Single Review on past events

We invited you to our Jour fixe on 2 May 2023.

Daniel Skibra (new Postdoctoral Fellow / Philosophy) gave a talk entitled “Reassessing Desire for Mode and Content”.

Abstract:

In philosophy, it’s common to categorize mental states like beliefs, desires, doubts, intentions, etc., as “propositional attitudes”. A central motivation for this framing is that these kinds of psychological attitudes seem to relate subjects to a certain kind of representational object, like a proposition. (Why to a representational object and not to objects that figure in the attitudes themselves? Because we can have beliefs and desires about things that do not exist, like, for example, when I believe that Santa Claus visited my house at the stroke of midnight last night, or when I want to ride a unicorn.)

Clearly, the manner in which we represent something when we believe it is the case is different from the way we represent something when we want it to be the case. In the standard story about propositional attitudes, this difference is captured by the notion of the “mode” – the relation we have to the content when we have a particular attitude. The principle difference between modes is usually cashed out in terms of “direction of fit”. When I believe that Santa just landed on my roof, I aim for my representation to fit the world (and change my belief when it doesn't), but when I want Santa to visit my house, by contrast, the goal is for the world to fit my representation and I tend to change the world (in a limited way, of course) when it doesn't.

In his talk, Daniel discussed several ways in which we talk and reason about desires, as exhibited by our practices of ascribing them to others, reveals several features about them which are manifestly different from belief — features which cannot simply be chalked up to a difference in direction of fit. He has two aims in presenting these data.

The first aim is to suggest that the way we represent something in desire is different from attitudes like belief. If we want to say that my belief that P or my desire that P relates me to proposition, such talk should be attenuated. Secondly, he also has a methodological point to press, which is to make the case that these data do actually tell us something about desire and its objects, and not simply about language.


Recommended literature:

Delia Graff Fara - Specifying desires
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0068.2012.00856.x

Additionally:
(Classics:)
Gotlob Frege – The thought: A logical inquiry (English translation)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2251513

John Searle – Intentionality: An essay in the philosophy of mind (esp. Ch 7)
https://www.cambridge.org/de/academic/subjects/philosophy/philosophy-general-interest/intentionality-essay-philosophy-mind?format=PB&isbn=9780521273022

(Helpful literature review:)
Timothy Schroeder – Propositional attitudes
https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-9991.2006.00010.x