What is 'Belief'?
I have been thinking about this since @Amity
queried my use of the expression of 'I believe' in my writing on this site. I have been thinking about how I was encouraged to use the expression, 'I believe' on some academic courses as an ownership of ideas? I am wondering about the nature of 'belief', and what that means in terms of personal construction of meaning and the wider scope of meaning? Does " belief' make any sense at all beyond the scope of personal meanings, and how can the idea of belief be seen in the wider scope of philosophy, especially in relation to objective and subjective aspects of thinking?
queried my use of the expression of 'I believe' in my writing on this site. I have been thinking about how I was encouraged to use the expression, 'I believe' on some academic courses as an ownership of ideas? I am wondering about the nature of 'belief', and what that means in terms of personal construction of meaning and the wider scope of meaning? Does " belief' make any sense at all beyond the scope of personal meanings, and how can the idea of belief be seen in the wider scope of philosophy, especially in relation to objective and subjective aspects of thinking?
Comments (196)
This misrepresents my post on your thread:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/599793
Please edit accordingly.
I definitely don't wish to misrepresent you in any way. But, I have been struggling with your thinking about my question of the expression ' I believe', which has lead me to query the nature of belief. I do welcome your clarification on this, because I was left struggling with what you were trying to say.
I am not sure that links to your views on my thread are particularly helpful, because' it goes beyond that, into the nature of what is considered to be 'belief'; and how beliefs are formulated.I am trying to open it as a wider philosophy question.
Just my take in things…
Quoting Jack Cummins
“Ownership of ideas” seems odd to me. What do you mean by ownership? I would just characterize belief as agreement that a statement is true. “I believe X” is more or less equal to “X is true.” I guess there are some circumstances where we may know something is true (i.e. my father is dead), but do not believe it, due to shock and the denial that can come with it. Not really sure how that situation would figure into things.
Quoting Jack Cummins
You mean what makes our beliefs valid?
Quoting Jack Cummins
Well, people use all sorts of methods to justify their beliefs, but that doesn’t mean others accept their justification. Practically speaking we’re not always rational, and often choose to believe something because it appeals to our emotions. It feels good, or is too painful to not believe it. This type of justification isn’t accepted in philosophy, but occurs nonetheless.
In philosophy, debates about justification tend to depend on whether you think empirical observation and experience is more or less reliable than logic and reason when determining what is true. The former has issues because we are susceptible to illusions, hallucinations, etc. that warrant some distrust in our senses. Also, Kantians will talk about how we’re never able to observe the thing-in-itself, so are never truly able to know it’s essence. The latter has issues because paradoxes exist, and there is an infinite regress issue with justifying a belief with another belief (which itself has to be justified). Also, things in nature need not necessarily be logical or rational (i.e. human behavior).
If one needs to justify a belief, is it not then an opinion, comparable with other opinions?
To accept something on the basis of faith is to trust as expressed in the Greek word ??????. The trust involves not subjecting the matter to comparisons.
And that meaning is related to the Latin expression of Fidelity. The love that is tested by comparison is not the love that keeps faith without recourse to such.
Belief systems are sets of assumed/accepted as true propositions that constitute an internally consistent picture of the world.
When we examine, put beliefs and belief systems under the microscope, we're checking whether or not they are justified and/or internally and externally consistent.
Does it not depend on the nature of the proposition you are accepting as true? How does one justify, in any way, the belief that the world is run by a secret cabal of Martians? Individual ways of thinking may well be dysfunctional and stupid.
I've always assumed that one of the roles of philosophy is to examine one's beliefs to see how they stand up to that examination. As difficult and incomplete as this exercise might be in some instances.
I would have thought beliefs don't need verification. When beliefs are verified beyond doubt, they qualify as knowledge, at which case no longer beliefs, but knowledge.
Beliefs are more psychological than epistemological. Beliefs can be based on emotions rather than reasons or evidence. Not all beliefs are false, but where facts or propositions cannot be supported with evidence, logic or reason, they could still be one's mental state for believing something, because one feels like it, or just wants to, or by inference and guessing.
Modern philosophy has an understanding of our ownership of our expressions. That once you say or do something at a time and place, you are the one who said it--you are responsible for answering for it: clarifying, defending, apologizing, etc.
Quoting Jack Cummins
Your point differs in claiming the ownership of "an idea". But maybe saying "you believe" is in the same sense that Wittgenstein points out in that you "feel strongly about it" (#574-575), which is to say you are serious, ready to justify, defend; and even more, to be making a comment on the criteria for being able to say one believes. If you are going to say you believe something, you must be prepared to back it up by owning it, standing up for it, allowing it to define you.
There is also the sense of belief as a hypothesis, as "I believe it is going to rain" (PI, x), but I don't see that touching on your OP. Perhaps it matters more in the sense that believing is more like hoping than thinking, but it appears you are starting with the more traditional sense of belief: that a belief is like an opinion.
Quoting Jack Cummins
If we start with the idea of knowledge, or truth, and we characterize everything else as opinion or belief, then we can hold onto the standard and goal of that abstract certainty despite the partiality, failure, and unpredictability of the human. So we say that opinion is individual and that belief is unjustified.
But there is the sense of believing as having faith, trusting. There is blind faith, which would be trusting despite any/every evidence to the contrary (as unjustified as "opinion"). But we also say it as a request, to trust in me (or my authority) without questioning further, despite the opportunity of doubt. So faith could be said to have justifications, but, rather than to convince you that my opinion is knowledge, I would have reasons for asking the request for trust. And then having faith can be the relinquishment of myself as the measure (of certainty, as reliability), giving over my fear of uncertainty, as an acknowledgement that not everything stands in a relation to doubt, that I need not question you (your humanity), nor not trust myself.
In this sense of certainty, we are resolved, steadfast. Now this can come from power, stubbornness, righteousness, ego, or, as Emerson calls it, just quoting another. We can believe, as have confidence, in ourselves even (especially) in a position where there can be no certainty, when we have reached a point where there is no right, because we are sure we did the best we could, considered the negative outcomes, thought it through, explicated all the criteria, questioned our assumptions, etc. We are prepared to have faith in ourselves to be questioned, to answer for our position, etc.
Quoting Jack Cummins
Science's methodology is to provide conclusions where the outcome does not matter whether you or I did the experiment (unless done poorly). So yes, in this, you as an individual are cancelled out completely. And no one is beating science on its turf. That does not mean that an individual's thought cannot be rigorous, specific, precise, etc., just that there are some areas where we can not be certain in the same way science is. But science has infected politics, economics, sociology, and moral situations with the desire to remove us and impose a predictable, generalized, abstract certainty. Though we may not come to agreement in these areas, or be able to predict, or determine outcomes, that does not mean, however, that the judgments, implications, and conclusiveness are up to you.
So knowledge is one of the reasons why we accept/believe a claim. You can not "Know" something and not believe/accept it!
We believe things either on faith or knowledge(without or with evidence). We can not say that we "know" something but we don't believe in it.
So we need to distinguish beliefs that are knowledge based and claims claims that are faith based.
I would have thought, if you know something, you don't need to believe it. You know it, and it is enough. To believe in what you know, you need perhaps some other peculiar situation or reason for that. For example, I know Paris is the capital of France, but I also believe it is so, because I am not in Paris. I am not sure if they have decided to change the capital city to Lion. I have no idea on their current social political situation in the country. This situation of mine force me to believe that Paris is the capital of France, even if I know it is.
We can not go around it. Knowledge used to be defined as "justified true belief"(classical/traditional definition).
I'm not sure if you want to restrict the discussion either to only include certain people under "we", or to just the topic of belief as opinion that is either justified or not (that's a well-trod circle), but I discussed a number of other senses of belief, some of which do not function on a dichotomous relationship to "evidence".
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
You appear to be making a categorical claim. Something like, if we do not believe in it, or we do not have faith in it, then we cannot say we "know" it. As syllogistic as it sounds, I would think you mean the sense of know as don't doubt. If we do not believe it, we can not say we know it, without a doubt, for certain. But when you phrase it as "believe in it" then what you are saying is there is something that you can not say you know if you don't believe in it, and the first thing that comes to mind is what people say about God. You can not say you know God without believing in Him.
Perhaps the "in" was added by mistake, or perhaps there is another example I am not thinking of. To say we know something, but do not believe in it, might be something we would say about a politician's campaign, that, despite our lack of support, will happen anyway (though maybe not quite certainly). Or to say we know (the facts) about, say, climate change, but we don't believe that knowledge (those facts) will persuade anyone; don't believe in the knowledge's ability to overcome our selfish, lazy, blasé, denial/death wish.
Or maybe it is a different claim. Knowledge determined by the scientific method can be reproduced by anyone (should be able to be, if done right). With this sense of knowledge it does not matter if I believe in it or not, though this does not have any positive force to make me interested, say, to believe strongly about it.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Now you've thrown in "claims" as well as "beliefs". Because we can say a belief is an opinion, like a guess (hypothesis), or in comparison to knowledge, but a claim can be me making a claim upon you, for your support or recognition. And that can be to ask you to trust me, but also my claiming to know something, which would not be verified in the same way as a guess. So, water's a little choppy here.
Under this definition we avoid an "absolute" meaning nothing is absolute , not even knowledge. Even Science (methodological naturalism) that ALL our frameworks are our tentative positions(knowledge claims) based on our current available evidence.
So we believe claims either on evidence, bad evidence or no evidence at all.
The believe that is based on good evidence is labeled knowledge.
All beliefs are beliefs in claims about the world, us ...everything. We accept/believe narratives/theories about facts, descriptions or hypotheses. All those are claims(premises) we make about reality.
Your examples seem to be a bit off of what I am saying so I can not really address them (god, politics".)
There's your problem.
, , , , ,
There are all kinds of ways to use the words "belief", "True", "fact", "knowledge" "certainty", and their synonyms and conjugates. The variation allows for all form of confusion. There is a pretty standard set of usages found in more critical texts, a hierarchy that permits the words to be used with a good deal of clarity.
Start with sentences. These can include questions, commands and so on. From amongst those we might notice the peculiar characteristics of statements - they have a form that permits us to say how things are. Some statements even admit of being either true or false, and we can call these propositions. Questions and commands don't admit to being true or false, but have their own felicitudes.
