Michael McDermott (1988) - A Russellian Account of Belief Sentences

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A Russellian Account of Belief Sentences
Author(s): Michael McDermott
Source: The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 151 (Apr., 1988), pp. 141-157
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The
Philosophical Quarterly
Vol. 38 No. 151
ISSN 0031-8094 $2.00
Vol. 38 No. 151
April
1988
A RUSSELLIAN ACCOUNT OF BELIEF SENTENCES
BY MICHAEL MCDERMOTT
I
Russell's
paradigm
was:
(1)
Othello believes that Desdemona loves Cassio.
He saw this1 as a relation between four
things
-
three
people
and
loving.
Not
only
do the names 'Desdemona' and 'Cassio' have
purely
referential
occurrence in the
content-sentence,
so also does the
predicate 'loves';
it
refers to
loving.
The
4-place
belief-relation
appealed
to here will suffice for the construal
of certain other
belief-ascriptions,
but not
many.
(2)
Othello believes that Desdemona is fair.
This does not
say
of
any
four
things
that the first believes the second bears
the third to the fourth. To follow
Russell,
we must see it as a
3-place
relation between
Othello,
Desdemona and fairness.
In
general,
we need a distinct belief-relation for each distinct form of
content-sentence. To be
precise,
let us call a 'sentence form' what
you get
when
you replace
each name and
predicate
in a sentence
by
a variable. Then
for each
n-place
sentence form we need a n +
-place belief-relation,
which we
shall write as 'B' followed
by
the sentence form in
square
brackets. This is
to be
thought
of as a
logically
unstructured
predicate symbol.
The sentence form of 'Desdemona is
fair',
for
example,
is 'x is
F',
or
better,
'x has F'. The
corresponding 3-place
belief-relation is
'B[x
has
F]'.
The Russellian
analysis
of
(2)
is:
1
B.
Russell,
The Problems
of Philosophy (London, 1912),
ch. 12.
142 MICHAEL McDERMOTT
(3) B[x
has
F]
(Othello, Desdemona, fairness),
which we can read as "Othello believes that Desdemona has fairness".
Similarly,
(4) Ralph
believes that Ortcutt is a
spy,
says
that
Ralph,
Ortcutt and
spyhood
stand in this same relation:
(5) B[x
has
F] (Ralph, Ortcutt, spyhood).
A sentence form will in
general
contain
quantifiers
and truth-functional
connectives,
as well as individual and
predicate
variables. The sentence
form of 'Someone is
fair',
for
instance,
is
'(Ex) (x
has
F)',
with
just
the one
free variable 'F'. The
corresponding
belief-relation is
2-place;
this is
'B[(Ex) (x
has
F)]',
the relation of
believing-to-be-instantiated.
(6) B[(Ex) (x
has
F)] (Ralph, spyhood),
says
that
Ralph
stands to
spyhood
in this relation.
The
English
sentence
(7) Ralph
believes that someone is a
spy
is
commonly
felt to be
ambiguous,
and it is a virtue of the Russellian
account that it
provides
two
separate
construals.
First,
as a
simple 2-place
predication
-
i.e.
(6)
above.
Second,
as the existential
quantification
of a
3-place predication:
(8) (Ey) B[x
has
F]
(Ralph, y, spyhood).
If
(6)
is
true, Ralph
believes that there are
spies.
If
(8)
is
true, Ralph
stands
to some
particular,
but
unnamed,
individual in the relation of
believing-
that-he-is-a-spy. (6)
and
(8)
involve distinct
belief-relations,
and are
logically independent. (However, (6)
will
normally
be true if
(8) is, given
minimal
rationality
on
Ralph's part.)
There is
commonly
felt to be a similar
ambiguity
about
belief-ascriptions
with a definite
description
in the
content-sentence,
and the Russellian
account handles them in the same
way.
Take:
(9) Ralph
believes that the man in the brown hat is a
spy.
A RUSSELLIAN ACCOUNT OF BELIEF SENTENCES 143
This
may
be construed as:
(10) B[x
has
F]
(Ralph,
the man in the brown
hat, spyhood)
or as:
(11)
B[the thing
which has F has
G] (Ralph,
man-in-brown-hat-
hood, spyhood).
The terms of the belief-relation in
(10)
are two men and
spyhood.
The
terms of the different belief-relation in
(11)
are
Ralph
and two hoods.
Given that the man in the brown hat is
Ortcutt, (4)
is
equivalent
to
(10),
but
independent
of
(11).
Geach2
objected
to Russell's
multiplicity
of belief-relations. There are
infinitely many
sentence
forms,
and hence
infinitely many
distinct belief-
relations. But how could
anyone
come to master our
psychological
vocabulary,
if it contains
infinitely many
distinct
predicates?
The
difficulty may
be overcome
by
a
slightly deeper analysis.
As a first
step,
we can make the sentence form itself a term of the belief-relation.
