Is de re Belief Reducible to de dicto?

References

• I am grateful to the Santa Barbarians Discussion Group for its comments on some of the arguments presented here. Anthony Brueckner and Francis Dauer made particularly helpful observations.
   Google Scholar
• Woodfield , A. , ed. 1983 . Thought and Object 208 – 17 . See for example Daniel Dennett, ‘Beyond Belief,’ in (Oxford University Press 1982), 1–95 (e.g., at 84); John Searle, ‘Are There Irreducibly De Re Beliefs,’ in Intentionality (Cambridge University Press, ch. 8, § 2
   Google Scholar
• Davidson , In D. and Hintikka , J. 1969 . “ eds. ” . In Words and Objections: Essays on the Work of W. V. Quine 178 – 214 . Dordrecht : D. Reidel . ; reprinted in L. Linsky, ed., Reference and Modality (Oxford University Press 1972), 112–44. All page references herein are to the latter printing.
   Google Scholar
• 1973 . Midwest Studies in Philosophy IV: Studies in Metaphysics , : 73 – 121 . The Twin Earth thought experiment is due to Hilary Putnam. See his ‘Meaning and Reference,’ journal of Philosophy 70 699–711. For a similar argument, see Tyler Burge, ‘Individualism and the Mental,’ in P. French, T. Uehling, and H. Wettstein, eds., (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1979)
   Google Scholar
• 1957 . Journal of Philosophy Vol. 53 , 338 – 62 . 177–87; reprinted in Quine's The Ways of Paradox (New York: Random House 1967), 183–94; also in L. Linsky, ed., Reference and Modality (Oxford University Press 1971), 101–11, and elsewhere. All page references herein are to the Linsky printing. See also Tyler Burge, ‘Kaplan, Quine, and Suspended Belief,’ Philosophical Studies 31 (1977) 197–203, and ‘Belief De Re,’ Journal of Philosophy 74 (1977)
   Google Scholar
• B Kaplan symbolizes (3) as ′Ralph B ‘the man seen at the beach is a spy’′. While I have altered his symbol for de dicto belief I am preserving elements of his syntax, which is aptly suited to clarifying the issues under discussion. (See especially note 22 below.)
   Google Scholar
• Pears , D. , ed. 1968 . Philosophical Essays New York : Simon and Schuster . See ‘On the Nature of Truth and Falsehood,’ in Russell's 147–59; Our Knowledge of the External World(New York: New American Library 1956), 52–3; The Philosophy of Logical Atomism (La Salle: Open Court 1985), 79–93. Quine writes (6) as ‘Ralph believes z(z is a spy) of the man seen at the beach’, Kaplan as ‘Ralph Bel (‘x is a spy’, the man seen at the beach)’.
   Google Scholar
• Leonardi , P. and Santambrogio , M. , eds. 1995 . On Quine: New Essays 206 – 28 . ‘Relational Belief,’ in (Cambridge University Press
   Google Scholar
• ‘Quantifiers and Prepositional Attitudes,’ 106
   Google Scholar
• Davidson , D. and Harman , G. , eds. 1979 . Words and Objections 337 – 8 . The recant is made in ‘Replies,’ in 341–2; the recant of the recant in ‘Intensions Revisited,’ in P. French, T. Uehling, and H. Wettstein, eds., Contemporary Perspectives in the Philosophy of Language (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 268–74, at 272–3, reprinted in Quine's Theories and Things (Harvard University Press 1981), 113–23, at 119–21. I must note that exportation cannot be generally valid for all propositional attributions. Otherwise, from the empirical premise that there are in fact exactly nine planets, and the philosophical observation that there might instead have been an even number of (or more specifically, eight or ten) planets, one could validly infer that nine might have been even (or eight or ten).
   Google Scholar
• An individual concept is a concept for (i.e. a concept whose function is to determine) an individual, and may thus serve as the semantic content of singular term.
