Surely the *group* is not explaining your behavior - it doesn't interact with your brain causing you to choose to join it. Rather it is your *belief* that there is a group which explains your joining it. But at no point does the group itself do anything to make you believe in it.
You have a very strange view of causality. I join it because it EXISTS and a group can do something for me. Why would it make sense to deny the existence of something which explains so much?
I may have been a bit too loose with my wording. Let us introduce two different words: Group is a sum of people (for example the sum of all football fans), where GROUP is that extra entity which you think exists, that is a further thing apart from just the members of the group "football fans".
So the explanandum is not that you are joining a GROUP but that you *think* that you are joining a GROUP. You can think that you are joining a GROUP without that GROUP existing. What I want to say is that you are actually just joining a group, and not a GROUP. Furthermore, whatever reason you have for thinking that you are joining a GROUP is explained fully by the group. At no point do you interact with the GROUP, you only interact with the group, and so what explanatory work is the GROUP doing? What thing is there to be explained by the GROUP which is not explained by the group?
Sure, all I am saying is that there exist only the members (that is the lowercase group). The GROUP is only a "useful fiction" to make our language and thinking less cumbersome. But strictly speaking there is no GROUP that exists, only the members exist, and we can mentally group them together.
I think this is a very bad argument. It's like arguing, "Some people claim that bachelors exist. But imagine a world where you have an unmarried man who isn't a bachelor. What's different in that world? Nothing. So bachelors don't exist."
Or, if you want to object to that on the basis that bachelors are composite objects and you're a mereological nihilist, just replace bachelors with electrons and unmarried men with negatively charged laptops with a mass smaller than 10^-30 kg.
You say that normal people would agree that, "Group-talk is just a useful way of conceptualizing large amounts of people with shared attributes which we are interested in." But group theorists agree with that too! For a group theorist, a large amount of people with shared attributes is just what a group is. It doesn't make sense to say that large amounts of people with shared attributes exist but groups don't any more than it would to say that unmarried men exist but bachelors don't.
I think you are conflating the view I am arguing against with a view I might endorse. I am an anti-realist about bachelors in this sense: If I were to write down a list of all things that exist, I would include the list of unmarried men (or whatever they reduce to), but I would not then also write down the list of bachelors. Rather "bachelor" is just a term which can be used interchangeably with "unmarried man", and so it is a stylistic choice whether I write down the list of unmarried men, or the list of bachelors, but I should certainly not write down both on the list of things that exist.
Likewise with groups. I am not arguing against someone who thinks that we can use the term "football-fans" to pick out some individuals. Rather I am arguing against someone who would write down all football fans on the list of things that exist, and then also write down "the group of football fans". This is because adding "the group of football fans" changes nothing except adding another unnecessary entry on the list.
So would you agree with the statement that groups exist? Is the statement you're arguing against something more like, "A group is more than just the sum of its parts?"
Well, I guess I would agree to it on a certain interpretation. The problem is that it is ambiguous between different meanings. So I don't agree that capital-G groups exist. But I certainly agree that groups exist in the sense that their members exist. I think it is pretty obvious that football fans exist in the latter sense, as I can just go out and see them. But not in the former sense.
Or, well, strictly I probably don't agree with the statement "football fans exist", even taken in the latter sense. But that is just because "football fans" is vague, and I take the approach that vague terms can't be parts of propositions, meaning I don't think a proposition is being expressed there which I can agree to or affirm. But that is a seperate point.
Here is one reason to believe in thoughts: I am directly aware of my thoughts right now. Perhaps "thoughts" is just a shorthand for a sum of more basic qualia or something. In that case I would say that thoughts do not strictly exist, only their constituents. But whatever turns out to be the most basic mental unit, we can be sure exists: If it didn't exist, I wouldn't be aware of it right now. But I am aware of it right now, and so it exists.
Here is a further consideration: A bunch of these mental "atoms", if you will (let's just call them qualia, for briefness), are unified in a single perspective. That is, "I" experience a bunch of stuff such as visual qualia, auditory qualia, intentions etc., and am directly aware of them at once. At the same time I am not aware of your qualia, which means that qualia are in some way grouped in perspectives. Let us call such perspectives "minds", and call the one which I have direct access to "me", or "Silas".