When we start to talk about statements being true or false, we've made a move from using statements to say things to talking about the statements. They have become our subject. We can examine the way truth and falsity relate to various differently structured statements, which is what we do in logic.
We can also look to the way the truth or falsity of statements is related to people. So we might note that Jack holds that it is true that he wrote the OP. To hold a statement to be true is to believe it. Now belief has various cognate uses, but in the main it remains a relation between a person or persons, a statement and truth.
Now interestingly, that Jack wrote the OP might be true, but might be false. Perhaps it was written by someone else logging in on his account...
That is, Jack - and anyone else - may believe things that are not true. This is a simple observation, but is surprisingly important. An astonishing number of folk have problems with this. A statement's being believed is not the same as it's being true.
One result of this is that folk can on occasions hold beliefs that are false. People's beliefs can be wrong, mistaken, erroneous.
And now we can introduce knowledge. This is another relation between people and statements, and it builds on what was said above by being restricted to what is believed to be true, and is indeed true. that is, one cannot know something that is not true. One might think one knows it, but one would be mistaken.
Since Socrates, philosophers often add that knowledge must in some way be justified. Much of the discussion in epistemology centres on what is to count as a justification - observations, and deductions form first principles being prime candidates - even Socrates knew that the definition of knowledge as justified true belief was problematic, So there's a lot to be said here.
And then there is faith. Faith is a form of belief that does not admit to doubt; a definition that goes back at least to Augustin of Hipio. Faith holds that its subject is true, regardless of justification. The wine is the blood of Christ, in the face of all the evidence tot he contrary.
Now that is a neat, reasonably coherent way to think about these terms. You are not obligated to think in this way, of course - you will do as you will. But if you keep this hierarchy in mind you will be able to follow the philosophical discussions around these issues with some clarity, and event to critique a few odd alternatives.
So I commend it to you.
Any personal meanings you might have either cannot enter into the conversation, their being yours and not ours; or they are both yours and ours, and hence not personal.
Meaning is public.
So if treating beliefs as statements you "own" makes them somehow personal, or if their being personal makes them something you own, then they are irrelevant to us.
But also, owning your beliefs makes them all the harder to modify when you find them to be wrong. And being wrong is something beliefs are apt to do.
So better to treat them just as statements you hold to be true, rather than to own them.
Keep ownership for certainties.
Oxford university Logic 101 ;""belief", "True", "fact", "knowledge", Only claims premises and arguments can be true or not true and communicate facts and faith based or knowledge based beliefs.
...and then its the idealistic aspect of those terms that are philosophically useless.
This is too black and white for my taste. The alternatives are not only that any meaning is either mine alone or is shared by everyone (i.e. is public). A meaning might be shared with only one other person or with a few or with many but not all. Taste and nuance is important, in philosophy as much as it is in poetry and the arts.
Not sure how to parse that...
Is it a list? Is your claim that only claims, premises, and arguments can be true or false?
Can you prove the statement "one cannot know something that is not true"? Does this follow from the JTB (justified true belief) definition of knowledge. If yes, it's as arbitrary as the JTB. If no, kindly explain.
I ask because I recently downloaded and watched an online philosophy course on the meaning of knowledge and the ditto claim appears in the course.
To my own satisfaction, yes: "I know it, but it's not true" is a contradiction. Hence if you know it, you know it is true.
that it is true is part of what one says when one says one knows.
How?
"I know it (is true) but it is not true" is a contradiction.
IF you can't see that, then you are on your own.
It can only be a contradiction if,
1. To know p implies p is true. That p is not true then contradicts I know p.
However, that's begging the question, no? Whoever defined know decided that to know a proposition p, p must be true. This is precisely what the issue is - can/can't we know a falsehood?
You had said believe "in". I'll take it that was a mistake.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
If you want to choose to discuss the sense of "believing" as in accepting, that's fine, but it is not the only sense of belief. And we also say "I believe you", that is: accepting what they say without evidence, on faith, as in trusting the person enough not to question the claim (their authority, our relationship, etc.) This is not bad, neither is it, therefore, not knowledge. Again, if you want to limit things to make it easy, that's fine, but it doesn't make it a complete picture.
Is it begging the question? No. The proof is not a deduction, it is a definition.
In other words there's no reason why one cannot know a falsehood. I can, if I wish to, define knowing such that it's not an issue to know a falsehood.
That said, I believe there's a very good reason why philosophers decided on a definition that makes it impossible to know an untruth. I'd like to know more about that, thanks.
Consider the situation where I believe a lie (falsehood) e.g. that the earth is flat. Until I'm disabused of this erroneous view, I'll maintain, till I'm proved wrong and assuming I'm not a stubborn fool, that I know the shape of the earth - flat. This aspect of knowing is lost in a definition that precludes knowing a falsehood. Now. I'm not sure but do you suppose anyone would describe this view of know/knowing as impoverished and utterly fails to capture the nuances and subtleties of know/knowing? I, of course, defer to the better judgment of experienced and knowledgeable philosophers but I'm curious. Why can't we know a falsehood?
Hence,
Quoting Banno
If you claim to know a falsehood it is because you are not using "know" in the way specified. So you are on your own. See how you get on.
If it is a falsehood is it then not the case that we think we 'know' X is the case, when it isn't? My understanding is that we can only know true things. In more colloquial terms we tend to use the word 'know' to express a level of confidence. Or are you asking is it possible for us to know that something is untrue? For instance, I know that the English queen is not 40 years-old.
I'd also add that it makes sense for people to attempt to understand what someone else means rather than categorically say they are 'wrong' when it comes to judgements like this - which are often personal.
I've had an issue with people telling me that I was using the term 'belief' in the wrong way and that there was one common meaning. They fell silent after I quoted several different definitions used by philosophers over the ages.
Another loaded term is 'faith'. All I ask is that people try and ne generous in their interpretations and perhaps ask for clarity rather if they believe something sounds stupid/wrong/insane.
:smirk:
:roll:
:chin:
Whether or not assent is warranted (foundherently, inferentially and/or experientially) seems to me the significant question.
It's a curious word. In other languages, there are no good translations as it is almost always attached to religious aspects of the world. At least in Spanish, this is the case and a few others.
For instance, you can say you believe in angels or God, but if you literally say, I believe the ocean is blue, something is off because belief doesn't enter into it. You understand the ocean is blue, you see it. It's not an issue of belief.
This might be one of those words that gets you stuck in a fly bottle.
Negative truth (knowledge of the false) is equally valid to positive truth (knowledge of the truth).
Not necessarily. If philosophy has discovered anything about epistemology, it is that the bedrock of all understanding is unverifiable belief.
Even in the case of the ocean's blue, there is a belief overshadowing the understanding that the ocean has a definite color. And, there is nothing to prevent us from understanding that the ocean is some other color, or no color at all.
However, there is one thing we can understand with absolute certainty, that we agree the ocean appears to be colored blue at certain times. Then again, this presupposes that solipsism isn't true, and you are indeed an autonomous subject - just another belief.
However, isn't such a position - working with a seemingly unjustified, arbitrary definition of knowledge - self-refuting? First, the claim is give credence only to justified propositions (definition of knowing) and second, with the same breath, to declare that the way knowing is defined is arbitrary.
Also, do you mind taking a look at the following attempt at an analysis of the situation?
Quoting Tom Storm
To the both of you
If the claim is that we can know a falsehood it simply means that falsehood(s) count(s) as knowledge.
In line with the OP's main thrust, let's examine beliefs. I say "I believe P" where P is a proposition. P needn't be true, it can be false. Belief is a choice it seems - I can, for instance, opt to believe P. When I choose to believe P, I assume P is true whether P is actually true or not. In other words, for me, P counts as knowledge i.e. I can, in a sense say, I know P. Am I, after all, not assuming P is true. Yet, P could be actually false.
Here, we have the situation where I know P but P could be false. In other words the following hold:
1. I know P, P is true. [Usual deal.]
OR
2. I know P (P assumed true), P is (actually) false. [We can know a falsehood.]
That's interesting. How? Why?
I know the earth is a sphere = I have knowledge that the earth is a sphere.
:chin:
Yes, that's what my post draws attention to:
E = The earth is flat (actually false)
1. I believe E
2. If I believe E, E assumed true
3. If E assumed true, it operates in the same way as R = the earth is spherical, R actually true. In a sense then, I know E.
4. I know E (E assumed true) BUT E actually false.
5. We can know a falsehood.
-"You had said believe "in". I'll take it that was a mistake."
-Why? "Believe in" doesn't change the fact that we can accept claims either on good or bad evidence.
"If you want to choose to discuss the sense of "believing" as in accepting, that's fine,"
-You can NOT say that I believe a statement without accepting it!
but it is not the only sense of belief. And we also say "I believe you", that is: accepting what they say without evidence, on faith, as in trusting the person enough not to question the claim (their authority, our relationship, etc.)
-Again as you sad, "Accepting what they say" You can believe someone either on faith or as a true authority or because you already know something but you were not sure.
This changes nothing on how we believe/accept. Either our belief is justified (based on knowledge and evidence) or it isn't (blind faith or fallacious reasoning).
-" Again, if you want to limit things to make it easy, that's fine, but it doesn't make it a complete picture."
-No, I am not limiting anything. This is how things are by default. Humans believe/accept claims rationally or irrationally. Either they have access to objective evidence or they don't.Even when they believe an other individual, in reality they believe/accept what they it says.
That's right but consider how knowledge is, ultimately, an assumption just like a belief. There are a lot of presuppositions (e.g. Agrippa's trilemma) - knowledge is a house built on sand. Given this is so, what's the difference between someone who claims fae believes Santa exists and another person who says fae knows Santa doesn't exist. This is not a type distinction, rather it's a question of degree (how many assumptions are made instead of whether assumptions are made at all). Thus, the person who states that fae knows Santa doesn't exist is in the same flimsy boat being rocked about, dangerously so, in rough seas as it were, as the person who avers that fae believes Santa exists but...there's a difference, fae is at a safer distance from the gunwale.
In short, knowledge, true knowledge is an illusion; To put it in different words, I know P (a proposition assumed to be true or itself based on other unfounded assumptions) but P can be false.
Stop. :shade: You're just abusing words again because you can. :point:
So ... for instance, 'the gravitational constant' or 'both your parents were born before you were born' are "illusions"? You're talking out of your bunghole again, Fool.
