Wolfgang Schwarz :: Centering and self-ascription

Centering and self-ascription

Posted on Wednesday, 20 Jan 2010.

One of the grave threats to the development of mankind in general, and philosophy in particular, is the assumption that the objects of propositional attitudes can be expressed by that-clauses. The assumption is often smuggled in via a definition, e.g. when propositions are defined as things that are 1) objects of attitudes and 2) expressed by that-clauses. No effort is made to show that anything satisfies both (1) and (2) -- let alone that the things that satisfy (1) coincide with the things that satisfy (2).

One of the many places where this hinders progress is the introduction of centered (de se) contents. Take Lewis's suggestion that the objects of attitudes are properties. What kind of that-clause would express, say, the property of living in Berlin? On the assumption that the objects of attitudes are expressible by that-clauses, Lewis's suggestion is a non-starter.

Philosophers who are sympathetic to Lewis's proposal (including Lewis himself) sometimes put it in terms of self-ascription: I self-ascribe the property of living in Berlin. What is it for me to self-ascribe this property? Presumably it is to believe that I live in Berlin. Here we have our that-clause! On this interpretation of Lewis's proposal, the object of attitudes are expressed by that-clauses of the form "that I am F".

But this leads to trouble. In chapter 28 of his book Perspectival Thought (2007), Francois Recanati wonders:

How can I (pretend to) self-ascribe the property of being Napoleon and fighting the battle of Waterloo, if those are properties that it is impossible for me to instantiate?

Daniel Nolan raises similar worries in his "Selfless Desires" (2006): can't I desire that there be no sentient life, or that my parents never met? But then the content of my desire is not adequately expressed by any clause of the form "that I am F".

In either case, the problem is that self-ascription turns a perfectly harmless property into something impossible. It doesn't help to say that people can believe and desire the impossible. Even if that is true, a desire that there be no sentient life is surely not a desire of something impossible.

When I say "I wish I was never born" or "I wish there was no sentient life", I express a desire that is satisfied at worlds where I was never born. On Lewis's proposal, the content of my desire is a property that applies to various things in worlds where I do not exist. This is a perfectly consistent property, and there is no reason why it couldn't be the content of a desire.

It would be better to avoid talk of self-ascription. If the content of beliefs and desires are properties, then they just aren't things expressed by that-clauses -- not even by that-clauses of the form "that I am F".

Comments

# bobby on 21 January 2010, 09:05

As a philosopher, I can't think of a better question that exists that What is the meaning of Life?

In Bob Versus The Meaning of Life I got 5 other unsual opinions. Do you agree with any of their answers?

http://bobversus.com/archives/432

Would love to hear your thoughts!

# Clas on 25 January 2010, 01:45

Hi Wo,

I agree with your assessment that the assumption that propositions are the things that play both role 1) and 2) is largely responsible for the decline of Western civilization. However, at least in Nolan's case, I do not see that the problem crucially relies on assumptions about the semantics of that-clauses. I thought the problem was: according to Lewis, the objects of attitudes are sets of centered worlds/time slices of world bound individuals. My desire to be F corresponds to the set of centered worlds where the center is F/the set of possible individuals that are F. If centered worlds are the same as time slices of world bound individuals, then I think there is a problem irrespective of what we may think about the semantics of attitude ascriptions. The de se desire never to have existed seems to correspond to the set of individuals that never have existed. That seems bad.

Prima facie, there seem to be two options:
1. We allow centered worlds without a subject at the center; i.e. we distinguish between sets of centered worlds and sets of time slices of world bound individuals. Then there may be centered worlds with empty centers.
2a. We reject the reduction of the de dicto onto the de se: some desires have just an ordinary possible worlds content. However, in that case we get at best a de dicto content for the problematic desires/beliefs.
2b. Or relatedly, we stick to the reduction and claim that the sentences that seem to express genuine de se ascriptions really only express unproblematic de dicto ascriptions. Both 2a and 2b still seem committed to denying that we can have the corresponding troublesome de se attitudes.

I'm not quite sure whether I understand your suggestion: an object o that exists in a world in which Wo never existed obviously has the property that it is such that Wo never existed. However, that property seems to correspond to the de dicto desire that Wo never existed. Are you then suggesting something like option 2b. above? In that case, the problem seems to resurface for attitude ascriptions that are obligatorily interpreted de se, such as: I wish to be F. Moreover, there still is the initial problem that it seems possible for us to have the problematic de se attitudes.

# wo on 27 January 2010, 13:14

Hi Clas,

yes, I was trying to argue for something like 2b. Daniel's examples are wishing that there be no sentient life, wishing that one's parents never met, and things like that. Worlds where these wishes are true need not be entirely empty: there can still be plants or rocks or regions of spacetime. My suggestion is that stages of these things might serve as the (centered) content of my desire. If, as Daniel suggests, the relevant desires have uncentered content, I don't see why these centered contents won't do just as well.

I agree that "I wish to be F" must be read de se, but I don't think it straightforwardly attributes a de se belief with content F. "She wants to meet my parents" might be true because there is some feature or other such that 1) my parents have it, and 2) she has a desire whose content is to meet the people with this feature. Similarly for "I wish to be such that my parents never met": I don't think this requires that the content of my desire is to have parents who never met.

It's a good question whether there can be a genuine de se desire to not exist. I'm not sure what would be evidence for or against this. At any rate, if we're careful about the relationship between attitude attributions and attitude contents, it is not obvious that the problematic attitudes exist. (And many of the alleged problem cases can very easily be resolved.) I guess that's all I wanted to say.

Wolfgang Schwarz

Centering and self-ascription

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