are more and more far from understanding how such an account could ever explain what a belief is about and explain the related behavior not only on non-linguistic creature but also in irrational/ignorant linguistic creature. — neomac

Over the years, I've come to realize that parsing the issues in terms of linguistic and non-linguistic belief is fraught, it quite simply does not work. Almost, but not quite right, it seems to me. There's a substantial loss of explanatory power when it comes to creatures we call non linguistic having belief content that is existentially dependent upon language; things like bowls, cups, cars, etc. Such things are certainly linguistic things, meaning that they owe their very existence to language, and it leads us to muddle when trying to parse non-linguistic creatures' beliefs if they are about such things.

To the best of my knowledge, current convention denies that language less creatures can even have belief, to remain consistent with holding that all belief has propositional content(an attitude towards a proposition). Current convention generally holds that truth is a language construct as well. So, appealing to convention doesn't work for me, given convention is wrong about that.

My position is that some belief do indeed have propositional content, but not all. This was explained thoroughly enough in the first three posts of yours truly during the debate this thread is supposed to be about.

- He claims that both beliefs [5] and state of affairs [6] can be put in the form of a proposition, but if the possibility of putting in propositional form a belief is enough to claim that belief have propositional content, then it should be also enough to claim that state of affairs have propositional content. And since propositions are sentences that can be true or false [7], then also state of affairs can be true or false as much as beliefs can be, thanks to their propositional content.



[5] that every belief has propositional content does not imply that every belief has indeed been put in propositional form.

[6] It should be clear from the preceding discussion that while it is not the case that every proposition has been stated, every possible state of affairs can be put in the form of a proposition.

[7] Statements are combinations of nouns and verbs and such like; Some statements are either true or false, and we can call these propositions. So, "The present King of France is bald" is a statement, but not a proposition. Since there is no present King of France, he can be neither bald nor hirsute. "The present king of France is bald" is not the sort of sentence that can be true or false. — neomac

I agree on both points above. There seems to be some special pleading going on, at a bare minimum. Inconsistent terminological use, certainly. That's unacceptable.

Interesting though...

I've noticed something now that I do not remember noticing during the overwhelming amount of seemingly incongruent argumentation offered by Banno during the debate. I had a very hard time making much sense of any of it towards the end.

has arrived at incoherence by virtue of self-contradiction. If all belief has propositional content by virtue of being an attitude towards some proposition or other, and "The present King of France is bald" is not a proposition, then it would not even be possible to believe that the present King of France was bald, because "the present King of France is bald" has just been disqualified. That contradicts the way things are. We all know that it would take very little effort, given the right candidate, to convince someone that the statement is true. It is not impossible to believe that the present King of France is bald. The statement is not truth-apt, but can be wholeheartedly believed nonetheless.

:meh:

If "The present King of France is bald" is not a proposition, and yet it can be believed nonetheless, then it cannot be the case that either all belief has propositional content or all belief is an attitude towards some proposition or other.

:death:

- The manifest inconsistency of claiming that beliefs about statements are exactly the same as beliefs about they way things are [3] has been already spotted by you. But his other formulations elsewhere [4] turned out to be even more preposterous because claiming that beliefs are about how we think things are is exactly like saying beliefs are about how we believe things are (kind of intrinsically reflexive beliefs).



[3] To believe that the mouse ran behind the tree is exactly to believe that "the mouse ran behind the tree" is true; to deny this is to deny that our statements are about the way things are.

[4] Saying that beliefs have propositional content is nothing more than saying that beliefs are about how we think things are. — neomac

I agree on the points you make here. The false equivalency, it seems to me, comes as a result of using the belief that approach for a task it's not suited for. Seems to me that it's suited for showing the presupposition of truth inherent belief statements, and lends itself to redundancy(Tarski's T sentence), both of which Banno seems to agree with and rely upon.

Witt is strong in Banno's view though, particularly so when it comes to metaphysics in general, the importance of language in all human considerations, and any and all philosophical notions which seem to add nothing to our understanding but unnecessary confusion. Last I knew, like Davidson, he rejects the distinction between scheme and world. What you're seeing here could be a result of not quite having consistently rendered all the different aspects of his worldview? Indeed, that may not even matter much to him.

Banno is excellent at engaging others, and for that the world is a better place. He has certainly been the most influential individual to me personally(regarding philosophy), despite all our disagreements. To put it into my own framework...

Banno has been a necessary elemental constituent of my own philosophical understanding, without which, I would not have even been able to have. A mentor of sorts, a guidepost of the utmost caliber.

