For Pierre (and any lurking archivists)
Here is a cleaned up version of the text I had initially posted. The thread is still available on the Board, at: http://www.InsideTheWeb.com/messageboard/mbs.cgi?acct=mb541827&MyNum=967823887&P=No&TL=967823887
I recommend reading the other responses too, and my responses to them. Here I have just included my initial post, Gary's reply, and my response to him. I have cleaned them up (for archiving purposes) in removing named Board denizens, or topical references where I can. Also corrected a few typos.
cheer
the sunshine warrior
Shanks' initial post - "Possible error in POMO argument"
Some people have spoken about the unacknowledged beliefs of avowed sceptics, equating them directly with the acknowledged beliefs of, say, Christians, Pantheists, Tarot Card readers and others. If this assertion is true, then it mocks the idea of a sceptic 'apportioning belief to the evidence', because even that apportionment will, it seems, be bedevilled by belief.
This is a very thorny problem, and has, in a sense, raised its ugly head from Descartes onwards. Hume's contribution is huge, and the modern French and other philosophers of science (Kuhn et al), have also suggested that science, or the empirical method, is getting above itself.
On the face of it, the objection seems well-formed, but I wonder if some of it may not be based upon the old fallacy of confusing two different senses of a word. I have inveighed, in the past, at length upon the distinction, not usually observed, between belief (in) and belief (that). Belief (that) is akin to the belief THAT I am currently sitting on a chair and THAT the machine in front of me is a computer. These beliefs (that) are the ones that are undermined or eroded by extreme scepticism, a la Hume, Kuhn and others. As such, then, this is a perennial problem for philosophy - a problem of epistemology - and not one invented or discovered in the late twentieth century.
In essence, the problem is not resolvable through the tools of philosophy or logic. Searle has suggested there must be 'absolute' being otherwise we couldn't all share the notion of a yellow car that, hypothetically, stands on the road before us. Another version of this notion is called Coherentism, which only makes the claim that the system of philosophy used will, as far as possible, be coherent. If incoherencies creep in, then the philosophy needs to be patched up, and modified, until it is fit again. In this case, there is no absolute knowledge, only the continual modification of the philosophical perspective to match the latest problems.
I contend, however, that the problems inherent in belief (that) have
little to do with the notions of belief (in), and the far greater problems
faced by believers (in). The basic issue regarding belief (in), is that
it is ineffable - there is no question of there being a question about
it - and that is the notion inherent in the word 'faith'. Belief (that),
on the other hand, is not faith-based. It is corrigible - as I have discussed
above. We, the believers (that), are comfortable with the notion that,
within the last 100 years, we have had to accept that the universe appears
not just unpredictable by us, but unpredictable in principle; that even
simple classical mechanics does not apply at high speeds, that mathematics
cannot be both consistent and complete, and that all the patterns or structures
we observe may be an implicit function of the patterns of stochastics.
Belief (that) can change, even though such change is often resisted. Belief
(in) cannot.
Gary's response
First, to play devil's advocate a bit, couldn't the Postmodernist reply that what you call belief that is merely derived from a belief in the existence of an objective, material real world "out there" independent of human minds and cultures. Yes, the PM might agree that what is accepted by science is provisional and subject to possible change by future experiments and observations. But similarly, the PM might assert, the claims of a particular theology (excluding fundamentalists for the moment), while based upon a different fixed foundational belief in, similarly consist of a set of beliefs that, for example, certain things will happen after you die. And that these beliefs that are likewise subject to change as scriptural interpretation progresses.
My own difficulty with the Postmodernist position is that I can't see any philosophically consistent way of rejecting the empirical method without ending up with solipsism. Claims, for example, that reject the notion of any culturally-independent objective reality (often called a "Grand Narrative") inherently beg the question of what constitutes a culture and who determines where its boundaries lie. There seems to be no way to define such boundaries beyond each person's individual mind without the PM contradicting him- or herself at some point.
