he Concepts of Belief Essay Sample
Over the old ages. philosophers have tried to cope with the constructs of belief. certainty and cognition. Despite legion controversial claims and statements that come from both sides. we have yet to come upon a general consensus. However. the contention here is that belief can lend to all countries of cognition. Even though belief can be associated with all countries of cognition. it is a complex construct that exists in different grades and stipulations. Therefore non all sorts of beliefs can lend to knowledge as there are certain restrictions we need to be cognizant of. Just as how kids believe in Santa Claus. tooth faeries and Easter bunnies. a groundless belief is one that can non lend to any countries of cognition because it does non needfully necessitate any epistemological logic or logical thinking. One merely needs to believe something to be true based on about any signifier of justification or none at all as Jean-Paul Sartre one time said. “I confused things with their names: that is belief. ”
World War II. the Crusades and the 9/11 are glowering illustrations of the monstrous atrociousnesss that can be committed when one believes in something without any moral common sense. This is of class. non an onslaught on faith. but instead the reading of faith. Peoples are susceptible to credulousness when it comes to believing the extremist instructions of another individual as they don’t take the enterprise to inquiry and analyze the justifications to these instructions. And as societal animate beings. we have ever held belief to a certain grade and the unsafe thing about belief is that it can overmaster one’s ability to ground to an extent that even in the face of contrary grounds. he will go on to believe it. Although a belief supported by scientific grounds represents a benign signifier of belief. it besides acts as a barrier toward farther understanding [ 1 ] . For ages. scientists and philosophers have held onto beliefs that hindered them to come on beyond their finds and innovations. And so. we can see that one can achieve all kinds of cognition. but non through superficial or stiff beliefs.
For illustration. ( 1 ) Joe believes in X ( 2 ) Ten is true ( 3 ) Joe has good grounds to believe in X. If the first is absent. Joe should believe in X because it is true. if the 2nd is false. so Joe has an erroneous belief. and if the 3rd is absent. Joe has made a lucky conjecture instead than cognizing something [ 2 ] . And so. belief can merely lend to knowledge merely when all three conditions exist. Now. being certain about what can non be seen is in itself controversial as it triggers huge spectrum of guesss by skeptics. But contrary to the celebrated stating that that “seeing is believing” . it is possible to get dependable and sensible information that contribute to certain countries of cognition through non-empirical agencies.
Knowledge. defined as justified true belief [ 3 ] . can be attained though different ways of cognizing such as through linguistic communication. perceptual experience. ground and emotion. Now. this begs the inquiry. how can one even be certain of something that can non be seen and what more believe it? This subjectiveness falls under examination but there are ways of explicating why “faith without sight” can be obtained through some ( non all ) ways of cognizing. peculiarly through linguistic communication and ground. Language is the primary manner of which we get cognition about the universe itself. By pass oning with one another. we are therefore able to emerge from the small domains of our personal lives and tap into the corporate experience of the community and this makes possible an “intellectual division of labour” which is a cardinal factor of our endurance and success as a species. For case. when a topic reads a newspaper article about a robbery in the country. though he did non see it go on before his really ain eyes. he can believe it based on obvious grounds. After that. he receives a call from a relation who claims to be the victim of the same robbery. and after which. he becomes perfectly certain of the incident.
This is a sensible belief and we can therefore conclude that he has now attained cognition. This account can besides be illustrated utilizing the instruction system itself. Every twenty-four hours. pupils go through the same mundane activities in school ; they sit in schoolrooms and listen to endless talks that range from the scientific disciplines to humanistic disciplines. Do they oppugn the teacher’s cognition of which is imparted to them and take a firm stand that the instructor provide significant grounds to the dependability of the beginning of their information? Most frequently non. as this would be instead pathetic. Though we should non abandon the speculative head. we can’t anticipate our instructors to take us to the vents to believe that volcanic eruptions are existent nor can we anticipate to be taken back in clip to witness the Civil War to believe that it happened.
One can besides achieve cognition through ground. In our day-to-day lives. we are invariably utilizing ground to derive a deeper penetration into the immediate grounds of our senses. Reason is a powerful beginning of cognition as it gives us certainty about what can non be seen and is rationalism’s cardinal doctrine of life. To be able to ground based on a logical and rational premiss is important to geting at a decision that serves its intent of increasing our cognition. Positivists like Rene Descartes are peculiarly impressed with countries of cognition such as logic and mathematics. which seem to be both certain and utile [ 4 ] and claim that ground provides belief of a high epistemological position. therefore being able to develop subjectively comprehensive signifiers of cognition in certain countries such as in scientific discipline. mathematics and even faith. It should be clear to us that religion is non a belief without grounds. but instead a determination to think as true something that is non seeable. For case. most faiths. even Agnosticism ( except for Atheism and Scientology ) believe in an unobserved deity and claim that religion is non a surrender in position of our restrictions to knowledge nor a retreat into the irrational. but instead an act of avowal [ 5 ] . and hence encompassing the thought that the universe itself was designed by a Designer and did non randomly appear out of nowhere.