- Commands and desires are also considered propositional attitudes but they have satisfaction conditions not truth conditions as beliefs. And as long as beliefs and desires can express different attitudes toward the same propositions, propositions themselves are not intrinsically truth bearers by themselves [2], but only dependently on the direction-of-fit conferred by the intentional attitude.


[2] My preference would be to talk in terms of propositions as statements that can be either true or false, with the understanding that to a large extent the words statement and proposition are interchangeable — neomac

I may be of little help or interest here, I'm afraid. This seems to be from speech act theorists(Austin, Searle, Ryle???), and I'm not familiar enough to comment much. I will say that I'm fond of Austin's bit on promises(making the world match the words, i.e., direction of fit???). In addition, I'm not at all impressed by what I think I understand about the conventional notion of truth bearers, having perused the SEP on several occasions regarding it. I do not understand the need to posit them, leaning here on methodological naturalisms tenet regarding refrain from unnecessarily multiplying entities. I would be quite interested in reading your thoughts on the notion, if you find it necessary for explaining some aspect that cannot be adequately explained without invoking it.

In Banno's defense, his qualification above tells me that he already knows that they are not strictly speaking in conventional terms; interchangeable. I strongly suspect that he also knew, and was right, that I would not call him on that, for neither of us are much impressed by the conventional notion of proposition, and talking in terms of statements is easier for the average reader to grasp. We also both strive to speak as plainly as possible without sacrificing any crucial meaning.

I'd be honored to offer my feedback to such a carefully well-crafted post.

Due to personal time constraints, ease of reading, the desire to offer subsequent long overdue attention to this topic in particular, I think it best to address each set of remarks in their own respective posts. As a show of appreciation for the effort, it may take a couple of days to address all five. Luckily enough, I've a quite a bit of 'spare' time for the next week. I would consider it time well spent. After that, I will not be visiting the site daily. However, I would be more than happy to continue when I do. I'd like to help foster a long term respectful and productive discussion about the subject matter itself, after the critique. Thank you again. I was pleasantly surprised by the genuine interest.


Regarding the set of remarks and relevant footnote(again kudos for this!) copied below...

- If proposition is a “more abstract entity” [1] supposed to be “common between certain statements”, then proposition are not statements, and they are not interchangeable with statements, yet he prefers to talk in terms of propositions as “statements that can be either true or false”. Well if they are statements then they can not at the same time be intrinsic truth bearers and the content of our beliefs, why? Because believing that “the cup is on the shelf” is true, doesn’t equate to believing that "la taza está en el estante" is true, yet “the cup is on the shelf” and "la taza está en el estante" have the same truth value.


[1] Propositions are a more abstract entity, being supposed as what is common between certain statements. So "the cup is on the shelf", "la taza está en el estante" and "bikarinn er í hillunni", I am told, are all different sentences in distinct languages that all express the same proposition. — neomac

On pains of coherency alone, I would concur that if propositions are supposed to be what is common between certain statements, then they are not statements, cannot be statements, and thus cannot serve as substitutes thereof(salva veritate).

I agree that believing that “the cup is on the shelf” is true, doesn’t equate to believing that "la taza está en el estante" is true. Although those two statements are in completely different languages, they do have the same truth conditions; both are true if the cup is on the shelf. Banno has used Tarski to talk about this situation with "Snow is white" and the German equivalent.

If we have two individual believers, each from a community that uses one of the two respective languages, we would have two individuals that had the same meaningful belief in two different languages. What they believe is not so much that the statements are true(even though if asked they would say as much), but rather they both believe that things are a certain way(that the cup is on the shelf). The two statements make the same claim, say the same thing, express the same proposition, and both are about the spatiotemporal relationship between the cup and the shelf, and not themselves(their own truthfulness). The content of such belief is the cup, the shelf, and the relationship between them.

Rendering the content of something into propositional form warrants neither concluding that the content is propositional nor that the thing is an attitude towards a proposition.

The content of my fridge can be rendered in propositional form. The content of my fridge is not propositional, and my fridge is not an attitude towards a proposition.

Addressed six posts back.

Unspoken is not language less in the relevant sense. Language less means that they exist in their entirety prior to language. Propositions that somehow exist completely independent of language. All unspoken propositions belong to linguistic creatures. Creatures with language are not language less. Creatures without language are. Jack does not have unspoken propositions 'going through his mind', so to speak...

Some folk hold that all belief amounts to an attitude towards a proposition. This seems to be the basis of Banno's arguments as well. I've already levied arguments against that position in the opening argument and first three posts of the debate this thread is discussing.

I'll condense what I see as the main issues...

If all belief are propositional attitudes, then...

All belief are about propositions.
All belief are existentially dependent upon propositions.
Either there are language less propositions or there are no language less belief.

