To begin with, there are various different attitudes that may be taken
towards the same content. Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that
you have a visual image of your breakfast-table. You may expect it while
you are dressing in the morning; remember it as you go to your work;
feel doubt as to its correctness when questioned as to your powers of
visualizing; merely entertain the image, without connecting it with
anything external, when you are going to sleep; desire it if you are
hungry, or feel aversion for it if you are ill. Suppose, for the sake of
definiteness, that the content is "an egg for breakfast." Then you have
the following attitudes "I expect there will be an egg for breakfast";
"I remember there was an egg for breakfast"; "Was there an egg for
breakfast?" "An egg for breakfast: well, what of it?" "I hope there
will be an egg for breakfast"; "I am afraid there will be an egg for
breakfast and it is sure to be bad." I do not suggest that this is a
list of all possible attitudes on the subject; I say only that they
are different attitudes, all concerned with the one content "an egg for
breakfast."
These attitudes are not all equally ultimate. Those that involve desire
and aversion have occupied us in Lecture III. For the present, we are
only concerned with such as are cognitive. In speaking of memory, we
distinguished three kinds of belief directed towards the same
content, namely memory, expectation and bare assent without any
time-determination in the belief-feeling. But before developing this
view, we must examine two other theories which might be held concerning
belief, and which, in some ways, would be more in harmony with a
behaviourist outlook than the theory I wish to advocate.
(1) The first theory to be examined is the view that the differentia of
belief consists in its causal efficacy I do not wish to make any author
responsible for this theory: I wish merely to develop it hypothetically
so that we may judge of its tenability.
We defined the meaning of an image or word by causal efficacy, namely by
associations: an image or word acquires meaning, we said, through having
the same associations as what it means.
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