William Angelette
 It has been claimed that cognitive therapists endorse sets of
uplifting beliefs BECAUSE the client feels better believing them:
not because they lead towards greater verisimilitude, a purported
cognitivist’s hallmark of rational choice. Since the therapist asks
us to choose sets of beliefs that interpret evidence on the basis of
grater individual happiness (all other things being equal), this
suggests that the basis of choice goes beyond rationality. I
contend that the case against the rationality of cognitive therapy
is not made if one allows a broadening of what to count as
rational cognitive therapy. The rationality of therapy consist in
how well it achieves its goal. My claim is that at least one goal is,
or ought to be, greater information value of the client’ dialogues.
Among other things, information values encode affect.
Understanding reason in this way effectively transforms our
understanding of rationality in a way that may be
incommensurable with the standard view. If incommensurable,
there is no way to discover that we are still talking about the
same thing. So, a challenge for this competing view is to say on
what basis the term cognitive therapy may be projectable. I
identify some constraints on this project and sketch a possible
solution.
 Theoretical claim:
 Persons with mental disorders have habits of irrational
thinking.
 Irrational thoughts cause mental distress.

 Methodological prescription:
 Induce Rational thinking which leads to
“cure”.
 Multiple equivalent belief networks describe any
given affective condition.
". . . emotional states will always be more primitive than belief
networks and so can be fully described by more than one. . . . . The
therapist or counselor (with the client) is at liberty to remove one
belief network and replace it with another network” (Waller 2001, p.
30).
 There will be multiple equally rational ways to
account for how one feels.
 So, therapists must have some other basis for
advocating one set of beliefs to their clients.
 Pick sets of beliefs that are likely to improve how
the client feels.
 The methodology of REBT/CBT is either not well
motivated, or is incoherent when conjoined with
the theories in the standard ways.
 because there may be many equivalent belief sets
there need be no rational constraints on belief
choice !
 if we consider a different ontology
for the domain of counseling - one
who’s objects are dialogues (the goal
of counseling becomes greater
information of dialogues), we can
accommodate a place for emotions
in rational belief revision.
 concept force & information,
 goal directedness & and a methodology,
 hierarchical aims & (R1),
 a belief/desire scale & dialogue
 Df: the force of a concept is an individual
subjective valuation of the object of search.
 When clients realize that the force of a
concept that they are encoding in their
speech acts is different than the force
encoded in the speech of others the
information value of the dialogue is
increased.
By some accounts information is surprise
Methods: Produce hierarchical list of wants, goals,
desires.





how are items mentioned in the lists drawn upon to
determine the order
what is the effect of changing, limiting the number of list
entries
notice effects of changing goals relative to context
what are the dynamics of introducing conflicting
information
what is the relationship between the value of the goal and
the value of the effort expended in the search
Note: Different combinations of aims and constraints impact
search strategies differently.
 If actions of a particular sort, m, have
consistently promoted certain
cognitive ends, e, in the past, and rival
actions , n, have failed to do so, then
assume that future actions following
the rule “if your aim is e, you ought to
do m” are more likely to promote those
ends than actions based on the rule “if
your aim is e, you ought to do n”
(Laudan 1987 p. 25.).
 Lewis/Davidson/Jeffrey’s Desirability Axiom:
 Just in case there is a difference in the probable truth [disquotational sense] of
two sentences, then the difference in an agents desiring what is expressed in one
or the other sentence can be understood as a ratio, i.e., the sum of the
combined subjective probability-desirability of one, P(s)des(s), plus the
combined subjective probability-desirability of the other, P(t)des(t), over the
sum of their combined probabilities (D. Lewis. 1987 , 109-110).


if two sentences are equal in desirability (and preferred to a logical truth) and
their negations are also equal in desirability, the sentences must have the same
probability. By the same token, if two sentences are equal in desirability (and
are preferred to a logical truth), but the negation of one is preferred to the
negation of the other, then the probability of the first is less than that of the
second” (Davidson 1990 p. 328).
If we hold some particular des(s) constant, then the desirabilityprobability of any sentence pairs (s,t) will fall into a ratio scale as
specific values relative to that constant.
 We can now look at the dialogue between Karl and Anna.

