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Careful What You Wish

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Abstract

Dilip Ninan has raised a puzzle for centered world accounts of de re attitude reports extended to accommodate what he calls “counterfactual attitudes.” As a solution, Ninan introduces multiple centers to the standard centered world framework, resulting in a more robust semantics for de re attitude reports. However, while the so-called multi-centered world proposal solves Ninan’s counterfactual puzzle, this additional machinery is not without problems. In Section 1, I present the centered world account of attitude reports, followed by the extension to counterfactual attitudes which Ninan targets with his puzzle. In Section 2, I pose the counterfactual puzzle and present Ninan’s multi-centered world solution, emphasizing similarities and differences between multi-centered and centered world accounts of attitude reports. In Section 3, I argue the counterfactual attitude wishing falls under the purview of the multi-centered proposal, but that the proposal generates false predictions for wish reports concerning unsatisfiable content. I canvass responses, ultimately concluding Ninan’s proposal requires substantial revisions.

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Notes

  1. I stick with belief as a paradigmatic propositional attitude in Section 1 and Section 2, but everything I say about belief can be transposed to desire; desire is discussed in detail in Section 3.

  2. See (Hintikka 1962) and (Stalnaker 1984) for influential proponents.

  3. See (Lewis 1979) for the initial presentation; (Ninan 2012a, pg. 1–16) for summary, and (Ninan 2012b, pg. 2) for the description of de se attitudes quoted here.

  4. See (Liao 2012) and (Holton 2015) for discussion. Notably absent are Lewis’s claims that: (i) all beliefs and desires are ultimately de se; (ii) to bear an attitude to content is to self-ascribe properties (Lewis 1979, pg. 156); and (iii) attitudes are functions over possible objects (credence functions for beliefs; value functions for desires). See (Lewis 1981) for the details of (iii). Of the three, (iii) should, perhaps, be included in the Lewis-inspired treatment of attitudes presented here, but I ignore this detail in what follows as orthogonal to the main argument.

  5. I represent propositions set-theoretically, to be read: A world, time, and individual such that the individual has (a given property) at that time and world.

  6. If we also assume Lois does have brown hair at t in w, then the centered world (w,t,Lois) is a member of (1), in which case (1) is true at (w,t,Lois), and hence, Lois’s belief is true simpliciter.

  7. It is worth noting the de dicto/de re distinction could also be illustrated by Lois’s belief that some inhabitant of Metropolis is a supervillain (cf. Quine: “Ortcutt believes someone is a spy”). I use distinct beliefs for clarity.

  8. More could be said about the distinction between de dicto/de re attitudes. The locus classicus is (Quine 1956), but see (McKay and Nelson 2014) for a summary of current debates.

  9. We also assume that Lois is rational, and so does not willingly hold inconsistent beliefs.

  10. (Ninan 2012a, pgs. 10–11)

  11. (Lewis 1979, pg. 155)

  12. See (Hawthorne and Manley 2012) for problems associated with requiring epistemic and causal dependency constraints for acquaintance relations.

  13. (Ninan 2012a, pgs. 11–12).

  14. This includes both content and criticism. See (Cappelen and Dever 2013) and (Magidor 2015) for objections to (centered) possible world treatments of attitudes. Ninan’s proposal avoids much standard criticism, though a notable exception is the so-called “granularity problem” discussed in Section 3.

  15. (Ninan 2012a, pg. 2)

  16. Extending centered world accounts to multiple centers was anticipated by (Austin 1990) and (Chalmers 2003), who take multiple centers to be regions of sensory experience. Ninan, in contrast, understands multiple centers to be external objects. See (Pryor 2016) for a more recent proposal comparable to Ninan’s.

  17. (Ninan 2012a, pp. 10–11)

  18. (Ninan 2012a, pg. 17)

  19. We might add: if Lois imagines a multi-centered proposition at t in w, the Lois’s imagining is true simpliciter just in case the multi-centered world (w′,t′,f′(Lois,I)) is a member of the centered proposition Lois believes. We examine the acquaintance relation of identity, represented by “I”, below.

  20. A prima facie objection should be deflected here. Given two distinct agents a and b, no multi-centered world compatible with what a believes at t in w is compatible with what b believes at t in w, since I is unique to each acquaintance set. Hence, agents never believe the same content. In response, Ninan claims agents may share the same acquaintance relations (other than I). Let both a and b believe de re of individual s (relative to S) that s is F. Then the multi-centered worlds compatible with what a believes are incompatible with what b believes, but may nevertheless be in the multi-centered proposition: {(w’,t’,f’): f’(s,S) is F at t’ in w’} both a and b believe (Ninan 2012b).

  21. (Ninan 2012a, pgs. 14–15)

  22. Ninan claims dreaming and hoping are also in purview (Ninan 2012a, p.20; Ninan 2012b, p.10).

  23. Reviewing the philosophical literature reveals some recent, brief, discussion: (Arpaly and Schroeder 2013) and (Schroeder 2004); but see (Menger 1939), (Wheatley 1958), (Anscombe, 1957), and (Searle 1983). Linguistics literature reveals more recent interest, in particular (Heim 1992), (Percus and Sauerland 2003), and (Song 2016).

  24. Discussion of desire as a propositional attitude is also infrequent. See (Braun 2015; Fara 2013; Lycan 2012; Nolan 2006) for some recent work, though none of these authors distinguishes wishing and desiring as proposed here.