I kind of get what you are saying. I generally take the view that absolute certainty may not be possible - that aside can't we apportion confidence about the truth of a proposition based on the evidence?
All justified-true-belief-web-of-fraught-epistemologies-and infinite-regress aside - I would argue that there are some things we can say are facts (as far as it goes) and we can therefore say that to understand them is have knowledge. Taking this approach may not satisfy your absolute criteria but it does allow us to manipulate our environment rather effectively and survive (and fuck the planet up, but that's another story).
Imagine a person X.
1. X believe God exists. Insofar as X is concerned that God exists is true. X has no proof/evidence. God exists, assumed true by X though God exists could be factually false.
2. X knows the earth is round. The earth is round is factually true and X believes the earth is round.
In 1, the assumption made is explicit and clear. So far so good. In 2, however, one thinks no assumptions have been made but that's incorrect. Observe that between 1 and 2 the difference is that in the former the proposition in question, here God exists, can be factually false but in the latter, the proposition, viz. the earth is round, is factually true.
How does one know whether a proposition is factually true?
Justification?
What about the skeptic Agrippa's trilemma (Münchhausen trilemma)?
There really is no difference between assuming God exists (X believes God exists) and using a necessarily flawed system (arguments) to "prove" the earth is round (X knows the earth is round), is there? What's the difference between having no hammer and having a broken hammer?
It is not that simple. There are different type of knowledge and belief.
Yes. Technically we can agree that we take it to the case that the ocean appears blue to us under certain conditions - not at night, for instance.
I only caution against succumbing to skepticism or skeptical arguments too frequently. Skepticism cannot be refuted. It need be acknowledged and moved on from, otherwise we will have to seriously entertain solipsism or other fruitless avenues, such as thinking that every instance of perception, we may be misperceiving everything.
We wouldn't move our fingers, much less our legs, if such were the case.
It would be better to rely on using belief too much (not never), due to its religious connotations.
-"It is not that simple. There are different type of knowledge and belief. "
-How is this statement relevant? Knowledge is just one reason why people accept a claim.
Btw there is one standard for identifying a claim as knowledge but many ways to produce knowledge claims.
Same as the difference between having no car and having a car with an empty fuel tank ... having no body and having a dead body ... etc.
Equivocating "know" again. Just look: It's raining iff it's raining. Also, sound inferential arguments.
Foundherentism (S. Haack) works for me.
"In short, knowledge, true knowledge is an illusion;"
-No it isn't. Knowledge is a claim that is in agreement with current available facts and has an instrumental value.
The problem with most positions in this thread is with people's obsession with "absolute" concepts.
We need to use a concept based on its real life use.
Since a knowledge claim is based on our current available facts, this means that new facts in the future might change the knowledge value of that same claim!
Again we need to understand that our concepts SHOULD describe the value of our claims (fact, knowledge, true) within our current limitations as empirical agents and our methods of investigation.
We should avoid contaminating our definitions with Absolute concepts.
If a claim conveys info with epistemic connectedness, instrumental value and in agreement with what we observe in nature...that is by definition Knowledge tentative in nature like all our claims.
I thank you and others for replying. I think that the 'personal meanings' aspect is an important area of questioning beliefs. There is a major difference between the personal aspects and establishing of socially constructed ones. It ranges from the way people develop ideas throughout life, ranging from personal autobiographical narratives to depictions of the world.
Children may be encouraged to think in terms of stories, including belief in Father Christmas and as they get a bit older such beliefs are seen as childhood fantasies. The examination of statements in the light of established knowledge within the cultural context of accepted beliefs. There is a certain amount of negotiation because some aspects of belief are based on subjective values, such as political beliefs, but it would seem problematic if a person held onto beliefs without a social context, and there are likely to be dialogues and debates about certain areas of belief within any given culture, but if someone held on to private subjective meanings without reference to others' understanding it would be a private world of fantasy and potential delusion.
You can repair the hammer.
Jack
You can try. I don't think it's possible. At least not in the foreseeable future.
[quote=Obi-Wan Kenobi]Only a Sith deals in absolutes[/quote]
Perfectionism (psychology)
:up: I have a lot of catching up to do.
What claim and acceptance are you talking about here? Who is claiming what, and who is accepting which? It sounds like somebody is doing some deal to me. What is this got to do with knowledge?
Unless it is some Scientific knowledge or in the case of legal matters discussed in the courts, do you need to claim and accept knowledge? One just know something is true in many cases, and it can be unconscious state of mind that one knows that P, and one knows how to play guitar without having to claim or ask someone to accept.
IOW, knowledge can be subjective mental state or objects in most cases. I am sure that you heard about "knowing that" and "knowing how".
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Can you elaborate on this with more detail and some examples? Thanks.
Well, knowledge is nothing more than claims or statements that explain facts of reality and carry instrumental value.
From what I understand ,correct me if I am wrong, like most people in here, you view Knowledge as an absolute idealistic "goal" of our intellectual endeavors.
That is one aspect of the concept but its not what the one that we are limited in real life.
In real life we are forced to come up with knowledge claims based on current available observations and facts.
So as with any claim, we either accept it or reject it (believe in it)based on the standards we hold valuable.
If our standards of valuation are Objective independent verification(good evidence) then we accept/believe a knowledge claim. If not (bad evidence or lack of it) then we accept/believe a faith claim.
-"Can you elaborate on this with more detail and some examples? Thanks.
-Sure. Knowledge claim is that which is supported by Objective evidence and can be used either as information or produce further knowledge or testable predictions or technical applications.
Different methods of producing knowledge are the scientific, any empirical (every day knowledge, production of technology like car industry, experience) and reasoning (i.e. deductive or inductive reasoning).
No, I never said knowledge has to be absolute. I don't think anyone here said that. Knowledge is just verified belief, and belief is just unverified knowledge. The difference can be fuzzy and transitory between the two in many cases.
I am not sure if claim and acceptance of knowledge is relevant here. People must accept court decisions even if they don't agree with, sometime judges accept the claims based on false alibis by mistakes, and often panel of judges in new scientific fair are forced to accept certain scientific claims even if it lacks certainty and truths, because they are desperately in need of funding, or because the claimer is his boss or teacher in the universities or institutions, or they want their country's fame in the field etc. If one trusts the claims and acceptance in truths and knowledge on public basis, I feel that it is too naive, loose and simple a view. Maybe it will do for sociology or group psychology topics, but not for epistemological one.
We should more focus on the personal subjective case of forming knowledge and belief here.
-"Knowledge is just verified belief, and belief is just unverified knowledge. "
-So knowledge, as you just stated, is used as a qualifier(evaluation term) for a belief that is verified(justified).(a belief that is verified is called Knowledge)
Now you will need a second qualifier for a belief that is unverified...that is faith. The term "belief" IS the umbrella term and the qualifier changes with its status of verification.
Do we agree on that?
-"I am not sure if claim and acceptance of knowledge is relevant here."
-I don't know how you can do without those.
-" People must accept court decisions even if they don't agree with,"
-A belief is by definition something that we agree and accept without force.
-"sometime judges accept the claims based on false alibis by mistakes...."
-The judiciary system demands from Judges and jury to make a decision based on objective facts not on what they. The act of forceful accept due to law or peer pressure doesn't change the fact that people CAN willingly accept claims and statements without being forced.
I don't know how this objection changes anything.
-". If one trusts the claims and acceptance in truths and knowledge on public basis, I feel that it is too naive, loose and simple a view."
-Again "believe in" describes the act of willingly accepting a claim as reasonable or true. I really can not understand why the word describing the act is a taboo for you!
None of the other applications of forceful acceptance of an order or claim changes the act of people believing /accepting a claim as true or reasonable and as their personal position/belief.
I only stated that aspect of knowledge since it is a common assumption of people. People tend to mix the aspect of knowledge as an absolute goal to its real use as a tentative evaluation term of claims.
Faith is different in that it is supported by the emotional side of mental state. When one has faith in something, someone or in God, one does not need rational evidence for verifying his faith. Faith is also on the whole system, entity, act or body of something, which is wider scope, such as I have faith in her for her ability or my faith in the system, I can rely on it etc. It is abstract and non conditional.
Belief is supported by at least some sort of inductive evidence, and it is also specific. It has a clear and narrow scope or concrete object, such as I believe that it will rain tomorrow too, because it was raining heavily today. I believe that there is a dog next door, because I hear the dog barking etc.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Sure. You simply believe something or don't. You don't get forced to believe in something. That is why I couldn't understand what you were talking about, when you were talking about claim and accept.
When you have to accept something, you are forced. The analogy from the court system, and having to accept the judgments, making decisions on false alibis which caused false beliefs ... is all about accepting claims, which has nothing to do with beliefs, and also contingent matter which has possibility of falsities from all sorts of different situations and outcomes.
You simply believe or know something or don't. You don't accept some claims from someone's belief or knowledge. It is not a matter of acceptance. Acceptance is either forced or you are doing some favour to someone. Or when someone is offering you something. Knowledge or belief offered? - sorry never heard of that. You yourself know or believe something someone or not.
I have been reading this thread a few days late and one aspect of discussion which I think is interesting is the question of delusions and illusions. In the case of delusions, there is a clear a acknowledgeable falsehood, even though it may be clung to by someone. However, with an illusion it is a matter of perception and different 'images' of 'reality' or 'truth' and this is where it gets a bit more complicated.
That is because any view is only one of a plurality of possibilities, and this is where the issue of subjectivity and objectivity comes in. These are often seen as two distinct modes. However, as beings in time and space human beings are subjects within a larger objective sphere. So, perception and gaining knowledge involves belief and personal perception, but also extending outwards to wider spheres of objective and intersubjective of knowledge.
I think that your concept of faith as the emotional aspect of belief is important because human beings are not guided by reason alone, but by a complex mixture of the two. It may be a problem if people develop 'faith' on the basis of emotional needs entirely, but, probably most people develop 'faith' based on aspects of emotional bias, and it may be that they remain unaware of this, as an aspect of bias which may be almost unconscious.
-"Faith is different in that it is supported by the emotional side of mental state. When one has faith in something, someone or in God, one does not need rational evidence for verifying his faith. Faith is also on the whole system, entity, act or body of something, which is wider scope, such as I have faith in her for her ability or my faith in the system, I can rely on it etc. It is abstract and non conditional."
