Certainty series
Nihilism Agnosticism Uncertainty Probability Estimation Belief Justified true belief Certainty Determinism
This box: view • talk • edit

Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true. A related article is titled Uncertainty. For statistical certainty see Probability. Nihilism (from the Latin nihil, nothing is a philosophical position that argues that Existence is without objective meaning Purpose Agnosticism ( Greek: α- a-, without + γνώσις gnōsis, knowledge after Gnosticism) is the philosophical view that the Uncertainty is a term used in subtly different ways in a number of fields including Philosophy, Statistics, Economics, Finance, Insurance Probability is the likelihood or chance that something is the case or will happen An approximation (represented by the symbol ≈ is an inexact representation of something that is still close enough to be useful Epistemology (from Greek επιστήμη - episteme, "knowledge" + λόγος, " Logos " or theory of knowledge A related article is titled Uncertainty. For statistical certainty see Probability. Determinism is the philosophical Proposition that every event including human cognition and behaviour decision and action is causally determined In Logic and Philosophy, proposition refers to either (a the content or Meaning of a meaningful Declarative sentence In Discourse and Logic, a premise is a claim that is a reason (or element of a set of reasons for or objection against some other claim

Contents 1 Belief, knowledge and epistemology 2 Belief as a psychological theory 3 Is belief voluntary? 4 Delusional beliefs 5 Limiting beliefs 6 Spiritual 7 Notes 8 See also 9 External links

Belief, knowledge and epistemology

The relationship between belief and knowledge is subtle. Believers in a claim typically say that they know that claim. For instance, those who believe that the Sun is a god will report that they know that the Sun is a god. "Sun god" redirects here For the Ramsey Lewis album see Sun Goddess (album. However, the terms belief and knowledge are used differently by philosophers.

Epistemology is the philosophical study of knowledge and belief. Epistemology (from Greek επιστήμη - episteme, "knowledge" + λόγος, " Logos " or theory of knowledge A primary problem for epistemology is exactly what is needed in order for us to have knowledge. Epistemology (from Greek επιστήμη - episteme, "knowledge" + λόγος, " Logos " or theory of knowledge In a notion derived from Plato's dialogue Theaetetus, philosophy has traditionally defined knowledge as justified true belief. Biography Early life Birth and family Plato was born in Athens Greece The Theætetus ( Greek: Θεαίτητος is one of Plato 's dialogues concerning the nature of knowledge. The relationship between belief and knowledge is that a belief is knowledge if the belief is true, and if the believer has a justification (reasonable and necessarily plausible assertions/evidence/guidance) for believing it is true.

A false belief is not considered to be knowledge, even if it is sincere. A sincere believer in the flat earth theory does not know that the Earth is flat. The idea of a flat Earth is the idea that the surface of the Earth is flat (a plane) rather than the view that it is a very close approximation of Similarly, a truth that nobody believes is not knowledge, because in order to be knowledge, there must be some person who knows it.

Later epistemologists have questioned the "justified true belief" definition, and some philosophers have questioned whether "belief" is a useful notion at all.

Belief as a psychological theory

Mainstream psychology and related disciplines have traditionally treated belief as if it were the simplest form of mental representation and therefore one of the building blocks of conscious thought. Psychology (from Greek grc ψῡχή psȳkhē, "breath life soul" and grc -λογία -logia) is an Academic and Philosophers have tended to be more rigorous in their analysis and much of the work examining the viability of the belief concept stems from philosophical analysis.

The concept of belief presumes a subject (the believer) and an object of belief (the proposition). So like other propositional attitudes, belief implies the existence of mental states and intentionality, both of which are hotly debated topics in the philosophy of mind and whose foundations and relation to brain states are still controversial. A propositional attitude is a relational mental state connecting a person to a Proposition. The term intentionality is often simplistically summarised as "aboutness" Philosophy of mind is the branch of Philosophy that studies the nature of the Mind, Mental events Mental functions mental properties

Beliefs are sometimes divided into core beliefs (those which you may be actively thinking about) and dispositional beliefs (those which you may ascribe to but have never previously thought about). In philosophy the term dispositional belief refers to a Belief that is not currently being considered by the mind but is stored in memory of other concepts and will be recalled For example, if asked 'do you believe tigers wear pink pajamas ?' a person might answer that they do not, despite the fact they may never have thought about this situation before. ^[1]

That a belief is a mental state has been seen, by some, as contentious. While some philosophers have argued that beliefs are represented in the mind as sentence-like constructs others have gone as far as arguing that there is no consistent or coherent mental representation that underlies our common use of the belief concept and is therefore obsolete and should be rejected. Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language

This has important implications for understanding the neuropsychology and neuroscience of belief. Neuropsychology is the applied scientific discipline that studies the structure and function of the Brain related to specific psychological processes and overt behaviors Neuroscience is a field devoted to the scientific study of the nervous system If the concept of belief is incoherent or ultimately indefensible then any attempt to find the underlying neural processes which support it will fail. If the concept of belief does turn out to be useful, then this goal should (in principle) be achievable.