I am still quite content with the first three posts in the debate. If you'd like to discuss these, I'd be happy to oblige and grateful to have piqued a genuine interest.

:smile:

The general structure of beliefs is of the form "φ believes that p" where "φ" is the name of the believer(s) and "p" is some proposition. — Banno

That's the general structure used to describe, report upon, take an account of, and/or make some statement about anothers' belief.

Do you not draw a distinction between the cat's belief and our reports thereof in terms of content? They are not the same things. Clearly.

If there are beliefs that cannot be presented in propositional form, give us an example. — Banno

But why demand this? Who is arguing otherwise? It does not follow from this that the content of all belief is propositional. It follows that the presentation of all beliefs is, but even that hinges upon what counts as a belief being presented. Jack does not present his beliefs to you in propositional form. Be all that as it may, it's an aside, relevant but an aside.

The gist here is that we take account of belief using propositions. I totally agree. That's not the matter in contention. The matter in contention is what belief content is, what belief consists of, language less belief in particular.

In this context I used the term “concept” as equivalent to “notion” so not in theoretically loaded terms as to categorize the type of referents of those notions. And therefore I see this use in this context as philosophically neutral and harmless. — neomac

Understood. Good to know. So many terms are loaded and around here, it's far too easy to get distracted by futile arguing over semantics/definitions, despite such great methods available for deciding which conceptual scheme/linguistic framework is best. There's a bit of that going on in the debate as well. Unfortunately, this time around, after re-reading the debate I was disappointed in myself for several reasons.

If there are any questions you have for me about the position I argue for/from, I'd be happy to answer. It could be quite helpful for you to re-read my posts only. That's the only way to avoid taking on the misunderstandings that Banno was arguing against.

I too find this topic and all that underwrites it very intriguing, and of utmost importance to proper understanding.

A belief is an account... — Banno

That verifies the conflation charge.

So, no such a thing as an account of a belief then?

:brow:

Better tell Gettier.

Nature excludes humans and all we've done?

We think about something, then we think about some other things. Are these things connected in one sense or another? Is there a pattern in our thoughts? Not necessarily logical though. — Agent Smith

A pattern? Not my choice of descriptions...

All thought consists entirely of correlations drawn between directly and indirectly perceptible things. We are the bridge that 'connects' all our thoughts together. Are they always logical? Of course not.

That's not the way I talk. I reject the very notion of 'mental objects'.
— creativesoul

Why would you do that? — Agent Smith

I reject the mental/non mental dichotomy as well as the subject/object dichotomy upon grounds of inadequate explanatory power. Not all things are one or the other. Some things consist of both, and thus are not adequately described in terms of either. Thoughts, and thinking are two such things.

That's odd...

We cannot sensibly swap these words whenever and wherever we chose. That inability to remain sensical when doing so tells me - quite clearly- that all those things you mentioned are not the same.
— creativesoul

Are they not mental objects? — Agent Smith

That's not the way I talk. I reject the very notion of 'mental objects'.

Do we not think about them? — Agent Smith

What does that have to do with anything. We think about trees too, but trees are not thoughts anymore than all those other things you've named are.

The "keyboard" is a construction of the mind on the occasion of sense. I use it to try to approximate my thoughts via word use, such that what I'm thinking now can be evoked in your own mind when reading these words. It's not an exact science, far from it. — Manuel

I've no idea what you're trying to say here. What's the significance of encapsulating the term keyboard in quotes?

Are you referring to the word or what the word picks out to the exclusion of all else? Perhaps, you're referring to all the different ways you use the term? I'm lost here...

Well, I am a firm believer in a causal universe, so strictly speaking if by "random" we mean spontaneously formed completely devoid of prior influence, then I would say that there are no such thoughts.
— creativesoul

Interesting. So on your view, most (if not all) our thoughts follow a causal process? — Manuel

Causality always plays a role. Thought is itself efficacious.

Have I misrepresented the position you argue for/from? You most certainly have just misrepresented mine. Misattributing all those uses of language to me is quite unacceptable. Anyone can see for themselves that I've said none of those things you've attributed to me.

But to answer the question you asked...

No. What you quoted was not my current rendition of our decade long disagreement.

When I'm heading towards the shed out back, the ducks about my residence can and most certainly do believe that they are about to be fed. They do this not as a result of the existence of some non linguistic proposition, but rather they form such belief solely by virtue of the sheer amount of prior correlations repetitively drawn between directly perceptible things such as eating food, my presence near the food bin, the sound of the lid being removed, etc. The notion of a language less proposition is itself a contradiction in terms, a meaningless nonsensical use of language. There quite simply is no need for us to posit language less propositions in order to make sense of language less true or false belief.


