and "here is a hand" is one of those. — Banno

Person on salvia with no left hand, "I can see my hand". Why should a minor thing like solipsism condition basic beliefs for the majority of people that don't even know what solipsism is?

Rejecting the myth of the given is presupposed by the article - that's what foundationalism is. — Banno

Huh?

You disagree with foundationalism, but do you have any other particular system for evaluating the reasonableness of your beliefs, and the beliefs of others? — Relativist

As I already said much earlier in the thread: critical rationalism. Wikipedia about it, and my own essay On Epistemology where I defend it (and a thread on this forum discussing the prior essay Against Cynicism that most of this aspect of my epistemology hinges on).

Do you think belief in God can be rational? If the answer is yes, then Plantinga's Reformed Epistemology may be irrelevant to you. If no, then please describe your basis for thinking that. — Relativist

On a critical rationalist account, if one has not encountered reason to reject a belief, then holding it is rational. You don't have to justify a belief from the ground up, it just has to survive criticism. I think there are reasons to reject belief in God, and holding on to such belief in the face of those reasons (if they really are good reasons, as I think) is irrational. But someone who hasn't faced such reasons yet could still rationally hold such a belief.

Myth of the Given. — Pneumenon

Sellars is arguing against foundationalism, as am I. (In the context you quoted, I was speaking within Plantinga's own foundationalist framework and showing how, even in that framework, not all beliefs are the same).

I'll use Wittgenstein's examples to partly answer these questions. Wittgenstein argues against Moore's use of the word know in the proposition "I know this is a hand." One of the reasons Wittgenstein gives for this argument is that in Moore's context it would make no sense to doubt that that is Moore's hand. Later, Wittgenstein gives an example in which it would make sense to doubt that that is hand my hand. The example is where someone might wake up after an operation with their hand bandaged, and not know whether their hand had been amputated. In this case it would be perfectly legitimate to doubt whether you have a hand or not.

The criteria here is not arbitrary. The meaning of our words has a lot to do with context, a word might mean one thing in one context, and another in a quite different context. However, it's more than just context, as I pointed out, i.e., the use of the word doubt in a particular context tells us something about the use of the word know in the context also. Moreover, it tells us something about basic beliefs.

There are no absolutes here in terms of basic beliefs, which is why I say that generally it doesn't make sense to doubt that that's your hand. And generally it makes sense to doubt that God exists, or that you're having a direct experience with God. However, I would point out that IF someone did have a direct experience with God, then the belief would be basic for them. Of course what exactly counts as a direct experience? My contention is that what most people count as direct experiences with God are merely psychological. This is not to say that there can't be real experiences with God (if one exists), but only that it would be difficult to discern in most cases.

Plantinga is talking about belief in God (the Christian God) as properly basic. Just because billions of people believe something, that doesn't make it basic. He wants to argue that people have a kind of built in belief (innate belief) about God, but not just any God. Regardless, all one has to do is ask, "Does it make sense to doubt the existence of God?" Yes, unless I'm having an undoubtable experience, and I'm not doubting that this can happen. It's certainly metaphysically possible.

If I tell someone who is an agnostic that God spoke to me audibly in my bedroom last night as I prayed, it would make perfect sense to doubt such a declaration. That belief (if it really happened) would be basic for you, but surely not for the agnostic. The agnostic would have every right to doubt your experience.

My contention is that what most people count as direct experiences with God are merely psychological. This is not to say that there can't be real experiences with God (if one exists), but only that it would be difficult to discern in most cases. — Sam26

Ah, god as the beetle in the box!

I think there's a deep issue of what really constitutes or counts as 'basic' or 'foundational'. I would question the sense in which propositions are truly basic or foundational, insofar as they remain simply verbal constructions or formulations. I mean 'help me, I'm drowning', means nothing unless you really are.

The problem with religious beliefs, insofar as these are simply verbal propositions, then they're generally construed as being elaborated or based on other beliefs; for atheism, any statement about the object of religious veneration must necessarily be a statement about something that has only conventional reality, or exists only in the minds of those who believe it. So they can't be 'foundational', by definition, in this light.

And surely, there is no objective way for a believer to show otherwise, as what can be shown objectively must in some sense constitute an object of perception; whereas for the believer, God is not an object, but a subject with whom s/he has a personal and loving relationship. This is at the heart of the 'is/ought' problem that haunts much modern moral philosophy in my opinion.