Instead of
construing (1),
for
instance,
as a
4-place
relation between
Othello, Desdemona, loving
and
Cassio,
we
may
construe it as a
(different)
relation between these four
things
and the sentence form
Rxy.
This leaves
us still with
infinitely many belief-relations,
of
varying adicity,
but there is
now no more bar to unified
mastery
than with the variable
adicity
of 'true
of'.
Adopting
Tarski's
trick,
we can reduce them all to a
single 3-place
belief-relation,
between a
believer,
a sentence
form,
and a
sequence.
Alternatively,
we could make belief a relation between a believer and a
proposition,
understood as the ordered
pair
of a sentence form and a
sequence.
Either
way,
there is a
single
belief-relation.
The
availability
of such
strategies
answers Geach's
objection. Having
seen
this, however,
I
propose
to revert to the level of Russell's
multiplicity
of
unanalysed
belief-relations.
Geach3 also disliked Russell's idea that we could be related to
things
like
loving
and
spyhood
-
that
is,
to universals. To meet this
worry,
we need to
get
clear on
just
what kind of universals the
objects
of belief
might
be
-
classes, attributes,
or what? What is
loving?
What is this
thing
called
spyhood?
I
suggest
that we take a hint from our talk of
dispositions.
The
objects
of
some
dispositions
are universals. If
you
are
allergic
to a certain
chemical,
2
P.
Geach,
Mental Acts
(London, 1957),
?
13.
3
Ibid.
say,
that is not a relation to the instances of the chemical- neither to
particular
instances of
it,
nor to the
big,
scattered individual the instances
jointly comprise.
For there
may
be no instances.
Indeed, they may
have
decided not to make
any
of the chemical because
they knew,
on theoretical
grounds,
that
people
were
allergic
to it.
What kind of universals are the
objects
of
dispositions?
Not classes.
There
might
be two chemicals which have never been
manufactured,
so
that the class of instances of each is the null
class,
and
yet you only
be
allergic
to one. Or if all red
things happened
to be hard
things,
and vice
versa, you
could still be
allergic
to red
things
without
being allergic
to hard
things,
as
long
as there could be hard
things
which were not red. But not
attributes,
either. If
you
are
allergic
to
water, you
are
allergic
to
H20,
even
though
'water' and
'H20'
are not
logically equivalent.
The universals we
need are kinds. The
identity
condition for kinds is not
simply coextension,
and not
logical equivalence;
it is coextension
by
law of nature. That is the
required identity
condition for the
objects
of
dispositions.
If
you
are
allergic
to
F's,
that is because there is a law of nature
connecting you
with F's. If it
is also a law of nature that all F's are G's and vice
versa,
then there is a law of
nature
connecting you
with
G's,
in the same
way
-
you
are
allergic
to G's.
My
answer to
Geach, now,
is that since talk of relations between
people
and universals occurs in
quite respectable parts
of
science,
there can be no
harm in
construing belief-ascriptions
as
relating people
to universals of the
same
kind,
i.e. kinds.
Spyhood
is a
kind,
a
1-place kind; loving
is a
2-place
kind.
(Incidentally,
on this view
loving
does not exist
only
if instantiated.
You can be
allergic
to
loving,
or stand in belief-relations to
it,
even if there
is none
actually going
on in
your vicinity
- or
anywhere.)
It
might
be
objected
that
kinds,
so
construed,
won't do as the
objects
of
belief,
because
you
can
believe,
for
instance,
that
your glass
contains water
without
believing
that it contains
H20,
even
though
'water' and
'H20'
refer to the same kind. The
objection
overlooks the
ambiguity
of
(12)
S believes his
glass
contains
H20.
'H20'
is a definite
description:
it means
something
like 'the
compound
of
hydrogen
and
oxygen
in the ratio 2:1
by
volume'. If
(12)
is construed as
relating
S to
H20,
i.e. to
water,
it is indeed
equivalent
to:
(13)
S believes his
glass
contains water.
But there is also a construal of
(12)
on which it relates S to
hydrogen,
oxygen
and a certain sort of chemical
compounding.
And
you
can stand in
a belief-relation to water without
standing
in a belief-relation to all these
other
things.
The Russellian account of
(12)
and
(13)
does not
imply
that
(12)
must be true if
(13)
is.
To
summarise, then,
here is what I shall call the Russellian account of
the
logical
form of
belief-ascriptions:
(i) predicates
in content-sentences serve as names of
kinds;
(ii) names,
whether of individuals or
kinds,
are
purely referential; they
occupy positions
accessible to
quantifiers,
and
obey
the standard
principles
of
instantiation, generalisation, substitutivity
of
identity,
and so on.
II
Now the
question is,
'Is this a defensible account of the
logical
form of
the belief
ascriptions
we
actually
make?' The
answer,
I
think,
is:
'Partly,
but
not
entirely.'
