Editing Belief (section)

=== Interpretationism ===
According to interpretationism, the beliefs of an entity are in some sense dependent on, or relative to, someone's interpretation of this entity.<ref name="Schwitzgebel"/><ref name="Child1"/> [[Daniel Dennett]] is an important defender of such a position. He holds that we ascribe beliefs to entities in order to predict how they will behave. Entities with simple behavioral patterns can be described using physical laws or in terms of their function. Dennett refers to these forms of explanation as the "physical stance" and the "design stance". These stances are contrasted with the [[intentional stance]], which is applied to entities with a more complex behavior by ascribing beliefs and desires to these entities.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dennett |first1=Daniel |title=The Intentional Stance |date=1989 |publisher=The MIT Press |isbn=978-0262040938 |url= https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/intentional-stance |language=en |access-date=2 April 2021 |archive-date=15 April 2021 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210415044716/https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/intentional-stance |url-status= live }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1= Dennett |first1= Daniel C. |title=Précis of ''The Intentional Stance'' |journal=Behavioral and Brain Sciences |date=1988 |volume=11 |issue=3 |pages=495–505 |doi= 10.1017/S0140525X00058611 |doi-broken-date= 1 November 2024 |citeseerx=10.1.1.1026.2283 |s2cid=145750868}}</ref> For example, we can predict that a chess player will move her queen to f7 if we ascribe to her the desire to win the game and the belief that this move will achieve that. The same procedure can also be applied to predicting how a chess computer will behave. The entity has the belief in question if this belief can be used to predict its behavior.<ref name="Schwitzgebel"/> Having a belief is relative to an interpretation since there may be different equally good ways of ascribing beliefs to predict behavior.<ref name="Schwitzgebel"/> So there may be another interpretation that predicts the move of the queen to f7 that does not involve the belief that this move will win the game. Another version of interpretationism is due to [[Donald Davidson (philosopher)|Donald Davidson]],<ref name="Child1"/> who uses the thought experiment of [[radical interpretation]], in which the goal is to make sense of the behavior and language of another person from scratch without any knowledge of this person's language.<ref name="Schwitzgebel"/> This process involves ascribing beliefs and desires to the speaker. The speaker really has these beliefs if this project can be successful in principle.<ref name="Schwitzgebel"/>

Interpretationism can be combined with eliminativism and instrumentalism about beliefs. Eliminativists hold that, strictly speaking, there are no beliefs. Instrumentalists agree with eliminativists but add that belief-ascriptions are useful nonetheless.<ref name="Schwitzgebel"/> This usefulness can be explained in terms of interpretationism: belief-ascriptions help us in predicting how entities will behave. It has been argued that interpretationism can also be understood in a more realistic sense: that entities really have the beliefs ascribed to them and that these beliefs participate in the causal network.<ref name="Child4">{{cite book |last1=Child |first1=William |title=Causality, Interpretation, and the Mind |publisher=Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press |url= https://philpapers.org/rec/CHICIA |chapter=4. Causalism and Interpretationism: The Problem of Compatibility |year= 1994 |access-date= 2 April 2021 |archive-date= 5 May 2016 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160505023634/http://philpapers.org/rec/CHICIA |url-status=live }}</ref> But, for this to be possible, it may be necessary to define interpretationism as a methodology and not as an [[ontological]] outlook on beliefs.<ref name="Child1">{{cite book |last1=Child |first1=William |title=Causality, Interpretation, and the Mind |publisher=Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press |url= https://philpapers.org/rec/CHICIA |chapter= 1. Interpretationism |year= 1994 |access-date=2 April 2021 |archive-date=5 May 2016 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160505023634/http://philpapers.org/rec/CHICIA |url-status=live }}</ref>