I don't really understand what work "epistemically" is doing here. — Ludwig V

It's doing there in an attempt to distinguish the assertion from the statement of relationship to the assertion (which failed miserably as can be seen in the comments.) "I think it's raining," and, "I believe it's raining," are semantically identical with respect to the rain, i.e., the assertion each makes is identical. All that differs, as you point out, is the speaker's level of credence in the assertion.

I'm not sure why you don't add that the same is true of "I know that p". — Ludwig V

LMAO! You can see from the discussion how problematic it is to get minds to open to the possibility that "I believe" is not all it's cracked up to be. Do you think taking on "I know" would be easier? You're right, it's exactly the same situation for both, although when someone says, "I believe" and "I think" we take them at their word. When they say "I know" a boatload of new soldiers of skepticism suddenly get activated. :lol:

Once it's clear that belief properly applies only to assertions that are part bullshit (see https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/1022560), then knowledge becomes easy-peasy: assertions which we believe (because you never know -- how much epistemic work is "enough"?) have been completely justified. To my mind, "knowledge" is a useless category, because either it remains open to revision -- in which case, what are the merits and advantages of calling it knowledge as opposed to theory or provisional conclusion or guess? -- or dubbing it "knowledge" prematurely closes the question, which accounts for the obscene levels of resistance to new ideas and angles always mounted by the "knowers" in every age and every situation.

The significant difference between "I know.." and "I believe..." and "I think ..." is that although they are, if you like, cognitively identical, they indicate more and less confidence in the truth of p, with "think" at the low end of the scale suggesting considerable uncertainty whether p. — Ludwig V

If in fact we use "believe" for assertions that involve bullshit, then "believe" is at the low end of the scale. "I think P" is honest and invites discussion. "I believe P" has a markedly different effect, immediately raising the question what the person did or did not do, (likely the latter, because jumping that gap is what "believe" does,) to determine the extra that "believe" implies over "think".

But the most persuasive form is to drop all reference to self completely.

You can see this in practice: "P." is actually more credible, all things being equal, than "I believe P."

"Fire! Get the hell out!" compared to "I believe there's a fire! I believe you should get the hell out!"

Which is more likely to prompt action?

Naked assertion without reference to self is actually more convincing than "I know". Psychologically, the reference to self itself raises questions that naked assertion doesn't. What's more, it shifts the cognitive focus away from the whole (supposedly) point: "It's raining" motivates hearers to check out the actuality to see if the assertion is true empirically. "I think" and "I believe" and "I know" shifts attention to the speaker's relationship with the empirical reality. The effect is to dissuade (to some degree) empirical investigation by deflecting attention onto the speaker.

Yet one more reason that belief is irrational, because the interest in imposing epistemic authority (if it's merely asserted, it carries no authority) and the act of imposing it are thoroughly irrational. — Millard J Melnyk

Just because it is "not yet rational" doesn't mean that it is the opposite of rational. This is a classic fallacy of the excluded middle. Rationality and irrationality can be on a spectrum, not sides of a coin.

That was an enjoyable little read, but it's not responsive to the post. Sure, there are different ways of looking at the same thing. I presented mine here for the purpose of evoking feedback on it, not on yours. — Millard J Melnyk

Perfectly fair! Let me address your post then.

[1] Epistemically, belief and thought are identical. — Millard J Melnyk

This conflicts with most understandings of thoughts. A thought is an inner conscious experience. So for example if I'm thinking of a tomato, then I'm thinking of a tomato. Is that a belief? No. A belief is a claim that what we are thinking about is real beyond the thought itself. So if I thought about a tomato and said, "I believe this tomato I'm thinking about exists somewhere in the world," I'm nothing that what I'm thinking about is real beyond my thoughts. Prior to proving that it is true, it is a belief.

[2] Preexisting attachment to an idea motivates a rhetorical shift from “I think” to “I believe,” implying a degree of veracity the idea lacks. — Millard J Melnyk

I do want to clarify what an "I think" context is from an "I believe" context. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems you're assuming that "I think there might be a tomato that exists in the world that I'm visualizing in my head," is different from, "I believe there is a tomato that exists in the world what I'm visualizing in my head."

If this is case, "I think" in your case isn't a statement of certainty, but a statement of consideration or exploration. You don't believe its the case, you think it could be. This is called "plausibility". There's nothing innate in your thoughts that confirms or denies that the thing you are thinking about can be found in the real world.

You are implying that if someone thinks on a plausibility for long enough, it becomes a belief statement of possibility or certainty. I would say that's not necessarily the case. Plenty of "I think"s simply stay that way. But correct me if I have the wrong base understanding of what you're trying to say here.