First, plenty
of commonsense
psychological generalisations
contain
quantification
into content-sentences -
quantification
over both individuals
and kinds. For
example,
(14) Ralph
knows
everyone's
business.
Or,
to
spell
it
out,
(15) (x) (B) (If
x is a B then
Ralph
believes that x is a
B).
Since
positions occupied by
bound variables are
purely referential,
the
open
sentence
'Ralph
believes that x is a B' is
clearly
Russellian.
Second, plenty
of
unquantified belief-ascriptions
can be obtained
by
instantiation from such
generalisations.
For
example,
(16)
If Ortcutt is a
spy,
then
Ralph
spy.
This is
naturally
understood as an instance of
(15),
which means that
'Ralph
spy'
is Russellian - the occurrences of both
'Ortcutt' and
'spy'
in the content-sentence are
purely
referential.
Thirdly, however,
there are other
belief-ascriptions
which are not
Russellian,
either because
they
contain names believed
by
the ascriber to
be
vacuous;
for
example,
(17)
Pierre believes that Santa Claus will
come,
or because
they
contain non-vacuous names not intended to be
subject
to
substitutivity
of
identity;
for
example,
(18)
Tom believes that Cicero denounced Catiline.
So we cannot claim that all the
belief-ascriptions
of commonsense talk
about the mind are Russellian. But there is still an
interesting
weaker claim
which I would like to defend: all
psychologically perspicuous belief-ascriptions
are Russellian. I shall
say
that a
belief-ascription
is
psychologically
perspicuous
if it contains
nothing
which makes no contribution to the
explanation
of behaviour. The claim to be defended is that
only purely
referential occurrences of names make
any
contribution to
psychological
explanation.
Consider first
(17).
This
might
be offered as
part
of an
explanation
of
Pierre's behaviour at Christmas-time - his
putting up
a
stocking, say.
The
full
explanation
would be
something
like:
(19)
Pierre believes that Santa Claus will come.
Pierre believes that if Santa Claus
comes,
he will
get
a
present
if he
puts up
a
stocking.
Pierre wants a
present.
This
provides
an
explanation
in virtue of the
following
commonsense
psychological generalisation:
(20) (x) (p) (G) (A) (If
x believes that
p
and x believes that
(if p
then he will
get
G if he does
A)
and x wants
G,
then x does
A).
That is to
say, (19)
and
(20) jointly imply:
(21)
Pierre
puts up
a
stocking.
But now
imagine
a
psychology
of Pierre in which
every
occurrence of
'Santa Claus' in content-sentences is
replaced by
some
arbitrary
new
name,
say
'Bernard
J.
Ortcutt'. The new
explanation
of Pierre's behaviour is:
(19')
Pierre believes that Ortcutt will come.
Pierre believes that if Ortcutt
comes,
he will
get
a
present
if
he
puts up
a
stocking.
Pierre wants a
present.
Now I submit that this is
just
as
good
an
explanation
of Pierre's behaviour as
(19). (19')
and
(19) yield exactly
the same
predictions
of
behaviour,
and in
virtue of the same
covering generalisation (20);
hence we have as much
reason, by 'argument
to the best
explanation',
to
accept (19')
as
(19).
It
might
be
objected
that
(19')
is not a
good explanation because,
unlike
(19),
it does not form
part
of a
systematic explanation
of a
range
of Pierre's
behaviour. For
example,
Pierre's
beliefs,
described as beliefs about Santa
Claus, explain
certain utterances of the words 'Pere
Noel';
but such
utterances would be
inexplicable
if we described his beliefs as
being
about
Bernard
J.
Ortcutt.
I
reply
that the
ascription
of Santa Claus beliefs can
only explain
these
utterances if
they
include the belief that Santa Claus is called 'Pere Noel'.
But the
parallel
Ortcutt
psychology
of Pierre will in that case
say
that Pierre
believes Ortcutt is called 'Pere
Noel',
and hence
provide
a
precisely parallel
explanation
of the utterances in
question.
If the Ortcutt
explanation
of Pierre's behaviour is
just
as
good, why
do
we all in fact
prefer
to
say
that he
expects
Santa Claus? The
reason,
I take
it4, is that we would
express
beliefs like
Pierre's,
if we had
them, by using
the words 'Santa Claus'. But this fact about us can
play
no
part
in the
explanation
of Pierre's behaviour. It is not a weakness of our Ortcutt
psychology
of Pierre that it fails to
convey
this fact.
Using
'Santa Claus' in the
ascription
of a
single belief,
as in
(17), may
also
convey
that Pierre has certain
further
beliefs which we would
express
by using
'Santa Claus' - the
things "everyone
knows" about Santa Claus.
But when we
explicitly
ascribe these additional
beliefs,
as in
(19),
at that
stage
'Santa Claus' serves no
purpose
that 'Ortcutt' will not.
