 The first starts from the observation that if we are to ascribe a belief to a being without language—a dog, say, who is barking up a tree into which he has just seen a squirrel run—we must ascribe a belief with some particular content. At first blush, it seems natural to say that, in the case described, the dog believes that the squirrel is in the tree. However, on reflection, that attribution may seem to be not quite right. The dog does not really have the concept of a squirrel or a tree in the human sense. He may not know, for instance, that trees have roots and require water to grow. Consequently, according to Davidson, it is not really accurate to say that he believes that the squirrel is in the tree (at least in the de dicto sense: see §2.3 above). However, Davidson argues, neither does the dog have any other particular belief. Embracing holism (see §3.2 above), Davidson asserts that to have a belief with a specific content, that belief must be embedded in a rich network of other beliefs with specific contents, but a dog’s cognitive life is not complex enough to support such a network. “Belief” talk thus cannot get traction (cf. Dennett 1969; Stich 1979, 1983).