[3] This implication produces unwarranted confidence. — Millard J Melnyk

If one changes from "I think" to "I believe" through the repetition of one's thoughts, then that is most certainly unwarranted confidence. But you have to demonstrate that this always happens, and I'm not sure you have here.

[4] Insisting on an idea’s truth beyond the limits of its epistemic warrant is irrational. — Millard J Melnyk

Correct, and I think few would disagree with you.

Conclusion ∴ All belief is irrational. — Millard J Melnyk

Unfortunately I'm not seeing how this conclusion follows the premises. All you've noted is one type of belief, or a belief that insists on an idea's truth beyond the limits of its epistemic warrant. The point in my initial reply was to show you there are different types of beliefs. Probability, possibility, plausibility, and irrational. The first three if believed based on one's epistemic circumstances, can be rational. Only if one disregards the epistemic circumstances that allow the other three beliefs to be cogent, can one come to an irrational belief.

If "justified belief" is an oxymoron then I suppose that we are relying on different concepts that we both call "belief".

With belief I roughly mean an attitude with a direction-of-fit towards the world with the content that something is the case or not. On this view, "It is raining" can be a belief without one claiming "I believe it is raining" explicitly. This usage seems closer to (or at least a kind of) what you call an "idea." Thus, to me, there is nothing contradictory in saying a belief is justified, akin to how you say an idea is justified.

I think I have a better picture of what you’re arguing now. I think you take "belief" to be an add-on to expressions of ideas to signal credence to oneself or others without any added epistemic warrant being involved. You seemingly derive this concept of "belief" from how the phrase "I believe" is used to convince oneself and others that there is more warrant than there really is and that this thus is irrational.

Your addition of "I believe in you" is interesting. It tells me that you take the relevant concept to be what I would consider "non-doxastic," being similar to having "faith."

Is this in the right direction of what you had in mind with your argument?

Just because it is "not yet rational" doesn't mean that it is the opposite of rational. This is a classic fallacy of the excluded middle. Rationality and irrationality can be on a spectrum, not sides of a coin. — Pantagruel

Well, bad call. No "middle" excluded by me, although I won't argue it's not true of your interpretation of what I've said. I can't account for or answer to your interpretation. Speaking in binaries for simplicity's sake does not imply thinking in binaries. It's seems you want to find fault if at all possible? Have you considered your own motivations for that?

Take "belief is irrational" like saying, "Todd's gone nuts!" It doesn't mean there's absolutely no sanity left in Todd, does it? But nuts enough that it's significant and has to be dealt with. Like that.

I think your confusion lies in failing to keep the two parts of such statements distinct.

"I ____ that P" is a two-part assertion. (think/believe/know in the blank, makes no real difference.)

Part 1: P is the assertion proper, and it is identical in "think P", "believe P", and "know P". Epistemically identical in all cases.

Part 2: The "I ____" part, referring to the speaker's relationship/attitude to the assertion, which as far as the truth value of the assertion is neither here or there.

Since there is no difference in P in any case, there is no reason justified by assessing P epistemically to choose "think" or "believe" or "know". The choice has nothing to do with P or its validity or truth value. P (epistemically) and the speaker's relationship/attitude to P both lie on spectra. The choice made to adopt one or another relationship/attitude does not. It's a discrete, mutually exclusive choice.

In predominate usage, "I believe" is chosen for assertions for which the epistemic analysis of the assertion does not give it sufficient warrant. It's a frank admission that epistemic warrant is weak. "Believe" bridges the gap. When warrant is strong, "The sun is really bright and hot today," we simply don't prefix an assertion with "I believe..."

I don't argue that there isn't plenty of sloppy use of language and that lots of times "think" and "believe" get used interchangeably. "Know" is quite different, though. However, I try not to make sense out of things based on sloppy examples.

Does that help?

This conflicts with most understandings of thoughts. — Philosophim

What you have in mind does, but it's not what I said.

"I ____ that P" is a two-part assertion. (think/believe/know in the blank, makes no real difference.) E.g., "I believe it's raining." P = "it's raining".

Part 1: P is the assertion proper, and it is identical in "think P", "believe P", and "know P". Epistemically identical in all cases.

Part 2: The "I ____" part, referring to the speaker's relationship/attitude to the assertion, which as far as the truth value of the assertion is neither here or there.

Since there is no difference in P in any case, there is no reason (justified by assessing P epistemically) to choose "think" or "believe" or "know". The choice has nothing to do with P or its validity or truth value.

