Questions tagged [belief]
The belief tag has no usage guidance.
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Why can't humans believe contradictions?
I'm reading something on the topic of logic and one of the exercises asked me to convince myself that a contradictory statement was true. I could not convince myself of this and now I am curious about ...
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What is the term for the fallacy/strategy of ignoring logical reasoning intended to disprove a belief?
Updated 10/19/2018 -- Regards for all the responses. Much appreciated. To address the point of fact that one cannot "prove" anything about reality:
Yes, I agree. This is the reason I now set my ...
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What is the difference between knowledge and belief?
Sometimes this image is used to explain what agnosticism is and how it's independent from belief:
It makes some sense but I still have confusion understanding it.
What is the difference between ...
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What makes a basic belief a properly basic belief?
I'm currently looking into Plantinga's reformed epistemology and I'm trying to wrap my head around what makes a basic belief a properly basic belief.
I understand what a basic belief is, in that it ...
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Why is belief necessary for justified true belief?
In justified true belief it is said that for a person to know a fact it must be true, she must believe in it and she must be justified in believing it.
My question is: Is belief necessary? Why is the ...
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Are You Blameworthy for "reasoning incorrectly"
Moral judgements are a certain species of normative judgement that people make about the actions of others. However, there are instances where I am tempted to say that you can be judged as "wrong" in ...
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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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What are some resources on belief dissemination?
In the social psychology literature, there is a lot of discussion about the pathways through which one achieves social belief formation (i.e. persuasion, coercion, etc.). These differ from those ...
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What do atheists believe in? (in layman terms)
Issue
I travel quite a bit and am often asked about my religious beliefs. I am atheist. I found it hard for some religious (or spiritual) people (whatever religion) to accept the concept of atheism ...
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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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Is belief an intentional act?
In what respect are we to understand the proposition, "I choose to believe x", and is there a significant difference between the proposition, "I choose to believe x" and "I choose to drive to San ...
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What the Preface paradox tells us about the principle of explosion
The Preface paradox (adopted on a classical logician): Imagine that a
classical logician has just written a textbook (on classical logic).
He has included many assertions in it and has thoroughly ...
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When ought we trust others instead of ourselves?
When ought we trust others instead of ourselves?
Since, I've noticed that it's particularly commonplace to cite authors, even if they weren't scientists. E.g. in political contexts. "Marx said ...", "...
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Assuming P means the same as Q and Bob believes P and is aware that P means the same as Q, can we conclude he believes Q?
Assuming Bob is a fairly rational person. If this is not the case, then is there a way to modify it? Also, is this the argument that Frege is making in "On Sense and Reference" that "the morning star" ...
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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 ...
user48437
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Is there a contemporary survey of exportation?
In "Unrestricted Exportation and Some Morals for the Philosophy of Language", Kripke discusses unrestricted exportation in relation to the de dicto / de re distinction. In this paper he cites a few ...
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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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What makes a religion genuine or acceptable? [closed]
Often people take it for granted that we should allow people to believe whatever they believe and not critisise that they choose to be religious.
What I am wondering is what makes a belief acceptable ...
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Aren't rational thinkers falling a prey to a logical fallacy?
All rational thinkers would clearly know that in a series of arguments anything that appeals to faith would be considered a fallacy.
Yet the rational process itself (the belief that arguments based ...
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Does Reality change when theory change?
I was going to include a caveat to prove a premise: to show that truth has become more subjective and then proceeding from older to newer theories of truth, I would cite a survey showing how ...
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How does one distinguish fact and belief?
I have seen a similar question, but I am looking for the distinction between fact and belief, and not knowledge and belief. Also, I do not seek, necessarily, Plato's view.
In order to distinguish fact ...
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Do philosophers think beliefs are bearers of truth-value?
In the literature about what sorts of things have a truth-value, the idea that acts of belief bear truth-value seems present, yet uncommon. On the other hand, objects of belief like propositions or ...
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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 ...
user66933
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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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Can "Gettier problems" be resolved by assuming JTB as the formal definition of truth? [closed]
What problems arise in responding to Gettier problems with an assertion "the formal definition of knowledge, as justified true belief, does not need to exactly correspond to intuitive notions of ...
