Authors:	Roskies, Adina
Title:	Davidson on believers : can non-linguistic creatures have propositional attitudes?
Online publication date:	31-Oct-2016
Year of first publication:	2015
Language:	english
Abstract:	Donald Davidson has argued that only language-users can have propositional attitudes. His strongest argument in support of this claim is one that links having propositional attitudes to language via a concept of belief. Here I consider various possible interpretations of this argument, looking first at the canonical conception of a concept of belief from the Theory of Mind literature, then at a weaker notion of the concept of belief corresponding to a conception of objective reality, and finally at an intermediate notion involving the ability to attribute mental states. I argue that under each of these various interpretations, analysis and appeal to empirical evidence from developmental and comparative psychology shows the Davidsonian argument to be unsound. Only on a reading of the argument that slides between different interpretations of “concept of belief” are all the premises true, but in that case the argument is invalid. I conclude that Davidson doesn’t provide sufficient reason to deny that non-linguistic creatures can have propositional attitudes.
DDC:	100 Philosophie 100 Philosophy
Institution:	Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Department:	FB 05 Philosophie und Philologie
Place:	Mainz
ROR:	https://ror.org/023b0x485
DOI:	http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-675
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hebis:77-publ-550543
Version:	Published version
Publication type:	Buchbeitrag
License:	In Copyright
Information on rights of use:	https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Citation:	Open MIND Metzinger, Thomas
Pages or article number:	Kap. 33(T)
Publisher:	MIND Group
Publisher place:	Frankfurt am Main
Issue date:	2015
Publisher URL:	http://dx.doi.org/10.15502/9783958570337
Publisher DOI:	10.15502/9783958570337
Appears in collections:	JGU-Publikationen