The function of a vacuous name like 'Santa Claus' in a full
psychological
explanation
is to
signpost
certain connections between the
subject's
individual beliefs
(and
desires).
This
linking
will be
accomplished
as
long
as the same name is
repeated
in the content-sentences of the
separate
belief-ascriptions:
it does not matter what name is used. Indeed a more
perspicuous way
to
accomplish
the
linking
is
by using
no name at
all,
but a
bound variable. Given a full
psychological explanation
which uses a
vacuous
name,
a more
perspicuous explanation
can
always
be obtained as
follows: take the content-sentences of all the
subject's belief-ascriptions,
and
replace
all occurrences of the vacuous name
by
a
variable; conjoin,
and
existentially quantify;
use the result as the content-sentence of a
replacement belief-ascription.
Thus
Pierre,
for
example,
is said to believe
4
Following
S.
Stich,
From Folk
Psychology
to
Cognitive
Science
(Cambridge, Mass., 1983),
ch. 5. I think this is a
good
account of 'de dicto'
belief-ascriptions. Stich, however, proposes
it
as an account of all
belief-ascriptions
- he does not believe in
anything
like the de re/de dicto
ambiguity.
He would
say, apparently,
that even:
Tom believes
your yacht
is
bigger
than it
is,
is to be
given
the same kind of
analysis
- i.e. as
(roughly):
Tom is in a believe state like the one which would
typically
cause me to
say
'Your
yacht
is
bigger
than it is'.
that there is someone who will
come,
who will leave a
present
if there's a
stocking,
who is called 'Pere
Noel',
and so on. This Russellian belief-
ascription provides
a
parallel,
but
perspicuous, explanation
of Pierre's
behaviour.
I should
perhaps point
out that the
argument just given
for the
elimination of vacuous names does not
apply
to
purely
referential names.
Consider the Russellian
belief-ascription:
(22)
Tom believes that Fido is
dangerous.
This
might explain
Tom's
avoiding Fido,
in virtue of some such
commonsense
psychological generalisation
as:
(23) People
avoid
dogs they
believe to be
dangerous.
Or, spelt
out:
(24) (x) (y) (if
x believes that
y
is
dangerous,
then x avoids
y).
For
(24) implies:
(25)
If Tom believes that Fido is
dangerous,
then Tom avoids
Fido.
A
psychology
of Tom which
replaced
all occurrences of this
purely
referential 'Fido' in the content-sentences of
belief-ascriptions, by 'Rover',
say,
would be no
good
at
all; (24)
does not
imply:
(26)
If Tom believes that Rover is
dangerous,
then Tom avoids
Fido.
Where a
purely
referential name occurs in a
content-sentence,
we can
describe causal relations between the belief and the
object
in the
environment which the name refers to. That is to
say,
the connection
between the belief and the
object
of belief can be subsumed under a
covering generalisation.
But there are no causal relations between beliefs
about Santa Claus and the actual Santa Claus. That is
why
'Santa Claus'
can be eliminated from the content-sentences of
belief-ascriptions
without
loss,
whereas 'Fido' cannot.
If we now consider non-vacuous names in
belief-ascriptions
for which
substitutivity
of
identity fails,
the
argument
for their
imperspicuity
is
basically
the same. If we mean
(18)
in such a
way
that it is not
equivalent
to:
(27)
Tom believes that
Tully
denounced
Catiline,
then we cannot
hope
to subsume the connection between
(18)
and the
actual Cicero under a
For
example,
if we
try
to
explain (18) by saying
that Tom was
present
at the
denunciation, appealing
to a
covering generalisation
like:
(28) (x) (y) (If
Tom is
present
when x denounces
y,
then Tom
comes to believe that x denounced
y),
we
explain (27)
as much as
(18).
With 'Cicero' not
purely referential, (18)
can still connect
up
with other
belief-ascriptions
with similar
non-purely
referential
occurrences,
for
example:
(29)
Tom believes that Cicero was called
'Cicero';
Tom believes
that Cicero was not called
'Tully';
and so on.
But these connections will all be
preserved
if we
just say
(30)
Tom believes there is someone who denounced
Catiline,
was
called
'Cicero',
was not called
'Tully',
and so
on,
- as in the Santa Claus case.
If we wish to assert
(18)
without also
asserting (27),
it is because we
think that 'Cicero' is the more
appropriate
name to use in
expressing
a
belief like Tom's. But when we
spell
out the features of Tom's total belief-
state which make 'Cicero'
specially apt,
no
non-purely-referential
occurrences are needed. We can
just
say,
for
example, (30),
or
perhaps:
(31)
Tom believes that Cicero
[i.e. Tully]
denounced
Catiline,
was
called
'Cicero',
was not called
'Tully',
and so on.
There is also a Russellian
interpretation
of
(18),
which allows the
connection between the belief and its
object
to be subsumed under
covering generalisations. (18)
is thus
ambiguous.
