So, I agree there’s something in common—Wittgenstein is interested in “language games” that have function without having literal truth-about-predictions, and “believing in”s are games played with language that have function and that do not map onto literal truth-about-predictions. And I appreciate the link in to the literature.
The main difference between what I’m going for here, and at least this summary of Wittgenstein (I haven’t read Wittgenstein and may well be shortchanging him and you) is that I’m trying to argue that “believing in”s pay a specific kind of rent—they endorse particular projects capable of taking investment, they claim the speaker will themself invest resources in that project, they predict that that project will get yield ROI.
Like: anticipations (wordless expectations, that lead to surprise / not-surprise) are a thing animals do by default, that works pretty well and doesn’t get all that buggy. Humans expand on this by allowing sentences such as “objects in Earth’s gravity accelerate at a rate of 9.8m/s^2,” which… pays rent in anticipated experience in a way that “Wulky Wilkisen is a post-utopian” doesn’t, in Eliezer’s example. I’m hoping to cleave off, here, a different set of sentences that are also not like “Wulky Wilkinsen is a post-utopian” and that pay a different and well-defined kind of rent.
I actually think what you are going for is closer to JL Austin’s notion of an illocutionary act than anything in Wittgenstein, though as you say, it is an analysis of a particular token of the type (“believing in”), not an analysis of the type. Quoting Wikipedia:
(1) for the performance of which I must make it clear to some other person that the act is performed (Austin speaks of the ‘securing of uptake’), and
(2) the performance of which involves the production of what Austin calls ‘conventional consequences’ as, e.g., rights, commitments, or obligations (Austin 1975, 116f., 121, 139).”
Your model of “believing in” is essentially an unpacking of the “conventional consequences” produced by using the locution in various contexts. I think it is a good unpacking, too!
I do think that some of the contrasts you draw (belief vs. believing in) would work equally well (and with more generality) as contrasts between beliefs and illocutionary acts, though.
I am very surprised that a cursory crtl+f of Anscombe translation of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, while containing a few tracts discussing the use of the phrase “I believe”, doesn’t contain a single instance of “I believe in”.
One instance of his discussion of “I believe” in Part 2, section x explores the phrase, wondering how it distinguishes itself from merely stating a given hypothesis. Analogous to prefixing a statement with “I say...” such as “I say it will rain today” (which recalls the Tractatus distinguishing the expression of a proposition from the proposition itself):
“At bottom, when I say ‘I believe . . .’ I am describing my own state of mind—but this description is indirectly an assertion of the fact believed.”—As in certain circumstances I describe a photograph in order to describe the thing it is a photograph of. But then I must also be able to say that the photograph is a good one. So here too: “I believe it’s raining and my belief is reliable, so I have confidence in it.”—In that case my belief would be a kind of sense-impression.
One can mistrust one’s own senses, but not one’s own belief.
If there were a verb meaning ‘to believe falsely’, it would not have any significant first person present indicative.
This ties in nicely with Wittgenstein’s notion of language games. TLDR: Look at the role the phrase serves, rather than the exact words.
So, I agree there’s something in common—Wittgenstein is interested in “language games” that have function without having literal truth-about-predictions, and “believing in”s are games played with language that have function and that do not map onto literal truth-about-predictions. And I appreciate the link in to the literature.
The main difference between what I’m going for here, and at least this summary of Wittgenstein (I haven’t read Wittgenstein and may well be shortchanging him and you) is that I’m trying to argue that “believing in”s pay a specific kind of rent—they endorse particular projects capable of taking investment, they claim the speaker will themself invest resources in that project, they predict that that project will get yield ROI.
Like: anticipations (wordless expectations, that lead to surprise / not-surprise) are a thing animals do by default, that works pretty well and doesn’t get all that buggy. Humans expand on this by allowing sentences such as “objects in Earth’s gravity accelerate at a rate of 9.8m/s^2,” which… pays rent in anticipated experience in a way that “Wulky Wilkisen is a post-utopian” doesn’t, in Eliezer’s example. I’m hoping to cleave off, here, a different set of sentences that are also not like “Wulky Wilkinsen is a post-utopian” and that pay a different and well-defined kind of rent.
I actually think what you are going for is closer to JL Austin’s notion of an illocutionary act than anything in Wittgenstein, though as you say, it is an analysis of a particular token of the type (“believing in”), not an analysis of the type. Quoting Wikipedia:
“According to Austin’s original exposition in How to Do Things With Words, an illocutionary act is an act:
(1) for the performance of which I must make it clear to some other person that the act is performed (Austin speaks of the ‘securing of uptake’), and
(2) the performance of which involves the production of what Austin calls ‘conventional consequences’ as, e.g., rights, commitments, or obligations (Austin 1975, 116f., 121, 139).”
Your model of “believing in” is essentially an unpacking of the “conventional consequences” produced by using the locution in various contexts. I think it is a good unpacking, too!
I do think that some of the contrasts you draw (belief vs. believing in) would work equally well (and with more generality) as contrasts between beliefs and illocutionary acts, though.
I am very surprised that a cursory crtl+f of Anscombe translation of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, while containing a few tracts discussing the use of the phrase “I believe”, doesn’t contain a single instance of “I believe in”.
One instance of his discussion of “I believe” in Part 2, section x explores the phrase, wondering how it distinguishes itself from merely stating a given hypothesis. Analogous to prefixing a statement with “I say...” such as “I say it will rain today” (which recalls the Tractatus distinguishing the expression of a proposition from the proposition itself):