(May 30, 2015 at 7:42 pm)robvalue Wrote: Pyrrho: You're absolutely right. I call all such arguments rationalisations, a defence mechanism for a predawn conclusion. And since the conclusion doesn't depend on these arguments, rebutals don't mean anything to them.
I'd be far more interested in the real reasons people believe, but on the whole they seem reluctant to discuss them in detail. Could this be because they really don't know what the reason is, or that they are worried it will sound irrational?
I think most people don't know why they believe most of the things they believe. Try an experiment on yourself. What, exactly, are the reasons why you believe everything that you believe? Start easy. Why do you believe the world is approximately spherical?
Also, one's beliefs are not all in isolation of each other, but depend on each other in various ways. So questioning one belief may not lead to anything, because it may well be supported by other beliefs. Those other beliefs, of course, may not be reasonable, but it can be tricky trying to get at the web of beliefs and ask the right questions to expose its flaws. And obviously, it is you who do the questioning and thinking in your mind, not someone else, so you have to be asking the right questions to get your beliefs in order. So even if someone else asks the right questions and tells you the questions, if you are not thinking about them in the right way, it will be of little use.
Some things are so deeply engrained, it can be difficult for people to even imagine an alternative. This sort of thing comes up in various philosophical issues, like the idea of idealism or Hume's analysis of causation. Some people have a great deal of difficulty in even conceiving of such things. Of course, that is generally a necessary preliminary to being able to satisfactorily evaluate a claim, but it obviously isn't all there is to the matter. If one believes something and cannot even conceive of an alternative, there is something amiss with one's thinking. For any statement "p," for "p" to make sense, "not p" must also be intelligible.
Often times, it is helpful to examine other people for insights into one's own beliefs and ways of thinking. For example, many religionists of one type imagine that their feelings, and the feelings of others of their religion, somehow are relevant to the truth or falsehood of what they believe. But the problem with that becomes apparent when one looks at people of an alternative religion, and notices that they typically feel the same way about their own beliefs. Muslims and Christians, for example, often will report feeling in touch with the divine in some way or other, but the fact that both groups report this shows that it does not establish the truth of their respective religions, because they cannot both be right.
Sometimes, though, one can understand a problem with others through introspection for oneself. For example, when one imagines some Biblical character hearing the voice of God, it is useful to reflect how one would react to hearing an apparently disembodied voice. How would one know it is God, and not someone else pretending to be God? How would one know that one has not gone insane? And if one cannot answer such questions satisfactorily, then how could the Biblical character know it was God talking to him, instead of Satan or him being insane? And that is even assuming that the person is honest, as anyone could lie and say that God spoke to them. How would you be able to tell if God really spoke to the person or not?
I did not mean to digress as I have with this. For one's own thinking, if one can figure out what basis matters for a particular belief, what one really thinks supports the belief, then one can poke about with that and see if it is something 'solid' or not. Of course, one can always make a mistake, and so it is good to be willing to rethink things if it ever comes into question again. Anyway, I have rambled enough for the moment.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