If that perspective didn't exist, then I would not be aware of it. But I am aware of it, and so it exists (and by extension, I exist, and at least one mind exists).
You can perhaps say that there is not a perspective which exists, but only a group of qualia. I think this is hard to tell wether this is possible, but my feeling is something like this: A quale cannot just exist, simpliciter. Rather it is essential to it that it is experienced, and in order to be experienced, it has to be experienced by a conscious perspective. That is, I am not just a sum of experiences, but a thing which has a sum of experiences.
I don't think anything similar can be said with regards to numbers or chairs.
If materialists are right, your thoughts are just a partial sum of neurons firing ions and molecules to their synapses, which then further reduces back to atoms/quarks/whatever. "There is only one territory, all else is maps". How is your mind different from your brain and thus different from a chair?
So what I say about beliefs will basically depend on whether beliefs explain anything new, or whether they can be reduced to more fundamental mental phenomena. But I also think that regardless of what route you take, it will be completely acceptable.
Perhaps we think that beliefs *can* explain something. Well in that case, we should (perhaps) admit that beliefs exist. But that is also not a problem for my argument.
Or maybe beliefs don't explain anything - rather they are just sort of "mental composite objects". Well, in that case I don't think they exist. But also, why in the world should we think they exist? Nothing is explained by the existence of beliefs, and so they are just an unnecessary addition. I will of course continue talking in terms of beliefs, because they are a very useful shorthand for some (probably) quite complicated mental phenomena, that would be very complicated to spell out all the time (and which I probably also don't have perfect introspective access to all the time).
So do I *believe* that beliefs don't exist?
Well sure, but we should actually translate that into a sentence like:
"I have such and such attitudes towards the mental content which represents the sentence "beliefs exist". Where "such and such attitudes" are what we would usually translate into not believing in.
Huh? The existence of the group can explain MY behavior as I am joining the group because the group exists.
Surely the *group* is not explaining your behavior - it doesn't interact with your brain causing you to choose to join it. Rather it is your *belief* that there is a group which explains your joining it. But at no point does the group itself do anything to make you believe in it.
You have a very strange view of causality. I join it because it EXISTS and a group can do something for me. Why would it make sense to deny the existence of something which explains so much?
I may have been a bit too loose with my wording. Let us introduce two different words: Group is a sum of people (for example the sum of all football fans), where GROUP is that extra entity which you think exists, that is a further thing apart from just the members of the group "football fans".
So the explanandum is not that you are joining a GROUP but that you *think* that you are joining a GROUP. You can think that you are joining a GROUP without that GROUP existing. What I want to say is that you are actually just joining a group, and not a GROUP. Furthermore, whatever reason you have for thinking that you are joining a GROUP is explained fully by the group. At no point do you interact with the GROUP, you only interact with the group, and so what explanatory work is the GROUP doing? What thing is there to be explained by the GROUP which is not explained by the group?
Well, yes the group is constituted by its members.
If there are no members there is no group. The group does not exist apart from its members.
Sure, all I am saying is that there exist only the members (that is the lowercase group). The GROUP is only a "useful fiction" to make our language and thinking less cumbersome. But strictly speaking there is no GROUP that exists, only the members exist, and we can mentally group them together.
So are you skeptical about all composite entities?
Very Michael Rea-esque
I think this is a very bad argument. It's like arguing, "Some people claim that bachelors exist. But imagine a world where you have an unmarried man who isn't a bachelor. What's different in that world? Nothing. So bachelors don't exist."
Or, if you want to object to that on the basis that bachelors are composite objects and you're a mereological nihilist, just replace bachelors with electrons and unmarried men with negatively charged laptops with a mass smaller than 10^-30 kg.
You say that normal people would agree that, "Group-talk is just a useful way of conceptualizing large amounts of people with shared attributes which we are interested in." But group theorists agree with that too! For a group theorist, a large amount of people with shared attributes is just what a group is. It doesn't make sense to say that large amounts of people with shared attributes exist but groups don't any more than it would to say that unmarried men exist but bachelors don't.
