With agreement here, do you think there is a serious problem in saying that belief in P means a willingness to assent to P?

By this definition belief would imply that the statements "I believe" and "I know" are the equivalent of each other, but they are plainly not equal statements.

But "I know" is not only the willingness to assent to p. In addition to belief (or the willingness to assent) two other conditions are also necessary for knowledge: a. adequate justification, and b. truth. So "I know" and "I believe" are not equivalent. If you know that p, then you believe that p, but if you believe that p, then it does not follow that you also know that p. (Just as, although if X is an apple, the X is a fruit; it is not true that if X is a fruit, then X is an apple. So, if X is an apple, then X is a fruit, but if X is a fruit, it does not follow that X in an apple. Thus, "I have an apple" ins not equivalent to, "I have a fruit).

I understand what you are saying, and I acknowledge that there is a difference between "know" and "believe". I am specifically referring to the statements "I know" and "I believe".

By our definition, someone who says "I believe" is also implying that they have justification and accept the content as being true. If the person were to say "I know" they are implying that they have justification and accept the content to be true.

For example:

To say "I believe Bob is in the house" I am implying that I have and accept justification to the proposition Bob is in the house.

Why would I not just say "I know Bob is in the house"?

By my estimation and the necessities placed on the statement "I believe Bob is in the house" I would supposedly satisfy all the requirements to also say "I know Bob is in the house". Yet, it is plain that I can differentiate between between the statements based on the degree of skepticism I have for my own beliefs.


Because of this, I would say that

I believe P if I would sincerely assent to the truth of P

is certainly false.


We can weaken it to:

I believe P if I would sincerely assent to the likelihood of the truth of P.


Where did nerdfiles go?

It should be clear that some instances of "I believe that such-and-such is the case" is itself a misleading linguistic sample of "belief-that" utterance.

It's not always cases that are believed, but nor is it just the opposite ("belief in"). "I believe that you are pretty" or "I believe that the film was a decent one" etc. Sometimes these utterances may involve relations between this or that ("Beauty" and "persons"), properties and other properties ("redness" and "warmth"), etc--not really cases. Nevertheless, these are still valid examples of belief but they're not entirely just opinion. Even then, opinions can be justified and may in some cases tend to truth.

"I believe that Bob is outside" does not imply justification nor does it imply truth. It's closer to a bet or a guess but a shade stronger than these. Plus, there's a reason behind it, though that reason may not manifest linguistic or cognitively. It may be a faint recalling or it may just be strange to suppose that one ought to justify herself when she utters it.

By our conventional use of these verbs, we do not expect justification from those who say they believe, but do when they say they believe. Remember: Linguistic practice is social. These necessary and sufficient conditions we're playing with are rough and loose approximations of what people mean when they say what they say, and what the underlying approximated concepts they work with.

It should be clear that some instances of "I believe that such-and-such is the case" is itself a misleading linguistic sample of "belief-that" utterance.

It's not always cases that are believed, but nor is it just the opposite ("belief in"). "I believe that you are pretty" or "I believe that the film was a decent one" etc. Sometimes these utterances may involve relations between this or that ("Beauty" and "persons"), properties and other properties ("redness" and "warmth"), etc--not really cases. Nevertheless, these are still valid examples of belief but they're not entirely just opinion. Even then, opinions can be justified and may in some cases tend to truth.

"I believe that Bob is outside" does not imply justification nor does it imply truth. It's closer to a bet or a guess but a shade stronger than these. Plus, there's a reason behind it, though that reason may not manifest linguistic or cognitively. It may be a faint recalling or it may just be strange to suppose that one ought to justify herself when she utters it.

By our conventional use of these verbs, we do not expect justification from those who say they believe, but do when they say they believe. Remember: Linguistic practice is social. These necessary and sufficient conditions we're playing with are rough and loose approximations of what people mean when they say what they say, and what the underlying approximated concepts they work with.

C.S. Peirce held that to believe a proposition is to be willing to use that proposition in an argument. Another, somewhat different notion is that to believe that p is to accept p as true.

So perhaps,

X believes P iff X would sincerely assent to P

A tricky case

So, a lawyer might justify that the defendant committed the murder, and it might be truth that the defendant committed the murder. But if the lawyer does not believe it, then the lawyer does not know it.

But one would think: If the lawyer can stand up in front of a jury, judge, etc, she certainly must know it. This example is supposed to test our definition of knowledge given (by me).

Try to think of ways in which the definition of knowledge survives this test.

Please note that I am not dealing in any way with specifics. I am not saying "Well this time, the person didn't really believe" or "this time the person would be using an ambiguous use of the word 'believe'".

