Questions tagged [belief]
The belief tag has no usage guidance.
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Can private experiences justify private belief in supernaturalism?
Is it ever rational or justified to believe in supernaturalism on the basis of private experiences (of the kind for which publicly accesible evidence can hardly be produced)? If someone has private ...
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Is atheism a belief system? [duplicate]
I do not believe in God. This is not a belief. I have seen the assertion that atheism is a belief system, but no evidence. Is this an unsubstantiated assertion by theists, or is there any ...
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Can God make the belief in His own existence justified (if He exists)?
In a hypothetical scenario in which God exists, would God be able to make the belief in His existence justified for humans? If so, how? What would God need to do to accomplish that goal? If not, does ...
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Is belief a choice or a state of being convinced with regard to a particular statement?
When presented a statement or argument x, and relevant background information B(x), what determines whether the listener's assent to the truth of x can be interpreted as a choice vs an induced state ...
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What does "p is true for S at t" mean?
In Alvin Goldman's article "What Is Justified Belief", what does "p is true for S at t" mean?
where p is a proposition, S is a person and t is time.
More specifically, how is it ...
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Tim lies a lot, so should we believe Tim is the King of France when he claims he isn't? [duplicate]
Tim lies a lot, so should we believe Tim is the King of France when he claims he isn't? What fallacy is saying we should? Is the testimony of a proven liar sometimes or never reason to believe the ...
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What does the Principal Principle say about our rational credences in outcomes?
According to David Lewis, the Principal Principle says that “our beliefs about the objective chances of outcomes (typically) determine our rational credences in those outcomes.”
I’m assuming that this ...
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Do people believe things that they know or believe are irrational?
Do people believe things that they know or believe are irrational? Do some theists think "I know belief in God is irrational, but I believe in Him anyway". etc.. I've not read Kierkegaard, ...
user67675
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Is there a difference between believing something and behaving as if it were true?
To clarify, I mean without deception. In other words, if something seems plausible to me, and I decide to act on it as though it were true while recognizing that I could be mistaken, do I believe it?
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When choosing between two theories, should you believe in the more plausible one? Or have a degree of belief in both?
Suppose you have two theories explaining data and no other theory is possible such that they are logically exhaustive. You know all there is to know about the data and theories.
Should you, now,
A) ...
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Why do we believe certain things if they can’t be justified?
Russell said that “there is no difference between sanity and insanity” if Hume’s problem of induction cannot be solved.
To me, I am not sure if I can justify that the sun will rise tomorrow, even ...
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If different realities can’t have probabilities, does this mean no reality is more reasonable to believe than another?
This question is ultimately a follow up to this one
For the context of the question, assume that a metaphysical reality is a reality that can be conceived without contradiction and that these ...
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The deception clause in lying
What if I am asked a question, and respond with an untruth I know is untrue, and I don't really care if I am believed, but definitely don't want to be found out (I don't want anyone to know Ive ...
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Do superstitions follow the logic of the empty universe?
Superstitions are of two kinds, false belief about real onjects ( cat crossed road brings bad luck), or belief about objects that cannot exist (ghosts inhabit places where someone was murdered).
Since ...
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Can any state of affairs that is possible under known laws serve as evidence for the supernatural?
Should any of these events, by themselves, serve as evidence for the supernatural or some missing law of nature that may be operating on it? More curiously, should any of these events rationally even ...
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Is it rational to suspend belief in everything except necessarily true/false statements?
Is it rational to suspend belief, in any shape or form, in every statement unless it is logically necessary or incoherent?
For example, is it rational to simply not believe that the sun will rise ...
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Is it contradictory to believe in something but consider something else possible?
If I believe in god but consider it possible that god may not exist, am I not contradicting myself? If I believe in god, then that means I believe that god exists. In what sense does it make sense to ...
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If we can't be 100% sure of anything, then we have to believe everything with a grain of salt?
If we can't be 100% sure of anything, then we should trust everything with mistrust and suspicion?
For example, the existence of other minds, the existence of the outside world, etc. is currently ...
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How does one quantify how rational it is to believe in something?
How objectively rational is it to believe that God exists or that the sun will rise tomorrow or that my girlfriend will cheat on me?
I understand that the concept of credence and subjective ...
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What is an explanation really?
Let's consider a hypothetical 'Church of the Moon' on a distant planet with a huge moon. The members of this church base all their beliefs about the moon and their religious practices on their holy ...
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Help trying to update beliefs
You lose at cards. Suppose the chances that the other person was card counting, P, is 1/1000.
You lose at cards again. This time, the chances that this person was counting cards, B, is 1/100.
The ...
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Help working out the believability of some evidence
Suppose I have some evidence of where I was while a crime was being committed, a recording of me visiting a bank and asking for the time of a transaction (which was completed at that time elsewhere). ...
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Is the reasonableness of a belief or moral claim relative?
Is the reasonableness of a belief or moral claim relative? I found some articles on the ethical word "reasonable", but lack access. Apparently it is key to "liberal" political ...
user66697
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Using 'love' to make sense of knowledge
I love my spouse, but I suspect (I think I believe the are) they are cheating on me, and I've even heard my friends gossip about my spouse's affairs etc.. But I love my spouse, so do not think I know -...
user66697
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Is there a concept of purely comparative credence in philosophy?
