Propositional attitude

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A propositional attitude ( English propositional attitude ) is an inner attitude or relationship of cognitive or emotional kind that anyone can have a (possible) situation. Attributions of propositional attitudes are often expressed by that-clauses, to which verbs of the propositional attitude (“know”, “believe”, “fear”, “hope”, etc.) are applied.

Typical examples of ascriptions of propositional attitudes are:

  • Inge hopes that the sun will shine on the weekend.
  • Hans fears that it will rain.
  • Julia regrets that she cannot come with you.
  • Hans suspects that Inge spilled chicken fat on his Bible.
  • I know that my saviour is alive.

Propositional attitudes are important to a number of scientific disciplines such as psychology , the semantics of natural languages, the philosophy of language , the philosophy of mind , action theory, and epistemology . According to Paul Churchland they are the "basic building blocks of everyday psychology ", according to Donald Davidson it is the characteristic feature of rational beings to have propositional attitudes. - The term “propositional attitude” goes back to Bertrand Russell .

The logical form of sentences about propositional attitudes

If you look at the examples from the introduction, you immediately notice their common structure, which can be reproduced as follows:

( PE ) A φ-t that p

where “A” stands for the person whose attitude is concerned, φ is a verb that indicates the type of attitude , and “p” stands for the intentional content or object of the attitude . p is always a structure that can be true or false ( statement , proposition ) or that exists or does not exist (state of affairs).

However, not all reports on propositional attitudes have this surface structure. The following sentences, for example, can also be read as reports on propositional attitudes:

  1. I wish they'd give me a go.
  2. I intend to come.
  3. I'm afraid not.
  4. I fear his anger.
  5. Inge doesn't believe me.

The examples can be reduced to the standard form ( PE ) as follows:

  1. I wish someone could bake me a loaf.
  2. I intend to come.
  3. I'm afraid I haven't done my homework. (In response to a related question.)
  4. I fear that out of anger he will do something that harms me.
  5. There is a p such that I asserted to Inge that p, and Inge believes that not-p.

Logical peculiarities

Reports of propositional attitudes are dimensional contexts par excellence; This means that within the scope of the attitude verb φ coextension expressions cannot be exchanged salva veritate (cf. Intensional fallacy ). For example, the conclusion is, “Lois Lane believes Superman is a hero. Superman is Clark Kent. So Lois thinks that Clark Kent is a hero. ”Not logically valid. In the usual reading of the existential quantifier , the conclusion “Lois Lane believes that Superman is a hero; so there is someone who Lois Lane thinks is a hero “incorrectly.

Appropriate direction of propositional attitudes

Attempts to classify propositional attitudes can start with their direction of fit . A division into two large groups is plausible: attitudes with the mind-to-world direction of fit (e.g. belief, doubt) aim to ensure that their content is adapted to the world; conversely, attitudes with the world-to-mind direction of fit (e.g. wishes, hope) aim to adapt the world to its content.

Applications

Action theory

One of the most frequently used approaches to explaining rational behavior is the so-called belief-desire model (often attributed to David Hume ) , in which the propositional attitudes of being convinced, wanting, and intending play a major role. According to this model, Inge's intention to make her way to the supermarket can be explained, for example, by her desire to buy groceries in connection with her conviction that she can buy groceries in the supermarket.

Meaning theory

Some language philosophers (such as Paul Grice and Stephen Schiffer) advocate theories of meaning, according to which the meaning of utterances arises from the beliefs and intentions associated with them. Roughly speaking, what a speaker A means by an assertoric sentence S (i.e., the so-called speaker meaning of S) is the belief that A is trying to express using S.

Skepticism about propositional attitudes

Some philosophers, including Stephen Stich , W. V. O. Quine, and Paul Churchland , deny the existence of propositional attitudes for various reasons. With Quine, general linguistic-philosophical concerns against intensionality (see extensionalism ) are the main motive. Chapter VI of his main work Word and Object represents an attempt to eliminate dimensional contexts in general and the discussion of propositional attitudes in particular. Churchland takes the view that the talk about propositional attitudes must be given up because nothing corresponds to them in physical reality ( eliminativism ).

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ McKay / Nelson: Propositional Attitude Reports .
  2. ↑ Churchland: Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes , p. 67. [Original: "the principal elements of common-sense psychology: the propositional attitudes (beliefs, desires, etc.)".]
  3. ↑ Davidson: Rational Animals , p. 318. [Original: "[T] o be a rational animal is just to have propositional attitudes, no matter how confused, contradictory, absurd, unjustified or erroneous those attitudes may be."]
  4. ^ Russell: Meinong's Theory of Complexes and Assumptions , p. 348. (Here Russell uses the phrase "attitude towards a proposition".)
  5. ↑ Russell: An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth , p. 21 u. ö.
  6. ↑ a b c Oppy: Propositional Attitudes (quoted from the electronic edition without page numbers).
  7. ↑ See Quine: Quantifiers and Propositional Attitudes .
  8. ↑ Grice: Meaning .
  9. ↑ Schiffer: Meaning .