Why treat "desire" as a propositional attitude?

https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/5t67my/why_treat_desire_as_a_propositional_attitude/

created by drinka40tonight on 10/02/2017 at 08:48 UTC

3 upvotes, 4 top-level comments (showing 4)

I'm curious if people have thoughts on why lots of folks think it's apt to treat desire as a propositional attitude.

To be more clear, I think I am somewhat familiar with some of the surrounding literature. So, I've read my Russell, Michael Smith, Ben-yami, Talbot Brewer, William Lycan, Davidson, Searle, Stalnaker, Velleman, Strawson.

And so, yeah, some people critique such things. But the prevailing thought seems to be to treat them as propositional. But, I guess I am just wondering if people more familiar with propositional attitudes in general have some thoughts here. Like, what's the advantage? Before Russell, no one seemed to think like this. But by now it's the standard way of thinking of them. Is there some "knock-down" argument I missed that inclines people to do so?

Comments

Comment by ptrlix at 10/02/2017 at 09:44 UTC

3 upvotes, 2 direct replies

Well, 20th century philosophy, at least "analytic philosophy", has almost always studied propositions/sentences/statements/that-clauses, etc. I guess the reason why Russell was able to make propositions so dominantly popular is because 20th century philosophy, both the first half (Russell-Ayer-Carnap, etc.) and the second half (Quine, Putnam, etc.) were really using logic for philosophy.

There is this distinction in epistemology between objectual knowledge (I know her; I know how to run) and propositional knowledge (I know that...), and analytic philosophers are sometimes accused of being dismissive of the former. I know some people who argue, for example, that even the ancient notion of "episteme" in Plato and Aristotle was more similar to objectual knowledge.

But I am personally doubtful about such a distinction because it seems that both types of knowledge seems to be reducible to the other. Hence, propositional attitudes in general seems to be translateable to objects, and vice versa. It sounds possible that you can translate "I desire Pepsi" as "I desire that I am drinking/can access to/would like to have a Pepsi." I guess if you're going to analyze the concept of desire, translating it as a propositional attitude, dissecting it, seems to be methogolocially better.

Comment by themonkeyturtle at 10/02/2017 at 09:30 UTC

1 upvotes, 1 direct replies

What do you mean by desire as a propositional attitude ? Are you saying that people nowadays try to promote it or are you saying people try to analyze it in a manner that does not need analyzation ?

Comment by [deleted] at 10/02/2017 at 12:30 UTC

1 upvotes, 1 direct replies

It's not an answer, but I just want to emphasize that there are people who do think of desires differently. E.g. Thagard http://cogsci.uwaterloo.ca/Articles/desires.pdf

(Also you probably know Ben-Yami's paper against characterizing mental states as propositional already.)

Comment by NausicaaSantiago at 11/02/2017 at 04:52 UTC

1 upvotes, 1 direct replies

The main argument is, I think, that ordinary statements about desires are intensional. (A standard example is that Oedipus wanted to marry Jocasta, and Jocasta was his mother, but he didn't want to marry his mother)

I don't know how can you explain this feature of statements about desire if you don't assume that desires are intentional attitudes.