-Why are you explaining the obvious differences between a faith based belief and a knowledge based belief???????
How do you think that the distinction renders faith not a belief?
-"Sure. You simply believe something or don't. You don't get forced to believe in something. That is why I couldn't understand what you were talking about, when you were talking about claim and accept."
- Why...what is difficult about the term "accept"? Other you accept a claim or not. If you accept it ...its your belief.
-"When you have to accept something, you are forced."
-You are cheating there. I never said that you "HAVE TO" accept. Have you never used the term accept without the qualifier "have to" in front????
I can either accept or reject a statement without being forced by anyone other my own beliefs.
-"The analogy from the court system, and having to accept the judgments, making decisions on false alibis which caused false beliefs ... is all about accepting claims, which has nothing to do with beliefs,"
-Yes your example was irrelevant to the framework of belief since you are using an irrelevant common usage of the word "accept."
Words have more than one common usages.
-"You simply believe or know something or don't."
-So you can point to a claim that you know it is true but you don't believe it?
If you can then your arguments is "yours".
-"You don't accept some claims from someone's belief or knowledge. It is not a matter of acceptance."
-Do you accept my claim that there is a god named Osiris? If you don't accept it then you don't believe in this god, if you do accept my claim as true than you believe in that god.
I don't know why this is so difficult for you.
In Philosophical discussions we constantly ask our interlocutors on whether they accept our presumptions or principles before we proceed to the next premise. Have you ever had a philosophical discussion before?
-" Acceptance is either forced or you are doing some favour to someone."
-of course not! You do understand that you can google the meaning of words ???
I quote the most popular definitions :
accept
/?k?s?pt/
1.
consent to receive or undertake (something offered).
"he accepted a pen as a present"
2. believe or come to recognize (a proposition) as valid or correct.
-" Knowledge or belief offered? - sorry never heard of that. You yourself know or believe something someone or not. "
-Now you have!
You are suggesting that it is not possible to know a falsehood and I think that it is so much easier to know falsehoods than 'truth' itself. We can say that the world was NOT created in 7 days and so many ideas can be rejected on the basis of entire lack of credibility. So, I would suggest that perception of what is false is such an important starting point for all else.
I think that your idea of 'forced' belief is interesting, because in some ways ideas can be enforced in childhood and later as a form of subconscious programming. It goes beyond the surfaces of logic and, ideas may be conveyed on a subliminal level, almost hypnotically and it is at this deeper level of consciousness that the core of belief may function.
The idea of learning about the rules principles and criteria of Logic is to form your beliefs based on knowledge and valid reasoning.
I am sorry if you think that I read your reply wrongly and I am certainly in favour of valid reasoning and logic. I believe that individuals are socialised into specific belief systems, and this programming is deepseated. But, certainly, I am in favour of logic and reasoning, as a way of exploring it. Philosophy is a means of providing the tools for going beyond mere acceptance of what childhood socialisation offers, and about going beyond skeleton structures of belief, to the most informed perspectives possible.
I believe starting a thought with "I believe" is inviting an argument and very good manners. It is friendlier than communicating as though we do not doubt ourselves, and sort of like Socrates, who insisted he knew nothing, which is the beginning of wisdom.
We all check if a thought is true or not by checking with our bodies. Instead of saying "I believe" we could also say "that feels right" because we rely on our bodies to know truth, or right from wrong unless we are intentionally using the scientific method to know truth.
Interesting spell check insists I should say "the truth" as though there can be only one truth. Have we totally lost sight that we can have different truths and they can be valid from our point of view? I am starting a thread to question what spell is doing to the way we think.
I think it's the pressure of science. We know that what we see is model spun up by our brains, and we've attempted to press-gang the word "belief" into describing how we interact with our environment relying on such models. It has made it hard for us even to hear how strange it is to say, "I believe the ocean is blue." To modern, sophisticated ears, that doesn't sound bizarre; it sounds like an obvious truth, even a bit redundant.
Yes. Even our brains are models spun up by our experience, so it is counter-intuitive.
Believing that the ocean is blue can be said in an epistemology discussion, but like you said, it's too trivial. And it shows the impreciseness of the word "belief".
I think "understand" is a slightly better word.
Possibilities, of course, are endless but only those which are actualizable and not "merely possible", are the needles-in-haystacks or critical-paths-through-mazes or signals-in-the-noise ... which constitute knowledge. IME, this concentric ^diagram [impossibilities [mere possibilities [possibilities [probabilities]]]] maps understanding: we (can) know probabilities (histories, sciences), speculatively contemplate possibilities (arts, philosophy) and endlessly confabulate the rest ("personal meanings" aka e.g. illusions, fictions or myths ... re: woo).
edit:
^[D [C [B [A]]]] such that (in Cantorian fashion) A is the subset of B is the subset of C is the subset of D.
Lily believes X iff Lily lives as if X were true.
Not sure that works but I think it does capture something important about belief. In that it informs our actions and decisions, and that is critical to what it is to believe something.
I wouldn't say that faith is entirely emotion based. No that was not what I meant. Some textbooks define faith as type of belief, especially in context with religious faith. Religious faith is belief in the revealed truths.
Faith definitely has epistemic basis, but also supported by emotional ground. That was what I meant.
I think your point on unconsciousness with faith also is very meaningful idea. Yes, I think it can have unconsciousness origin as well.
Faith and belief are closely related. Some textbooks define faith as a type of belief. Read my reply to @Jack Cummins.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
I think you must learn how to quote someone's posts properly before anything. It is difficult to read your posts physically, because you are not quoting posts properly.
For accepting your God Osiris, no, why should I accept or consider your claims about it? I don't know who you are, and you are not even quoting posts properly, therefore it is difficult to read what your writings are about in most times. I wouldn't certainly take seriously whatever your claims were about Osiris. I have my own beliefs on my own things, and that is it.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Have you ever written an English sentence in an intelligible and coherent way, so others can understand you?
-"Faith and belief are closely related. Some textbooks define faith as a type of belief. Read my reply to... "
-Again My statement was that Faith is a type of Belief (that which is not based on good reason)
Since you replied to my posts why don't you address my position ?
"Accept" is not a relevant concept in this topic, and that is my point.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Please read my earlier posts. I said that there are different types of beliefs and knowledge, and faith too.
-""Accept" is not a relevant concept in this topic, and that is my point."
-The definitions I quoted shows that your point is wrong.
-"Please read my earlier posts. I said that there are different types of beliefs and knowledge, and faith too."
-And how are they different. My position is that a belief can either be based on knowledge or faith(rational and irrational).
What other type of beliefs are there?
I would only accept claims of others, if I was looking for some confirmation on something. I would also consider accepting the claims only after considerable debates and discussions, and if the claim based on the conclusion of the debates or discussions were reasonable to accept.
So, it is a very special case, when claims and acceptances are relevant to beliefs, faiths or knowledge.
Differences between faiths and beliefs, it is mainly a semantic difference. When you say your faith to a religion, that means that you are following the religion. It has nothing to do with belief. You are a faithful religious man. Your faith to your religion, faith here means simply you are a follower of the religion. It doesn't tell us if you believe in the resurrection of Jesus, it doesn't tell us if you believed in the creation of the world in 7 days. It doesn't say anything in details of what you believe or not.
But when you say, you have faith in God's benevolence to humans. The faith here is similar to belief. You believe in God that he is benevolent to humans.
If you say, I have faith in the UN for their good work. You believe that the UN still is doing a good job for world peace.
So, you see, faith in some contexts has nothing to do with belief, but in some other contexts it is very similar to belief. They are not simply all the same thing, or totally different things.
-"I would only accept claims of others, if I was looking for some confirmation on something. I would also consider accepting the claims only after considerable debates and discussions, and if the claim based on the conclusion of the debates or discussions were reasonable to accept."
-Ok we have established that your use of the word "accept" is not in agreement with most common usages of the term.
-"So, it is a very special case, when claims and acceptances are relevant to beliefs, faiths or knowledge."
-Every online dictionary disagrees with your claim...so I don't accept your claim.
-"Differences between faiths and beliefs, it is mainly a semantic difference. When you say your faith to a religion, that means that you are following the religion. "
- Well wrong. To have faith to a religion means to accept its dogma even if it isn't based on knowledge or evidence. By "following" we identify "Active members". I know Christians who don't follow their churches or even their official dogma by letter.
-" It has nothing to do with belief. "
-Again words have common usages..... the word "faith" is used to define the nature of a belief: "Fact based vs Faith based belief".
-" You are a faithful religious man. Your faith to your religion, faith here means simply you are a follower of the religion. It doesn't tell us if you believe in the resurrection of Jesus, it doesn't tell us if you believed in the creation of the world in 7 days. It doesn't say anything in details of what you believe or not."
-Of course it does....lol If you say that you are a faithful christian you know that you are have faith to the christian dogma.
Why don't you use your internet connection to check the common usages of word?
-"But when you say, you have faith in God's benevolence to humans. The faith here is similar to belief. You believe in God that he is benevolent to humans."
-Nice so you see that the word faith has more than one common usage.
-"So, you see, faith in some contexts has nothing to do with belief, but in some other contexts it is very similar to belief. They are not simply all the same thing, or totally different things. "
-Sure but the usage of the word faith is IRRELEVANT to my position.(btw your
So lets return back to my main claim!
Belief can either be justified (knowledge evidence facts) or unjustified (faith, intuition) .
So focus on the role "faith" has a qualifier to a belief...not what people "try" claim their faith to be (trust-confidence etc). In any case to trust and have confidence to the doctrine of your religions, means that you believe in it and you accept it as true.
You just CAN'T go around the act of "believing" no matter how much you try to distort the meaning of faith sir.
From quickly scanning your reply, I cannot see anything even remotely resembling like proper philosophical arguments. They are just futile denial after denial without any points or supporting reasoning.
My reply presents facts on common usage of words. I don't need a philosophical argument to show that you are ignoring these common usages.
So since you can not provide evidence against my statement, we have concluded
that Believing is the act of accepting a claim either on blind faith (without evidence) or based on knowledge(facts and evidence).
What usage of words are you talking about? Please read your own writings. It just keeps denying others points. You don't even provide any examples of words usage, if that was what you were trying to point out. There is no explanation why and how. You just say that it is not right usages of words, and therefore they are wrong.