I am dealing specifically with the working definition so far.

So far we have had these proposed:





Both of these imply truth, although the latter is graciously lenient on just how much truth. I take it as fact that, while truth itself may need no justification, human interpretation of truth does always need justification. So anytime a person proclaims the truth, he does so meaningfully only when he is prepared to provide justification.

So it seems that we now say:

X believes P if X would sincerely assent to the likelihood of P

I deny that she certainly must know it.

thinkable [/I](as opposed to, say, "X thinks that P"--thinkable seems to presuppose vaguely a normative constraint).
Thus, we cannot believe contradictions.

So, S believes that P only if "P" is thinkable; by contraposition: If P is not thinkable, then S does not believe that P.

A religious person may believe that there is the Holy Trinity, but might admit that he does not have any idea how one thing can also be three things. But he believes it because his Church tells him it is true. So, here is a case where something is not thinkable, but it is believed, nevertheless.

"Truth doesn't need justification"? Maybe in Plato's Heaven, but let's talk about less fanciful business. (And even then, he wrote mounds of literature attempting to justify his claim... So I can hardly make sense of what you mean or what you could try to mean. And certainly capitalizing the "T" does not show that "Truth" exists or is worth talking about as different from everyday lowercase-human-truth. If you start going on with this "Truth doesn't need justification business, I'll start to mistake you for user: MJA. You don't want that, do you?)

Being prepared to provide justification does not determine that one is speaking or expressing himself meaningfully. If I utter "The cat is the number 4 every Monday at 9'o clock" I cannot be granted that I speak meaningfully on account of my willingness to justify such a claim. And I certainly cannot say its true. It's senseless, this statement; it is devoid of meaning. Meaning comes before knowledge, justification, truth, belief, etc.

Contradictions are meaningless. This determinations comes before knowing them, justifying them, them being true (obviously absurd) or believing them. You can know that a contradiction is a contradiction. But you cannot know that P and ~P. For one, its false. And you cannot know a false proposition; though you can know that it is false.

Assent nor willingness to use in argument does not imply truth unless you're working with a funny notion of implication.

S knows P implies that P is true. By contraposition, if P is false, S does not know P. (Like with contradictions.)

S assents to P implies that P is true. By contraposition, if P is false, S does not assent to P. Obviously this is absurd. People assent to false propositions all the time; e.g. pertaining to witches, God, aliens, conspiracy theories, astrology, etc.

S uses P in argument implies P is true. By contraposition, if P is false, S does not use P in argument. Again, people use false premises in arguments all the time. If you mere use of a statement in argument determined its truth-value, we'd eventually all start speaking tautologies.

You give up so easily. If someone says "I cannot think that a square circle exists, but I believe that they do" would you give up so easily? Or would you say that's a case of meaningless believing?

In what sense is it being believed? This case and the "religious" case?

Are you saying a necessary condition for belief is that it be acquired through some social means?

And your argument for this denial? "Try and think" means a bit more than "what's your guttural reaction?"

It's obviously not a yes-or-no question. I'm not sure why you would presume this in word or deed.

No. I am simply pointing out that someone may believe something he cannot understand on the authority of someone whom he believes has the authority to to inform him of what it true. So, the person in my example is someone who says, "I don't understand what it means for something to be three in one, but if my priest tells me that is true, then I believe it is true". The sense of "belief" is the usual sense": "accepted as true".

You give up so easily. If someone says "I cannot think that a square circle exists, but I believe that they do" would you give up so easily? Or would you say that's a case of meaningless believing?

In what sense is it being believed? This case and the "religious" case?

Are you saying a necessary condition for belief is that it be acquired through some social means?

(1) S believes P only if S acquires P through some particular social means.

Seems harmless and unhelpful this (1). Seems that we all get our "beliefs" through some form of inculturation. Nothing surprising here. But is believing in your religious case even related to propositional-belief? Do you find yourself saying "He still believes Y because his community would ostracize him for it"?

Well, if that's the case, you haven't refuted my definition. You've only delved into a definition of belief ("belief in" for instance) that I never set out to attack in the first place.

I made this clear: Propositional-belief. Whether or not spinning circles in church is "believing in action" is not my concern here. All you've suggested to me is that religious people say they belief but don't actually believe.

Do we want to suggest that saying one believes such-and-such is believing such-and-such?

Do we want to drift into language games? "Believing" and "belief that such-and-such is the case" or "opining" are family resemblance terms?

Contrasting the completeness of God with the incompleteness of human knowledge, the perfection of God with the fallibility of humans, is universal amongst Abrahamic religions.

I do not follow.