I think what's happened in Western thought is that such beliefs have become detached from their moorings in terms of praxis; they're not longer anchored in a common domain of discourse. Therefore, they are for a lot of people (like Banno) simply meaningless - there's literally nothing that they could stand for, they're a kind of babble or nonsense talk (as the positivists used to say about all metaphysics). As, for our culture, science is normative with regards to claims about 'what exists', then there's not even any scientifically meaningful way to make sense of religious propositions - again, as the positivists say.

But, as Karen Armstrong argued in her book The Case for God,

[religious] myth was a programme of action. When a mythical narrative was symbolically re-enacted, it brought to light within the practitioner something "true" about human life and the way our humanity worked, even if its insights, like those of art, could not be proven rationally. If you did not act upon it, it would remain as incomprehensible and abstract – like the rules of a board game, which seem impossibly convoluted, dull and meaningless until you start to play.

Religious truth is, therefore, a species of practical knowledge. Like swimming, we cannot learn it in the abstract; we have to plunge into the pool and acquire the knack by dedicated practice. Religious doctrines are a product of ritual and ethical observance, and make no sense unless they are accompanied by such spiritual exercises as yoga, prayer, liturgy and a consistently compassionate lifestyle. Skilled practice in these disciplines can lead to intimations of the transcendence we call God, Nirvana, Brahman or Dao. Without such dedicated practice, these concepts remain incoherent, incredible and even absurd.

In Plantinga's case, the question is interpreted within the framework of Reformed Theology - not one that I share, but it does however provide an interpretive framework within which such ideas are at least meaningful. But they're meaningful because they engage the whole being - what is quaintly designated 'soul' - and not just the verbal/discursive/rational aspect of the mind (although Plantinga being an academic theologian must needs deal with ideas on that level also.) But that's why, also, religious narratives and philosophies are grounded in a transformed understanding, a vision of the nature of reality; that is what is behind the meaning of 'conversion' in the deepest sense.

However, I would point out that IF someone did have a direct experience with God, then the belief would be basic for them. Of course what exactly counts as a direct experience? My contention is that what most people count as direct experiences with God are merely psychological. — Sam26

Religions have been around a lot longer than psychology, which is a discipline that hardly seems to know what it is half the time. Surely religious experiences must have a psychological dimension, and surely they may have profound psychological consequences, not always benign, but the 'merely' says something else; 'the science of psychology' speaking from the white lab coat of authority.

I wonder if you would agree with this passage from an essay about Wittgenstein in Philosophy Now. He says that, in the Tractatus:

Wittgenstein had begun to feel that logic and what he strangely called ‘mysticism’ sprang from the same root. This explains the second big idea in the Tractatus – which the logical positivists ignored: the thought of there being an unutterable kind of truth that ‘makes itself manifest’. Hence the key paragraph 6.522 in the Tractatus:

“There are indeed things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.”

In other words, there is a categorically different kind of truth from that which we can state in empirically or logically verifiable propositions. These different truths fall on the other side of the demarcation line of the principle of verification.

Wittgenstein’s intention in asserting this is precisely to protect matters of value from being disparaged or debunked by scientifically-minded people such as the Logical Positivists of the Vienna Circle. He put his view beyond doubt in this sequence of paragraphs:

“6.41 The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it there is no value – and if there were, it would be of no value. If there is value which is of value, it must lie outside of all happening and being-so. For all happening and being-so is accidental. What makes it non-accidental cannot lie in the world, for otherwise this would again be accidental. It must lie outside the world.”

In other words, all worldly actions and events are contingent (‘accidental’), but matters of value are necessarily so, for they are ‘higher’ or too important to be accidental, and so must be outside the world of empirical propositions:

“6.42 Hence also there can be no ethical propositions. Propositions cannot express anything higher.

6.421 It is clear that ethics cannot be expressed. Ethics is transcendental.”

I would say, rather than 'outside of', 'prior to' - that in which the realm of objective judgement is anchored; in other words, that which is foundational.

