Editing Belief (section)

=== ''De dicto'' and ''de re'' ===
{{see also|De dicto and de re}}
The difference between ''de dicto'' and ''de re'' beliefs or the corresponding ascriptions concerns the contributions singular terms like names and other referential devices make to the semantic properties of the belief or its ascription.<ref name="Schwitzgebel"/><ref name="Broackes">{{cite journal |last1=Broackes |first1=Justin |title=Belief de Re and de Dicto |journal=Philosophical Quarterly |date=1986 |volume=36 |issue=144 |pages=374–383 |doi=10.2307/2220191 |jstor=2220191 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/BROBDR |access-date=3 April 2021 |archive-date=17 November 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161117193918/http://philpapers.org/rec/BROBDR |url-status=live }}</ref> In regular contexts, the [[truth-value]] of a sentence does not change upon substitution of co-referring terms.<ref name="Nelson">{{cite web |last1=Nelson |first1=Michael |title=Propositional Attitude Reports: The De Re/De Dicto Distinction |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prop-attitude-reports/dere.html |website=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=2 April 2021 |archive-date=13 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413223910/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prop-attitude-reports/dere.html |url-status=live }}</ref> For example, since the names "Superman" and "Clark Kent" refer to the same person, we can replace one with the other in the sentence "Superman is strong" without changing its truth-value; this issue is more complicated in case of belief ascriptions.<ref name="Nelson"/> For example, Lois believes that Superman is strong but she does not believe that Clark Kent is strong.<ref name="Schwitzgebel"/> This difficulty arises due to the fact that she does not know that the two names refer to the same entity. Beliefs or belief ascriptions for which this substitution does not generally work are ''de dicto'', otherwise, they are ''de re''.<ref name="Schwitzgebel"/><ref name="Nelson"/><ref name="Broackes"/> In a ''de re'' sense, Lois does believe that Clark Kent is strong, while in a ''de dicto'' sense she does not. The contexts corresponding to ''de dicto'' ascriptions are known as [[Opaque context|referentially opaque contexts]] while ''de re'' ascriptions are referentially transparent.<ref name="Schwitzgebel"/><ref name="Nelson"/>