Ordinary
But apart from that, direct phenomenal experience is the common primary standard for ordinary belief. Most of that belief, however, is secondary, in the sense that it's what we're told or otherwise informed about and have no reason to doubt. And then, beyond that, there are a large number of things that we ordinarily believe to some degree, but which are subject to varying levels of doubt. All such secondary kinds of ordinary beliefs are complicated by many factors, including of course wishes, fears, and prior beliefs, and all are continually modified, strengthened, weakened, and generally adapted, as we interact with others in the various cultural groupings we're involved in.
Scientific beliefs are empirical beliefs, in that they pertain to phenomenal experience, but their aim is to provide the simplest and most general -- and in that sense, the most workable -- explanation of that experience. To that end, they are constructions based on experience, but as Einstein has said: "We now know that science cannot grow out of empiricism alone, that in the constructions of science we need to use free invention which only a posteriori can be confronted with experience as to its usefulness" (Quoted in Subtle is the Lord by Abraham Pais, p. 14).
In theory, at least, such constructions are on a very different level from ordinary beliefs, in that they rest on a formalized and institutionalized system of belief formation and testing or observation. The beliefs themselves are called hypotheses or theories, and the testing/observation involves precise measurements under carefully controlled conditions in order to strengthen or weaken the stated hypothesis/theory. Of course, this is an idealized version of the "scientific method", but the enormous advances not only in the practical understanding of the world but in applying those advances to technological improvement of material conditions ever since that institutionalized method began are a clear indication that, even if or when less than ideal, the method was and is a powerful advance in itself over earlier belief-formation habits.
That said, science remains, of course, a human endeavor, and still subject to the sorts of pressures that can distort ordinary beliefs. This is especially so in fields involving human individuals and societies, where precision and unambiguous hypotheses become more difficult, and where political or ideological issues can further complicate both. Even in more rigorous areas, as Thomas Kuhn has shown, scientific beliefs can be resistant to large scale shifts away from prior beliefs or "paradigms", until a generation is replaced. And just as political bias can distort science, so Science, with an upper-case S, can distort politics and culture generally if or when it's purported beliefs are used as a quasi-religious authority to silence debate.
Scientific
Scientific beliefs are empirical beliefs, in that they pertain to phenomenal experience, but their aim is to provide the simplest and most general -- and in that sense, the most workable -- explanation of that experience. To that end, they are constructions based on experience, but as Einstein has said: "We now know that science cannot grow out of empiricism alone, that in the constructions of science we need to use free invention which only a posteriori can be confronted with experience as to its usefulness" (Quoted in Subtle is the Lord by Abraham Pais, p. 14).
In theory, at least, such constructions are on a very different level from ordinary beliefs, in that they rest on a formalized and institutionalized system of belief formation and testing or observation. The beliefs themselves are called hypotheses or theories, and the testing/observation involves precise measurements under carefully controlled conditions in order to strengthen or weaken the stated hypothesis/theory. Of course, this is an idealized version of the "scientific method", but the enormous advances not only in the practical understanding of the world but in applying those advances to technological improvement of material conditions ever since that institutionalized method began are a clear indication that, even if or when less than ideal, the method was and is a powerful advance in itself over earlier belief-formation habits.
That said, science remains, of course, a human endeavor, and still subject to the sorts of pressures that can distort ordinary beliefs. This is especially so in fields involving human individuals and societies, where precision and unambiguous hypotheses become more difficult, and where political or ideological issues can further complicate both. Even in more rigorous areas, as Thomas Kuhn has shown, scientific beliefs can be resistant to large scale shifts away from prior beliefs or "paradigms", until a generation is replaced. And just as political bias can distort science, so Science, with an upper-case S, can distort politics and culture generally if or when it's purported beliefs are used as a quasi-religious authority to silence debate.
Aesthetic
A phrase like "aesthetic belief" sounds a little strange -- we appreciate art, but we don't believe it, do we? Yet there is that phrase of Coleridge's, the "willing suspension of disbelief", that for him was a part of poetic appreciation at least -- in fact, he called it "poetic faith". And there is Keats' enigmatic line that "Beauty is truth, truth beauty", suggesting some kind of link with belief. So perhaps it's easier to see such a link if we're thinking of poetry, and easier still with fiction or drama, but how is belief involved in our appreciation of a painting, say, or a symphony, or a cathedral?