   Google Scholar
• T , Evidently on Kaplan's account, the following sentence is alleged to be an analytic truth: If Ralph believes the man seen at the beach to be a spy, then there is a vivid individual concept α that determines, and is for Ralph a name of, the man seen at the beach such that Ralph believes ‘α is a spy’. Similarly for its converse. I believe, on the contrary, that neither the conditional nor its converse is analytic. Even if the conditional were both necessary and a priori, the inference from antecedent to consequent, or vice versa, does not feel to me like one that is licensed strictly as a matter of the principles governing correct reasoning and the meanings of “believe,’ ‘vivid,’ ‘name of,’ etc. As a matter of fact, the Twin Earth considerations mentioned in the first paragraph of this article demonstrate that the conditional need not even be true. By contrast, the mutual inference between (4) (or (2)) and (6) does feel to me to be licensed by pure logic. Cf. my remarks concerning the modal-propositional-logical system as compared with stronger systems, in ‘The Logic of What Might Have Been,’ The Philosophical Review 98 (1989) 3–34.
   Google Scholar
• Anderson , C. A. and Owens , J. , eds. Sinn,’ Cf. my ‘A Millian Heir Rejects the Wages of in Propositional Attitudes: The Role of Content in Logic, Language, and Mind (Stanford: CSLI 1990), 215–47, at 239–40. Kaplan does not explicitly regard (K6) asa consequence of a contextual definition for open ‘that’-clauses; I suggest this merely as a possibly enlightening interpretation of his program. He proposes (K6) specifically as an analysis of (6), rather than of (4), which Quine had found improper. Kaplan does, however, suggest (114 n3) that instead of repudiating (4) altogether, it might be taken as analyzed by (6). Quine later came around to this same view, in ‘Intensions Revisited,’ 268, 274 n9.
   Google Scholar
• λxy[x , B Quine appears to prefer this option Cf. ‘Quantifiers and Propositional Attitudes,’ section II. He there takes ‘d r’ to be multi-grade, i.e. “letting it figure as an n place predicate for each n > 1” (‘Intensions Revisited,’ 268). This allows one to say that Ralph believes of the man in the brown hat and the man at the beach that the former is taller than the latter by writing ‘Ralph ‘B d r’ (the man in the brown hat, the man at the beach, ‘λxy[x is taller than y]’)′. The de dicto predicate ‘B dd’ may then be taken to be the limiting case of B d r’ where n = 2. But how exactly does this give us (I)?
   Google Scholar
• 1995 . Nous , 29 I criticize this analysis (which is Kaplan's, not mine) of suspension of judgment as being too strong, in my ‘Being of Two Minds: Belief with Doubt,’ 1–20. There is no doubt in this case, however, that the conjunction is indeed true with respect to Act II.
   Google Scholar
• Ibid 141 Here as elsewhere I have slightly altered the text for the purpose of matching numbered expressions with the numbers used in the present paper.
   Google Scholar
• In ‘Kaplan, Quine, and Suspended Belief,’ 198.1 have expanded on Burge's actual proposal, keeping to both its letter and spirit, in order to secure the full force of suspension of judgment as opposed to mere failure to believe.
   Google Scholar
• Whereas Burge aims to refute Kaplan's argument for reducibility, he does not himself endorse the proposal he makes on Quine's behalf, and instead says that the conjunction of (6) with (8) may be formulated along the lines of something like: Ralph believes the man seen at the beach to be this man and a spy, and Ralph neither believes the man seen at the beach to be that man and a spy nor believes the man seen at the beach to be that man and not a spy, as spoken with three references to Ortcutt, in his guises as this man (in the brown hat) and as that man (seen at the beach). This proposal seriously distorts the very de re locutions it employs. Indeed, it contains a contradiction, its first conjunct expressing about Ortcutt exactly what the second conjunct denies.
   Google Scholar
• (x , B ‘Quantifying In,’ 139 n30. Quine proposes (in ‘Intensions Revisited,’ at 272–73) taking ‘(Ex)[Ralph d r′ λz)(z = α))’—e.g., ‘There is someone whom Ralph takes to be the shortest spy’—as the further premise required to validate the exportation inference from Ralph B dd that α is a spy” to ‘Ralph B d r′ (α, to be a spy)’. See note 10 above. Influenced by Jaakko Hintikka, Quine incorrectly glosses this proposed premise as ‘Ralph has an opinion as to who α is. Even this stronger premise, however, is not up to the task; suppose, for example, that Ralph is of the erroneous opinion that the shortest spy is none other than Ortcutt. See Igal Kvart, ‘Quine and Modalities De Re: A Way Out?’ Journal of Philosophy 79 (June 1982), 295–328, at 298–302; and my ‘How to Measure the Standard Metre,’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (New Series) 88 (1987/1988) 193–217, at 205–6, 213–4. Quine's intent may be better captured by taking the additional premise to be instead ‘Ralph B d r’ (α, ‘(λz)(z = α)x′)’—e.g., ‘Ralph believes the shortest spy to be the shortest spy.’ This move, in turn, suggests an analysis of (6) à la Kaplan/Burge into (B6) (perhaps as part of a general analysis of attributions of de re beliefs other than identity beliefs). The alternative premise Kvart proposes, by comparison, suggests instead an analysis more along the lines of Kaplan's original (K6).
