Abstract
In this paper, I argue, contra Perry, that the existence of locating beliefs does not require the abandonment of the analysis of belief as a relation between subjects and propositions. I argue that what the “problem of the essential indexical” reveals is that a complete explanation of behaviour requires both an explanation of the type of behaviour the agent engaged in and an explanation of why she engaged in it in the circumstances that she did. And I develop an account of belief which encompasses both explanatory roles and which still treats belief as a two-place relation between subjects and propositions.
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Notes
Perry (1979), p. 36.
Note: the latter claim is characteristic of Fregean, in contrast to Millian, accounts of propositions.
Perry (1979), pp. 46 ff.
The view I defend in fact satisfies all the requirements laid down by the doctrine of propositions. My focus here, however, will be only on the analysis of belief.
Perry (1979), p. 36. The relevant notion of content here is “explanatory content.” More on this below.
Perry (1979), p. 35.
Perry’s argument will be developed in more detail below.
Castaneda (1968), p. 441.
Arguably, since the speaker and the subject are the same, indexical and quasi-indexical uses of expressions coincide in first-person present-tense belief reports.
Perry (1979), p. 35.
Semantic content is typically glossed as what is literally expressed by an utterance. Fregeans and neo-Fregeans normally identify explanatory content with semantic content.
Cappelen and Lepore (2005) distinguish between semantic content and illocutionary or “speech act” content—what is asserted or requested, etc. by means of an utterance. Although they do not directly address the issue, I take it they would identify explanatory content with illocutionary content rather than semantic content.
Millians often identify explanatory content with pragmatic content—what is pragmatically imparted by means of an utterance—rather than semantic content. See, e.g., Salmon (1986).
Presumably this locating belief would arise as a result of the combination of his prior belief that the meeting started at noon and the locating belief he would (at the time) express as,
I believe that now is noon.
Perry (1979), p. 37.
For present purposes I will remain neutral on this issue of semantic innocence—that is, whether or not (referring) expressions have the same contents when they occur within the scope of various sorts of sentential frames as when they do not. I will instead focus on the contents of expression only when they occur within belief report “that”-clauses.
Moreover, if she erroneously believed that noon uniquely satisfied the concept expressed by ‘the time the Dean has lunch’ then the proposition to which
Professor Jones believed the meeting started at the time the Dean has lunch
reports her to be doxastically related is false even though the allegedly identical locating belief which she expresses as
I believed the meeting starts now
is true. Perry (1979), p. 38.
Balaguer (2005).
Pruim (1996).
Belaguer (2005), p. 332.
Perry (1979), pp. 42 ff.
Presumably a subject might believe an indexical GP relative to a range of values for certain indices. For example, Jones might believe the meeting starts now relative to some time between 11:30 am and 12:30 pm.
To deny this would be, in effect, to suggest that indexical GPs are of “limited accessibility.” But as we shall see, to the extent that the thesis of limited accessibility undercuts the Perry’s argument for the essential indexical, it does so independently of any appeal to relativized propositions. It also runs afoul of its own difficulties.
Nor does believing it absolutely—and not relative to any particular time—explain her behaviour at noon. Balaguer could, I suppose, respond by insisting that Jones could believe that the meeting starts now relative to noon only at noon. But again this sounds like limited accessibility, which will be discussed immediately below.
Perry (1979), p. 44. It is worth noting that Balaguer nowhere addresses this objection.
Pruim (1996), pp. 179–81.
On this view, “Professor Jones believed that the meeting started then*” is elliptical for “Professor believed the proposition she expressed by means of ‘the meeting starts now’.”
What follows is adapted from Perry (1983), pp. 97–98.
Nor can the proposition expressed by the first sentence. After all, on the view in question sentences containing the word ‘I’ express propositions which can only be grasped by the speaker.
Pruim (1996), p. 181.
Grice (1975).
Lewis (1979).
Kaplan (1980).
Salmon (1986).
Quine (1960, chapter 6) suggests something along these lines.
Perry (2006), p. 217.
Although it does not establish what he claims for it, I think the phenomenon Perry has identified is very significant.
I do not mean to suggest that philosophers are typically unaware of making this simplification. I do mean to suggest, however, that many philosophers are unaware of the distortions that making it can yield in the analysis of belief and in a proper account of belief reports.
Note: recognizing or judging, in C, that there is an opportunity to engage in B is distinct from judging that there is in C an opportunity to engage in B. In the former case, C is the context in which the judgement is made; in the latter, it is part of the content of the judgement.
Of course, a more elaborate explanation will be needed if Fred forgoes earlier opportunities to acquire gas for his car prior to filling up at the PetroCan. This might involve appeal to such things as competing desires or optimal versus less than optimal opportunities.
We do have here a kind of limited accessibility, not to propositions, but to types of behaviour. Sometimes one has only a single opportunity to engage in a course action, and once the opportunity passes the behaviour in question becomes, in effect, inaccessible.
Tiffany (2000, p. 40) makes a distinct but related point.
And narrower too, if certain locating beliefs fail to correspond to the recognition of opportunities.
Frege (1892). Fregean senses, however, are abstract particulars which mediate subjects’ relations to objects of thought rather than the relations to those objects themselves.
Although thinking subjects are sometimes cognitively related to objects via the deployment of concepts which uniquely denote them without the aid of context features, this is rarer than the literature often has it.
The collections of cognitive relations are more like teams than sets because like the former, and unlike the latter, such collections can survive changes in membership and their membership, even relativized to times, is contingent.
In effect, they are Russellian propositions with actual objects, etc., replaced by a subject’s corresponding notional objects.
It is worth noting that noting that there is no guarantee that all the members of a collection of cognitive relations will share a common relatum, despite being judged by the subject to do so.
Strictly speaking, belief and desire are correctly analyzed as triadic relations between subjects, propositions, and times.
For simplicity, I am assuming that Kent’s belief has the logical form of a material conditional rather than of some kind of counterfactual conditional.
Descriptions which invoke subjects’ experiences—‘the person Kent saw as the party’, e.g.—are better thought of as picking out experiential relations.
Kripke’s (1980) causal-historical theory of name reference is in the background here. Systematic names—like names of times, ‘noon’, e.g.—may be better thought of as picking out conceptual cognitive relations. For present purposes, this will make no difference.
This is, of course, a gross oversimplification made for illustrative purposes. For a developed account of referring to collections of cognitive relations, see Alward (manuscript).
Or at least if it is presupposed that (a) Jones desired that she attend the department meeting and (b) Jones believed that if she exited her office and set of down the hall at the time of the department meeting, she would attend the meeting.
Perry (1989), pp. 689–692.
Perry (2006), p. 217.
Perry (2006), p. 217. It is worth noting that while the reflective truth conditions of b* are that the meeting starts at the time n*—the notion Jones would express using ‘noon’ which in part constitutes b*—is of, because the time n* is of need not be the time the owner of b* has b*, they differ from the reflective truth conditions of b.
Of course, at noon a new cognitive relation is added to one of the collections which in part constitute this belief.
The reason I claim that locating beliefs are fleeting is that the cognitive particular that Jones would express as ‘the meeting starts now’ is a belief that the meeting starts at noon only for an instant.
Perry (1989, p. 695) does hint at such an account when he mentions the possibility of notions “merging.”
If the members of either collection do not share a relatum, then the constituents of the Russellian proposition are the shared relata of the salient sub-collections underlying Randa’s assertion. If the members of the salient sub-collections do not share relata, then no proposition has been communicated.
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Alward, P. The inessential quasi-indexical. Philos Stud 145, 235–255 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-008-9221-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-008-9221-5