Basic belief... properly basic belief... is prior to language.
— creativesoul

You know I will disagree with you one this; it implies that a properly basic belief is could not in principle be stated. — Banno

This seems to be a malformed sentence, At best, from where I sit, it's a confusing way to use the terms. I think, based upon our past exchanges, that you seem to think that what I've argued somehow, some way, leads to an inevitable admission that properly basic beliefs cannot in principle be stated.

That vein of thought stops well short of the mark, because that mark is what follows from my claims.


When considering properly basic beliefs of language less animals, we have no choice but to conclude that properly basic beliefs cannot be stated by the creature forming and/or subsequently re-forming(holding) the belief, because they do not have the language capacity required in order to be able to do so. They cannot talk about their own mental ongoings. They cannot even consider them, as a subject matter in and of itself. They cannot name them. We can, and do.

Language less creatures form and hold thought and belief. The evidence of this is had in experience itself. We can watch it happen! We can devise many conditions that are completely under our control. We can watch an animal learn about themselves and the world around them. These animals are thinking and believing creatures by any apt criterion of what counts as thought, belief, and/or expectation.

The proof of thought/belief formation is in the pudding of the creature's own newly developed expectations. We can watch it happen. We can determine which things they will pay closer attention to. We can determine which things they draw mental correlations between. We can know that they have done this by watching their behavioural patterns. We can watch them draw correlations between different things to an extent that reaches far enough to be called irrefutable proof.

Let me digress, back to talking about a properly basic belief being - in principle - statable or not...

In principle, I can clearly state exactly what all thought and belief consist of, what they are, at their very core. Correlations drawn between different things. All of 'em. So, it's much better to say that my position leads to the inevitable conclusion that properly basic beliefs ought be of the simplest variety, and that when we're considering the contents of rudimentary belief we ought well know that they do not consist of statements, and they do not come in propositional form.

Our reports do.

They consist of statements. Our knowledge of non linguistic thought and belief most certainly does. I'm stating what our criterion for what counts as properly basic belief must be. I'm doing so in the simplest yet adequate means I know for adequately understanding properly basic belief.

Prelinguistic belief does not have propositional form. Predication does. Propositions do. Statements do.

Properly basic belief must be the very first ones. If not, then 'properly basic beliefs' would not be the first beliefs. The first beliefs are formed long before the creature acquires common language. This too is applicable to Platinga, unless I've misunderstood something. Plantinga claims that properly basic beliefs are not always groundless. Platinga wants to ground properly basic belief in life's circumstances, and is not at all wrong for doing so...

The animal cannot offer us a report of it's own mental ongoings. That's ok.

Not everything we discover is capable of telling us about what it is that we've just discovered. A language less animal's belief is one such thing, as is Mt. Everest...

Both existed in their entirety prior to our naming and descriptive practices.

Prelinguistic belief does not have propositional form. — creativesoul

Then it's not a belief.

It might be a sensation, a sentiment.

But if it is a belief, it is a belief that such-and-such.

Ok. So Jack does not believe that he's about to be fed by you... ever?

:brow:

You ok with that?

by you just stated Jack’s belief.

You can’t state a belief that can’t be stated.

You're conflating my report of Jack's belief with Jack's belief.

He believes that he's about to be fed by you. That's my report.

His belief does not have propositional content. It cannot. He has no language. Thinking in propositional terms and/or having propositional content requires naming and descriptive practices. Jack has none.

Jack cannot state his beliefs.

Propositions are not words. Propositions are the things that words mean.

You can have "propositional content" in your mind without having any words to mean by it. You can have, as I phrase it, an "attitude toward an idea" (a picture in your mind held to be in a certain relation to the world), which is what a proposition is, without yet having words with which to communicate that to someone else.

My contention is that what most people count as direct experiences with God are merely psychological. — Sam26

My contention is that what most people count as direct experiences of themselves is merely psychological.

My contention is that what most people count as direct experiences of themselves is merely psychological — unenlightened

What does "psychological" mean exactly? A theory of the self? Direct experience of myself is experience with a theory?

It's about what can, and what can't, be said.

What does "psychological" mean exactly? — frank

What does 'direct experience' mean?

One brings terms into question here and there. Earlier, I wondered if anyone was inclined to say that rainbows exist. In one sense they obviously do, and in another, they obviously have a pot of gold at each end.

