Bibliographical data for
Author
Title of Edited Collection
Open MIND
Editors
Publication Date
January 2015
Publication Place
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
ISBN
9783958570337
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.