Philosopher Lynne Rudder Baker has outlined four main contemporary approaches to belief in her book Saving Belief:

• Our common-sense understanding of belief is correct - Sometimes called the ‘mental sentence theory’, in this conception, beliefs exist as coherent entities and the way we talk about them in everyday life is a valid basis for scientific endeavour. Jerry Fodor is one of the principal defenders of this point of view. Jerry Alan Fodor (born 1935 in New York City, New York) is an American philosopher and cognitive scientist.
• Our common-sense understanding of belief may not be entirely correct, but it is close enough to make some useful predictions - This view argues that we will eventually reject the idea of belief as we use it now, but that there may be a correlation between what we take to be a belief when someone says 'I believe that snow is white' and however a future theory of psychology will explain this behaviour. Most notably philosopher Stephen Stich has argued for this particular understanding of belief. Stephen Stich (born May 9, 1943) is a professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University.
• Our common-sense understanding of belief is entirely wrong and will be completely superseded by a radically different theory which will have no use for the concept of belief as we know it - Known as eliminativism, this view, (most notably proposed by Paul and Patricia Churchland), argues that the concept of belief is like obsolete theories of times past such as the four humours theory of medicine, or the phlogiston theory of combustion. Eliminative materialism (also called eliminativism) is a materialist position in the Philosophy of mind. Paul Churchland is a philosopher noted for his studies in Neurophilosophy and the Philosophy of mind. Patricia Smith Churchland (born July 16, 1943 in Oliver British Columbia, Canada) is a Canadian-American Philosopher working at the Humorism, or humoralism, was a theory of the makeup and workings of the human body adopted by Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers The phlogiston theory (from the Ancient Greek φλογιστόν phlŏgistón "burning up" from φλόξ phlóx "fire" first stated In these cases science hasn’t provided us with a more detailed account of these theories, but completely rejected them as valid scientific concepts to be replaced by entirely different accounts. The Churchlands argue that our common-sense concept of belief is similar, in that as we discover more about neuroscience and the brain, the inevitable conclusion will be to reject the belief hypothesis in its entirety.
• Our common-sense understanding of belief is entirely wrong, however treating people, animals and even computers as if they had beliefs, is often a successful strategy - The major proponents of this view, Daniel Dennett and Lynne Rudder Baker, are both eliminativists in that they believe that beliefs are not a scientifically valid concept, but they don’t go as far as rejecting the concept of belief as a predictive device. Daniel Clement Dennett (born March 28 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts) is a prominent American philosopher whose research Eliminative materialism (also called eliminativism) is a materialist position in the Philosophy of mind. Dennett gives the example of playing a computer at chess. While few people would agree that the computer held beliefs, treating the computer as if it did (e. g. that the computer believes that taking the opposition’s queen will give it a considerable advantage) is likely to be a successful and predictive strategy. In this understanding of belief, named by Dennett the intentional stance, belief based explanations of mind and behaviour are at a different level of explanation and are not reducible to those based on fundamental neuroscience although both may be explanatory at their own level. The intentional stance is a theory of mental content proposed by Daniel C

Is belief voluntary?

Most philosophers hold the view that belief formation is to some extent spontaneous and involuntary. Some think that one can freely investigate and research a topic, however, one cannot choose to believe something because the belief system either "makes sense" or it "does not make sense. " Many people only accept information supporting narrow specific beliefs, rather than a more challenging broad study of evidence across cultures. Human imagination may well be the true catalyst for creating, modification and perpetuation of belief. In some cases people deny things especially about matters in which they are emotionally involved. Belief, as a component of the human mind, becomes speculation when assumptions cannot be logically reconciled to the external world. It is technically impossible for all variations of world belief to be simultaneously true. The mutually exclusive phenomena of belief variation clearly demonstrates diverging human imagination which exists in various minds. From an individual and/or group viewpoint, a preferred belief is usually strongly imagined to be “true,” fostering the survival or modification of very specific perspectives. Hope for a world different or better than the present world allows some people to hold contradictory information in their mind (dualism) as valid. People often believe what they wish to be true and may stand in direct opposition to their direct experience. Belief is often mandatory for group affiliation.