You are implying that if someone thinks on a plausibility for long enough, it becomes a belief statement of possibility or certainty. I would say that's not necessarily the case. Plenty of "I think"s simply stay that way. But correct me if I have the wrong base understanding of what you're trying to say here. — Philosophim

Actually, no -- which would be clear with a simpler example. Yours with "might be" and "visualizing in my head" and "plausibility" is unnecessarily complicated. Let's stick to "I _____ that P", it's all we need.

I said/implied nothing about thinking "on a plausibility for long enough, it becomes a belief statement". Our use of think, believe, and know are terminology choices we make. I'm ignoring sloppy usage and deceptive usage and assuming the the choice reflects the speaker's own honest assessment of their relationship/attitude to the assertion.

Let me know how these clarifications alter your feedback.

…..believe and think, are the same with respect to the the actual assertion. — Millard J Melnyk

Therein lay some difference in our philosophies: an assertion is a statement predicated on language, but the OP is concerned with the relative quality of thought and belief, its irrationality, which are determined by the logical validity of the cognitions of which they are the content, and with which language has nothing to do.

While I agree assertions of thought or belief, in and of themselves, hold the same epistemic value, demonstrated by their interchangeable language use….however indiscriminate that may be…..without serious loss of mutual understanding, it remains they are very far from being interchangeable in the system in which they are the constructs necessarily presupposed in any language use.

One is no more or less true than the other. Agreed? — Millard J Melnyk

Agreed, assertions expressing them aside, thought has no more truth value than belief, but only because there is no truth value in either one. Truth resides exclusively in the conformity of the thought or belief with experience on the one hand, or another antecedent thought or belief that has itself already conformed to experience, on the other. Conformity with respect to experience is empirical proof, legislated by the principle of induction, re: contingently true only insofar as we know; conformity with respect to antecedent thought/belief is logical proof, legislated by the LNC, re: necessarily true insofar as its negation is impossible. Empirical proof is called knowledge, logical proof is called apodeitic certainty.
—————-

It's just not that complicated. — Millard J Melnyk

Or…it’s overly simplified?

Either way, it’s your thread; I’m just a visitor.

"I ____ that P" is a two-part assertion. (think/believe/know in the blank, makes no real difference.) E.g., "I believe it's raining." P = "it's raining".

Part 1: P is the assertion proper, and it is identical in "think P", "believe P", and "know P". Epistemically identical in all cases. — Millard J Melnyk

Ok, I'm in agreement with you that in certain contexts, "I think" can mean the same thing as "I believe". But does it always? No. Many time "I think" can also mean "I'm considering". And considering is not a synonym of 'belief'.

If you're going to use a word that can have more than one meaning depending on context, but you're only interested in the context in which that meaning is a synonym of another word, just use that other word. Otherwise people are going to bring up the different contexts of the word you're using, and the argument will likely get into an argument over definitions instead of where you want to explore.

Part 1: P is the assertion proper, and it is identical in "think P", "believe P", and "know P". Epistemically identical in all cases. — Millard J Melnyk

Again, I think in a particular context these words could be synonyms, or have certain parts that they share. But 'know' is never the same as 'believe' unless you're using slang. Knowledge as a definition is a descriptor of whether a belief has a backing behind it that fits some reasonable standard beyond the base assertion. Another way to view it is, "If a belief can be irrational, than there is the possible contrast of a belief being rational."

Since there is no difference in P in any case, there is no reason (justified by assessing P epistemically) to choose "think" or "believe" or "know". — Millard J Melnyk

Unfortunately this just picks a very limited context and makes them all synonyms. So all you've really done is use one concept, not three. But it is the case that these words can represent different concepts in different contexts. Therefore you can's use the word as if it is a synonym in all contexts.

Actually, no -- which would be clear with a simpler example. Yours with "might be" and "visualizing in my head" and "plausibility" is unnecessarily complicated. Let's stick to "I _____ that P", it's all we need. — Millard J Melnyk

There's a difference between 'unnecessary complication" and "identifying real differences". I mean, we can call everything that's has green on it a tree right? "Fir tree", "bush" and "grass" are not unnecessary complications, they are observations of important differences in most contexts.

I said/implied nothing about thinking "on a plausibility for long enough, it becomes a belief statement". — Millard J Melnyk

So then, and please correct me again if I'm wrong, you're using belief and think as synonyms.

Take "belief is irrational" like saying, "Todd's gone nuts!" It doesn't mean there's absolutely no sanity left in Todd, does it? But nuts enough that it's significant and has to be dealt with. Like that. — Millard J Melnyk

Exactly. It is a matter of degree. Hence by definition no longer binary. We have moved now onto a scale which lies between two extremes.