For a moment, methodologically assume Karl’s language is
optimally like ours
 T(Ao) , stands for the sentence “‘This is how best to find
water’ is true” as expressed in Karl’s idiolect. Lets consider s to
be something like the sentence ‘Karl desires to degree n.’
 Here we have a place to model a wide range of affective
responses that may apply to and quantify a range of
emotional drives such as feeling happier as one approaches
certain goals.
 F(Ao), - - - [ Anna believes
{(Ao)= ‘This doesn’t lead towards water.’ is true.,
(Ao)1 = ‘This1 does lead towards water’ is true.,. . ..(Ao)n}
]
 where “This” is replaceable by actual methodological
considerations couched in terms of R1 and is a
specification of propositional attitudes - in particular,
of a system of beliefs.
 .... P must tell us the physics and the physical states of
those things [i.e., the facts about Karl’s physical and occult
properties] as well. Both Ao and Ak are to be specifications
of Karl’s propositional attitudes - in particular, of Karl’s
system of beliefs and desires . . . Ao specifies Karl’s beliefs
and desires as expressed in our language; Ak specifies them
as expressed in Karl’s language; until we find out what the
sentences of Karl’s language mean, the two sorts of
information are different. We take Karl’s beliefs and
desires to admit of degree, with the zero and unit of desire
fixed arbitrarily. Also, we allow them to vary with time.
Thus, Ao and Ak will consist of ascriptions of the form:
 Karl {believes, desires}, to degree d, at time t, the
proposition expressed, in context c, by the sentence ‘_____’
of {our, Karl’s} language
 .... M, the third component of our desired
interpretation [sic] of Karl, is to be a specification, in
our language, of the meanings of expressions of Karl’s
language. Primarily, M specifies the truth conditions
of full sentences of Karl’s language (perhaps relative to
contexts of utterance) . . . Secondarily, M specifies a
way of parsing the sentences of Karl’s language, the
denotation or sense or comprehension or what-not of
the constituents from which sentences may be
compounded, and the way that the denotation (or
whatever) of a compound depends on that of its
constituents. In short, it specifies the syntactic and
semantic rules of a grammar capable of generating
Karl’s sentences plus the truth conditions thereof (D.
Lewis. 1987, 109-110).

What was the problem again?

Have any problems been solved?

Any residual issues left unresolved?

The initial problems reappear at the next level up.

Where do we go from here?
 Are rational aspirations of standard
cognitive therapies (REBT/CBT)
foiled by non-rationally motivated
methodological concerns with how
patients feel?
 Three ways to answer:
 NO
 YES
 Maybe
 (A.)
If rational thought must be considered in
contradistinction to emotion, then the story I’ve told
cannot apply to the standard view of cognitive
therapy.
 (B.)
Even if emotions can find a place in
rationality by being imbedded in the desirability
axiom, by itself, this does nothing to undo the
underdetermination of my patients belief net.
 (C.) The new proposal ignores how whacky my
patients beliefs are!
 Cognitive therapy is in a hard
place. It might want to give up the
hard line of (A.) and come along
for the ride.
 Standard cognitive therapy is in a harder place
still. Nothing here challenged the
underdetermination thesis at all. Patients belief
nets may be underdetermined still.
 But (B) (underdetermination of the patient’s
belief nets) is irrelevant to the methodology of
the new proposal being put forth - choose or
assimilate.
 to see if there is a coherent way to tie
standard cognitive therapy to the
competing proposal and
 what’s to be said about the patients
whacky beliefs.
 It looks as though there is no hope for a coherent
fit between standard cognitive therapies and the
new proposal if they are incommensurable.
 from [standard view of cognitive therapy]
 an idiom where the targets of counseling are
determined and defined in relation to terms in an
ontology of individuals (the client) and their
properties (cognitive states),
 to [proposed alternative view]
 an idiom where they are determined and defined in
relation to terms in an event ontology (movement
towards goals - greater information) and abstract
objects (dialogues).
 Ontology of Standard View assumed in criticism
of the rationality of cognitive therapy:
Individuals and their speech acts behaviors.
 Ontology of Competing proposal:
Comparative information of dialogues
 After coming this far, is there anything left in the
new proposal that warrants the name “cognitive
therapy”?
General accounts:
Non-general accounts
 Generalizes across all types
 focus on differences
of valuation
 hypothesize that the
neuro-biological
underpinnings of valuation
events are [or more weakly,
are best modeled as] some
single set of functions
implemented throughout
our neural nets.
between moral
valuation,
 economic valuations,
aesthetic valuation,
 etc.
Dimensional
Non dimensional
 hypothesize that
 focus on discrete categories
differences in behaviourial
output [which we term
variously as moods,
impressions,
interpretations, etc ] are,
when viewed from the
perspective of neurobiology, best understood as
implementing a function
at various degrees or levels
of activation.




such as
good, bad,
true, false,
functional, dysfunctional,
and produces hierarchical
classification, e.g. DSM-IVTR.