Belief, information and semantic content: A naturalist's lament

Abstract

Fred Dretske has recently developed what can be called an in formation-based theory of belief contents.1 We can distinguish three distinct components of this view. First, there is his naturalistic account of the information that p. Next, there is his account of the causal properties of the information that p. Finally, there is his argument that for at least simple de re perceptual beliefs what makes the belief that p the belief that p is that it is a structure which is developed to carry the information that p. In this essay, I attack the third component of this theory. In particular, I argue that Dretske's account of semantic content of simple de re perceptual beliefs can be shown to be in adequate.2 For it provides an inadequate explanation, I shall argue, of the possibility of false de re perceptual beliefs. I begin with a brief exposition of Dretske's account of informational content and his account of the causal properties of information. I point out several problems with these notions, but the objections raised at this stage concern matters of detail more than matters of principle. I then give a brief exposition of his account of the semantic content of de re perceptual beliefs and argue that it is inadequate. My argument proceeds as follows. I distinguish two sorts of links that can obtain between two concepts or between a concept and the states of a sensory receptor evidential links and semantic links and argue that any adequate theory of semantic content must provide a principled way of marking this distinction, on pain of providing an inadequate explanation or the possibility of false beliefs. I show that Dretske's theory provides us no principled way of making such a distinction. And I conclude that therefore Dretske's theory cannot adequately explain the possibility of false de re beliefs.