This belief context moreover has a particular structure: the belief connections between B1, B2, and B3 are directed. Specifically, B3 can be considered logically prior to B2, because the person’s shouting back at Peter can be considered to indicate that Peter shouted at the person first; and B2 can be considered logically prior to B1, because Peter’s shouting at the person presupposes he is faced with a particular person, as indicated by B1. These belief connections can be expressed as B1 → B2 → B3. B4 indicates something that can be considered to represent political violence. In particular, it addresses the following things that can be abstracted into the configuration of types that can be called political violence:
| 1. thing: “is hitting” | type: application of physical force |
| 2. thing: “Peter” | type: civil perpetrator |
| 3. thing: “the person in state uniform” | type: state target |
With the exception of “is hitting,” B1, B2, and B3 address the same things as B4, which indicates that B1, B2, and B3 can be considered a belief context of B4. At the same time “is hitting” (B4) allows the generalization of “Peter” and “the person in state uniform” into slightly different types: civil perpetrator (rather than “civilian”) and state target (rather than “state employee”). B1, B2, and B3 can moreover be considered directed toward B4. Specifically, B3 describes something that can be considered to encourage Peter to hit the state employee—“shouting back.” This relation between B3 and B4 can be expressed as B3 → B4. Since B3 is in turn the logical consequence of B2, which is in turn the logical consequence of B1, the entire chain can be expressed as B1 → B2 → B3 → B4.
Since these beliefs address things that have a material existence in the external world, belief systems about violent and nonviolent activism may appear to consist of true beliefs, and to be intersubjective. However, it is important to note that the belief contexts of violent and nonviolent activism may not consist of true or intersubjective beliefs, and instead include religious beliefs, moral beliefs, or even incorrect beliefs. For instance, the example above could contain additional beliefs B1* “I believe that a witch told Peter to shout at the person in state uniform,” B1** “I believe that the person in state uniform is afraid,” or B1*** “I believe that the person in the state uniform believes that it is wrong to hit somebody.”
Belief systems about violent and nonviolent activism may therefore not entirely consist of true beliefs or intersubjective beliefs. However, they must include the mentioned true beliefs addressing violent and nonviolent activism. In general, belief systems have an ultimately subjective dimension by being held by particular individuals. On the other hand, what is addressed by them has an ultimately objective dimension if it includes things that have material existence in the world.19
Decisions
In the previous section, I have shown that political violence can be represented by beliefs. In particular, I have explained that political violence can be addressed as beliefs of Type 1 that can be generalized, or, on a more abstract level, as beliefs of Type 3. Throughout the discussion, I have presented examples of beliefs of people who observe rather than engage in political violence. What has therefore not been explained so far is how studies can be conducted from the perspective of the people who engage in political violence. This section is devoted to this task.
Examining political violence via belief systems involves the question how people’s belief systems are connected to their actions. This connection can be established by particular beliefs about intentions to perform certain actions. I call these beliefs decisions.20 In the following section, I introduce decisions. Decisions connect beliefs to behavior, which shows how cognitive mapping can bridge the gap between actors and external structures.
Internal Structure
Decisions involve intentions. Intention is based on the notion of intentionality. Intentionality in the sense introduced by Franz Brentano refers to a “mental phenomenon” that “is characterized by … what we might call … reference to a content, a direction towards an object (which is not understood here as meaning a thing)” (2015: 92). This reference is also contained by my earlier definition of beliefs, which treats beliefs as mental states related to certain objects. Specifically, intentionality addresses the same relation between mental states and objects: mental state → object.
Every belief involves intentionality. Beliefs that are decisions moreover directly address an intention and a particular object: actions.21 Following the internal structure of intentionality (mental state → object), decisions involve a directed connection between the intention and the action in the order intention → action. This can be considered to establish a directed connection between the subject and the action. This can be expressed as
INTENTION → OBJECT
subject → action
Furthermore, actions can be considered interventions of the subject on the external world. This means that they involve an additional directed connection toward the world, so that action → world. Decisions then include two directed connections between the subject, the action, and the world. The first arrow represents the directedness of the intention, and the second that of the intended action:22 subject → action → world.
Planning
Intentions indicate that the subjects who consider an action also carry out the action. My understanding of this follows Michael Bratman’s definition of intentions, by which they contain (partial) plans to perform actions (1987). Planning can be considered a mental state in which the subject is in control of an object. This subject-object connection is stronger than assigning certain properties to an object because it addresses an intervention of the subject on the world. This means that decisions can be considered as beliefs that involve stronger mental states than other beliefs introduced earlier.
External and Internal Obstacles
Planning an action also has a temporal dimension: it is directed toward the future, in which the action will be conducted (or in which it will be continued).23 This indicates that decisions are temporally prior to actions. It also indicates that deciding to perform an action is not the same as performing the action.24 In the words of John Searle, there is a “gap” (2001: 61).
As a result, it is possible that even though people decide to perform certain actions, they do not actually do so. This could be the case because of external obstacles that prevent the performance of the action—an example is the failure of the detonation of the bombs placed on German trains in 2006. It could also be the case because of internal obstacles, such as people obtaining new knowledge on which they form different intentions in favor of different actions, or people suffering from weakness of will (Searle 2001).
According to Searle, the primary feature of “the gap” is, however, not temporal. Rather, the gap indicates that “we do not normally experience the stages of our deliberation and voluntary actions as having causally sufficient conditions or as setting causally sufficient conditions for the next stage” (Searle 2001: 50: 61–96). This emphasizes that, like the connections between beliefs (see “Belief Connections”), the connections between decisions and behavior are not causal—once a decision occurs, it does not necessarily translate into behavior.
Table 7: Decisions, Actions, Intentions, and Self-Knowledge
Self-Knowledge
Planning also implies self-knowledge, that is, the subject knows he is planning to do X (one cannot plan something without having knowledge about what it is that one is doing). Since political violence involves high risks, the actors studied