They believe that this proposition is based on ground which contributes to the development of cognition about the natural universe. We may utilize deductive logical thinking. which moves from the general to the peculiar. to explicate the logic behind this. Syllogisms. which consist of two premises and a decision. three footings and quantifiers. enable us to organize the construction of this concluding method. For illustration. Every physical thing in the existence that exists has an beginning and a originative design/ God is a preexistent Creator/Therefore. when we trace all the manner back. every physical thing that exists comes from God. Thus. the fact that the human head is able to derive cognition based on its cognitive ability to ground without any centripetal grounds whatsoever embodies the kernel of rationalism – that there are alternate methods to deriving cognition that are independent of centripetal experience.
However. the chief difference here is that empiricists argue that cognition comes merely or chiefly from centripetal experience [ 6 ] and insist that cognition can merely be attained through our five senses ; sight. sound. touch. gustatory sensation and odor. Extremist empiricists like John Stuart Mill would postulate that there are no a priori truths at all — even what we have been naming analytic truths are truly merely empirical truths [ 7 ] and Robert A. Wilson has one time remarked: “Don’t believe anything. Regard things on a graduated table of chances. The things that seem most absurd. put under ‘Low Probability’ . and the things that seem most plausible. you put under ‘High Probability’ . Never believe anything. Once you believe anything. you stop believing about it. ” Empiricism besides argues that concluding may take to informal false beliefs which could potentially impact one’s manner of concluding and renders ground as an uneffective and blemished manner of cognizing. For illustration. in deductive logical thinking. there is the danger of holding a belief prejudice as we have the inclination to believe that an statement is valid merely because we agree with the decision [ 8 ] . and we tend to do headlong generalisations made worse by a phenomenon known as verification prejudice [ 9 ] . significance that one ignores the grounds that goes against their claim and merely attends to the 1s that support it.
For case. a individual who has biass against Mexicans may presume that all Mexicans carry out drug-affiliated activities despite holding a Mexican schoolmate in his school. Besides this. there is the inquiry of the dependability of linguistic communication as a manner of cognizing as it can be manipulated and is prone to inaccuracy and false histories. Relativism besides comes into drama when we try to formalize our position that truth is justified true belief as relativism claims that “all truth is relative” and what is true for person could be false for person else [ 10 ] .
However. despite certain restrictions of linguistic communication. we can still derive of import information with a good balance between taking cognition by authorization and trusting on our ain resources. And if “all truth is relative” . so the statement itself can merely be comparatively true. how can we so base any signifier of logical and systematic manner of cognizing on an uncorroborated and flawed construct? Besides. empiricist philosophy is a doctrine marred by its incoherency and contradictions. In the instance of faith. atheists ( who worship empiricist philosophy ) define religion as “belief without evidence” and bound grounds to that which can merely be tested through empirical scientific discipline and admit it as the lone true manner to knowledge and understanding. The sarcasm here is that atheists have a strong religion in the lower status of religion itself. and since the construct of empiricist philosophy – that empirical scientific discipline is the lone manner of cognizing – is non the merchandise of any scientific experiment. it is hence a religion in itself.
A belief that is immune to doubt may be witting or unconsciously manifested and it is a many-sided construct that can be interpreted in different ways. but we can non deny the fact that a sensible and substantiated belief can be attributed to all countries of cognition. Though there is a demand to be careful with what we believe in. presents. with schools. books and the turning influence of mass media. people rely on linguistic communication and ground to derive epistemological cognition without any physical cogent evidence as it is embedded in a coherent system of beliefs. Therefore. belief is a mental representation of the universe and can be attributed to all countries of cognition ; it is merely a affair of how we choose to utilize it in our attempts to derive a deeper apprehension of the universe in which we live in.
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[ 1 ] Jim Walker. The Problem with Beliefs
[ 2 ] Austin Cline. What is Belief?
[ 3 ] Richard Lagemaat. Theory of Knowledge for the IB Diploma. page 24 [ 4 ] Richard new wave de Lagemaat. Theory of Knowledge for the IB Diploma. page 112 [ 5 ] Pope Benedict XVI
[ 6 ] Richard new wave de Lagemaat. Thoery of Knowledge for the IB Diploma. page 86 [ 7 ] Chapter 4: Reason. www2. drury. edu/cpanza/reason3. hypertext markup language
[ 8 ] Richard Lagemaat. Theory of Knowledge for the IB Diploma. page 116 [ 9 ] Richard Lagemaat. Theory of Knowledge for the IB Diploma. page 121 [ 10 ] Richard Lagemaat. Theory of Knowledge for the IB Diploma. page 10