'Cicero'
may
be
purely
referential,
or it
may convey
that that name is
specially apt
for the
expression
of Tom's belief. It seems to me that the terms 'de re' and 'de
dicto'
nicely capture
these two
interpretations.
On the Russellian
interpretation, (18)
tells us
something
about the man
Cicero;
on the other
it tells us
something
about the name 'Cicero'.
(In
contrast to
(18),
ascriptions
like
(17)
and
(19)
have
only
a de dicto
interpretation.)
Let me remind
you, however,
that the
ambiguity
of
(9) (or
of
(7)),
discussed
earlier,
is not a de re/de dicto
ambiguity.
Both the
interpretations
given
for
(9)
saw it as
being
of the Russellian
logical form,
which is to
say,
de re: for both
(10)
and
(11)
relate Tom to the
respective objects
of his
beliefs,
under whatever
description.
Our de re/de dicto distinction is thus not the same as the
ordinary
transparent/opaque distinction,
which
hinges solely
on whether
singular
terms
occupy purely
referential
position; (9)
is
transparent
on one of these
de re
construals, opaque
on the other
(for
if a
speaker
means
(11)
when he
asserts
(9),
he
may
still
deny (4)).
De dicto
ascriptions, however,
are
always
opaque.
And
opaque ascriptions containing only proper
names
(no
definite
descriptions)
are
always
de dicto.
There is a
widespread
belief5 that the belief-
(and
desire-) ascriptions
which occur in
psychological explanations
are
typically opaque.
Consider:
(32) Oedipus
wants to
marry Jocasta.
This
may
serve to
explain:
(33) Oedipus
courts
Jocasta,
but,
it is
held, only
if
(32)
is construed as
opaque,
i.e. de dicto. It is
held,
apparently,
that there is some commonsense
psychological generalisation
which
implies (32)
=
(33),
with
(32)
de dicto. I wish I had some idea what
this
generalisation
could be. It
is,
of
course,
a
generalisation
of
commonsense
psychology
that men
generally
court the women
they
want to
marry,
i.e.:
(34) (x) (y) (If
x wants to
marry y,
then x courts
y).
But,
because of the
quantification
into the
content-sentence,
this
only
implies (32)
=
(33)
if
(32)
is construed de re.
The view I criticise here is
supported by
a
popular
account of the truth
conditions of de re
ascriptions.
It is held that the de dicto
reading
of
(32)
is
'psychologically stronger'
than the de re one
-
it 'tells us more about the
character of the mental causes of behaviour'. On a de dicto
construal, (32)
tells us how
Oedipus 'represents
to himself' the
object
of his desire.
5
E.g. J. Fodor, 'Methodological solipsism
considered as a research
strategy
in
cognitive
psychology',
The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3
(1980), pp.
63-109.
Whereas on the de re construal
(32)
tells us
merely
that
Jocasta
is the
object
of his desire 'under some
description'
- we are not told which one.
A sort of causal
requirement
is often
incorporated
into this
popular
account. It
may
be
said,
for
instance,
that
(32)
is true de re
only
if
Oedipus
wants to
marry Jocasta
under a
representation
whose occurrence in this
mental state is a direct or indirect
consequence
of his
perception
of
Jocasta.
Whether or not it includes such a causal
requirement,
the
popular
account
implies
that de re
ascriptions
are
psychologically
uninformative. For
example,
it makes it normal for
subjects
to have
blatantly contradictory
beliefs and desires. However well based in
perception
is
Oedipus's
use of
'Jocasta',
so also is his use of
'my
mother'. Since he
certainly
desires de
dicto not to
marry
his
mother,
it would follow on such views that:
(35) Oedipus
wants not to
marry Jocasta,
is as true de re as
(32).
Since he
certainly
believes de dicto
thatJocasta
is not
his
mother,
it would
similarly
follow that he believes de re that
Jocasta
is not
Jocasta.
It is hard to see how a
psychology including ascriptions
like these
could
explain
behaviour. There are no
psychological generalisations telling
us how men behave towards women
they
believe to be non-self-identical.
And however
psychology says
men behave towards women
they
want to
marry,
it
says they
behave in different
ways
towards women
they
want not to
marry.
I would
urge, however,
a different account of the truth conditions of de
re belief- and
desire-ascriptions
- a functionalist
account, applied directly
to de re
ascriptions. Psychological
terms
get
their
meaning
from their role in
a folk
theory.
The
2-place
relational term
'wants-to-marry',
for
instance,
refers to that actual
psychological
relation which comes nearest
(and
near
enough)
to
realising
the role accorded to
wanting-to-marry
in the folk
theory. Oedipus's
relation to
Jocasta
counts as
wanting-to-marry if,
and
only if,
it has the
right
kinds of causes and effects. On this
account, pairs
like
(32)
and
(35)
cannot both be true. Which one is true is determined
by
the over-all
adjustment
of
psychological theory
to behavioural facts:
given
Oedipus's
behaviour towards
Jocasta,
which
system
of belief- and desire-
ascriptions
conforms best to our
background psychological generalisations?
