Mindshaping: A New Framework for Understanding Human Social Cognition (Tadeusz Zawidzki, 2013)
“For example, consider a dog barking up a tree into which it has just chased a squirrel.
It is tempting to attribute to the dog the belief that the squirrel is up the tree.
But in what sense does the dog think of the squirrel as a squirrel?
Clearly the dog does not conceptualize the squirrel as language users do: it does not think of it as a member of a species of mammal that semi-hibernates in the winter, spends the non-winter months stocking up on nuts, and so on.
So how does the dog think of the squirrel?
It seems impossible to say, since we can specify the dog's mode of presentation only using words drawn from a public language, all of which have connotations of which the dog is unaware.
This is problematic because specifying the mode of presentation under which believers represent the contents of their beliefs is key to linking their beliefs to their behavior; this is why propositional attitude attributions are intensional.
We predict that Lois Lane will not kiss Clark Kent because she represents him as a dorky reporter rather than as the superhero she loves.”