If you are genuine philosophical poster, you don't say the other poster is wrong. You just explain in rational way with real life examples. It itself often tells who is right and who is wrong tacitly with the power of reason. Physically saying the other poster is "wrong", is not philosophical argument.
You keep denying a specific usage of the word accept in relation of a belief...while I am keep posting common usages of the word by many online dictionaries.
I quote.
Google
Accept
1.consent to receive or undertake (something offered).
"he accepted a pen as a present"
2.believe or come to recognize (a proposition) as valid or correct.
"this tentative explanation came to be accepted by the men"
Merriam Webster
Definition of accept
1a : to receive (something offered) willingly
b : to be able or designed to take or hold (something applied or added)
2: to give admittance or approval to accept her as one of the group
to recognize as true : believe or refused to accept the explanation
collinsdictionary
1.If you accept something that you have been offered, you say yes to it or agree to take it.
2.If you accept an idea, statement, or fact, you believe that it is true or valid.
macmillandictionary
1 take something offered
2 agree to a suggestion
3 believe something is true/right
4 recognize a bad situation
5 let someone join/be part of something
6 consider good enough
7 take a form of payment
So your insistence of rejecting this common usage is a factually wrong act.
-"Physically saying the other poster is "wrong", is not philosophical argument. "
-Its not a philosophical argument. Its an acknowledgement based on objective facts. Objective facts can be used directly to refute a claim....No philosophical argument is needed.
Sorry, all I can see is meaningless accusations keep insisting saying "you are wrong" " you are wrong".
I doubt if you have read a single philosophical books. Philosophy is not about blindly following what Google and those common dictionaries say.
I don't have to accept or deny anything you are claiming, to believe that your statements are non philosophical devoid of any reason or logic. I just know and believe that they are.
If Google and those commoners' dictionaries are your bible, so be it. I don't see a point to continue any philosophical argument against the pseudo religious chantings.
-"Sorry, all I can see is meaningless accusations keep insisting saying "you are wrong" " you are wrong"."
-Cognitive dissonance is known for "selective blindness".
You stated that you BELIEVE that "acceptance" is a forceful act while all those dictionary inputs show you that you are not using a common usage of that word. So you are factually wrong on how this word is used. That aside, I have already explained to you how I use the word "accept" in relation to belief so I don't know why this is so difficult for you to accept.
-"I doubt if you have read a single philosophical books. Philosophy is not about blindly following what Google and those common dictionaries say."
-Let me help you a bit with this misconception of yours. In order to be a good philosopher you need to study Logic and the available epistemology...Being good in Chronicling only makes you propose other people's metaphysical beliefs and that is an argument from false authority fallacy. You need to be able to define your terms and to use definitions that are commonly accepted. Making up your own subjective definitions will never help you communicate your ideas.
-"Philosophy is not about blindly following what Google and those common dictionaries say."
-Sure philosophy is all about using logic on our current epistemology and science in order to understand what the available knowledge means about our understanding of the world.
Knowing how a word is used will help your statements carry some meaning.
Unfortunately you are bending and stretching words to mean something that isn't commonly accepted.
You render words meaningless...
-"If Google and those commoners' dictionaries are your bible, so be it. I don't see a point to continue any philosophical argument against the pseudo religious chantings. "
-You sound confused. I only point out that those dictionaries record HOW words are used by people.
Your definition of accept and belief is a subjective, isolated and useless without attaching your definition. A word's job is to communicate an agreed meaning so it can render our communication more easy. When a personal definition ads conflicting elements to an accepted common usage..then that definition is "wrong" or at best useless!
You are committing a classic trickery that many "pseudo" philosophers do and it has being highlighted by Mario Bunge in his book "Philosophy in Crisis".
Mario in his ten criticisms on bad philosophy identifies the Insular Obscurity as the main problem of the disconnection between ideas and real world facts. The main cause of it is his 10th point that he identifies it as the "Ivory Tower Syndrome". This can be seen in your writings by insisting in rejecting the importance of dictionaries and agreed common usages, by promoting unknown subjective definitions and by implying that a good philosopher is one who knows his "Chronicling" well (reads philosophical books) not the one who knows his epistemology,the rules of logic and shows respect to the common tools of language.
You are demanding to play tennis without the net...so I don't find any real value in this.
Thanks for your time. Cheers.
I think your problem seems that you somehow think whatever is in the Google and the commoners' dictionaries, must be abided and followed as some divine code. To me that is anti philosophical. All definitions are open to rational critique. It is a methodical principle in philosophy. Your denial on that principle is aphilosphical, and can be described as pseudo religious.
And your insistence on claim / accept must be some universal usage in belief and knowledge is very peculiar view. I tried to bring some cases that claim / accept is relevant in real life cases, but they are very unusual cases, which is not universal.
I never denied that they are possible in some cases, as you tried to portray and distort. I simply said it is unusual case that claim / accept applies in forming belief or knowledge.
Sometimes it seems as if the notion of individual perspectives and views is becoming lost. Of course, it is important to get accurate knowledge but, even then, each person has to think about it on a personal level. Even though there is so much information about everything, it is likely that each person thinks a little bit differently, putting ideas together, interpreting and forming conclusions. Also, the basis of beliefs and understanding is likely to be connected with personal experiences and life experiences play an important role in the modification of beliefs. I am sure that this includes attitudes and the whole mindset from which our ideas evolve.
Quoting Jack Cummins
It is not just our beliefs that matter, but also how we conduct ourselves and manage our arguments.
I always enjoy your threads and I don't think you have ever turned an argument into a personal attack.
Some interesting things have been said here but I am totally distracted by the personal attacks.
I come to the forum to have the pleasure of questioning our notions of truth, including my own, but when people are attacking each other and being defensive, it is not pleasant. They are not creating space for "individual perspectives and views" and I love the way you always do that! :heart:
What we see depends on our ability to see. In your gut, what is guiding what you can see and what you can not see?
Why did you take out your sword to cut someone to ribbons? In the long run, such behavior can lead to wars. This is really crazy when it is holy wars fought over something many of us do not believe is true because we think the god stories they believe are more fiction than truth. Sometimes the behavior is even more important than what people are fighting over.
"You must follow as told by Google, or the dictionaries says such as such, so it must be universal law and usage. Not accepting them is wrong. You are not following, and not accepting as told by Google or written in the dictionaries, therefore you are wrong."
I don't see any rational or logical argument from those statements.
I can't make any sense of your reply to Athena. I have no idea of where you quote about Google comes from. it certainly doesn't come from her post, and I don't see what relevance it has to what she has said at all. Are you criticising Google? I simply don't know what you are trying to say in connection with belief in the post above.
If you read Athena quote of my previous post, it is about my comment on "not able to see anything logical and rational" from @nickolasgaspar posts insisting on to accept Google and the dictionaries' definition on "claim/accept" in belief and knowledge.
I quite couldn't understand why @athena has quoted my post in her post. But I was replying on the quote. I hope it is clear. If not, let me know.
It's a little confusing, because it all ties up with your reply to someone else. Perhaps all this shows how convoluted philosophical arguments can become. Such is the nature of belief and our personal entanglements in its web.
Sure. I was confused why I was quoted in @athena's post yet again for something which sounds totally different from the nature of Belief.
I just tried to clarify what my post was about on the quote.
I would never criticise Google or anyone for whatever matter in public. All I was saying to @nicholasgasper was that blindly insisting others to follow Google or what is written in the dictionaries, and claiming others as wrong for not following, are not rational or logical argument, and it is not philosophical.
I agree with you against 'blindly insisting others to follow'. I could gladly criticise Google as I am sure that 's/he' could not be distraught through personal attacks. I use Google, as a basic guide but I do think people are beginning to look to this resource engine almost as an 'expert'. Some of the information put on the web is so much better than other bits. I am not referring to people on this site particularly, but I think that there is some danger of people looking for information on Google and seeing it as a reliable because it is on the internet. I 'believe' in the importance of critical thinking as a stepping stone for belief, rather than the fuzziness of bombardment of information and the loss of personal voice amidst it all.
I would criticise Google, if there were any point for doing so, but they are just too big to be worried about my criticism :D so I feel it wouldn't be much of a point.
I too, use Google a lot for quick search of information, and it is handy. Who wouldn't use Google these days? It is massive, and sure it has most of the information people are after. But as you say, there are good and accurate information, but also poor / wrong information too. So one has to be selective for the information that comes up there.
But in Philosophical discussion, we want to debate with our own reason, knowledge and beliefs on the topics. It is perfectly good and useful to quote Google or Wiki if they are relevant in the flow of the discussions. No problem with that.
What we don't want is, getting told that Google said this, and the dictionary said that, so there you are, the answers are there. Accept it or you are wrong.
Well, that quote is not from me. This is what you said:
Quoting Corvus
That appears to be your judgment, and it is not arguing a point made in the former argument. However, based on what you said an argument may be futile? Google for sure is not the word of God. However, google is common knowledge and that means are there legitimate reasons for working with that information.
Democracy is rule by reason and a search for truth. When we are not in agreement with common knowledge it is our duty to argue why we do not agree with the common knowledge and do our best to persuade others to accept our better reasoning.
Stating that you quickly scanned something before making your judgment, destroys your credibility because that means you did think about what was said. You merely reacted. 90% of the time we are reacting to each other without making the effort of truly thinking about something. I think it is important we know the difference.
The post I was reading was not much different from the previous post to that, to me, so there was no point reading and rereading with attentive focus. If you are a philosopher, then you not only have a rational mind of course, but also sharp intuition which you can use for fast scanning meaningless text for quick rejection, so that you are not wasting your valuable time.
The point of reading with attentive focus is constructing the argument, which is totally different from telling someone his/her faults.
Sharp intuition? I don't think we should confuse a reaction with reasoning. They are not the same and Trump is not a God. Look we have a problem with what we believe about thinking. A reaction is not thinking. An intuitive thought should not be trusted until it is tested. What I am saying has serious political ramifications and this is essential to understanding democracy. If we are not pondering the thoughts of others and our own, we are not thinking. Here is an explanation of the difference between reacting and thinking:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqXVAo7dVRU
Whatever content your post was, I feel that you were trying to offer me some advice. I am not going to try to argue with it. Whatever advice it was, I think it was out of care and good will, so I will say Thank you for that.