It's not a mystery, or all that complicated. When the ducks do end up eating soon thereafter, their expectation about what's about to happen is met/satisfied, and thus the belief becomes or 'ends up' being true solely by virtue of corresponding to what happened. If they do not eat soon after thinking they were about to eat, the belief becomes or ends up being false... solely by virtue of a lack of correspondence to what happened.

So, my question has been and remains...

Where is a need for language here, aside from the ability for us to be able to take the ducks' belief into account? There are no propositions contained in the correlations drawn by the ducks. We certainly need language to know that and say as much, but surely we can all agree that the ducks' belief is neither equal to nor existentially dependent upon our knowledge or account thereof?

Right?

Beliefs are potentially either true or false. Propositions are the bearers of these truth values. The perceptual non-linguistic beliefs you describe have no capacity for truth or falsity, unless there exist non-linguistic propositions. I don't know if I agree about the language acquisition. Been a long time since I learned mine. — emancipate

Upon what ground are you stating that language-less creatures' belief has no capacity to be true or false, unless there are such things as non-linguistic propositions?

What reason is there to hold that there need be such things as truth bearers(propositions) in order for language-less creatures' belief to be true or false?

It's true if it corresponds to the way things are.

If the ducks outside hear the food bin lid being removed, they will immediately go to where it is, all the while displaying all sorts of different behaviours that are put on display during feeding or when they are pleading to be fed.

What reasons are there for us to believe that the ducks cannot form, have, and/or hold belief about being fed unless there are such things as non linguistic propositions, unless we've already placed the fate of our own position into the idea that all belief content is propositional?

That's a common view, quite common actually, given all the work regarding the belief that approach, such as the one Banno relies upon at times. However, you've presented but one set of options here, both resting their laurels upon a premiss that I do not share. It is only if we first hold firmly to the notion that all belief content is propositional, that we come to later find that we must propose such things as non linguistic propositions if we are going to admit that language less creatures can have true and/or false belief.

That's the problem in a nutshell.

Could you pls elaborate more on this "He is more Wittgensteinian than I. Much more actually"? — neomac

He is much more averse to metaphysics than I. He places higher value upon propositional logic than I. He places propositions in a more fundamental role than I. He holds that all belief content is propositional. He holds that we cannot get 'beneath' language. He does not draw and maintain the actual distinction between belief and thinking about belief. He does not draw and maintain a distinction between the content of our accounting practices and the content of what's being taken into account, particularly, to keep in line with the debate topic, when talking about language less creatures' belief he does not discriminate between his account and what's being taken into account. He also leans on speech act theorists as well as Davidson more than I.

Would you be able to briefly clarify how you understand the following concepts and their relation: "sensation", "intentionality", "representation", "perception", "concept", "belief", "proposition"? — neomac

Well, sure I could, but why ought I here? I will say this, the question itself is based upon the belief that all those things mentioned are concepts. I do not share that belief. Rather, much of the time regarding many of the aforementioned things, and I are in agreement regarding historical use of these terms. We're much the same amount of Wittgensteinian, in that regard.

You and I do seem to agree on one salient point. Banno conflates his account of the cat's belief with the cat's belief. Not sure if that is a consequence of unstated premisses underlying his reasoning here, or a personal shortfall, but he's not alone.

I can give examples that more or less follow. Suppose that right now, I have in mind an idea I'd like to convey. I have a computer at my disposal, obviously a keyboard, and some ideas in my head as to what I'd like to say.

In this situation, in which I'm in front of an object, with a goal in mind, I can find a connection between the ideas of transmitting these thoughts, via a keyboard, being careful as to avoid a typo and so on. I see individual letters in my keyboard, which I can use to form words that convey an impression from my head into yours.

This can be accounted for by the circumstances I'm in now. The ideas of a computer, a keyboard, letters and what example to use can be pointed to concretely to account for the connection of my thoughts. — Manuel

Aren't you merely using the keyboard to state your thoughts? Are you merely expressing your thoughts about thought here via common language use?

You see, that's one place where philosophy proper has failed miserably. They've yet to have taken into proper account the differences between thinking about thought and thought. As simple as that sounds, it is a major flaw that has led to the inherent inability for current conventional understanding to arrive at a notion of thought that is amenable to evolutionary progression.

In another circumstance, say I'm walking around in my neighborhood listening to music, I can be thinking of, the war in Yemen in one instance, onto the favorite part of the song that is playing, then thinking about Hume, my dinner with my friends and what I should do tomorrow.

In this latter circumstance, it's less clear to me how to account for how the ideas I have when walking and thinking form a connection or follow. It could be totally random. I'm a bit skeptical on this conclusion, but it's possible.

