engleski

Attitude Reports and a Substitutin Faiure Problem

Apart from having (propositional) attitudes, we often say we have them – we attribute them to ourselves and to others. When we do it, we are likely to express it with a sentence of the form S believes/thinks/desires/knows/etc. that p. If attitudes are relations between agents and propositions – as it is presupposed by many – reports of this form seem appropriate, given they are composed of a relational verb (‘believe’, ‘think’ etc.), the subject term ‘S’, and ‘that’-clause: the verb stands for a relation between an agent picked out by ‘S’, and a proposition picked out by the clause. If we adhere to such an analysis, it seems that we should be able to express it more explicitly ; and sometimes we do. In the literature, it is common to find sentences such as When one believes that snow is white, she believes the proposition that snow is white. Now, once we take some such sentence under consideration, it is reasonable to say that expressions of the form ‘the proposition that p’ and ‘that p’ stand for the same thing, namely the proposition that p. With this, however, comes a problem. Assuming that the outlined view was not intended as an analysis of reports containing only some propositional attitude verbs, the above explication of the view works only for some propositional attitudes. (The problem is sometimes called ‘the substitution (failure) problem’ or ‘the substitution anomaly’, because it is sometimes formulated as saying that one cannot substitute ‘the proposition that p’ for ‘that p’, or vice versa, within the scope of some propositional attitude verbs.) Thus compare these three pairs of the reports: (1a) Smith believes/doubts/rejects/states that snow is white, (1b) Smith believes/doubts/rejects/states the proposition that snow is white ; (2a) Smith fears/remembers/wishes/knows that snow is white, (2b) Smith fears/remembers/wishes/knows the proposition that snow is white ; (3a) Smith hopes/suspects/thinks/complains that snow is white, (3b) *Smith hopes/suspects/thinks/complains the proposition that snow is white. Assuming that the above outlined view is correct, (1a)/(1b) make perfect sense. But, whereas (2a) and (3a) are meaningful and, let us postulate, true reports, (2b) could at the same time be false, because it significantly differs in meaning from (2a). (3b), on the other hand, makes no sense because it is not a grammatical construction. But how should one explain this phenomenon? Authors discussing the problem (e.g. A. N. Prior, K. Bach, S. Schiffer, J. C. King, F. Moltmann, S. Boër, T. Merricks, T. Parsons, M. A. Moffett etc.) made various suggestions. In my talk I will offer a more detailed analysis of the problem, and I will outline the proposed strategies of dealing with it.

attitude reports; propositions; substitution

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