But for your comment on Trump, politics and democracy, I honestly have no knowledge at all on these matters, I am afraid. So from your comment on these matters, I only notice that you are in the USA somewhere, and your interest in Philosophy is Politics and Democracy matters.
I have been to the USA a few times in the past about 20 year ago, and it was only for vacations to Florida state, Orlando, Tampa, Miami, Key West. I liked it at the time.
But I do believe that the USA has gone through many changes since then, it is now in a totally different situation from that time. All I can say is, that I hope all goes well, and things will get better for you and your country.
I am on kind of a campaign to spread Daniel Kahneman's explanation of thinking, but you appear to be Asian? Through this forum, I came across information about a fundamental difference in languages and how we process information. Perhaps Daniel Kahneman's research does not apply equally to all cultures. This would make a great research project for someone interested in such things.
You are lucky to not be as affected by Trump worshipping as we are in the US. Daniel Kahneman gives a good explanation of this phenomenon. What is happening in the US has everything to do with belief and blindly following the leaders to this belief system or that belief system. This was not always so and I think the education change in 1958 has social, economic, and political ramifications. We stopped educating for independent thinking and democratic principles. But there are also other serious changes! The common person is losing hope of owning a home and having the standard of living we all assumed was our right. We have become much more dependent on the government, and have diminished the importance of family. We have water shortages, and wildfires, and destructive weather events and it is impossible to deny things are not as we believed them to be 50 years ago. Our faith has been shattered and we are scared.
I think that your point about destroying life is important and I could be tempted to start a thread about destruction, but won't do so for now, as there are several addressing the climate and environmental concerns.
So, I am thinking of how it connects to the nature of belief. What may be important is how there is often a consensus of belief maintained by those in power. Many people do not question authority and may be lulled into a security that the leaders know what they are doing. So, the issue may be about blind belief.
I think that your reply captures the way in which sentience is an essential part of belief. It is not as if knowledge is some abstract aspect 'out there', because as human beings the way people search for meaning in the form of belief is an essential part of living existentially.
I see it backwards, that belief determines the possible forms. But yes, there is the huge error of taking meaning from the form. This is a huge error that not many see, and to me, is responsible for all circular repetition resulting in a solidified experience of the lie believed, in this case. But the same process can be applied to the dissolution of ha’satan.
No that doesn't seem to explain what I see. My city has a board to discuss climate change and we have an organization that plants trees and our streets have been changed to better accommodate bicyclists, but the whole community is divided on all issues and some people are really angry about streets being changed to accommodate bicyclists. As some people are really angry about masks mandates.
When our strange weather first occurred and we had warm sunny days when we should not have had warm sunny days, I had no idea what was happening, only that nature was not right and this concerned me. While the people I knew were happy to have more warm sunny days. No alarm bells went off for them. I don't think our different reactions were about belief, but some of us enjoyed the nice weather and some of us were alarmed. Yes, the nice weather was nice, but nature being out of whack indicated something was wrong, to me.
My sister is as alarmed as I am, but she believes her granddaughters will have good lives because they are set to go to college and have high-paying careers. The future does not look that good for my family because I don't think any of them will go to college. Climate change is apt to hit low-income people much harder. That makes resolving problems more urgent for me. People with money will be safer than the poor. So my sister and I believe global warming is a serious problem, but her grandchildren will have a better chance of surviving. That changes the quality of our shared belief.
That is, differences in our anxiety levels, and differences in our circumstances can influence our beliefs, and if we feel like we must act on something or not. Like when I did start hearing about global warming, that was way in the future, right? I was telling the children in the family difficult times were coming and they needed to get educated so they could effectively deal with the problems that were to come. But it didn't seem urgent until serious forest fires began threatening us, and my thinking went from questioning the reality of global warming, and not caring too much because it was way into the future, to no longer questioning and realizing something has to be done now, not long off in the future. And this is like believing we need to wear masks and have covid shots or thinking that really doesn't matter. The covid threat is more serious when we know someone who has died. Until we begin experiencing the reality of something bad, we tend to not believe the threat is real. Like being young and invincible, bad things are what happen to other people, not me.
Perfect! I didn't read this before posting another reply. I needed the word "sentience" for the explanation I was trying to form.
When I hear or see something without concrete evidence for knowledge, beliefs are formed in the mind by intuitions. Therefore the origin of beliefs is perception aided by autonomous intuition. I don't need anything else such as claims / acceptance in between the process in most cases.
For the country USA, it is an impossible place to understand from outside of the country. I wonder if I lived in the USA, maybe I could understand and form a more accurate belief about the country.
One minute I hear something about the USA, and my belief is formed about it. But then I also hear about something totally different or see something opposite to what I heard or seen in the media. Maybe it is such a large area with many states having all sorts of different people, environments and situations?
For example, I hear / read about the negative and desperate situation in the USA with various issues with detailed explanations, photos and even videos. But then when I go to Twitter, and some of the photos and videos and their stories from the people in the USA, they are totally different and opposite stories.
When the facts do not agree, they might not be facts but opinions. Or when something happens people may see it from different points of view. That is why we struggle to define what our words mean, but this is kind of like a dog chasing its own tail. It is another way of checking our beliefs. Is it based on facts or opinions?
We believe what we think is true but we can not be sure until we check the facts. Daniel Kahneman explains why we can feel confident about what we think, even when it is wrong. Especially the intuitive beliefs can be problematic. Our brains can play tricks on us. Some of our mistakes are common. Advertisers study those tricks and learn how to control what we think. One can pretty well control the outcome of a survey by asking questions that lead a person's thinking.
Personally I think we should be less confident about what we think we know. I live in Australia - have done for 6 decades. But I don't know this country at all. What is really the case is I live on and access a handful of streets in a couple of parts of town in a big city. Apart from the odd trip and some media input, the country is a mystery to me. We often kid ourselves about what we think we know, just because we seem to be there on the scene.
I do agree with your point. All the information I read or hear about other countries are totally via media reports. But why should I trust them? There is no foundation to say that what they report are 100% true. I don't even trust what they report about where I am.
But these are some recent reports on Australia from the media. I am not sure if it is true or not. My belief are formed vaguely with the reports but my reason says, where is the evidence?
Not sure how accurate these reports are from the media. But we keep seeing the similar reports more often recently than any other time in the past.
There have been many reports of the similar content about Australia. NC is just one of the hundreds, and is the most conservative view from the rest.
It does not prove anything for now. But you see, they are contributing in forming the beliefs, not knowledge, but beliefs :)
You have made clear that even if you have been in Australia for all your life, you don't know it all. So what is the basis for your belief that the current media reports about the country are false?
I hold the similar view. I have my own ground for the belief. What is yours?
In my case, it has to be inductive reasoning. I have seen hundreds of youtube videos about apocalypse predictions. But none of them were true.
Back in the days when Trump was a US president, there were hundreds videos on North Korea and US engaging in war, giving all possible reasons, scenarios and even with the timings of the war breaking out. None of them were true.
Because none of them had been true in the past, I believe most of the youtube videos are lies and comedies for quick money making scheme of the youtubers.
I should actually only be following and watching Philosophical debates videos.
This channel is quite left wing and also popular. It was talking about Australia in the same tune as the NC channel. After all what we can have on most of the worldly topics are vague beliefs, not verified true beliefs.
Sure. But for the rest of the humanity outside Australia, and the ones who has never been in the country like me, the media reports are the only source of information, and they play major role in forming consensus about the country. :)
I will remain to be a sceptic of course.
I thought the Trump time had passed, and it is a new era for the USA with the new president and new government. Are you still under the influence of the old government? Perhaps it is a historical issue and difference in beliefs which had been dormant for many years in the past within the society and nation? But then which society or nation is 100% unified with one idea and opinion in modern times?
It is a matter of liberty and power. When Roosevelt was the president he and Hoover created a government with much more control of everything. We did not give up our education for citizenship that made our culture a strong democracy until 1958. In 1958 we began preparing the young for a technological society with unknown values, and no one educated to determine what our values should be. This means we have an amoral society and we are at each other's throats. The whole world can see this and it is not only embarrassing, but a dangerous sign of weakness. Jefferson understood what education has to do with being a strong republic supported by democratic culture. We no longer understand this.
Amazingly Trump has maintain as much power over half people, as Hitler had power over the people. The US is being ripped apart. This is the result of replacing the education we had with education for technology and before this began the right thing to do, we replaced the inefficient and weak government bureaucracy we had, with the Prussian model that is efficient and strong. That is until the people are at each other's throats. :rofl:
The idea that a belief is dependent on personal or subjective meaning is just nonsense. Meanings occur within a culture of rule-based linguistic use. However, don't confuse this to mean that there are no subjective experiences or mind-based states, they are two different things. If we are talking about beliefs as expressed in language, then we are referring to those beliefs that can be said to be true or false based on what we, as language users, mean by those words, viz., true and false. This doesn't mean that there can't be subjective truths. For example, "I like orange juice" is either true or false based on my preferences, but what we mean by true and false is not determined by your preferences or your subjective experiences. It's a matter of understanding the difference between conscious experiences and language about conscious experiences, or any language that describes reality. So, whenever we speak about anything, subjective or objective, the language we use as a community has an objective component to it, viz., the meanings of the concepts/words.
My own view is that there can be beliefs (states-of-mind) that are quite apart from language, and these are reflected in our actions (i.e., we know that such beliefs exist based on the actions of individuals). These kinds of beliefs are not true or false (true and false are reserved for propositions, states-of-mind are not intrinsically propositional, no more than a pain is intrinsically propositional). To speak of them as true or false is to bring them into a linguistic setting. Part of the confusion is that we don't always see the difference between these two kinds of beliefs, i.e., the different settings or environments in which they occur.
Distinguishing between beliefs which are based on mental states and those which are propositions is important indeed. Sometimes, this distinction is not recognized fully and the subjective nature of experience may be mistaken for knowledge. That is almost a soliptist error. However, language comes into play in both the understanding of subjective mental experiences and propositions or rational explanations, and the ability to navigate clearly this area. In a way psychological understanding and philosophical explanations both require the ability to articulate clearly as a basis for analysis.