Believing that believing all belief is irrational, is irrational, is irrational. — Millard J Melnyk

What this shows is that the thread, and your attempted explanation, is hopelessly muddled.

Cheers.

Shall I dip my toe in the murk? Hmmm...........no.....

If "justified belief" is an oxymoron then I suppose that we are relying on different concepts that we both call "belief". — GazingGecko

Probably.

Again, what you mean by belief isn't relevant to the post. The syllogism can't be evaluated on the basis of your definition, because it doesn't use that definition.

I think you take "belief" to be an add-on to expressions of ideas to signal credence to oneself or others without any added epistemic warrant being involved. — GazingGecko

Getting there! :D

As I've mentioned now in several places:

"I ____ that P" is a two-part assertion. (think/believe/know in the blank, makes no real difference.) E.g., "I believe it's raining." P = "it's raining".

Part 1: P is the assertion proper, and it is identical in "think P", "believe P", and "know P". Epistemically identical in all cases. Maybe the problem is how I tried to

Part 2: The "I ____" part, referring to the speaker's relationship/attitude to the assertion, which as far as the truth value of the assertion is neither here or there.

Since there is no difference in P in any case, there is no reason (justified by assessing P epistemically) to choose "think" or "believe" or "know". The choice has nothing to do with P or its validity or truth value.

So, not sure what you mean by "add-on", but I think the above makes clear the structure of what I'm talking about. "I think/believe/know that P" involves a discrete choice about how to characterize the speaker's relationship/attitude to the assertion P, not a difference in P itself. When a person chooses "believe", it's because neither "think" nor "know" fit the bill, and they're not satisfied with simply stating "P".

Given the above, I'm pretty sure that "doxastic" and similar considerations apply only to Part 2, the asserter's "doxastic stance" toward the assertion.

Wise move.

Ok, I'm in agreement with you that in certain contexts, "I think" can mean the same thing as "I believe". — Philosophim

Well, no, we're not in agreement, because I haven't said and don't agree that think can mean the same thing as believe.

So then, and please correct me again if I'm wrong, you're using belief and think as synonyms. — Philosophim

Nope. I'm not sure I can make it clearer. Last try: I'll restate it with a bunch more possibilities:

"I ____ that P" is a two-part assertion. (think/believe/know/consider/speculate/conjecture/theorize/hypothesize in the blank, makes no real difference.) E.g., "I believe it's raining." P = "it's raining".

Part 1: P is the assertion proper, and it is identical in "think P", "believe P", "know P", or "WHATEVER P". Epistemically identical in all cases. Maybe the problem is how I tried to

Part 2: The "I ____" part, referring to the speaker's relationship/attitude to the assertion, which as far as the truth value of the assertion is neither here or there.

Since there is no difference in P in any case, there is no reason (justified by assessing P epistemically) to choose "think" or "believe" or "know" or "WHATEVER" -- which are not synonyms. The choice has nothing to do with P or its validity or truth value, which is identical in every case.

Well, no, we're not in agreement, because I haven't said and don't agree that think can mean the same thing as believe. — Millard J Melnyk

I apologize then, I'm clearly not getting it.

Part 1: P is the assertion proper, and it is identical in "think P", "believe P", "know P", or "WHATEVER P". Epistemically identical in all cases. — Millard J Melnyk

Can you explain how these are epistemically identical in all cases? The point I was getting at earlier is that you seem to want to use one concept with words that often have different meanings in different contexts. It would be much clearer if you voiced what that specific concept was without the introduction of different words.

You also use P as a noun earlier with "Its raining". So is "Its raining" epistemically equivalent whether I believe, think, or know about it? Or is it the believe, think, or know which is epistemically equivalent?

Part 2: The "I ____" part, referring to the speaker's relationship/attitude to the assertion, which as far as the truth value of the assertion is neither here or there. — Millard J Melnyk

Ok, this is contextual to oneself. But couldn't a person have a different intention? So I'm sure one person when they say 'believe' could mean 'assert'. In another context they could mean, "Consider". And in another context they could personally believe their belief is 'knowledge'. But these are all different concepts, whether their opinion of the concept in application to P is true or not.

The choice has nothing to do with P or its validity or truth value, which is identical in every case. — Millard J Melnyk

Are you just trying to say that "What is true is true regardless of what we believe/think/know about it?"

I agree if I understand your position correctly as being deflationary. I would simply put it by saying that an interrogated subject isn't in the epistemically exalted position to distinguish his 'beliefs' from what he 'knows' about the world.

To find out what somebody believes, don't ask them for a self report of the form "I believe that X is true with n% confidence", but rather, ask them what they know about the world, because what a person is prepared to assert about the world is a more accurate measure of what their actual "beliefs" are, and can be expected to be at odds with what they say about themselves when introspecting unreliably.