I think, therefore I am thought. But a thought of myself, is no more myself than a thought of a unicorn is a unicorn.
I believe, therefore I am. If there is anywhere, a properly basic belief, then belief in one's own self is properly basic. So it is up to the theo-sceptic to distinguish this belief from belief in God in some way. I haven't noticed anyone doing it, and you are quite right to question the distinction between direct and psychological experience. That is what I myself am doing in my previous post.

Prelinguistic belief does not have propositional form. — creativesoul

Because belief is no more than a judgement. Judgements are correlations of that which consists in their entirety, etc, etc, etc......

Judgements are linguistic iff expressed; if not, remain mere cognitions.

The fundamental criteria of any belief: subjective validity.

Two cents, and not a penny more........

Religions have been around a lot longer than psychology, which is a discipline that hardly seems to know what it is half the time. Surely religious experiences must have a psychological dimension, and surely they may have profound psychological consequences, not always benign, but the 'merely' says something else; 'the science of psychology' speaking from the white lab coat of authority. — Wayfarer

When I speak of psychology in this (context you quoted) context, I'm speaking of mental and emotional contexts that arise from particular beliefs. I'm not speaking of the study of psychology. Thus, in my sense psychology has been around since man first walked the Earth. Moreover, I'm also thinking about meaning, and how meaning has a cultural context apart from our inclination to derive meaning from our subjective experiences or mental experiences.

I find it very difficult to put down in a few paragraphs what I believe about many of the things talked about in this thread. Much of the time it just gets misinterpreted. This isn't a complaint, it happens with all of us.

I disagree with much of what Wittgenstein said in those passages. But I also agree with some of it. For example, I agree that the mystical can be shown in our actions (e.g. prayer). I disagree with the idea that it's beyond language or beyond words. My study of NDEs indicates that mystical experiences can be expressed. I don't believe as Wittgenstein did in the Tractatus that there is a boundary to language, beyond which, is that which is senseless (not nonsense). I also disagree with his ideas about ethics. The explanation would take us far afield of this thread.

I wasn't trying to be a smartass, I was wondering if the self is a theory, or a component of one. Gods are. Homer's gods are all over the place as explanations.

Psyche was a divinity, the name of which transferred to something non-divine: the breath of life, the soul, the seat of experience.

I imagine I can see your soul in your eyes.

Wasn't taking you for a smarts at all. Yes indeed, psyche is the divine self, and that is my main suggestion, that it behooves us to be rather cautious about denying the existence of gods.

It's about what can, and what can't, be said. — Banno

It can be said that there is God. It can be said there is no God. Rainbows and Psyche likewise. And allowing for context, there need be no contradiction.

Wasn't taking you for a smarts at all. — unenlightened

It's mutual. :hearts:

Wouldn't you deny the existence of the self?

It's about what can, and what can't, be said. — Banno

Then it's all about language use, and as a result of that and that alone... it's wrong.

Properly basic belief - if those come first - is prior to language. Plantinga's notion of properly basic belief does not come first. Statements of belief fail for the same reasons.

Wouldn't you deny the existence of the self? — frank

It's rainbows.Yes and no. I simply say God is as real/unreal as you and me. Personally in practice I behave as if I am real regardless of affirmations or denials, so I probably ought to treat God with the same respect.

Ah, god as the beetle in the box! — Banno

This is a greedy reduction. The use of the word God isn't determined solely by its attachment to a private sensation; it's rather that when someone senses such a presence, it is attributed to God. Just like the word "tree"'s use isn't determined by "I see this tree" when functioning as a basic belief.

...if it is a belief, it is a belief that such-and-such. — Banno

Where "such and such" is a statement. Statements are existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices. Jack has none. Jack has beliefs. Jack's beliefs are not statements.

Our reports thereof are.

Jack's beliefs are correlations drawn between different things. Jack's belief that he is about to be fed by you are shown by his standing in front of the bowl while looking up at you. He expects for you to put food in the bowl. His belief consists of the correlations he's drawn between you and the food and the bowl and certain other things during certain similar circumstances. I'm sure it's become habitual by now.

I would venture to guess that certain sounds are involved as well as scents, etc. My own cats expect to get treats each time I arrive home after being gone for some time. They can be nowhere in sight but still hear the sound of the treat bag being opened, and because they've long since drawn a correlation between that sound and eating treats, they come straight to their treat bowl, because they believe that they are about to get treats.

