Belief
In its direction more running, belief is a term which applies to the adoption, by a being conscious, of a vision of the world which is not provided by the experiment or science, but by the exchanges between various individuals or various dogmatic texts. Thus, belief is the attitude of the spirit which affirms, according to more or less large degrees of possibility, the truth or the reality of a thing, without being able to provide proof, nor that it is possible to be able to provide the proof of its falseness.
For example, reincarnation is one belief, because nobody can say anything about his existence. There are those which think that it exists, those which think that it does not exist, and those which do not have an opinion. No data of the experiment can modify these attitudes.
Synopsis |
Feel general
If one can distinguish the use of the term easily belief to indicate the attitude with respect to a divinity for example, of one belief relative to a fact of the everyday life (for example: "I believe that the weather will be nice tomorrow", "I do not believe that the dolphins are fish"), a thorough research carries out to the conclusion that there is no clear border between these two meanings. The phenomenon of Belief can thus be treated as a whole, but also specifically for Beliefs, relative to large the myths, and for Belief like psychological mechanism governing the apprehension of reality by the individual.
Belief and science
The characteristic of one belief is that it "is not tested" by the individual who adheres to it, because it is of start considered true and in adequacy with ultimate reality. science, on the other hand, is built on the experiment, the respect of scientific method, and a unit thanks to a connection and with a permanent confrontation of its elements constitutes. science gives concerned its contents constantly and maintains a coherent network knowledge. The scientific theories are thus constituted by a mechanism completely opposed to beliefs. Science can be opposed radically to such or such particular belief, as it did for example by showing that the ground turned around the sun, whereas the belief in progress said the reverse.
But generally, science does nothing but move back the field of application of beliefs. It does not affirm anything of what it did not connait, and does not claim all to explain. For example scientific vision of the universe is in contradiction with some beliefs locating the creation of the world only a few thousands of years ago, but does not give any point of view on what is beyond the scenario that it proposes, nor even on what "au beyond" means. It thus leaves the field open to an infinity of beliefs .
Beliefs autoréalisatrices
There is cases where one belief induced the realization of prophecies which result from it. That can be observed for example in period of international tensions, when information concerning the shortage to come from such or such consumer goods circulates. Even if there is not a real risk of shortage, for example out of sugar, the massive provisioning of the population creates a real sugar shortage. That can be also observed with superstitious individuals, if a sign malefic destabilizes the person suffisament and makes him adopt a behavior at the risks.
Beliefs
Beliefs and religions
The religions are built on a whole of beliefs, and function thanks to dogmas, or with to which believing adhere. believing is then that which has faith, i.e. is located in a state of considered and active adhesion at the fundamental elements of its religion. beliefs fundamental vary according to religions'. According to , belief in one heart immaterial and remaining after died is at the origin of all the religions, and thus constitutes the paramount element. In the same way, Paul Diel present in The Divinity a logical sequence, under the angle psychalytic, connecting the animism to the monotheism, with metaphysical fear like principal engine. The anguish of death would be thus at the base of belief in a divinity. paleoanthropology locate the appearance of funerary rites in the companies dice - 300 000 years by marks of ritual around deaths, then with more detail with burials as of - 100 000 years. The concepts d`heart and d`beyond would thus have been born in this interval.
beliefs relative to myths, legends and is then secondary beliefs on which the specific doctrines of each religion are built, whose observation by the individuals conditions their fate in beyond. According to D' Holbach, only the fear caused by the imaginary powers is responsible for the religious attitude. The share of each one of these divine beliefs, heart, myths, beings, varies according to religions'. For example, it Taoism and it Buddhism do not require a belief in one or more , whereas in the religions , the belief as a God is the paramount element. In all the cases, however, belief that the conformation of the individual to the order of the things revealed by the myths, or to the divine revelations, conditions what it occurs of the heart after death, the base of the operation of the religion and the application of its dogmas constitutes.
atheism is the attitude which excludes the belief in the existence from any divinity.
Beliefs and superstitions
superstition is an attitude utilizing belief whether some practise or remarked are in connection with a certain course of the future, without no explanation of cause for purpose being given. The superstitious individual will leave a part if the number of the individuals who are there forms part of a list of numbers which, according to its beliefs, carry misfortune.
However, certain superstitions can rise from real dangers, and contribute to avoid them. Thus, an aspect malefic and mysterious can be allotted to inhospitable mountains, or dangerous rivers, because from the individuals did not return from there without one knowing the exact circumstances of their disappearance. This type of superstition tends to disappear with the reduction from unexplored spaces, but was still frequent in France with the XIX° century, for example with respect to canyons.