During
the
courtship phase,
the answer
appears
to be
(32).
On this direct functionalist
account,
there is no reason to believe that de
re
ascriptions
are
necessarily
uninformative,
or that we need
opaque
or de
dicto
ascriptions
in
psychological explanation.
Let me summarise.
Purely
referential occurrences of names in content-
sentences are
psychologically perspicuous
because
they
enable the causal
links between belief and the
objects
of belief to be subsumed under
covering generalisations. Non-purely-referential
occurrences of
names,
on
the other
hand, play
no essential role in
Their
elimination,
in favour of
existentially quantified variables,
is thus to be
commended on
grounds
of
psychological perspicuity.
This is in
addition,
of
course,
to the obvious virtues of adherence to standard
quantificational
logic.
The
belief-ascriptions
of a decent scientific
psychology
can
be,
and
therefore should
be, always
of the Russellian
logical
form.
III
Next I want to
argue
that the
psychological perspicuity
of our belief-
ascriptions
can be increased
by pursuing
the
process
of
eliminating
names
even
further;
certain increases in the
explanatory power
of
psychology
require
the
replacement
of
purely referential
names
by existentially
quantified
variables.
The role in
of
purely
referential names in the
content-sentences of
belief-ascriptions,
we
saw,
is to enable the causal
links between belief and the
objects
of belief to be subsumed under
covering generalisations. Now, psychological generalisations
about the
connections between belief and the environmental
objects
of belief are
always
liable to be falsified
by
failures of
recognition. Ralph,
we
may
sweepingly say, always
comes to believe that someone is a
spy,
if he sees
him
acting
in a certain
suspicious
manner:
(36) (x) (If Ralph
sees x
acting
in a
suspicious manner,
then
Ralph
comes to believe that x is a
spy).
But this must be understood as
subject
to
possible counterexamples
in
cases where
Ralph
fails to
recognise
the
person
in
question.
If
Ralph
sees
Ortcutt
acting
in a
suspicious manner,
but does not realise that it is Ortcutt
he is
seeing,
his firm belief in Ortcutt's
loyalty
will
naturally
be unaffected.
Similarly,
no
generalisations
about how
Ralph
behaves towards
people
he
believes to be
loyal
will
predict
his behaviour towards Ortcutt on occasions
when
Ralph
fails to
recognise
him.
It
might
be
objected
that we can
get generalisations
which are not
vulnerable to
counterexamples
of this kind
by simply including among
the
subject's
beliefs his beliefs about the
identity
of the
person
in
question.
Can't we
say:
(37) (x) (If Ralph
sees x
acting
in a
suspicious manner,
and
Ralph
believes that x is
x,
then
Ralph
comes to believe that x is a
spy)?
No,
this is
absurd; Ralph's
failure to
recognise
Ortcutt was not due to
any
doubts about Ortcutt's
self-identity.
Our talk about failures and successes
of
recognition
does often look like the attribution of
identity beliefs,
but I
believe this
appearance
to be
misleading.
If
my dog
mistakes
you
for
me,
I
might say
'He thinks
you
are me'. But this is not to ascribe a belief that we
are one. I would not
say
'He thinks I am
you',
or 'He thinks
you
are
identical to me'.
Let us
agree, then,
that
generalisations
about the connections between
belief and its environmental
objects
are
always
liable to
counterexamples
through
failure to
recognise
the
object
of belief. Since such failure
sometimes
happens,
we would like an
explanation
of it. Since it is
always
possible,
we would like an
explanation
of successful
recognition,
too. What
I want to
argue
is that a
psychology
which
properly explains
successful or
unsuccessful
recognition
of an
object
will not ascribe beliefs
containing
a
name of that
object.
Suppose Ralph
shares his secrets with
Ortcutt, believing
him to be
loyal.
Our initial
explanation
is:
(38) Ralph
believes that Ortcutt is
loyal;
(39) (x) (If Ralph
believes that x is
loyal,
then
Ralph
shares his
secrets with
x);
hence:
(40) Ralph
shares his secrets with Ortcutt.
But sometimes
Ralph
fails to
recognise Ortcutt,
and refuses his
requests
for information. Worse
still, Ralph
sometimes mistakes the
disguised
Ivanov for
Ortcutt,
and shares his secrets with Ivanov.
Why?
Perhaps Ralph recognises
Ortcutt
by
his visual
appearance. Usually
Ortcutt
presents appearance A,
and then
Ralph
Ortcutt. When Ortcutt does not
present appearance A, Ralph
does not
share his secrets with Ortcutt. When Ivanov
presents appearance A, Ralph
shares his secrets with Ivanov. What this
means,
I
submit,
is that the real
object
of
Ralph's
behaviour is not
Ortcutt,
but
appearance
A. What stands
in need of
is not
(40)
but:
(41) Ralph
anyone
who
presents appear-
ance A.