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What does "true" mean in "justified true belief"?
What does TRUE mean in JUSTIFIED TRUE BELIEF?
We define knowledge as "justified true belief".
Now, my question is what does the term TRUE mean in the formal definition? Why not only "...
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Can logic be used to prove any belief?
I have witnessed a lot of debates and arguments of different beliefs, and noticed that each side uses logic to prove its point. So, can any belief be proven by logic regardless of its nature (...
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Defending the Unpopular: Foundationalism
Foundationalism, once considered a valid and popular philosophy, now receives nearly universal contempt. There seems to be a consensus, in both analytic and continental camps, it is dead.
Are there ...
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Can your attitude towards a proposition P be that P is false or do you actually believe ~P?
Started reading about beliefs and propositions, and the working definition I have of X believes P is that X thinks P is true. So suppose I don't believe P. Would it be more accurate to say I think P ...
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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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Are extraordinary first-hand subjective accounts more likely to be true the more people report the same experience?
For illustrative purposes, let's take as an example the following claim X = "I went to sleep, but then I suddenly woke up at 3:00 a.m. feeling a terrifying evil presence, and then my bed began to ...
user48437
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Equal evidence for and against a belief - which to choose?
If there is a belief for which there is an equal amount of evidence both for and against (the evidence is provided by experts in the appropriate field), what is the most rational thing to do in a ...
user30547
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Why should we believe other people, or scientists?
Looking for sourced answers or article references for this question, please.
Why should someone believe another person's assertions? I would imagine that the answer is because most of the times when ...
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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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Does theism imply worship?
There are and were many theistic religions. In most if not all of them there is some kind of worship. However, as far as I am aware theism only means a belief in some kind of unworldly beings who ...
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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 be both a theist and an atheist?
People can have contradictory beliefs. For example, they can both believe there is a god, and believe there is no god. So, does this mean someone can be both a theist and an atheist?
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Would it be sensible to say "I know Santa does not exist"?
Would it be sensible to say "I know Santa does not exist", and more generaly, what do we really say when we say "I know that [some fact]" ?
It is a well known principle that "absence of evidence is ...
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How can I abandon beliefs supplied by the culture?
I have beliefs which seem irrational and trivial to me. These beliefs diminish my freedom. But still, guilt is produced when I am not acting in accordance with these beliefs.
I am not speaking about ...
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Believing in Axioms vs belief in God
I have always held that there are different levels of belief.
For example believing in the Axiom of choice requires less effort than believing in God, although neither are provable.
One appeals to my ...
user12196
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What are some example of properly basic beliefs being incorrigible and how can incorrigible beliefs be justified?
I was reading that properly basic beliefs are beliefs that are either self-evidently true, evident to the senses or incorrigible. The general example given for incorrigible beliefs is "beliefs I ...
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Does understanding require momentary belief?
Consider the following scenario. You are learning a difficult argument for the first time, but your prior beliefs disagree with the conclusion of the argument. It takes you significant effort to parse ...
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What is the difference between warrant and justification according to Plantinga?
According to the traditional account of knowledge: S knows P iff S has a (1) Justified (2) True (3) Belief. I have not faced any account of knowledge that denies that last two things (epistemic ...
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What are the most rational basic beliefs?
I understand that this question might be difficult or even unresolved. But within a foundationalist view of knowledge, has anyone proposed a set of basic beliefs that seem to be the most rational for ...
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Seeking literature on whether all beliefs should be justified
This is more or less just a reference request.
Sometimes, when a belief is revealed to be unjustified, we should respond by either giving up that belief or at the very least, yielding a certain ...
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What defines "lack of evidence" and is it irrational to believe in something without evidence?
It is commonly accepted that the lack of evidence for a particular proposition makes belief in said proposition irrational.
However, imagine the following proposition,
P: An object exists for ...
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How are beliefs restricted by an objective reality?
Consider the following belief
A human can survive if they don't drink water for 1000 days
We knew from biology that this is practically improbable as there are very few people who can survive for ...
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Ought we only form beliefs based on sufficient empirical evidence?
In The Outsider Test for Faith, John Loftus often makes statements like:
Faith, as I argue, is an irrational leap over the probabilities. Probabilities about such a matter are all that matter. We ...
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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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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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