Rusting Car Bumper

Hi,

I want to ask opinions about the nature of the relationship between belief and argument.

We often say we believe things because of evidence and in accordance with reason. However, this, to me, doesn't seem entirely true. There are some things which I believe which seem to need to no argument to justify.

I believe that I have 10 fingers, for example, because of immediate sense experience, and memories. However, I don't go around constructing an argument or using reason really. This belief appears to be apparently true and seems to "bypass" (for lack of a better term) any need to argue it. It seems that most things I believe are of this kind.

If this is so this seems to have significant impact upon philosophical statements that purport some realationship between belief and reason.

Any comments?

DC

[ October 14, 2002: Message edited by: DigitalChicken ]</p>

JP2

Yeah, but the knowledge (or belief) that you have 10 fingers is still derived from evidence.

If all your prior memories and experiences had told you that you had 8 fingers, but then you look down one day and find ten, which are you going to believe? Your memories of your past or your present experience? This is where you'd require the ability to reason, and the ability to take stock of empirical evidence. However, even if you have never needed to second guess yourself this way, at some point in your life you would have been made conscious of the fact that you have 10 fingers and ten toes, I doubt that this knowledge was gained intuitively and seperately from reason and sensory experience.

However, I do agree that many people tend to accept things that they have learnt in the past without ever second guessing them, or asking why exactly they do hold that particular belief or belief system. It's only after this sort of reflection, I believe, that beliefs can properly be considered knowledge.

Rusting Car Bumper

I think you are missing the subtle point.

No logic is required for these types of beliefs or for the experience you suggest. I disagree that I would, "you'd require the ability to reason" if by reason you mean understand through an explicit argument.

Your example is somewhat odd because we generally don't have experiences where we suddenly are missing body parts. Usually these experiences are accompanied by things like operating heavy machinery before going from 10 to 8 fingers.

What I am trying to address is every day experiences.

If what you imply is true (i.e. that my belief is predicated on some logic) then it should also be true that one could (in principle) produce some argument that could convince me that I actually had 8 fingers in spite of the fact that I experience 10. I submit that you can produce no such argument because my belief in 10 fingers (and for that matter yours as well) is not predicated on logic at all.

Part of my point is that our everyday experience does not include such abstract arguments. It seems that these everyday experiences do not require logic to justify them.

My point is not about abstract belief systems or things I have "learnt." I have no abstract belief system or learning that tells me I have appendages that I may move around and that can manipulate things. It seems clear that there are deeply held beliefs we have about the world - usually immediate sensory things - that do not require logic to hold.

DC

John Page

You need to count your fingers as a reliable test, but you can believe you have as many fingers as you want.

Rusting Car Bumper

I'm suggesting otherwise.

I'm suggesting that I cannot make myself believe I have anything other than 10 fingers. I can lie about and go around and act as if I do but that's not the same as believing it.

DC

Keith Russell

digital:

Yes, a person can believe anything they want--but not if they wish to be rational.

If one has this many fingers:

* *
* *
* *
* *
* *

--a quantity which is identified by the word 'ten', (considering the thumb to be fingers), then one should only believe that one has ten fingers--no more and no less--

--provided that one is rational, of course.

Keith.

Rusting Car Bumper

This is not a question of semantics or this specific instance of counting. (I could have just as well said "any fingers.") For example, I gave an example of having appendages and waving them around. This has nothing to do with abstract numerics.

I still submit that I cannot (and you cannot) believe anything you want. If its true then you should be able to demonstrate that to me.

DC

[ October 15, 2002: Message edited by: DigitalChicken ]</p>

MadMordigan

DC:

I think the confusion in your example comes from the fact that you HAVE NO REASON to believe you have anything other than 10 fingers. How could one expect to use reason to show you that you have a false number of fingers?

In this case, the truth of the statement 'DC has 10 fingers' is confounding your attempt to show the limits and apllicability of reason.

Mickey

Digital Chicken

I think that the answer may be that reason and logic are fundamental to the operation of the mind/brain.You say that you did not need to apply logical and reasoned argument to come to the belief that you have ten fingers.But as a developing human you learned to distinguish yourself as an individual and to undersatnd discrete facts about yourself in a torrent of sensory activity.The very fundamentals of child development involve the operation of logic.Take object constancy.The conscious brain of a one year old has the ability to believe that objects exist even when they are out of sight,(behind dad's back).The child does not employ conscious argument but its brain has a belief upon which it acts when reaching for an out of sight objext.This belief is reinforced when the object is found,empirically tested belief;we call it knowledge.If we want to build a computer to do the same task,(develop object comstancy)we use logical systems.I suggest that much of the mundane "knowledge" we have at this sort of level is arrived at by the unconscious operation of logical systems.

Skepticos

Digital Chicken states:

"We often say we believe things because of evidence and in accordance with reason. However, this, to me, doesn't seem entirely true. There are some things which I believe which seem to need no argument to justify...I believe that I have 10 fingers, for example, because of immediate sense experience, and memories. However, I don't go around constructing an argument or using reason really."

I think it is important to define our terms here; this may remove ambiguity. How do you define "reason"? For me, reason is the process by which my beliefs and my experiences are brought into agreement. So, I simply perceive that I have ten fingers, and my belief reflects this. This is a function of reason. But, in other instances, I may have to put forth arguments and draw inferences in order to reach an agreement between my experiences and my beliefs. This, too, is a function of reason. Thus, there are many things that I believe, without recourse to argumentation or inference, which are rational. For example, that I have ten fingers.

- Skepticos