Some Remarks on Belief and Desire

The distinction between what Quine calls' notional and 1relational instances of propositional (or sentential) attitudes is becoming a familiar one. In the wake of Quine's paper, there have been numerous discussions of such questions as what the conditions are under which we ought to take a belief, for example, to be relational, or how to analyze sentences reporting such beliefs.2 These discussions show the distinction in question to be of considerable intrinsic interest. A possibility worth exploring is that this distinction may also be useful in various ways. For example, it is of philosophical interest to note significant differences separating psychological states of one main type from those of another main type, for example, belief from desire. I think it is at least plausible that there are some such differences which would be very difficult to state clearly without the help of the distinction in question. This paper points out two of these differences, with respect to belief and desire

Analytic philosophy · Contemporary philosophy · Epistemology · General interest · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Psychology