I like Ways-Millianism. It’s a combo-theory about meaning and the metaphysics of belief. Here are two of the core theses.
(M) The meaning of a proper name is its referent.
(W) Belief is a mediated relation between a person and a proposition. People believe propositions in virtue of standing in relation to some third thing – call it – a way of believing.
I like to extend the theory to predicates/kind terms. I also like to flesh out what ways are in terms of LOT sentences, but it’s important to note that Ways-Millians are not committed to ways of believing being LOT sentences.
Ways Millianism is supposed to help the traditional Naive theory of meaning get around certain puzzles (most notably Frege’s Puzzle). The Mysteriousness of Ways
Something I encounter a lot in discussion with philosophers about Ways-Millianism is the idea that there is something utterly mysterious and bizarre about these ways of believing. I haven’t seen this in print (Bleg: if you have a reference to something in print – I’d love to have it.)
A long term goal of mine is to try and go through a bunch of different theories about the mind and show, for each one, that they’ve got something to play the theoretical role that Millians think ways of believing play. But I’m going to keep it simple (and sketchy for this first post). I want to recall a familiar thought experiment, and show that most people should be comfortable with thinking that there is something that goes on in our heads when we have beliefs to play the theoretical role that ways of believing play.
Oscar and Twoscar
Consider Putnam’s famous Twin Earth Thought Experiment. I’ll spare the details in this post, but you can read about it here in the first paragraph in this section of the SEP entry on Intentionality.
When Oscar thinks about water and Twoscar think about twater, there is something internally the same about the two. I think that most people are in agreement on this. Internalists and Externalists disagree as to whether or not Oscar and Twoscar are having the same thought, but I think they would agree with the there is something going on inside Oscar and Twoscar when they have the thoughts about the potable liquid on their respective planets. I suspect that just about everyone would agree on this.
Right there, both sides of the debate would agree on there being something that is suited to play the role of ways.
OK. That’s it. My aims in this post were actually relatively modest, and I’m blogging from my phone right now. I hope to have some more on this later.
(Posted from my Android Phone)
Or there may be a number of things suited to play the role in a number of ways. Panayot Butchvarov in ‘Skepticism about the External World’, in connection with G.F.Stout and others, makes some suggestive remarks about ‘tropes’. Why not, even, be a direct-realist about tropes or qualities? There would be support anyway from, say, the very ordinary consideration of criticisms directed at content, for distinctive modes of access supporting judgements and hence ‘content’.
Hi Matthew,
Do you think these tropes can be content bearers? If so, then tropes could be ways.
Hi Andrew,
Sorry to be so slow coming back to this …. I think it’s very nicely minimalist that ways should be tropes.
Actually, can I ask … does anyone see an issue arising in terms of the difference between identities as individuated and meanings, with meanings construed as individual limiters with their own (grammatical) modalities? While wanting to be (deeply) respectful of the kind of intuitions that occur in the scenarios traditionally discussed (and then your examples of ‘role playing’ for ways are perfect), can’t these be subsumed according to the modalities in my first sentence? Oh dear, down this path do we invoke Austin?