If
Ralph
shares his secrets with Ortcutt on a
particular occasion,
that is not
something
which needs
any
further
It is
just
because of the
(non-psychological)
fact that Ortcutt is the
person
presenting appearance
A on that occasion.
The same conclusion would seem to follow whatever characteristics
Ralph
uses to
identify
Ortcutt;
the
psychological part
of an
explanation
of
his behaviour needs to be an
explanation
of his behaviour towards
anyone
who
possesses
those characteristics. But
now,
if what needs to be
explained
is not
something
about Ortcutt in
particular,
how can beliefs about Ortcutt
in
particular play any part
in the
explanation?
You
might try saying
that:
(42) Ralph
believes that Ortcutt is the
only person
of
appearance
A,
and is
loyal,
-that's the
explanation
of
(41). But,
I
submit, you
would
get
an
equally
plausible explanation
if
you
substituted
any
other name for
'Ortcutt',
even a
vacuous name. If
Ralph
believed that Santa Claus was the
only person
of
appearance A,
and was
loyal,
would not that still lead him to share his
secrets with
people
of
appearance
A? What makes
Ralph
behave that
way
is
not that he stands in
any
belief-relation to Ortcutt or to Santa
Claus,
but
just
that:
(43) Ralph
believes there is someone who is the
only person
of
appearance A,
and who is
loyal.
If
(42) explains Ralph's
behaviour towards
people presenting appearance A,
(43) provides
a
precisely parallel explanation.
(38)
related
Ralph
to a
man; (43)
relates him to an
appearance,
i.e. a
kind.
('Appearance
A' is short for an
expression
which we use to
pick
out a
certain
appearance. (43)
does not
imply
that
Ralph picks
out that
appearance
in the same
way.)
The
covering generalisation
needed to
get
us
from
(43)
to
(41)
-
or from
(42)
to
(41)
- is a
generalisation
over
appearances,
not men:
(44) (F) (If Ralph
believes that there is someone who is the
only
person
of
appearance
F,
and who is
loyal,
then
Ralph
shares
his secrets with
anyone
of
appearance
F).
As
long
as we
uncritically accept
that what needs
explaining
is
(40),
then
Ortcutt is an
appropriate object
of belief. There is a
plausible
generalisation concerning
beliefs about
people
to
get
us from
(38)
to
(40),
namely (39).
But when we
appreciate
that the real
object
of
Ralph's
behaviour is not a man but an
appearance,
we need
correspondingly
to take
the
appearance
as the
object
of
belief,
and
quantify
over
appearances
in the
relevant
The
argument
seems to be
quite general.
The
psychological part
of the
explanation
of
Ralph's
total interaction with Ortcutt need never mention
Ortcutt. If
you
have an
explanation
which does ascribe beliefs about
Ortcutt,
then take all the content-sentences
containing 'Ortcutt', replace
it
by
a variable
throughout, conjoin
and
existentially quantify;
that is the
only
belief
you
need ascribe to
Ralph.
You will still
get
a
precisely parallel
explanation.
Given that we can
explain
behaviour without
referring
to
particular people
in the content-sentences of
belief-ascriptions,
consider-
ations of
economy
and
perspicuity say
we should do so.
The course
urged
here for
purely
referential names is the same as that
urged
earlier for vacuous names. But the cases are not
entirely parallel.
In
eliminating
vacuous names we lose
nothing,
from the
point
of view of
But in
eliminating purely
referential names the
theoretical
gain may
be at a
practical
cost. In
practice,
failure of
recognition
is
fairly rare;
that is to
say,
we can
usually
make successful
predictions
using generalisations
like
(39),
and
particular ascriptions
like
(38).
Whereas
to
apply
a
generalisation
like
(44)
to
predict Ralph's
behaviour towards
Ortcutt,
we would have to
specify
the characteristics
by
which
Ralph
recognised Ortcutt,
and know that Ortcutt was
actually
the
person
with
those characteristics. In
practice,
a
system
of
ascribing
beliefs about named individuals is
pretty
efficient. But the
deeper
explanations,
known or
unknown,
will not ascribe such beliefs.
I have talked in this section of the
replacement
of
names,
but the
argument applies
also to definite
descriptions
in
purely
referential
position.
If reference to Ortcutt
by way
of 'Ortcutt' will
disappear
in the
deepest
psychological explanations,
the same
goes
for reference to Ortcutt
by way
of 'the man in the brown hat'
(as
in
(10);
not to be confused with
(11)).
I have
argued
for a
redescription
of
subjects'
beliefs which
replaces
reference to individuals
by
reference to kinds. But elimination of
individual-names is in
general
neither sufficient nor
necessary
for the kind
of
explanatory gains
we have been
talking
about.
