 However, for Davidson, attributing thought to animals is not merely an epistemological problem. It isn’t just that we don’t have a way of knowing what animals believe; for him, the very idea that animals can think is problematic. Davidson ties the ability to think to the possession of language. He considers that an individual who has beliefs has to be capable of being surprised, for surprise consists precisely of registering that reality isn’t how we believed it was. Surprise shows that one can discriminate between the purely subjective and the objective. In order to have the capacity to be surprised, and therefore to have beliefs, one needs the concept of belief, to be able to understand that there is an objective reality that is independent from our beliefs. At the same time, language is necessary to have the concept of belief, for it allows us to contrast what we believe with what others believe, and thus generate the notion of truth and an objective reality. Given that only humans have language, only humans can have the concept of belief, and therefore beliefs. And as, for Davidson, beliefs are the basic foundation for all kinds of thought, only humans can think.