even if we cannot predict what they willinfer, we can still predict and
explain some of theiractionson the basis of such a description of their
beliefs and desires.
When it is claimed that any genuine thought must have a content
speciWablein the form of a that-clause, there are three things which this
might mean.
(1) It might mean speciWableby someone, sometime. But then this would
be a principle without teeth, unless we simply beg the question against
narrow content. For of course the people on Twearth can express their
thought in a that-clause, by saying, ‘We think that water is wet.’ And
the person hallucinating the presence of a cat can similarly say, ‘I think
thatthatcat is dangerous.’ Unless we justassumethat narrow contents
do not exist, it is hard to see why this should not count as a genuine
description of the content of their thought.
(2) It might mean speciWableby us,now. But then this conXicts with the
obvious truth that there are people who entertain thoughts whose
contents I cannot now share (and so whose contents I cannot now
express in a that-clause), because I lack some of the requisite concepts.
It is surely obvious that there will now exist many perfectly genuine
thoughts whose contents I cannot now express, entertained, for
example, by scientists in disciplines of which I am ignorant.
(3) It might mean speciWableby us,in principle. This answers the point
about scientists in (2) above, since I can presumably learn their the-
ories and acquire their concepts, andthenI could describe their
thoughts using a that-clause. But it still runs into trouble in connection
with the thoughts of animals, since it seems likely that I cannot, even in
principle (while retaining my status as a sophisticated thought-at-
tributer) acquire the concepts which a cat uses to categorise its world.
Since the common-sense assumption that cats do have thoughts works
pretty well, there had better be some powerful independent argument if
we are to give it up. But in fact there is none.
So none of the available proposals is at all attractive. In fact, as Fodor
(1987) points out, the reason why we cannot describe the singular thought
of our cat-hallucinator using a that-clause is simple, and trivial. It is that,
sincewedo not believe in the existence of the cat,wecannot describe the
hallucinator’s thought by using a demonstrative within the scope of a
that-clause (nor, indeed, by usinganysingular concept).Wecannot say,
‘He thinks thatthatcat is dangerous’, since this would require us to
entertain, ourselves, a demonstrative thought about the – putative – par-
ticular cat. Similarly, the reason whywecannot use the term ‘water’ within
the scope of a that-clause to describe the thoughts of Petertw, is that the
142 Content for psychology