Interpretivism without Judgement-Dependence

Abstract

Interpretivism without judgement-dependence Devin Sanchez Curry Forthcoming in Philosophia Interpretivists about a mental phenomenon hold that it emerges only in relation to an interpretive activity, capacity, or scheme. For instance, interpretivism about belief is the view that to believe is to be aptly interpretable as believing-not because what somebody believes is necessarily epistemically accessible, but because an interpreter renders them a believer in the first place. Krzysztof Poslajko (forthcoming) has approvingly reconstructed Alex Byrne's (1998) dilemma for interpretivism about belief and the other so-called propositional attitudes. I will argue that due reflection on recent work on folk psychology undermines that dilemma. On the first horn of Byrne's dilemma, the interpretivist takes attitudes to emerge relative to an ideal interpreter. On the second horn, the interpretivist takes attitudes to emerge relative to individuals' judgements. Poslajko argues that both horns are unacceptably pointy: "in the end, as Bryne correctly observes, the interpretivist must either idealize the interpreter to the point at which he loses any connection to the actual subjects who are engaged in real-life interpretation processes, or he must deny the possibility of errors in the attribution of mental states" (§6). To be an attractive metaphysics of the objects of folk psychology, interpretivism must relativize them to actual folk psychological practices. But Byrne and Poslajko contend that, in so doing, the interpretivist must commit to an absurdity by giving up on the idea that folks can be wrong about what people believe and desire. Byrne and Poslajko are right that both of these horns are unacceptably pointy, but wrong that the interpretivist must be speared by one or the other. Interpretivists can viably reject the notion of an ideal (or even canonical) interpreter without taking on board the unacceptable epistemological consequences of allowing that attitudes are judgement-dependent. I am an interpretivist about many mental phenomena, including most attitudes, and I have argued (Curry 2020) that my fellow interpretivists Donald Davidson (2001), Daniel Dennett (1987), and Bruno Mölder (2010) are wrong to cast attitudes as existing relative to idealized normative standards of attitude ascription-and, relatedly, to divorce the metaphysics of attitudes from the messy details of actual folk psychological practices. I am not thereby doomed to render attitudes judgementdependent. To see why, one need look no further than those messy details of actual folk psychological practices. Looking at those practices, it is plain that there is a distinction to be drawn between how folks conceive of an attitude, on the one hand, and whether they accurately judge that somebody has an attitude, as folks conceive of it, on the other hand. All sorts of factors play into a judgement-an actual ascription of an attitude to an individual-that are irrelevant to the question of how the ascriber conceives of the attitude in question. Perhaps most...

Folk Psychological Models and the Metaphysics of Belief. A Reply to Curry

“…Curry has presented his version of interpretivism in a series of papers (Curry, 2020(Curry, , 2021a, in which he applies the model-theoretic approach to folk-psychological attributions to the conceptual framework of interpretivism. This is thought to enable a proponent of interpretivism to provide a coherent and plausible story about the epistemology of mental states and to make interpretivism compatible with a mature theory from cognitive sciences.…”

“…My criticism of interpretivism was, in turn, criticized by Curry (2021a), who claims that I disregarded an important version of interpretivism, namely the one that rests on the model-theoretic approach to folk psychology. His criticism of my position is part of his broader project of creating a viable form of interpretivism that is based on the model-theoretic approach to folk psychological attributions (see Curry 2020Curry , 2021b.…”

Morgan's Quaker gun and the species of belief

“…The superficial camp has previously been led by dispositionalists like Ryle (1949) and Baker (1995), as well as interpretivists like Dennett (1987), Davidson (2001), and Mölder (2010). Elsewhere, I've argued that dispositionalism and interpretivism ought to be understood as two sides of the same coin (Curry 2021b, 2023).…”

“…1515My account of attitudes of belief is—explicitly (Curry 2020, 2022, 2023)—a refinement of Schwitzgebel's superficial account of belief (since, in his relativization of beliefs to stereotypes, Schwitzgebel himself already bakes into his dispositionalism a version of interpretivism as well as a model‐theoretic approach to folk psychology). My principal disagreement with Schwitzgebel arises from my distinction between attitudes and cognitive states, which Schwitzgebel collapses (arguing on pragmatic grounds that only attitudes of belief deserve the title of ‘belief’).…”

“…1616This definition marries three theories: interpretivism about belief (Dennett 1998; Davidson 2001; Molder 2010), dispositionalism about belief (Ryle 1949; Baker 1995; Schwitzgebel 2002), and a model‐theoretic approach to folk psychology (Maibom 2003, 2009; Godfrey‐Smith 2005; Spaulding 2018; Moore 2020). I've argued (Curry 2021b, 2023) that all interpretivisms are dispositionalisms (and vice versa), since interpretivists take interpretive schemes to identify beliefs with patterns of dispositions, and dispositionalists take patterns of dispositions to emerge as beliefs relative to interpretive schemes. Andrews (2012: 204–205) first suggested (without endorsing) the marriage of a model‐theoretic approach to belief attribution with interpretivism/dispositionalism about belief.…”