Maybe it's hidden in that word "appreciate". As it's often used, as in Art Appreciation courses, the word is fairly tame, but it includes the notion of having a full understanding of something. And there are occasions in our experience of art when such a full understanding can be so powerful that, for a time, we're transported. It's like a waking version of the way our own dreams transport us, into a realm conjured out of pure imagination. And it isn't always or necessarily over the greatest works -- it might occur over a soap opera or a tune, though one of the qualities that makes a work great is its power to transport us in this way. So perhaps "appreciation" after all is too mild a term, and so, I think, is even the "willing suspension of disbelief". What I mean by "aesthetic belief" is more than just a double negative -- it is that moment of transport into an imaginative, aesthetic reality.
First, it should be said what religious belief is not. It's not a belief in empirical matters, or matters of phenomenal experience, as is our ordinary belief in sense-data, or scientific theories of the material world. True, among religious fundamentalists particularly, and their negative counterparts, the so-called New Atheists, religious beliefs are sometimes regarded as being of the same sort as scientific beliefs, but just, according to the latter, erroneous, merely superstitious. This, however, is a misunderstanding of the nature and function of religion generally.
So if religious belief is not empirical, what is it? A clue might be found in the use of the word "faith" in connection with religion -- we don't use that word to describe our belief in our senses, or even in connection with most of the things we're told, whether we believe them or not. Religious belief alone is commonly said to be "faith-based", and such beliefs are often listed in the form of a "creed". Now, faith is a kind of conscious trust or confidence that is above or beyond one's actual experience, and in that sense belief in religion is a willed or deliberate belief. The only comparable example of such a thing is in certain ideological commitments, which assume a form very like a religion, and, like cults, often function as a replacement religion.
Thus, despite the fact that people who are religious will often speak of their religious beliefs as they do of ordinary or empirical beliefs, it's clear from the idea of faith that they recognize the difference. What's going on, then? Is it just magical thinking, that merely willing something can make it a reality, or is it more complicated?
What if we compare it, for example, with aesthetic belief? In that, for the duration of an intense aesthetic experience, we're transported to an imaginative realm, and the whole question of reality drops away. Of course, such experiences don't last -- we can't function on a practical level in such a transported state. But what if there existed a form of art large enough that its frame or border disappeared, so it included the viewer and whole communities, and space enough for the practical concerns of life -- something like an immense tapestry, perhaps, woven collectively over generations ?That might look a lot like a religion -- and religious belief in that sense would be the will to live in such a tapestry.
Maybe it's hidden in that word "appreciate". As it's often used, as in Art Appreciation courses, the word is fairly tame, but it includes the notion of having a full understanding of something. And there are occasions in our experience of art when such a full understanding can be so powerful that, for a time, we're transported. It's like a waking version of the way our own dreams transport us, into a realm conjured out of pure imagination. And it isn't always or necessarily over the greatest works -- it might occur over a soap opera or a tune, though one of the qualities that makes a work great is its power to transport us in this way. So perhaps "appreciation" after all is too mild a term, and so, I think, is even the "willing suspension of disbelief". What I mean by "aesthetic belief" is more than just a double negative -- it is that moment of transport into an imaginative, aesthetic reality.
Religious
First, it should be said what religious belief is not. It's not a belief in empirical matters, or matters of phenomenal experience, as is our ordinary belief in sense-data, or scientific theories of the material world. True, among religious fundamentalists particularly, and their negative counterparts, the so-called New Atheists, religious beliefs are sometimes regarded as being of the same sort as scientific beliefs, but just, according to the latter, erroneous, merely superstitious. This, however, is a misunderstanding of the nature and function of religion generally.
So if religious belief is not empirical, what is it? A clue might be found in the use of the word "faith" in connection with religion -- we don't use that word to describe our belief in our senses, or even in connection with most of the things we're told, whether we believe them or not. Religious belief alone is commonly said to be "faith-based", and such beliefs are often listed in the form of a "creed". Now, faith is a kind of conscious trust or confidence that is above or beyond one's actual experience, and in that sense belief in religion is a willed or deliberate belief. The only comparable example of such a thing is in certain ideological commitments, which assume a form very like a religion, and, like cults, often function as a replacement religion.
Thus, despite the fact that people who are religious will often speak of their religious beliefs as they do of ordinary or empirical beliefs, it's clear from the idea of faith that they recognize the difference. What's going on, then? Is it just magical thinking, that merely willing something can make it a reality, or is it more complicated?
What if we compare it, for example, with aesthetic belief? In that, for the duration of an intense aesthetic experience, we're transported to an imaginative realm, and the whole question of reality drops away. Of course, such experiences don't last -- we can't function on a practical level in such a transported state. But what if there existed a form of art large enough that its frame or border disappeared, so it included the viewer and whole communities, and space enough for the practical concerns of life -- something like an immense tapestry, perhaps, woven collectively over generations ?That might look a lot like a religion -- and religious belief in that sense would be the will to live in such a tapestry.
Jun 6/20
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