 Davidson first identifies an epistemological problem with attributing such a belief to the dog; a problem that was already described by Stephen Stich (1979). The problem boils down to the fact that we lack a way of determining which description would accurately capture the dog’s belief: do they believe the cat went up the oldest tree in the backyard? Or the tree that smells the best? Or the tree that the cat went up the last time? This epistemological hurdle is insurmountable, in Davidson’s view. Moreover, for him, beliefs are never had in isolation, but rather every belief is embedded in a network of associated beliefs without which that initial belief would lack all sense. In order to believe of an object that it is a tree, the dog needs all sorts of general beliefs about trees: that they grow; that they have leaves, branches, and roots; that they need water and sunlight, etc. And the same goes for the cat: believing that this is a cat implies believing that they are a mammal, that they have four legs, that they meow, etc. Even though there is no fixed set of beliefs that one needs in order to be able to believe of this object that it is a tree or a cat, without the attribution of at least some of these beliefs, the attribution to the dog of the belief that the cat is in the tree becomes senseless.