After some interesting discussions with some people here that allowed me to flesh out exactly how I think beliefs are represented in my mind, I was trying to find out if there is mention of it in the ...
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Does a 100% degree of belief imply that no amount of evidence can change your mind?
As a reminder, in Bayesian epistemology, given a hypothesis H and new evidence E, it is recommended to update your degree of belief using the formula P (H|E) = (P (E|H) * P(H))/P(E). P (H) is the ...
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Are beliefs like "I am in pain" really incorrigible and basic?
I am reading about epistemology and foundationalism and I see this claim that beliefs about your own inner mental states are incorrigible and basic. But is that really so? For someone to believe the ...
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Are there any stoic suggestions around dealing with unneeded hard truths and happy unknowing minds?
Say I really liked sausage, one day decided to learn how it was made, and came out disgusted though not morally opposed.
Later, someone is telling me they really like sausage. They are happy liking ...
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Can someone explain to me what a contingent fact is?
English is not my first language and I'm trying to understand Williams Argument in "Deciding to believe" when he says that it is not possibe to bring about belief at will and that this is ...
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What is the most logical belief I can hold about the value of an unknown coin I lost at a Cafe?
This is a real incidence. A couple of hours ago, I was sitting in a Cafe, and while fiddling with my wallet, two coins fell out of it. I picked one quickly, but the other one just rolled away below ...
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Can it be rational to think you can't be wrong about something?
Descartes famously argued that we can technically be wrong about anything. We can even doubt that the world isn't actually real in some sense and is just a simulation. But why does doubt imply the ...
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How does pluralism about doxastic logic work?
If person M has a concept of belief, and a logic for that concept, B1, but some other person N has concept B2, with different inference rules over the operator, then on the first-order level, does M ...
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If we accept that living things have a soul, when and where does that happen?
I identify myself as a Christian, but I'm not posting this on Christianity because almost all religions have a definition for soul.
The Latin word "anima" was "something" they ...
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Degrees of belief without evidence
I'm not sure this is really a philosophy question.
Suppose that I have some evidence that my wife is having an affair, but it all dates back to a year ago. How do I incorporate the lack of evidence ...
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Is the concept of having a degree of belief rational?
There are many statements I feel more confident in than others. For example, I would wager that almost everyone would feel more confident in the statement "The sun will rise tomorrow" than &...
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What is the difference between appearing to be sentient and able to make personal subjective statements and being sentient
It is not long that some will suppose AI has become alive but we must question, what is the difference between appearing sentient and able to act out of one's own will and able to make personal ...
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How do philosophers support their faith in other minds? [duplicate]
How do you support your belief that other people have minds like yours?
Do you use any arguments to explain the reasons for your belief?
I believe that other people have minds and mental states like ...
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Is there any psychological research into, or theory about, propositional attitude reports？
What do propositional attitudes such as belief and suspicion mean not just as logical (syntactic) conceptions but as something in the mind？ When I believe or feel skeptical about certain propositions ...
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Why do people dislike being deceived?
First and foremost, this question seems like it has simple answer, but I wasn't able to find a satisfying one when thinking about it further.
To expand on it:
Why is the notion of being deceived so ...
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Is it possible to quantify or even just suggest when someone is to blame for being tricked?
Is it possible to quantify or even just suggest when someone is to blame for being tricked? It is a common adage that gullible people are to blame for it, even if it is not exactly immoral to be ...
user63148
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What arguments can I use to justify my belief in other minds? [duplicate]
What arguments can I use to justify my belief in other minds?
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/other-minds/
Here are all the arguments in favor of the existence of other minds, but I do not ...
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Is there an objective standard of sufficient evidence?
It's very common to hear people say that we should only believe claims that are supported by sufficient evidence. Intuitively it seems to make sense, until we realize that this recommendation begs ...
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Is it a contradiction to believe God is both transcendent and omnipresent?
From a classical theistic perspective, God both transcends time and space, yet is also present everywhere. But how can God be both outside time and space and yet be present everywhere?
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How can spirituality be reliably researched? [closed]
My questions are
1 is there a reliable method for research into spiritual activity such as an individual providing healing, or any other service?
2 is there a ‘happy medium’ pardon the pun, that’s ...
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Paradox of Plurality as a better idea
If X is in a zone where there is a rule that while a person has right to have/follow any opinion/view point but is REQUIRED (MANDATORY) to respect (and accept) plurality of opinions as a condition to ...
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Is there a biological description of "chakras" or is the concept of "chakras" mere pseudoscience?
It is widely claimed that we have many chakras(7 major chakras) situated at different locations along the spinal cord. Each of the chakras is said to be associated with certain energy channels, the ...
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Must beliefs be consciously entertained?
In discussing the Innate Knowledge Thesis in the article titled Rationalism vs Empiricism in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, there appears to be a discrepancy (emphasis mine).
A serious ...
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How do fact and belief relate to each other?
So I understand the main differences between facts and beliefs, but is there a part where they overlap? Is it possible that there is a point where one can find similarities between both concepts?
How ...
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Are all beliefs ultimately rooted in faith?
For the purpose of this question let 'belief' mean anything a person accepts to be true for whatever reason - in particular if someone 'knows' something they also 'believe' in it.
I read this old ...
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Is it always rational to act according to your beliefs?
Is it always more rational to act according to one's beliefs than to refrain from acting on them?
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