A. Belief
According to Kim �[B]elief, among all mental states, can be seen to hold the key to radical interpretation.�5
What he calls as radical interpretation can be explained as follows: Suppose you are in a community that no
one knows their body language nor their language and neither their culture. The way you learn their language
is starting from one-word sentences with pointing to a scene such as a rabbit scene with accompanying
ensuing query �Rabbit?� If you get an assent to this query you proceed with couple of more times with the
same scene and if the stimulus responses to the same scene are assents most of the time then you conclude
that for this community the meaning of the scene you pointed is represented by the linguistic expression
�rabbit�.
Kim suggests �[I]f a native speaker sincerely asserts sentence S, and S means there goes a rabbit, then
speaker believes that there goes a rabbit.�6 So as Sellars argues, there is a battery of rules in a language for a
linguistic expression �rabbit� and they determine meaning of this linguistic expression. Moreover, I believe,
this battery of rules constitutes the justified belief, knowledge about the object in question. On some
occasions people have incomplete understanding of these rules and as Burge puts it out you will have a belief
but this belief is not going to establish knowledge. Burge also points out that social environment, obviously,
change the understanding of a concept. This is clear since these batteries of rules are subject to change from
culture to culture. For example in U.S.A. people do not believe they can get cold by going out in a cold day
with wet hair, however all over Asia even doctors believe that you can get cold in this way. Yet what is a
justified true belief then? Take the sentence �I believe that this object over there is red.� According the above
argument this sentence can be analyzed, as there are some functional rules in your language for this object to
be red. Hence you apply these rules and test them in your mind and you accept that these rules are true for
and if the social environment you live in accept those rules as correct then your belief is true.
B. Want
Wittgenstein and Ryle believe that �My reasons are not causes.� So a causal pattern for eating an apple cannot
simple be: �I eat the apple because I want to keep you from eating it.� Behaviorists define desire as a relation
between belief and behavior and again belief as certain relation between desire and behavior. One can
immediately realize this definition is circular and of course a defense is given at once: Since in physics we
have the circular definition �F=ma� we can have the similar circular definition for philosophy. However they
miss a really important point in their argument. The terms used in this model (F=ma) have definitions outside
this area also. Moreover their functions are important in this model definition usage of this model has the
secondary importance. Hence while looking for a definition for a term you cannot use something circular like
behaviorists use. It simply complicates the matter and of no help for developing a better theory. So how can
we define desire?
Let�s analyze the sentence:
�I want to eat an apple.� In this sentence, desire of eating an apple can have set of causes.
Set S: = external causes: there is another thing I want and eating the apple will lead me to reach this thing
(keeping someone from eating the apple, somebody is giving me $40 dollars if I eat the apple so on)
Set K: = physical causes: that I am hungry
Set L: = inner reason: tendency to repeat a learned process