Delusional beliefs

Delusions are defined as beliefs in psychiatric diagnostic criteria (for example in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). A delusion is commonly defined as a fixed False Belief and is used in everyday language to describe a belief that is either false fanciful or derived from Deception Psychiatry is a medical specialty which exists to study, prevent, and treat Mental disorders in Humans Psychiatric The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders' ( DSM) is published by the American Psychiatric Association Psychiatrist and historian G. E. Berrios has challenged the view that delusions are genuine beliefs and instead labels them as "empty speech acts", where affected persons are motivated to express false or bizarre belief statements due to an underlying psychological disturbance. German E Berrios is a Professor of Psychiatry (emeritus at Cambridge University in the UK However, the majority of mental health professionals and researchers treat delusions as if they were genuine beliefs.

Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and a number of other critics of religion have proposed the idea that many (if not most) faith-based religious beliefs are actually delusional beliefs. Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL (born 26 March 1941 is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and Popular science Sam Harris (born 1967 is an American Non-fiction writer and Philosopher. A religion is a set of Tenets and practices often centered upon specific Supernatural and moral claims about Reality, the Cosmos Some critics of atheism disagree with this view of religious beliefs. John P. Koster (The Atheist Syndrome), R. C. Sproul (If There is a God Why are There Atheists), Ravi Zacharias (The Real Face of Atheism), Alister McGrath (The Twilight of Atheism), and Paul Vitz (The Psychology of Atheism) have all argued the contrary to one degree or another. Alister E McGrath (born January 23, 1953) is a Christian theologian, with a DPhil in Molecular biophysics, noted for his work on

In Lewis Carroll's Alice Through the Looking Glass, the White Queen says, "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (ˈdɒdsən (27 January 1832 &ndash 14 January 1898 better known by the Pen name Lewis Carroll (/ˈkærəl/ was an English Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There ( 1871) is a work of Children's literature by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson " This is often quoted in mockery of the common ability of people to entertain beliefs contrary to fact.

Limiting beliefs

The term limiting belief is used for a belief that inhibits exploration of a wider cognitive space than would otherwise be the case. Examples of limiting beliefs are seen both in animals and people. These may be strongly held beliefs, or held unconsciously, and are often tied in with self-image or perceptions about the world. A person's self image is the mental picture generally of a kind that is quite resistant to change that depicts not only details that are potentially available to objective In Psychology and the Cognitive sciences perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of sensory Information. Everyday examples of limiting beliefs:

• That one has specific capabilities, roles, or traits which cannot be escaped or changed.
• That one cannot succeed so there is no point committing to trying.
• That a particular opinion is right; therefore, there is no point considering other viewpoints.
• That a particular action or result is the only way to resolve a problem.

Spiritual

To believe something is to hold a thought or opinion based upon evidence or an experience admittedly not assumed to be common among all people. The existence of evidence that causes one to believe is often intangible and may or may not be based in fact.

The action of believing someone might be based upon history, trust, and experience that might not be readily available to everyone. Because each individual has the potential to experience life uniquely, it is necessary to develop the art of believing in order to relate to other people, places, or things. Without the ability to believe, it would be impossible to experience in any form a place you have never been. For example: just because we have never been to Mars doesn’t mean that most of us don’t believe that it is there.

• Believing is the action of sharing unique and personal experience; i. e. , this pie is great, you should try it.
• Believing is relating to someone or something outside of your self; i. e. , You say it was horribly cold outside? How awful!
• Believing is the development of relationships between you and a desired result; i. e. , "If I want to be president someday, I must study hard, make lots of friends, and hide all of the evidence. "
• Believing is the assumption or recognition of existing relationships, i. e, a relationship between a sailor and the sea.

Two control modifiers that accompany the concept of believing are “skeptic” and “gullible”. These two concepts are the “pipe and valve” of believing. To be completely gullible is to believe everything. To be completely skeptical is to believe nothing.

To believe something is to relate to it. Even with the use of skepticism it can be difficult to escape the influence of something. For example, before the first UFO sighting, there was no belief and no need to relate to the idea. Once exposed to the idea, if it is not instantly and totally dismissed it becomes part of your world through believing, even if controlled with skepticism.

Disbelieving something is still an expression of the believing action. Believing starts with the exposure to a concept or thing outside of your self. Sometimes such exposures can be painful, i. e. , the experience of great loss. The desire to not believe can be strong. The act of not believing is the effort to disassociate or to not relate.

All things are relative. Life is the process of relationship. Perhaps the reason faith (the practice of believing) is so important to religions is because believing is the method of relating to things out side of your self. Believing is a process of internalizing things that are outside.

Believing is assumed to be imperfect and therefore practiced by those seeking to relate to a concept or thing outside of themselves. Those that practice faith think that the process of believing will change their current condition to better match that thing in which they exercise their faith.

The practice of believing is the development of relationships, whether in a partnership, a deity, a science, or a thing. For example: the belief that man could fly was practiced by a select few. With a number of breakthroughs made by visionaries believing in the concept, the idea of Man flying has become a world wide success. Some still choose to believe with skepticism that God ever intended for Man to fly and choose to avoid it.