Personally, I reject solipsism. But I openly admit that that rejection is faith-based.
But regarding empiricism (and I admit to being an "evil" empiricist)
is that it seems that there can only be one consistently applied empirical
method. Yet beyond empiricism, it seems there is no method beyond pure
faith of, for example, choosing one theology over another. And so at this
juncture I invoke (my concept of) parsimony to (provisionally) reject both--and,
by induction, all.
Shanks' reply to Gary
An attempt to show why I think the two types are genuinely distinct and distinguishable: I have tried to discuss the differences in meaning, as I see it, between belief (that) and belief (in).
One way to summarise it would be in terms of the classic catechism.
"Do you believe in God?"
This is a belief (in) question, and an appropriate answer would be "yes" or "no".
Here's what happens when you try to confuse the two:
"Do you believe in evolution?"
This is actually a belief (that) question masquerading as belief (in), so an appropriate answer would be "only if you believe in evaporation (or 'the Bessemer smelting process' or 'urination' or any other well known activity)". Alternatively a simple "no" will do, treating the misuse of the language with the contempt it deserves.
Why do we often have such a strong feeling that these are two different types of question altogether? Without getting into formal symbolic logic or whatever, which is in any case beyond my capabilities, I think we can see a few diagnostic signs that distinguish belief (in) issues from belief (that) ones.
1. Ineffability Belief (in), which can be called faith, tends to be incapable of responding to analytical or reductionist questioning, and makes a virtue of this fact. You may believe that the Archangel Jibrail dictated Al Quran to Mohammed, bringing him with little intervention the word of Allah for humankind. If so, then questions regarding the problems, say, of an angel possessing functional wings without having two-metre deep chest flight muscles, are not just not capable of being answered, but should not be asked: because the entire structure is not supposed to depend upon 'everyday' logic or common sense. As Robert Nelson has sometimes said about the belief issue, it does not operate by the rules of logic, and it is futile to demand that it do so.
2. Incorrigibility Beliefs (in) are not supposed to be capable of change or correction. My belief (that) gravity obeys an inverse square relationship is corrigible: it might change tomorrow. My belief (in) Adam and Eve being the first human beings may not change.
3. Prescriptiveness Beliefs (in) tend to be normative, or to blur the line between the descriptive and the prescriptive. Thus, if I try to demonstrate that the universe is not capable of supporting angels with wings, then either my demonstration is false or the universe as I see it is at fault, because it should be possible for swan-winged angels to go fluttering by when necessary. (As an irrelevant digression, why when angels are represented, as in Barbarella, do their wings never fold up as compactly as those of birds?) If I claim that evolution took place, and is the result of natural selection, then I ought not do so. It is morally untenable to claim that humans were created from apes, rather than from noble clay by God. It is common in philosophy to deplore the tendency to slip from description to prescription, to converts "is" to "ought", but most beliefs (in) have the opposite tendency: to attempt to convert "ought" to "is".
4. Revelation As I said in a post a week or two ago, as far as I am aware, French contains different concepts for different types of knowledge: something that is lacking in English. Here are some ways to categorise types of knowledge.
a. Knowledge through memory: "I can recite in order the first 96 elements in the Periodic Table".
b. Knowledge through understanding: "I can see the difference between a first class lever and a second class lever".
c. Inherent knowledge: "I didn't have to be taught to make sounds - I was screaming from the moment I left the womb".
d. Knowledge through insight or revelation: "I can't explain it - I just know I'm in love with her".
The epistemology of belief (in) relies heavily upon this fourth category. I have tried so far not to be judgmental about belief (in) as opposed to belief (that), though some of my inherent prejudices may have shown through. The point I have tried to make, however, is that equating belief (in) with belief (that) is inappropriate. Certainly belief (that) has no absolute epistemological foundation, but it is nevertheless a completely different category of thought or idea from belief (in), and the mere fact that the word belief can be used in both ways should not be allowed to confuse any debate on these matters.