• dispositions (subjective, private)
• avowals (subjective, doxa)
• suppositions (reflective, heuristic)
• propositions (semantic, mapping)
• theorems (deductive, proving)
• theories (algorithmic, modeling)
and I think e.g. Witty's 'meaning is usage of adequate (valid) moves in a language-game played against the background of a distinct form-of-life' makes explicit how discussions of "belief" usually go wrong or in circles just chasing their own tails.
Before I used to believe the USA is a great nation with exemplary democracy, politics, strong economy and power. However with the recent event of Corona pandemics and the government changes, my beliefs on the USA have changed a lot. Mind you, I am not the right person to say anything about USA issues, as I said earlier, the total amount of time I have visited and stayed in the USA is maybe about a couple of months as a tourist.
Before I used to like the USA so much, I even wanted to emigrate, work and live there. But recently I was so glad that I was not in the USA. So, I must admit the recent news media reports about the USA has changed my views and beliefs on the USA tremendously.
I don't believe that the USA is a safe and good society to live anymore. Maybe they are not as powerful as I used to believe. The society has deep and bitter divisions just like any other societies and nations in modern times. The divide between the rich and poor is utterly severe, and they don't have a good healthcare system for the middle class or poor people. To see a doctor, maybe one needs very expensive private health insurance, and even then if one needs complicated treatment in the hospital it could cost arm and leg for the treatment having to be paid by selling home and all the life savings if one had any.
And then there are many other issues that I can never understand with the country such as gun ownership issues and the acute violence problems in the society. And in military power, it is supposed to be a superpower, but the way they exited from Afghanistan and the other countries once they had stepped in, without any resolutions as if they were retreating after losing the battle as if they were scared, and running away from them.
So, all these recent events contributed to changing my beliefs on the USA I suppose. But again, I don't trust my belief 100% on anything being a sceptic and agnostic most times.
It would be like, I am believing what an elephant is like, without ever having seen one in my life. All I know is, I know nothing as Socrates said, and my beliefs could be just groundless fuzz illusion. One thing for sure is that the beliefs are formed autonomously within me by the media propaganda. I keep telling myself, I should not trust the media reports 100%.
Anyway, I thank you, and I feel privileged having been able to discuss the issues with you, who I guess, is a native American citizen born and bred in the country for all your life.
Why did evolution not stamp out those lineages that had a propensity to believe falsehoods? It's cleary a major drawback insofar as survival is the ultimus meta.
Is this an argument against evolution or will some evolutionary biologist, like a seasoned spin doctor, show us how lies/false beliefs give us an edge over our competitors? Do animals hold false beliefs? Most, if not all, of the times animals end up as lunch are times they've clearly been led up the garden path by stealth, camouflage, and other forms of cunning.
Humans are at the top of the food chain as an apex predator and that could have been because of our mastery of deception but that still doesn't explain why we're prone to believing falsehoods? Shouldn't we be twice as careful being full aware that homo homini lupus?
It doesn't make sense or does it? I dunno!
Perhaps the reason people have false beliefs is related to a wish to fantasise and fabricate 'the truth' because reality can be so grim and painful. There are all kinds of false beliefs, including ones about oneself. Of course, there may be false ideas which are believed fully or partially, and, at some point, an individual may need to face up to the false nature of beliefs, but as so many aspects of life are ambiguous it is possible to hold onto all kinds of fantastic ideas, even to the point of delusional ideas, or even 'psychotic' departures from accepted ways of thinking. The imagination can play all kinds of tricks, as a defense mechanism against the brutality of painful experience of facts.
You are wise. The US today is not the US of the past. We did not pay much in taxes before WWII and since WWII we have continued to pay almost as much in taxes and during the war years. We did not maintain a large military force and we did have military bases around the world, and we were very reluctant to go to war. Our wars since WWII have been very controversial with much public disapproval of the military actions. It is not fear of the battle that keeps us out of war, but disapproval. The forefathers of the US made it very hard for the US to go to war, but this has been changed. Some of us are strongly opposed to making it easier for a President to take us to war.
War is only one thing we disagree about. Many of us want strong gun control laws. We also disagree on education issues and religious issues. A very serious disagreement is those who have more faith in science than religion. This pandemic has strongly pitted us against each other. Those who support Trump and those who oppose him, are also those who trust science and don't trust science. We have not been so divided since the civil war. This thread is about beliefs, and nothing is taken more seriously than those of us who trust science and those of us who don't. This is not a good time to visit the US especially not for people who do not look like Anglo-Saxons because we are so tense people are lashing out.
One more very serious problem is we have never had so many homeless people! The sight of so many homeless everywhere we go is terrifying! This is as serious as the pandemic because it screams to us things are not as they should be. The more we try to resolve the homeless problem, the bigger it gets. This is very frightening! It strongly attacks our own belief in our nation.
In so many ways we are not the country we defended and one has to ask- what do we think we are defending with our very costly military might? In my youth, the only time I saw a man sleeping on the streets, was when a man had gotten drunk and passed out. Now we see homeless women and children. We have not had this since the Great Depression. We speak of multi millionaires and see homeless women and children. This is so horrifying!
Indeed. It's as if our unconscious, your domain of expertise, realized quite a long time ago in our evolutionary history, that if we ever learnt the truth about life - short, brutish, and nasty as Hume/Locke put it - people would commit mass suicide and that's one more player shown the red card in the game of life...not good for life, not good at all.
Buddha-Beautician paradox
The Buddha: Expose the truth, dispel the illusion (maya) as maya is the source of our dissatisfaction (dukkha).
The Beautician: Hide the truth, create an illusion (maya) as the truth is the source of our dissatisfaction (dukkha).
Jack, my post to Corvus is a rather long explanation of the US no longer looking like the God-blessed nation we thought we had. I think your notion of our fantasies is correct.
The pandemic, growing homelessness, increased tornados, floods, hurricanes, fires. Who wants to believe these things will not go away?
The USA began as a Roman patrician-like slave republic that almost a century later forcibly surrendered slavery in order to remain a republic. Afterwards a century of racial apartheid followed. (And then I was born.) Now a half-century or so later, about half the population wants slavery back or, at a minimum, apartheid again – at any intellectual or moral or civilizational cost! These folks are heavily armed, many are radicalized, and would rather destroy the USA in order to save the USA from any prospect of a multi-ethnic, cosmopolitan, and prosperous future.
My beliefs about my country have changed a lot too ... since the neoliberal-über-alles Reagan-Thatcher years of privatizing profits and socializing costs and nationalizing corporate debts whereby fiscal austerity (adversely impacting median & below incomes the most) was incrementally underwritten by deliberate policies of shifting the national tax burden from the upper 10th percentile of incomes to state and local tax burdens on the median 40th & above percentiles of incomes. And who voted for that? Those who least expected to – who felt the most entitled not to – get assfucked so openly, blatantly, and lubelessly. They blame it on everyone – anyone – else except our Corporate Masters and themselves. So now groomed for two generations, like molested children & battered spouses, these folks beg rabidly for "the good old days" and "making America great again" and "lynchings" (by cops, courts, churches, etc) as a national pasttime. Kind of scary, my friends, considering this old, once and future slave republic is still a global hegemon with several thousand active ICBMs, etc.
(Btw, I'm a citizen of color PTSD'd from being a 'seventies era' 20th century American struggling with and through 21st century America.) :death: :fire:
Before it runs headlong into the weeds, the SEP entry on belief notes that "[m]ost contemporary philosophers characterize belief as a 'propositional attitude'". Other terms characterized as propositional attitudes include hope, wonder, doubt, and denial, for example.
Take a proposition, like "I won the lottery yesterday". Consider the range of attitudes toward that proposition expressed by ordinary sentences like:
I believe that I won the lottery.
I hope that I won the lottery.
I wonder whether I won the lottery.
I doubt whether I won the lottery.
I deny that I won the lottery (i.e., I believe that I did not win the lottery).
Quoting Jack Cummins
I believe that it's October, that it's daytime, that the bright yellow thing in the sky is a star, that Biden is the current US president, that humans are mammals, that we are speaking English, and so on. It seems clear there's a "subjective" aspect to these beliefs: I am the one who "has" them. It seems clear there's an "objective" aspect to these beliefs: They are beliefs about objective matters of fact, about states of affairs in the world that, to all appearances, are what they are independent of my humble grasp of them.
In such happy cases, it is those objective matters of fact that make our personal beliefs about them true beliefs.
Do you find something troubling about this way of speaking? Or is there some other use of the word "belief" you have in mind? Or what problem should we be considering here?
It's common for people to use the language of "belief" to put some distance between beliefs and truth claims. For instance, on some occasions we use phrases like "I believe..." to indicate our uncertainty or open-mindedness, or to signal our acknowledgment, tolerance, or respect for conflicting beliefs. On some occasions we use phrases like "They believe..." to explain someone's actions ("The thief believes the jewels are buried nearby"), or to distinguish someone's belief from other people's belief, from reasonable belief, or from the facts ("He actually believes he won the lottery"; "He actually believes in the flying spaghetti monster").
It seems to me that all such emphatic speech acts rely on the more basic role of the term "belief", which is so aptly characterized as a propositional attitude.
I find that I agree with most of what you say. The area where it gets more complicated is with issues such as belief in God and life after death. It may seem strange to bring those areas in, but I was brought up with such beliefs and, having read a lot of philosophy and related fields, I have spent a lot of time dwelling on such matters, often going round in circles. For many, hope and wishful thinking may come into play in holding onto such ideas. Also, when people think about their own future, uncertainty as to what may happen, hope may play an important role too.
(Re: belief that) If one has a propositional attitude with respect to "God" or "life after death", then one has corroborable (public) evidence which are truth-makers of such truth-claims; where evidence is lacking and/or makes-true the negations of said truth-claims, holding such a propositional attitude is delusional. (NB: Churches, etc pimp such delusions as (apologetic) dogmas e.g. "the Nicene Creed", "the Sh'ma Yisrael", "the Šah?dah", etc; and "new age" / conspiracy theoreticians (bs artists, propagandists, political paranoids, Woo-nuts, schizoids-in-general (Žižek re: "ideology")); and ...)
(Re: belief in) Otherwise, such "beliefs" may be avowals (i.e. subjective appeals, or emotional declarations of trust) instead, therefore not truth-claims at all like e.g. figurative idiomata or swearing, glossolalia or babytalk.