Notes

See also

Charm Cognitive dissonance Collective belief Conversational intolerance Culture-specific syndrome Delusion Doxastic logic Evil eye Expectation Faith Folk psychology

Gettier problem Idea Life stance Moore's paradox Nocebo Observer-expectancy effect Placebo Propositional attitude Propositional knowledge Psychosomatic illness Religion

Self-deception Spell (paranormal) Spirituality Subject-expectancy effect Sugar pill Suggestibility Suggestion Subjective validation Truth Thomas theorem Ultimate importance Unintended consequence

External links

• Belief entry at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy by Eric Schwitzgebel
• Beliefnet - Belief-o-matic
• Compare Different Beliefs Information on different religions/beliefs
• Beliefs and Practices Belief refers to a part of a wider Spirituality
• Think without Beliefs Does rational thinking require the adherence to beliefs at all?
• Religious Beliefs Submit a belief and read about others' thoughts. In Psychology, cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling or stress caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously A collective belief is referred to when people speak of what 'we' believe when this is not simply elliptical for what 'we all' believe Sam Harris (born 1967 is an American Non-fiction writer and Philosopher. In Medicine and Medical anthropology, a culture-specific syndrome or culture-bound syndrome is a combination of psychiatric and somatic Symptoms A delusion is commonly defined as a fixed False Belief and is used in everyday language to describe a belief that is either false fanciful or derived from Deception Doxastic logic is a Modal logic that is concerned with Reasoning about Beliefs The term doxastic is derived from the Ancient Greek The evil eye is a belief that the Envy elicited by the good Luck of fortunate people may result in their misfortune In the case of Uncertainty, expectation is what is considered the most likely to happen Faith is a Belief in the trustworthiness of an Idea. Formal usage of the word "faith" is usually reserved for concepts of Religion, as in Folk psychology (also known as common sense psychology naϊve psychology or vernacular psychology is a set of assumptions constructs and convictions about everyday behaviors of ourselves and others The Gettier problem is considered a problem in modern Epistemology issuing from counter-examples to the definition of knowledge as justified true belief (JTB An idea is a form (such as a Thought) formed by Consciousness (including Mind) through the Process of ideation. Life stance or lifestance refers to a person's relation with what he or she accepts as of Ultimate importance, the presuppositions and theory of this and the commitments G E Moore remarked once in a lecture on the absurdity involved in saying something like "It's raining outside but I don't believe that it is In its original application " nocebo " had a very specific meaning in the medical domains of Pharmacology, and Nosology, and Etiology. The observer-expectancy effect (also called the experimenter-expectancy effect, observer effect, or experimenter effect) is a form of reactivity Placebo is a substance or procedure a patient accepts as medicine or therapy but which has no specific therapeutic activity A propositional attitude is a relational mental state connecting a person to a Proposition. Descriptive knowledge, also declarative knowledge or propositional knowledge, is the species of Knowledge that is by its very nature expressed in Psychosomatic medicine is an interdisciplinary medical field studying psychosomatic illness, now more commonly referred to as psychophysiologic illness or disorder A religion is a set of Tenets and practices often centered upon specific Supernatural and moral claims about Reality, the Cosmos Self-deception is a process of denying or rationalizing away the relevance significance or importance of opposing Evidence and Logical argument Magic, sometimes known as sorcery, is a Conceptual system that asserts human ability to control the natural world (including events objects people and Spirituality, in a narrow sense concerns itself with matters of the Spirit, a concept closely tied to religious belief and Faith, a transcendent reality The Subject-expectancy effect, is a form of reactivity that occurs in Scientific experiment or Medical treatment when a Research subject Placebo is a substance or procedure a patient accepts as medicine or therapy but which has no specific therapeutic activity People are deemed to be suggestible if they accept and act on suggestions by others Suggestion is the name given to the psychological process by which one person may guide the thoughts feelings or behaviour of another Subjective validation, sometimes called personal validation effect, is a Cognitive bias by which a person will consider a statement or another piece of information The meaning of the word truth extends from Honesty, Good faith, and Sincerity in general to agreement with Fact or Reality The Thomas theorem is a theory of sociology which was formulated by W Intrinsic value is an ethical and philosophic property. It is the ethical or Philosophic value that an object has "in itself" or "for its Unintended consequences are outcomes that are not (or not limited to what the actor intended in a particular situation The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP is a freely-accessible Online encyclopedia of Philosophy maintained by Stanford University.
• Ethics of Belief Classic WK Clifford essay that belief by its nature is unethical, with counterpoint by William James

© 2009 citizendia.org; parts available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License, from http://en.wikipedia.org
Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic