Philosophy Concordance - online philosophical quotations

This idea was clearly articulated by Davidson (1989, 11): Just as in measuring weight we need a collection of entities which have a structure{ XE "structure" } in which we can reflect the relations between weighty objects, so in attributing states of belief{ XE "belief" } (and other propositional attitude{ XE "attitude: propositional" }s) we need a collection of entities related in ways that will allow us to keep track of the relevant properties of the various psychological states.

Davidson suggests that we use meanings to measure and classify our fellow organisms' 'belief-states'.

From this viewpoint, to situate beliefs within an individual, and to talk, as many semanticists do, about the individual’s 'belief box', is analogous to expressing that a tree is five meters high by saying that the tree has the five meters somewhere within its 'height box'.

One is a belief in some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytic, or grounded in meanings independently of matters of fact and truths which are synthetic, or grounded in fact.

The other dogma is reductionism: the belief that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical construct upon terms which refer to immediate experience.

The lexicographer is an empirical scientist, whose business is the recording of antecedent facts; and if he glosses 'bachelor' as 'unmarried man' it is because of his belief that there is a relation of synonymy between these forms, implicit in general or preferred usage prior to his own work.

I had long before remarked that, in relation to practice, it is sometimes necessary to adopt, as if above doubt, opinions which we discern to be highly uncertain, as has been already said; but as I then desired to give my attention solely to the search after truth, I thought that a procedure exactly the opposite was called for, and that I ought to reject as absolutely false all opinions in regard to which I could suppose the least ground for doubt, in order to ascertain whether after that there remained aught in my belief that was wholly indubitable.

What is taken as a reason for belief in a theory is thus not a matter of experience but a matter of convention.

If I believe the theory after taking clear soup, this is a cause of my belief, not a reason.

When I am asked for a reason for the belief, what is expected, as part of the answer, is what I believe.