You speak of the way in which beliefs 'may be avowals (ie. subjective appeals, or emotional declarations of trust)' and this may be where philosophy is needed to stand back from beliefs critically. That is because a lot of people ordinarily do accept beliefs on the basis of trust and, authority. For example, some people say that they hold certain beliefs because they are based on the Bible or church teachings, or in textbooks or the newspapers.
Many people do not wish to question and analyse, but would rather 'trust' the 'experts'. This is the problem with beliefs and how they may not be based on evidence. Philosophical methods and analysis enable a potential demystication of this, as a way of going beyond superficial thinking, to a more accurate and careful critique of what ideas are accurate, in the light of empirical methods and rational theories.
1. David Hume: We should believe testimonies only when there's good reason that the testifier is likely to be right (principle of justification).
2. Thomas Reid: The propensity to believe testimonies even without adequate evidence that the testifier is likely to be right is innate (the principle of credulity). Reid argues that if Hume were right, the principle of credulity should be weakest in children but, the truth of the matter is, it's strongest in children.
What would be the point of us "to stand back from beliefs critically?" How are we to live an examined life (Socrates) if we "stand back from beliefs critically"? Philosophy that does not reflect on "beliefs critically" it seems is not (western / modern) philosophy but more like sophistry or pastoral ministry or self-help therapy.
When I said 'stand back from beliefs, I did not mean that examining them is to be avoided, but the opposite, that they need to be examined and reflected upon. What is so worthwhile in cognitive behavioral therapy is the way in which beliefs and assumptions are explored and critiqued, as it is underlying beliefs, including those about the self which have an effect on the emotions. Also, many philosophical beliefs as unexamined may affect the emotions, especially if there are underlying core conflicts.
Brain-teaser.
1. Hitler's identity was/is defined by his beliefs (Nazism)
2. I can change my beliefs and yet I don't change (my beliefs are not me).
Ergo,
3. Something's wrong (We've misidentified Hitler, Hitler is not Hitler if to be Hitler is to subscribe to Nazism or I can change who I am by changing my beliefs).
You said "stand back from beliefs critically" which seems like "avoid examining them" to me. CBT (though not philosophy itself) certainly engages "beliefs critically". What do you mean by "critically" if not by examination? Your point is inconsistent and thereby is lost on me.
So, it's yes and no kinda deal. Yes, Hitler is Nazism but not quite. :chin:
Let's take another, more benign, example, the Pope. The Pope draws his identity from Christianity i.e. if the Pope thinks/says/does anything that's Chrsitianity thinking/speaking/doing but the Pope is, and I quote, "not ONLY" Christianity. We are more than just our beliefs. Why then are we demonized/worshipped for our beliefs? We shouldn't be, right? We can change our beliefs just as easily as women slip into attire after attire.
Epistemic Responsibility?
But then...
Quoting TheMadFool
I don't think my point about standing back from beliefs was particularly inconsistent, because what I was meaning is that each person has a set of beliefs but needs to maintain some objectivity. That is because there is a need for acknowledging subjective views and be open to critical examinations as well. For example, if someone has socialist beliefs, it is important to acknowledge certain values, like equality of wealth and fair distribution of wealth. On the other hand, it is important to be able to be able to think about ideas such as the rationale of arguments for capitalism. So, I am really suggesting the importance of critical examination, alongside recognition of personal bias and values.
Yes, we shouldn't, it's better that we stand back from examining our beliefs critically. See my reply to 180 Proof and epistemic responsibility which might open Pandora's box.
I am not sure what my 'boo boo' was. Have a look at the reply which I sent to Proof and see if it makes sense rationally.
Read my post just above yours. Edited.
I agree that rationality has its limitations. The problem which I see is that human beings are comprised of various functions, including rationality, emotions and imagination. Therefore, when they simply try to follow rationality they are influenced by the other functions as well, even though this may be denied. What this means is that rationality is used to justify beliefs while the actuality is not that simple. In particular, I know people who are racist or sexist and they are able to justify their ideas, to the point where it is extremely difficult to argue with them. In most cases, their beliefs stem from strong emotions often based on childhood conditions. I do challenge racism and sexism, but it is extremely difficult because such ideas and values are deep seated beyond the surface of rational logic.
Self-serving bias: people "demonize" those they disagree with and "worship" those they agree with especially when the social or political stakes are high enough.
Quoting Jack Cummins
Well, the post you replied to where I describe "belief that" and "belief in" distinguishes between them critically in order to suggest that the latter only tells us about the "believer" and nothing about the object of belief (as the former can). Rationality and science are effective to the degree they "bracket" (epoche according to phenomenologists) or filter-out and minimize the vagueries and arbitrariness of how "personal bias and values" tend to confuse 'what is the case' with 'what is not the case' and vice versa. I don't see the cognitive / epistemic value, Jack, of what you're proposing. Our "personal bias and values" may be useful for parochial survival (i.e. shallow heuristics) but they are profoundly inadequate for discerning truths from untruths and establishing knowledge (i.e. deep algorithms which are explanatory or facilitate explanations). Philosophy reflects on this difference and, IME, to the degree philosophers reflect "critically", they prioritize knowledge over mere (porcine) survival.
I am in favour of going beyond personal biases but recognising them initially may be a starting point for this. Critical thinking is important, but the question as to what extent a person can be neutral or value free is another matter. To strive towards that may be to go beyond what it means to be human and may be an approach which could be used to usher in totalitarian regimes.
I am not suggesting that rationality and science are totalitarian at all. The point which I am making is that in understanding the nature of beliefs it is important to understand that human beings form value systems which are underlying these. Rationality is extremely important but would not work if other aspects of consciousness are not taken into account.
This is captured in Iain Gilchrist's book, 'The Master and the Emissary' in which he suggests that the right and left brain aspects of consciousness, need to be understood, as in the various functions of rationality, feeling, intuition and imagination. He traces this in philosophical developments in culture, including romanticism and the enlightenment, and the way in which science emerged. He suggests that it is important that rationality is not lost, but that a balance or integrated picture of the human being is developed.
On the basis of this, it would follow that to try to encourage systems of beliefs which follow logic and rationality alone are probably not compatible with human nature and, therefore it probably would not work to strive towards systems of ideas which only meet the requirements of logic. In other words, people are not simply cerebral and that is probably why apart from rationality, emotional intelligence and empathy are important on a personal basis for the development of personal and cultural perspectives.
"Rationality ... would not work" for what exactly?
:lol:
:up: Thanks.
That's what worries me. We need to tread carefully because logic and morality are different subjects, neither is obligated to the other.
Quoting Jack Cummins
What's the relationship between instinct, intuition and logic?
I'm pleased to hear it. I try to avoid making unreasonable claims.
Quoting Jack CumminsI suppose I expect the same general principles of judgment to apply in these matters as in others. What is more complicated in these cases, by your account?
Quoting Jack CumminsI don't think it's strange at all. Traditional religion was part of my upbringing. I recognize the value of spiritual experience, spiritual practice, spiritual community. I think there's room for a sort of agnostic theology that doesn't run afoul of healthy skepticism.
Quoting Jack CumminsOne may provide inspiration, consolation, and guidance without promoting habits of unreasonable judgment and disregard for the value of truth. Moreover, it's one thing to take up philosophical conversations about these matters with someone who is eager to do so; and another to force such conversations on a person who would rather not engage in them, who gives no special reason to press the issue.
Belief is the property neccessary for the resolution of certainty, without which one would be too fearful to move.
I applied for an US citizenship to live and work in there on 2001, end of August. The 911 erupted in less than 2 weeks of my application. Due to the tragic event, my application process by the US immigration dept. had been delayed and delayed, and it got through on 2009. By this time I was busy working in Europe and also Korea, and well settled. So my emigration plan to USA was just out of question at the time.
I left the citizenship process, which involved going for interviews and filling some forms via the lawyers to expire as I was no longer interested in working and living in USA.
If there were no 911, then I would have been living in somewhere in USA (very likely in the state of Florida where my relatives reside), as your fellow citizen. :)
A typical case of world events affect individual's life and fate.
USA to me now is a possible world, i.e. a world of my imagination, beliefs and possibilities. It is no longer a world of reality. :D
Truer words may have never been spoken by a either citizen or non-citizen.
If it ever really was. People have long opined that the U.S. is an idea, an aspiration, a hope, a dream. Even those who fought (and some died) for it, were fighting and dying for the idea. When it came to the real stuff, that was the land, family, friends, loved ones, community and the same things people around the world have.
It's just that some folks have a different idea of what the U.S. is or should be. It's just that if they are conservative or Republican, they are wrong.
In my teens I had been a pupil in the American High School in Jakarta Indonesia, when my father used to work in Indonesia. It was a really good time and experience for me at the time. Although my English capability was almost zero the first year when I got in there, then I was able to catch up pretty quickly, and do well. I think that school is still existent in Jakarta. It used to be called Joint Embassy School of Jakarta, or just JES. Now maybe the name seems to have been changed to something else.
I recall my English class studying for Dickens and Shakespeare on my 9th grade classes, and the teacher Mrs Murphy. I understood almost nothing what was going on in the class.
And the Physics teacher (forgot his name), and a few Math teachers who were absolute great, and a Dutch teacher who taught us Special English to non English mother tongue pupils such as Japanese, Taiwanese, Korean and Polish pupils.
I think the kindness and brilliance of teachings of those American teachers made me to love America and everything about the country at the time.
And the PE class was always about playing baseball, or softball, and sometimes soccer games.
Many pupils there were from different countries, but the majority of pupils were from USA mainland whose parents were working in the oil companies or for the government, and the education system and majority of teachers were the Americans from the USA schools.
After the USA pupils, the next majority pupils in the school were the Australians because Australia is very near from Indonesia, and they seem to had been a lot of business between the two countries, and many of them were living in Jakarta.
Since that time, I was really fond of American culture, people and the education system, and really everything. I used to have some really good American friends at the time.
I used to believe and imagine the USA would be a great place to work and live. And many of my relatives immigrated to the USA too. I really believed that I would be living there too, but with the unexpected world events and recent pandemic times, and the media report, my belief in the USA has changed a lot, to a more negative, remote and just possible world.
I don't know much about the USA politics, so I cannot comment on it. But I do hope that things will improve and get better for the USA and the whole world in the future.
There is no such thing as objective thinking.
Me too! My only real hope is the younger generations from all over the world.