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From: hansw@cs.vu.nl (Hans Weigand)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: The nature of knowledge
Message-ID: <1537@botter.cs.vu.nl>
Date: Thu, 23-Jul-87 07:41:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: botter.1537
Posted: Thu Jul 23 07:41:06 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Jul-87 06:05:16 EDT
References: <58@thirdi.UUCP> <2401@ihlpl.ATT.COM> <66@thirdi.UUCP>
Reply-To: hansw@cs.vu.nl (Hans Weigand)
Distribution: world
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 38
Keywords: truth knowledge belief absolutes certainty

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>In article <2401@ihlpl.ATT.COM> rsl@ihlpl.ATT.COM
>(Richard S. Latimer) writes:
>>If believing is an act of accepting as true without or in spite of
>>evidence, then it is by its nature illogical....
>>An interesting question (to me) is why does anyone choose to
>>believe, since it is clearly illogical?  Any thought?
>
>Believing is no more illogical than breathing or eating.  What can
>be illogical
>are one's *reasons* for believing, but they need not be.

I largely agree with the last comment. Two remarks:

(1) To believe is not always an act for which one has reasons.
When I enter a room and see a chair, I believe it is a chair
without weighting the evidence (this is the objection Thomas
Reid already made against John Locke). On the other hand, when I hear a
politician speaking, for example, I can choose whether to
believe him or not.

(2) With respect to the question why someone chooses to
believe: without belief there is no communication. Whether I read
a mathematical article, or a newspaper's report, or a database
record, etc., in all cases I can only accept the message when I
am prepared to believe it. The mathematical article may include a
proof that may help me in my choice. If I still do not believe it
(in fact, many "proofs" turn out to be wrong), I may get a hard time
defending this choice, but it is a possibility. Evidence certainly
contributes to belief, but it never determines the choice.
So if you want to communicate, you must also be willing to believe.
(This is one answer to the question raised above).

-

Hans Weigand, Dep. of Math and Computer Science,
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam

                       "credo ut intelligam"