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De Re Belief Ascriptions and Action Explanations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Eric Stiffler
Eric Stiffler*
Affiliation:
Western Illinois University
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Extract

The well known fact that beliefs may be ascribed either de dicto or de re raises a problem about the role of belief ascriptions in the explanation of action because it suggests that both kinds of ascriptions may help explain why an agent acted. Some explanations may require only de dicto belief ascriptions, others only de re ascriptions, while still others require ascriptions of both types. As a first step toward sorting out these alternatives I want to consider whether de re ascriptions which impute to the agent beliefs about himself or about some other person ever help to explain actions. I shall discuss this question from the perspective of two radically different theories of de re belief, assuming throughout that de dicto belief ascriptions are explanatory.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , December 1983 , pp. 513 - 525
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1983

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References

1 This claim is defended in Castañeda, Hector-Neri ‘Reference, Reality, and Perceptual Fields,’ the 1980 A.P.A. Western Division Presidential Address, Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, 53 (1980) 763–823CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See especially §§6-8.

2 This criterion and a somewhat more refined version of it are put forward by Feldman, Richard H. in his ‘Actions and De Re Beliefs,’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 8 (1978) 577-82CrossRefGoogle Scholar, as distinctive of what Roderick Chisholm has termed “latitudinarian” theories of de re belief. For Chisholm's, discussion of latitudinarian theories see his ‘Knowledge and Belief: “De Dicto” and “De Re”,' Philosophical Studies, 29 (1976) 1–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For examples of such theories see Ernest Sosa, ‘Propositional Attitudes De Dicto and De Re,’ Journal of Philosophy, 67 (1970) 883-96; and Pastin, Mark ‘About De Re Belief,’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 34 (1974) 569-75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 The best known attempts to block exportation are Hintikka's and Kaplan's. See Hintikka, Jaakko Knowledge and Belief (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1962)Google Scholar, and Kaplan, David ‘Quantifying In,’ in Linsky, Leonard ed., Reference and Modality (New York: Oxford University Press 1971), 112-44Google ScholarPubMed. For a criticism of Hintikka's approach see Boer, Stephen E. and Lycan, William G. ‘Knowing Who,' Philosophical Studies, 28 (1975) 299–344Google Scholar. For a criticism of Kaplan see Burge, Tyler ‘De Re Belief,’ Journal of Philosophy, 74 (1977) 338-62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 For example, see Feldman, 577-82; Dennett, Danniel ‘Beyond Belief,’ in Woodfield, Andrew ed., Thought and Belief (New York: Oxford University Press 1982), 1–95Google Scholar; and Baker, Lynne Rudder ‘De Re Belief in Action,’ Philosophical Review, 91 (1982) 363-87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 This difficulty is raised by Feldman.

6 It is not possible to distinguish de dicto and de re readings in terms of grammar alone, e.g., in terms of whether ‘of or ‘that’ follows ‘believes.’ I suspect that this is the reason we are initially tempted to think that (1) and (2) explain Joe's kicking Sam equally well. (1), like (2), is ambiguous between a de dicto and a de re reading.

7 Schiffer, Stephen develops this point in ‘The Basis of Reference,’ Erkenntnis, 13 (1978) 171–206CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 See Burge, 338-62, and Loar, Brian ‘Reference and Propositional Attitudes,' Philosophical Review, 80 (1972) 43–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Burge credits Castañeda as the first to notice the dual role of such descriptions. See Castañeda, Hector-Neri ‘Indicators and Quasi-indicators,’ American Philosophical Quarterly, 4 (1967) 85–100Google Scholar.

9 Burge, 346

10 Burge, 345

11 Burge, 347

12 See Castañeda, 85-100.

13 This example and the first argument following it are modelled on Perry, John's discussion of a similar case in ‘The Problem of the Essential Indexical.’ Nous, 13 (1979) 3–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Schiffer argues that such descriptions are always available.

15 Similar claims are defended by Schiffer and Baker. Both authors’ views have strongly influenced my own conclusions on these and other issues discussed in this paper.

16 My research was supported by the National Endowment for Humanities and a Western Illinois University Research Council grant. Earlier versions of the paper were presented at the 1980-81 NEH Philosophy Seminar in Residence held at Indiana University under the direction of Hector-Neri Castañeda, and at the University of Kentucky. I thank an anonymous referee for this Journal for a number of helpful comments.