Thought is most certainly an autonomous process. We need not turn it on. We cannot turn it off. We can, however, influence it, intentionally and accidently. Random thoughts? Well, I am a firm believer in a causal universe, so strictly speaking if by "random" we mean spontaneously formed completely devoid of prior influence, then I would say that there are no such thoughts. Well, at least not once we've begun the mastery of common language. The simplest of thoughts must begin free from prior influence, but those kinds of thought are the most basic kind of simple elementary composition... the basics that begin to develop into what we call "minds", and those do not include language use. The correlations are not drawn between language use and other things.

If you're asking me about what 'connects' our thoughts to each other, I would only say that that seems to presuppose some need for something other than us to perform the 'task' of connecting all our thoughts. That's a dubious assumption. Aren't all our thoughts always already connected by virtue of being what they are; our own prior, current, and future correlations. We are the bridge between.

Sleep well.

All thought consists entirely of correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things. Memory is but a repeat of correlations previously drawn.
— creativesoul

Sure, this follows when dealing with "ordinary objects", what about between thoughts? How do we account for correlation here? — Manuel

Could you elaborate? Are you referring to the time period between thoughts?

I'm not sure we're on the same page here. What I wrote there was simply the most basic claim that I've been able to arrive at over the years that seems to be universally applicable; i.e., an adequate, albeit very basic, description of all thought, regardless of complexity.

I believe I can understand, to an extent, that everything "depends on the physical" to mean... — Manuel

What I mean is that all thought is existentially dependent upon physical things. The periodic table of elements and all that that current conventional understanding entails. Physical stuff was first, and other stuff(not simply physical) came after... simply put.

Ideas, concepts, hypotheses, theories, dreams, words (their meaning), and so much more, are thoughts. — Agent Smith

That's odd...

We cannot sensibly swap these words whenever and wherever we chose. That inability to remain sensical when doing so tells me - quite clearly- that all those things you mentioned are not the same.

It's terminological at this point. — Manuel

What we're attempting to describe existed in it's entirety long before we began attempting to take it into account. Sure, the terms we use are pivotal to our success, but I do not see how any more focus upon that is helpful, unless we're somehow violating our own prior use, or some other issue resulting from our use arises...

How to account for thoughts...

All thought consists entirely of correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things. Memory is but a repeat of correlations previously drawn.

Scientific reasoning has it's limits. Those are often ignored by some using scientific knowledge. Science, for example, has nothing at all to say about what we ought do in some circumstance or another. Since so much of our interdependent lives rely heavily upon such considerations, science simply cannot tell us what to do. It can, however, inform our reasoning with relevant facts.

We agree that morality is enforced. What next?
— creativesoul
Therefore, talks about objective or subjective or relative morality is moot. — L'éléphant

Well, that doesn't follow from what's written, but I do agree. Such discussions are a waste of time. — creativesoul

What doesn't follow? — L'éléphant

See where you began with "therefore"? We use that term to indicate that a logical conclusion comes next. What you wrote after "therefore" did not follow from what I said and you agreed to.

Does anything at all follow from a morality by reason of majority? — L'éléphant

We've already established that it is not always a majority's morality that is enforced. So, the above question is moot.

Well, that doesn't follow from what's written, but I do agree. Such discussions are a waste of time.

It makes no sense to me to wonder what 'connects our thoughts'. Very very roughly put:Our thoughts connect us to that which is not as well as ourselves, by virtue of leading up to an initial understanding of the world and ourselves("worldview" is more palpable to me).

Some of our thoughts are products of a process commonly characterized or described as thinking, imagining, pondering, wondering, remembering, envisioning, etc. However, those are much more complex thoughts than the much more simple ones we first began with; those that the capable beasties still have in spades. Human thought has evolved over time as has everything else. It began simply and grew in it's complexity over time. A proper adequate notion of thought ought be able to adequately take all that into account; it ought be readily amenable to be rendered in terms of it's evolutionary progression.

I've no particular conventional understanding in mind. Indeed, philosophy proper hasn't gotten much right at all as far as human thought goes.

I work from a strong methodological naturalist bent. Dennett's work is impressive, however, I do not think that everything is physical. I would, however, readily agree that everything - including thought - depends on the physical. I also reject many another historical dichotomy, on the same grounds of inadequate explanatory power. For example, the subject/object dichotomy, the internal/external dichotomy, the mind/body dichotomy, the physical/immaterial, the physical/mental, etc.

For nearly twenty years(when I first began studying and reading philosophy), I've been developing my own understanding of human thought and belief and all that that includes and/or leads to.