I think you are conflating the view I am arguing against with a view I might endorse. I am an anti-realist about bachelors in this sense: If I were to write down a list of all things that exist, I would include the list of unmarried men (or whatever they reduce to), but I would not then also write down the list of bachelors. Rather "bachelor" is just a term which can be used interchangeably with "unmarried man", and so it is a stylistic choice whether I write down the list of unmarried men, or the list of bachelors, but I should certainly not write down both on the list of things that exist.
Likewise with groups. I am not arguing against someone who thinks that we can use the term "football-fans" to pick out some individuals. Rather I am arguing against someone who would write down all football fans on the list of things that exist, and then also write down "the group of football fans". This is because adding "the group of football fans" changes nothing except adding another unnecessary entry on the list.
So would you agree with the statement that groups exist? Is the statement you're arguing against something more like, "A group is more than just the sum of its parts?"
Well, I guess I would agree to it on a certain interpretation. The problem is that it is ambiguous between different meanings. So I don't agree that capital-G groups exist. But I certainly agree that groups exist in the sense that their members exist. I think it is pretty obvious that football fans exist in the latter sense, as I can just go out and see them. But not in the former sense.
Or, well, strictly I probably don't agree with the statement "football fans exist", even taken in the latter sense. But that is just because "football fans" is vague, and I take the approach that vague terms can't be parts of propositions, meaning I don't think a proposition is being expressed there which I can agree to or affirm. But that is a seperate point.
Here is one reason to believe in thoughts: I am directly aware of my thoughts right now. Perhaps "thoughts" is just a shorthand for a sum of more basic qualia or something. In that case I would say that thoughts do not strictly exist, only their constituents. But whatever turns out to be the most basic mental unit, we can be sure exists: If it didn't exist, I wouldn't be aware of it right now. But I am aware of it right now, and so it exists.
Here is a further consideration: A bunch of these mental "atoms", if you will (let's just call them qualia, for briefness), are unified in a single perspective. That is, "I" experience a bunch of stuff such as visual qualia, auditory qualia, intentions etc., and am directly aware of them at once. At the same time I am not aware of your qualia, which means that qualia are in some way grouped in perspectives. Let us call such perspectives "minds", and call the one which I have direct access to "me", or "Silas".
If that perspective didn't exist, then I would not be aware of it. But I am aware of it, and so it exists (and by extension, I exist, and at least one mind exists).
You can perhaps say that there is not a perspective which exists, but only a group of qualia. I think this is hard to tell wether this is possible, but my feeling is something like this: A quale cannot just exist, simpliciter. Rather it is essential to it that it is experienced, and in order to be experienced, it has to be experienced by a conscious perspective. That is, I am not just a sum of experiences, but a thing which has a sum of experiences.
I don't think anything similar can be said with regards to numbers or chairs.
If materialists are right, your thoughts are just a partial sum of neurons firing ions and molecules to their synapses, which then further reduces back to atoms/quarks/whatever. "There is only one territory, all else is maps". How is your mind different from your brain and thus different from a chair?
So what I say about beliefs will basically depend on whether beliefs explain anything new, or whether they can be reduced to more fundamental mental phenomena. But I also think that regardless of what route you take, it will be completely acceptable.
Perhaps we think that beliefs *can* explain something. Well in that case, we should (perhaps) admit that beliefs exist. But that is also not a problem for my argument.
Or maybe beliefs don't explain anything - rather they are just sort of "mental composite objects". Well, in that case I don't think they exist. But also, why in the world should we think they exist? Nothing is explained by the existence of beliefs, and so they are just an unnecessary addition. I will of course continue talking in terms of beliefs, because they are a very useful shorthand for some (probably) quite complicated mental phenomena, that would be very complicated to spell out all the time (and which I probably also don't have perfect introspective access to all the time).
So do I *believe* that beliefs don't exist?
Well sure, but we should actually translate that into a sentence like:
"I have such and such attitudes towards the mental content which represents the sentence "beliefs exist". Where "such and such attitudes" are what we would usually translate into not believing in.