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Belief, philosophy: attitude of considering a sentence to be true. Unlike religious faith belief is linked to the assessment of probabilities. A belief is an attitude of a thinking person which can usually be formulated in a sentence, whereby the person must be able to integrate the sentence into a set of further sentences. A further condition is that the bearer of beliefs is able to reformulate the corresponding sentences and negate them, that is, to grasp their meaning. See also religious belief, propositional attitudes, intensions, probability, belief degrees, private language.
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Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments.

 
Author Concept Summary/Quotes Sources

John R. Searle on Beliefs - Dictionary of Arguments

I 76
Beliefs and desires/Searle: beliefs and desires do not need to be postulated. They are simply experienced consciously and not in question.
- - -
II 31
Intentional states/Searle: we must separate the logical properties of intentional states from their ontological ones.
Tradition: intentional states are Hume's ideas, or modifications of the Cartesian ego, or causal dispositions to behaviors (SearleVs).
>I, Ego, Self/Descartes
, >Disposition, >Idea/Hume.
II 32
Belief/Searle: spirit on world orientation.
Intentional states/Searle: intentional states are both caused and realized in the structure of the brain.
>Identity theory/Searle.
II 34
Intentional object: not every intentional state has an intentional object. The present King of France does not exist, so the corresponding sentence cannot be true.
II 261
De dicto/belief/SearleVsAll other authors: all beliefs are de dicto.
Of course, some beliefs are about Santa Claus and others about Napoleon, but the re-beliefs (of Napoleon) are then a subclass.
>de dicto, >de re.
Quine: much stronger thesis: in addition to the completely individualized de dicto beliefs through content and mode (in the head), there are also beliefs that exist between the believer and the objects. Such beliefs are then not a subclass, but rather irreducible de re.
Brains in a vat: brains in a vat could have beliefs that are purely de dicto. They are independent of the actual nature of the world.
De re-beliefs: de re-beliefs are relations between people and objects. Caution: if the world changed, the beliefs themselves would be different, even if everything in the head remained unchanged!
>Brain in a vat.
II 262
For example, assuming George Bush believes Reagan is president of the United States. That is a fact about Bush but is it not just also a fact about Reagan? Furthermore, this fact cannot simply be explained by facts about Bush.
Quantification in "belief contexts": quantification in "belief contexts" is allowed in case of such a formulation.
Example de re: "Reagan is such that Bush believes of him that...
Cf. >de re, >de dicto.

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Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments
The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition.

Searle I
John R. Searle
The Rediscovery of the Mind, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1992
German Edition:
Die Wiederentdeckung des Geistes Frankfurt 1996

Searle II
John R. Searle
Intentionality. An essay in the philosophy of mind, Cambridge/MA 1983
German Edition:
Intentionalität Frankfurt 1991

Searle III
John R. Searle
The Construction of Social Reality, New York 1995
German Edition:
Die Konstruktion der gesellschaftlichen Wirklichkeit Hamburg 1997

Searle IV
John R. Searle
Expression and Meaning. Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts, Cambridge/MA 1979
German Edition:
Ausdruck und Bedeutung Frankfurt 1982

Searle V
John R. Searle
Speech Acts, Cambridge/MA 1969
German Edition:
Sprechakte Frankfurt 1983

Searle VII
John R. Searle
Behauptungen und Abweichungen
In
Linguistik und Philosophie, G. Grewendorf/G. Meggle, Frankfurt/M. 1974/1995

Searle VIII
John R. Searle
Chomskys Revolution in der Linguistik
In
Linguistik und Philosophie, G. Grewendorf/G. Meggle, Frankfurt/M. 1974/1995

Searle IX
John R. Searle
"Animal Minds", in: Midwest Studies in Philosophy 19 (1994) pp. 206-219
In
Der Geist der Tiere, D Perler/M. Wild, Frankfurt/M. 2005


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