Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Totalitarianist · 02-21-2003, 10:16 AM

I would suggest reading The Ethics of Belief by William K. Clifford. (I managed to acquire a copy of this in a 40 dollar anthology of philosophical literature called Classics of Philosophy.) You should find a copy of it; very well written.

He concludes:

Quote:

We may believe what goes beyond our experience, only when it is inferred from that experience by the assumption that what we do not know is like what we know.

We may believe the statement of another person, when there is reasonable ground for supposing that he knows the matter of which he speaks, and that he is speaking the truth so far as he knows it.

It is wrong in all cases to believe on insufficient evidence; and where it is presumption to doubt and to investigate, there it is worse than presumption to believe.

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