Their beliefs are the aforementioned correlations. They consist of correlations drawn between directly perceptible things. Those things become significant/meaningful as a result. That how all meaningful belief of language less creatures works. But this is only to further cement the idea that there is no such thing as a basic belief that grounds al other beliefs.

Our world-views contain far too many disparate beliefs. As Davidson claimed... it's more like a web.

Are there certain attachment points... structural members so to speak... that lend support to each other and/or subsequent more complex beliefs?

Sure.

My name is... My mom is... My brother is...

But those require language... naming and descriptive practices.

However, I would point out that IF someone did have a direct experience with God, then the belief would be basic for them. — Sam26

What distinguishes a direct experience from an experience?

Of course what exactly counts as a direct experience? My contention is that what most people count as direct experiences with God are merely psychological. This is not to say that there can't be real experiences with God (if one exists), but only that it would be difficult to discern in most cases.

Nowadays we've got means and arguments to doubt things like possession by spirits, God's existence and so on. But there were less resources in the past; it made more sense to believe in spirits and souls, so they fit into the transparent networks of association, action and thought that prevailed at the time. (Or some of the time). So it looks like what can be doubted isn't solely a function of conceptual necessity, it's a function of historical and social circumstances.

In other words, if whether it makes no sense to doubt a statement is the sole criterion for whether that statement may be held as a basic belief, and whether it makes sense to doubt a statement depends upon social and historical circumstances, then whether a statement can serve as a basic belief depends upon the social and historical circumstances it finds itself in.

If basic beliefs, by their nature, are necessarily true, then what is true comes to depend upon historical and social circumstances. If basic beliefs, by their nature, need not be true, they are not guaranteed to form a basis for a foundationalist epistemology.

I find the discussion in Platinga's article to bring us to consider the ambiguities involved with the very idea of basic beliefs and discovering what they are through analysing language use.

It's rainbows.Yes and no. I simply say God is as real/unreal as you and me. Personally in practice I behave as if I am real regardless of affirmations or denials, so I probably ought to treat God with the same respect. — unenlightened

That's kind of a startling thing to say. For all practical purposes the divine is real.

It can be said that there is God. It can be said there is no God. Rainbows and Psyche likewise. And allowing for context, there need be no contradiction. — unenlightened

So while psychology might have something to say here, philosophy remains irrelevant, or silent.

Sure. And that propositional content, by definition, can be put into words.

If it can't, it's not propositional content.

SO you might express it in sound, paint, clay.

Or not at all.

What distinguishes a direct experience from an experience? — fdrake

I suppose a direct experience might be something like the following: Standing in front of my oak tree in my back yard, as opposed to looking at the same oak tree in a picture (direct and indirect). Hearing God speak as he stands in front of you (e.g., Jesus and the disciples), or reading his words in the Bible. Although it's not always clear the way many religious people use these words.

Most basic beliefs wouldn't be doubtable no matter what time in history. Consider the following:

1. This is a tree (as I point to a tree on a clear day).
2. This is my mother or father.
3. This is my hand.
4. I live on the Earth.
5. He is conscious, pointing to someone sawing a piece of wood.
6. He is a person.
7. etc

There are endless basic beliefs that would be silly to doubt. Moreover, because someone doesn't doubt a belief, that in itself doesn't make it basic. It's not a matter of opinion.

There are some basic beliefs that do change over time, but many do not.

Many basic beliefs aren't even linguistic, they are simply part of the background we find ourselves in. I would say that animals, prelinguistic man, infants, and modern man show that they have certain beliefs without saying a word. They show their beliefs by their actions - digging a hole, a dog recognizing its master as he comes home, a baby reaching for a toy, each of these actions requires certain basic beliefs. Most of our daily actions require certain basic beliefs or we wouldn't be able to function.

Outside of language there is no epistemology, therefore it's not a matter of being true, these kinds of beliefs fall outside our epistemological language-games. Not all basic beliefs are of this kind, but many are.

I find the discussion in Platinga's article to bring us to consider the ambiguities involved with the very idea of basic beliefs and discovering what they are through analysing language use — fdrake

I agree with this. Although I find Wittgenstein's analysis of language to be much more sophisticated than Plantinga.