Evolution of the beliefs
In the line of its formulation of Darwinism, based on autonomous operation réplicateurs (them genes in biology), the biologist Richard Dawkins the assumption emitted, in 1976, that ideas or behaviors could follow the laws of Theory of the evolution. In this design, réplicateurs, called mèmes, are units of information which pass from one individual to the other by the discussion and the imitation. beliefs would be thus subjected to the principles of the natural selection and would evolve/move in a more or less autonomous way. Mémétique is the study of these phenomena.
Beliefs and Dissonance cognitive
The beliefs held a great importance in experimental psychology and in particular in work being in the line of those of Festinger on Cognitive Dissonance. In this design, any information forming part of a whole of beliefs connected between them and shared by a community, like are for example the various elements of belief of a religion, are subjected to the principles of the cognitive dissonance, like any new cognitive element submitted to an individual having these beliefs. That involves various consequences:
- a situation of discomfort of any individual perceiving the disapproval of the other members of his community on its opinions,
- great possibilities of erroneous perception or bad interpretation of information, when they involve a dissonance with the beliefs of an individual and that those are not modified by this information,
- a great dependence with the rules of the cognitive dissonance of all the detached of reality and nonverifiable cognitive elements, such as for example the existence of the heart or of spirits.
Belief
Belief and reality
Without exception, good liking, badly liking, all, we believed has or in something. The term " to believe "is one of the terms most used in the world, and, with the statements of some, it would be this expression which prevails in go of the world. Admittedly, all at the same time we are conscious and unconscious, but what few human know, it is that permanently our brain induces us in the error or the illusion while presenting to our conscious a reality which coincides with what we let us wish to see, hear or listen. In all the decisions that us " let us believe "or more exactly than us" let us reason "to take according to our free-referee, the share of conscious is marginal.
Although most of the time belief that is to say associated mysticism or the religion, it forms constantly part of our reality daily personal and close friend, in each act and gesture of our life, in what seems most banal or pain-killer. doubt is the mechanism which, in each individual, calls into question the image that we have of reality. As it is tiresome to perpetually call all our knowledge into question, we act according to a more or less fine approach of reality according to needs'.
For example, to believe that the relief of an area is immutable is largely sufficient with the majority among us for the everyday life, whereas one geologist will have to consider the relief under a dynamic angle.
According to Ramsey, our actions are decided according to an estimate of their probabilities of success, it same estimated according to one degree of belief towards information which leads to this action. Thus, any information is likely of a gradual confidence, rather than of an adhesion or a categorical rejection by a given individual. Ramsey characterizes this concept thus: "the degree of a belief is a causal property of this belief, which we can express in a vague way as the extent to which we are ready to act on the base of this belief".
Beyond the decision of action, based on a whole of beliefs in the more or less raised degrees, Ramsey poses a principle of truth of each one of these beliefs, depend on the success of these actions. Principle of Ramsey (Dokic, Engel, 2001) can be stated as follows: The true beliefs are those which lead to succés of our actions some is the desire concerned. In this formulation, the concept of variation of the possibilities of application of the belief (as element of decision of action with respect to a desire) is crucial, because it forces to apply it Principle of Ramsey with a whole of situations (and not with a particular situation), in which a given belief will be implied in actions which one will be able to estimate success.
Quotations
- "One could characterize the religious thought thus: it is the belief which there is an order of invisible things ", W.James.
- "the right to the dream has for during the duty of vigilance", Henri Broch
See too
Bibliography
- Victor Brochard, Belief
- Gerald Bronner, Empire of the beliefs, PUF, 2003
- David Papineau [ 1 ], The roots of reason, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2003
- Frank Ramsey, Truth and probability, 1926, in Logic, philosophy and probabilities, Vrin, 2003
- Jérome Dokic, Pascal Engel, Ramsey: Truth and Success, PUF, 2001
- Richard Dawkins, The egoistic Gene, 1976.
- Paul Diel, The Divinity, psychoanalytical study, PUF, 1949
- Emmanuel Anati, The Religion of the Origins, Bayard Editions, 1999 (Original edition: Religione delle Origini, 1995)
- Leon Festinger, In Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, Stanford University Press, 1957
External bonds
| Theory of knowledge |
|
Concept · Conscience · Belief · Dialectical · Empiricism · Epistemology · Space · Imagination · Judgement · Language · Logic · Memory · Metaphysics · Thought · Phenomenology · Philosophy of the language · Cognitive psychology · Reason · Rationalism · Reality · Science · Cognitive sciences · Time · Truth |
</div>