  25. Though common characterizations of desire contents end up treating satisfaction as something like truth. See (Nolan 2006; Lewis 1979) for characterizations of desire, and (Lycan 2012) for discussion of “semantic satisfaction”.

  26. More naturally: the content of a wish can be fulfilled or not. I stick with satisfaction in what follows.

  27. See (Schroeder 2015) for discussion of dispositional and occurrent desires.

  28. (Schroeder 2004) observes certain objections to action-based theories of desire are moot if considered wishes.

  29. (Hume, Treatise, Introduction, pg. vii, 1739/2000); I read the “impossibility” in the passage to be logical impossibility. See (Brett and Paxman 2008) for discussion of potential puzzles such a reading raises for Hume.

  30. Ninan motivates imagining similarly, i.e. by explaining behavior (Ninan 2012a, pg. 1–2). For similar discussion of desire see (Lewis 1979, pgs. 528–533); for desire and wish see (Arpaly and Schroeder 2013, pg. 115–116).

  31. More specifically, impossible with respect to the physical laws governing the humans of Lois’s world.

  32. (Menger 1939) and (Wheatley 1958) demur, claiming agents are simply confused. As discussed below, I disagree.

  33. See (Priest 2005, pg. 128). Moreover, Lois does not wish to see a line, i.e. round square from the side (Barwise 1997).

  34. See (Berto 2012) and (Priest 2016) for related discussion emphasizing conceiving rather than wishing.

  35. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer at Philosophia for urging I clarify the points outlined in this paragraph.

  36. The notion of falsity here is falsity simpliciter. In other words, an agent may believe at t in w content they do not know is false simpliciter at t in w. Similarly, an agent may imagine at t in w content they know is false simpliciter at t in w.

  37. See similar observations in (Prinz 2008), e.g., “…one cannot desire what one believes is already the case.”

  38. I have reservations, but desire is not my focus. See (Lycan 2012) and (Schroeder 2015), for worries that “semantic satisfaction” is inadequate. My worries about wishing, I think, are similar to Lycan’s concerns about desire.

  39. That is, satisfaction simpliciter, i.e. an agent may desire at t in w content they do not know is satisfied at t in w. Similarly, an agent may wish at t in w content they know is unsatisfied at t in w, or, as we will see, unsatisfiable.

  40. See (Ninan 2012a) for discussion.

  41. In particular, we assume Lois de dicto wishes there was a round square rather than the more complicated de re wish that she sees one, though content of the latter is empty too: Suppose S is the acquaintance relation x′ bears to y′ iff y′ is the unique individual x′ read of named “Round Square” (cp. Ninan 2012a, pg. 34; recall, S may lack causal and epistemic constraints). Then for some s, (s,S) is a member of Lois’s acquaintance set (otherwise, the wish is de dicto). Then the content of Lois’s de re wish at t in w is: {(w′,t′,f′)|f′(Lois,I) sees round square f′(s,S) at t′ in w′}, i.e. empty.

  42. One may prefer a de re reading. This will not help. For the content of Lois’s de re wish at t in w that object s (relative to some acquaintance relation S) is round and square is: {(w′,t′,f′)|f′(s,S) is round and square at t′ in w′}, i.e. empty.

  43. One may prefer a de re reading as (Cresswell and Stechow 1982), who allow agents to bear acquaintance relations to numbers, and perhaps theories. This will not help. For the content of Lois’s de re wish at t in w that Peano Arithmetic (relative to an acquaintance relation, say, P) is complete would be: {(w′,t′,f′)|f′(Peano Arithmetic, P) is complete and incomplete at t′ in w′}, since Lois knows Peano Arithmetic is incomplete. But this is empty.

  44. See (Nolan 2006) for a similar objection targeting centered world accounts of desire. See (Feit 2010) and (Turner 2010) for responses; the latter inspires some of the rebuttal on behalf of Ninan below.

  45. See (Nolan 2006, pg. 669–671) for detailed discussion of behaviors that may be explained by such an attribution.

  46. An example of imagining impossible content, which parallels those considered by Ninan, would be Lois imagining that she is identical to Napoleon, but Napoleon is not identical to Lois. See (Ninan 2008, pp.72–73) for discussion.

  47. This observation motivates much literature on fragmentation. See (Lewis 1986) and (Stalnaker 1984) for early discussion, and (Egan 2008) and (Greco 2015) for more recent discussion.

  48. Cp. (Wittgenstein 1958, pg. 39) – If I claim to imagine King’s College being on fire, it does not make much sense to ask me if I am sure it is King’s College that I am imagining. The point seems more forceful when transposed to wishing.

  49. I follow (Barwise 1997), and more recently (Berto 2010) in calling the problem by this name.

  50. See (Magidor 2015) for a summary of failed responses to the problem.

  51. Ninan might consider impossible worlds to accommodate unsatisfiable content, as does (Berto 2014) for conceiving. Supplementing with impossible worlds avoids other problems plaguing centered world accounts too, e.g. logical omniscience (e.g. any believing agent believes every necessary truth). I hope to pursue this in future work.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to David Braun, Brian Donohue, and Shane Sicienski for helpful comments on earlier drafts.

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    John Beverley

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Beverley, J. Careful What You Wish. Philosophia 46, 21–38 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-017-9906-0

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