tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post2239153870832938537..comments2024-03-18T10:05:26.015-07:00Comments on The Splintered Mind: It's Not Just One Thing, to Believe There's a Gas Station on the CornerEric Schwitzgebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11541402189204286449noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-1203650020560369172018-03-05T15:02:38.692-08:002018-03-05T15:02:38.692-08:00Is the problem that 'exactly what we believe&#...Is the problem that 'exactly what we believe' is too complicated/messy, so we settle for approximations, or is the problem that there's no fact of the matter regarding 'belief'? <br /><br />An important function of belief-talk is to troubleshoot various communicative issues affecting the coordination of behaviour absent access to any of the messiness responsible. On the approximation view, belief-talk plays the heuristic role of *simplifying* the messiness, whereas on the eliminativist view, belief-talk plays the heuristic role of *avoiding* the messiness.<br /><br />These are two very different kinds of heuristics. If belief-talk were the former kind of heuristic, then we should expect attempts to source beliefs in nature to be difficult, to involve rummaging through a lot of messiness. If belief-talk were the latter kind of heuristic, on the other hand, we should expect attempts to source beliefs, to find them in nature, to perpetually crash. Nature itself is what is being circumvented, and not simply the messiness of nature.<br /><br />I think the problem I perennially have parsing your position, Eric, is that you seem to affirm the first, yet presume the latter, to treat beliefs as if they're there, in the head somehow, and yet undiscoverable.<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01149191617296817611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-11998902392020221462018-02-28T11:52:17.175-08:002018-02-28T11:52:17.175-08:00I might add that I prefer an analogy with metamers...I might add that I prefer an analogy with metamers. Two objects (believers) with strikingly distinct reflectance profiles (dispositions) share the exact same color (belief)--when seen in a certain light.Devin Curryhttp://www.devinsanchezcurry.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-62680558855547103932018-02-28T09:13:06.690-08:002018-02-28T09:13:06.690-08:00Thanks, Eric. The measurement-theoretic analogy is...Thanks, Eric. The measurement-theoretic analogy is helpful, though I think it can mask the really interesting phenomenon that you've put your finger on. You and Nicholle both believe the same thing--even with the bar of precision set reasonably high--even though the dispositions that make up your respective beliefs diverge in striking respects. (In an altered case, you might even believe--and fit the general-purpose stereotype for believing--<i>to the exact same degree</i>, even though your beliefs comprise strikingly different dispositions.) There's only one manner in which objects are (approximately) 1.3 meters long; there are myriad manners in which people (approximately) believe there's a gas station on the corner. Depending on context, our belief talk (and thought) flexibly vacillates between general-purpose stereotypes and more specialized stereotypes that highlight particular styles of believing something. Descartes and Leibniz both unequivocally believe in God, but believing-in-God-like-Descartes is very different from believing-in-God-like-Leibniz.Devin Curryhttp://www.devinsanchezcurry.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-49879859077172706182018-02-28T08:28:01.142-08:002018-02-28T08:28:01.142-08:00Yes, Brandon, I'm broadly sympathetic with a m...Yes, Brandon, I'm broadly sympathetic with a moderate version of Paul Churchland's view, minus any strong commitment to eliminativism or specifically connectionist modeling.<br /><br />Bob: Fortunately, Nicholle drove off to get gas while the rest of us argued about what exactly it is to believe there's a gas station on the corner! ;-)Eric Schwitzgebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16274774112862434865noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-33310840732306108612018-02-28T08:24:31.657-08:002018-02-28T08:24:31.657-08:00"Nicholle is new to town. . ."
And jus..."Nicholle is new to town. . ."<br /> <br />And just how will newcomer Nicholle be helped by this discussion? ;)<br />Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06338078632530539703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-73020491762072946912018-02-28T08:23:50.938-08:002018-02-28T08:23:50.938-08:00Your view reminds me a little of Paul Churchland&#...Your view reminds me a little of Paul Churchland's view (in some places) where he claims that propositional attitudes are simply simplifications of a much messier report on the state of a large connectionist network. Being able to simplify that state is needed for communication, but by doing so we are shoe-horning all the messy details into the format of our language. I'm sure I'm doing a hatchet job of the view. Still, it sounds similar-- indeed, CNs might simply be the implemenation of the mechanism which gives rise to the dispositions you speak of.Brandon Towlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-8377098012470486232018-02-28T08:21:06.410-08:002018-02-28T08:21:06.410-08:00Thanks for that interesting and helpful comment, D...Thanks for that interesting and helpful comment, Devin! Maybe a measurement-theoretic analogy would be helpful. Suppose I say that the table is 1.3 meters long. I intend to be rounding to the tenths place. In fact, I just measured it as 1.2764 meters long. There's a sense in which saying that it's 1.3 meters long is exactly correct, and another sense in which it's not. If we set the bar of precision low enough -- in the belief case, that would be matching well-enough the dispositional stereotype -- then it's straight-up true and correct to say that rough, rounded thing: that the table is 1.3 meters long and that I believe there's a gas station on the corner.<br /><br />I heard Liz as committing to more precision about belief contents than that, but since it wasn't a central feature of her talk, it's possible that I misunderstood or that she was only speaking quickly/approximately, so I might be burdening her with a view that she would reject. I really don't meant the criticism to be specifically of her.Eric Schwitzgebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16274774112862434865noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-56385882327587744932018-02-28T07:39:28.398-08:002018-02-28T07:39:28.398-08:00Thanks for this nice post, Eric; I'm about to ...Thanks for this nice post, Eric; I'm about to revise a dissertation chapter on the exact same topic!<br /><br />I think you're a bit too quick to reject Liz's claim that "if you and I both believe that there's a gas station on the corner, then we believe exactly the same thing" (though perhaps not too quick to reject her further claim that "this thing that we both believe is exactly the same thing that I convey to Nicholle"). On your variety of dispositionalism (which I more-or-less endorse), there is a precise sense in which you and I both believe that there's a gas station on the corner, and a precise sense in which we're both extraverted: we both sufficiently fit the exact same general-purpose dispositional stereotypes. We thus share the exact same belief and character trait--after all, sufficiently fitting a stereotype is all that goes into holding a belief or having a trait. Now, you're absolutely right to draw attention to the fact that we might have very different <i>styles</i> of holding the exact same belief. On my view, this fact is best captured by belief attributors' use of more fine-grained stereotypes to capture the idiosyncratic manners in which different people hold what (considered from the perspective of a general-purpose stereotype) is the exact same belief. (I spend the dissertation chapter developing this notion of styles of belief, building off of some remarks of Ryle's.) One of the really nice things about an interpretivist/dispositionalist account of belief is that it can countenance <i>both</i> the occasional cleanliness and the omnipresent messiness of our diverse belief attribution practices. If this is right, then maybe you and Liz are both onto something.Devin Curryhttp://www.devinsanchezcurry.comnoreply@blogger.com