   Google Scholar
• Frege's Puzzle Cf. my (Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview 1986, 1991), at 171–2. An alternative scenario is also possible in which Ralph believes (on the basis of general suspicions) that the most trusted man in any town is a spy, and knows Ortcutt to be the most trusted man in town, while not yet concluding about Ortcutt that he in particular must be a spy. Such a case refutes the analysis suggested in note 19 above. Intuitively, one who believes that whoever is most trusted among men in town is a spy does not ipso facto believe of the most trusted man, de re, that he is a spy. (Notice that the description ‘the most trusted man in town/like ‘the shortest spy,’ qualifies neither as vivid, nor as a name of its referent, in Kaplan's quasi-technical senses.)
   Google Scholar
• 1989 . Frege's Puzzle 211 – 20 . Cf. 2–7. See also my ‘How to Become a Millian Heir,’ Noûs 23 and ‘A Millian Heir Rejects the Wages of Sinn,’223–7
   Google Scholar
• Hahn , L. E. and Schilpp , P. A. , eds. 1986 . The Philosophy of W. V. Quine Vol. B , La Salle : Open Court . ‘Relational Belief,’ 216. The analysis is broadly Russellian in spirit. However, Russell himself embraced an epistemology that prevented him from accepting the analysis (and which may be part of the original motivation for his multiple- relation theory of de re belief). Quine also rejects it. Indeed, this is what led Quine to propose replacing (2) with something along the lines of (6). His objections, however, are dubious. See Kaplan, ‘Opacity,’ in 229–89; and my ‘Relational Belief.’ Identifying the singular proposition about Ortcutt that he is a spy with the corresponding ordered pair, the proposed analysis of (6) might be revealingly reformulated as: Ralph dr (the man seen at the beach, to be a spy) =def Ralph B dd the man seen at the beach, to be a spy.
   Google Scholar
• B More exactly, my view is that the dyadic predicate ‘dr’ is definable as: (λxp)(Ey)(x BEL [p, y])].
   Google Scholar
• Alternatively, something like Kaplan's full-blooded reducibility thesis might be invoked as a third premise in addition to (9), thus removing (B6S) still further from (S6). Alternatively, the ‘a’ may be replaced by an objectual variable. Analogously, Kaplan may have intended a version of (9) in which ‘α’ ranges only over ‘representing’ names, in his sense, while ‘β’ is not similarly restricted. Burge's objection that the relevant version of (9) is not guaranteed is appropriate regardless.
   Google Scholar
• Sinn,’ 234 – 47 . Cf. ‘A Millian Heir Rejects the Wages of especially
   Google Scholar
• Kripke , Saul . 1988 . “ ‘A Puzzle about Belief,’ in ” . In Propositions and Attitudes Edited by: Salmon , N. and Soames , S. 102 – 48 . (Oxford University Press
   Google Scholar
• Tomberlin , J. , ed. 1989 . Frege's Puzzle 129 – 32 . I respond to Kripke's puzzle, and to his objections to the solution I propose, in and in ‘Illogical Belief,’ in Philosophical Perspectives, 3: Philosophy of Mind and Action Theory (Atascadero, Ca.: Ridgeview, 243–85
   Google Scholar
• Sinn,’ 220–2. ‘A Millian Heir Rejects the Wages of It is difficult to see how one can maintain that the belief that tomatoes make a good sauce is not a belief of a certain proposition (but instead a relation to various entities) without committing oneself to the conclusion that no belief is of a proposition.
   Google Scholar
• Frege's Puzzle 92 – 128 . Cf.
   Google Scholar