First,
beliefs about named
individuals,
such as
Ortcutt, may
be
plausibly
redescribed as beliefs about a
kind of which that individual is the
only
member- in this case the kind
named
by
the verb 'to ortcutt'. Instead of
(38)
we would have:
(45) Ralph
believes that there is someone who is the
only ortcutter,
and who is
loyal.
But this
way
of
eliminating
names of individuals
permits
no better
explanation
of
Ralph's
behaviour. The
problem just becomes,
how does he
recognise ortcutting?
Second,
the reasons we have been
looking
at for the elimination of
purely
referential names also
apply
to certain kind-names. We can
recognise
or fail to
recognise kinds,
as well as
individuals,
and can some-
times
explain
these successes and failures.
Suppose
we know how Tom
recognises dogs,
for
example. (I
don't mean how he
recognises
Fido as
Fido,
but how he
recognises
Fido as a
dog-how
he
recognises doghood.)
We
know,
that
is,
that his behaviour towards
dogs
can be more
accurately
described as behaviour towards
things
which
possess
certain characteristics
- the characteristics
which,
as we
might put it,
he believes
just dogs
possess.
Then a more
perspicuous explanation
of the behaviour will ascribe
beliefs
only
about these
characteristics,
not about
doghood. Just
as
references to Ortcutt in the content-sentences of
Ralph's
beliefs were
replaced by
an existential
quantifier
over
men,
so will
'dog'
in the content-
sentences of Tom's beliefs be
replaced by
an existential
quantifier
over
kinds. Rather than
saying
Tom believes there's a
dog
on the
tucker-box,
our
deeper psychology
will
say
he believes there is a kind of animal with
such-and-such
features,
and one of them is on the tucker-box.
But now the
following difficulty
confronts us. If all references to
objects
of
belief- whether individuals or kinds - are to be eliminated from the content-
sentences of a decent
psychology,
what can
go
in these content-sentences?
The answer is that our
argument
does not
require
the elimination of all
reference to individuals or
kinds,
but
only
of reference to individuals and
kinds which are
recognised by
means of
something else,
in
psychologically
explicable ways.
A
subject may recognise dogs by
their
shape,
colour etc. And
he
may
detect
shapes
and colours
(successfully
or
unsuccessfully) by getting
visual stimuli. But there is
nothing by
means of which he detects his visual
stimuli. So the
argument
does not
stop
us
ascribing
beliefs about them.
(Such
a
belief-ascription
- a Russellian
belief-ascription
- relates the believer to a
stimulus kind. It therefore
implies
the existence of that kind. But of course
you
can believe that a stimulation of a
given
kind will
shortly
occur - or even is
occurring, perhaps
- without that
particular
stimulus event
existing.
I do not
claim that we have
incorrigible knowledge
of our
stimuli.)
Similarly,
on the
output side,
we can sometimes
explain
how we
recognise,
or fail to
recognise,
the kinds to which our own actions
belong.
A man
may
take
himself to be
making
a
joke
because he believes that his
uttering
certain words
constitutes the
making
of a
joke;
and
perhaps psychology
could
explain
the
utterance of the words as the intended effect of certain muscle
movements,
or
nerve
firings; but,
if these are
psychologically
basic
actions,
the
argument
can
allow reference to such kinds of
thing
in the content-sentences of a decent
psychology.
My
conclusion is that references to
any things
and kinds
except
kinds of
psychological input
and
output
are
theoretically superfluous. Imagine
a
catalogue
of
Ralph's
beliefs which contains references in the content-
sentences to
Ortcutt, doghood, joking
and the
like; suppose
it
sufficiently
comprehensive
to
fully explain
his successful and unsuccessful
recognition
of
these
things
- it includes his beliefs about the connection between Ortcutt and
certain visual
stimuli,
for
example;
then a more
perspicuous psychology
can be
obtained
by replacing
all
referring expressions, except
those
referring
to
input
and
output kinds, by existentially
bound variables. This more economical
belief
ascription
will
explain
what stands in need of
psychological explanation,
namely,
the behavioural relations between
input
and
output
(it
is irrelevant to
psychology
that a
given
kind of
input
is caused on this occasion
by
Ivanov
rather than
Ortcutt,
or that
Ralph's output
constitutes a
gaffe
rather than a
joke).
What
Ralph really
believes is a
fully
Ramsified
theory
of his environ-
ment,
with the 'observational' terms of the
theory referring
to his own
inputs
and
outputs.
And this is a Russellian
belief-ascription:
it
says
that
Ralph
stands in a certain
psychological
relation to the kinds mentioned.6'7
University of Sydney
6
I
defend this
position
in 'Narrow
content',
Australasian
Journal of Philosophy
64
(1986).
7I am
grateful
to M. Devitt and S. Stich for
helpful
criticism.

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