The next question should concern the extent to which beliefs exist internally within a person in the sense of a mental state, versus externally of the person as behavioural hypotheses that society projects onto the person. (Since we have no reason to assume that people understand themselves).

It's doing there in an attempt to distinguish the assertion from the statement of relationship to the assertion (which failed miserably as can be seen in the comments.) "I think it's raining," and, "I believe it's raining," are semantically identical with respect to the rain, i.e., the assertion each makes is identical. All that differs, as you point out, is the speaker's level of credence in the assertion. — Millard J Melnyk

That's right, if you are only thinking about the first person use - "I know that...", "I believe that...", "I think that...". Things are different if you think about "S knows that..." etc. In those cases, it is not about the level of credence of the subject, but about the level of credence of the speaker. When I report that "S knows that p", I am endorsing p as true; when I report that "S believes that p", I am refraining from any commitment; if I report that "S thinks that p", I am actually indicating that p is false. One can go further and report that S supposes that p, suggesting that p is absurd, or imagines that p, which classes p as a fantasy. First person uses are special because the speaker and the subject are the same.

LMAO! You can see from the discussion how problematic it is to get minds to open to the possibility that "I believe" is not all it's cracked up to be. .... When they say "I know" a boatload of new soldiers of skepticism suddenly get activated. — Millard J Melnyk

Yes, the debates around the remote possibility that p might be false can indeed rather tiresome. I'm prepared to concede that philosophers and scientists might have stricter criteria for truth (and so for knowledge) than we apply in the rough and tumble of everyday life.

Bullshit differs from lies by virtue of the fact that the bullshitter does absolutely nothing to establish warrant, because they couldn't care less about it. — Millard J Melnyk

Yes, I think Frankfurt is right about that. However, I'm bewildered by your apparent belief that all beliefs are based on bullshit. That doesn't follow from anything that Frankfurt says, so far as I can see.

To my mind, "knowledge" is a useless category, because either it remains open to revision -- in which case, what are the merits and advantages of calling it knowledge as opposed to theory or provisional conclusion or guess? -- or dubbing it "knowledge" prematurely closes the question, — Millard J Melnyk

Yes. If we accept that there is no possibility of anything ever being certainly true, the distinction between knowledge and belief collapses. But I do think that there are a good many truths about the world, and it is useful not to confuse them with probabilities and assumptions.

But the most persuasive form is to drop all reference to self completely. — Millard J Melnyk

If you are talking about the first person use, then I agree with you that "I know/believe that p" is unhelpful - and that's not just a matter of what is persuasive. But I think that the third person is useful. It's an important moment in the development of children when they recognize that sometimes they may know something that someone else does not (and the possibility that someone else may know something that they do not). It would be impossible to deal with people if that were not possible.

"I think" and "I believe" and "I know" shifts attention to the speaker's relationship with the empirical reality. The effect is to dissuade (to some degree) empirical investigation by deflecting attention onto the speaker. — Millard J Melnyk

H'm. I think that depends on the context.

"I believe P" has a markedly different effect, immediately raising the question what the person did or did not do, (likely the latter, because jumping that gap is what "believe" does,) to determine the extra that "believe" implies over "think". — Millard J Melnyk

Well, I explained that difference by reference to the speaker's endorsement or not. It is true that people often do jump to conclusions on the basis of incomplete evidence. That can be useful when judiciously adopted. Decisions in practice are often make under pressure of time. The catch is that one is taking a risk, which may or may not pay off. But a lot of life is like that.

Welcome to the forum!

As for premise 1: Epistemically, belief and thought are identical.

This needs clarification. What is a belief? What is a thought?

As far as I can see you have stipulated that they are identical but have not given an argument as to why they are identical.

Once you tell us what they are then maybe we can proceed to argue about these topics.

One, they're premises. They don't need proof. You're right, I'm relying on the reader's own experience in using the terms and observing they're use. Are you saying you have no working grasp of the difference between think, believe, know, etc., or that your grasp of them is so different than mine that we're not referring to the same things with those terms? I'm not building a universal, iron-clad case here, just testing the limitations of a real-world observation.

I am saying that outside of ordinary use of these words, we have no technical definitions of "believing", "knowing" or "thinking". Unless you argue that knowledge is justified true belief, which is unconvincing.

Having said this, on ordinary usage, belief and thought are different. A belief may be true or false. It has a residue of faith to it as well.

A thought may be many things and need not correspond to anything external, as in thinking about a flying mountain, which whatever else it is, is hard to argue is a belief.

Hey dude, nice to discuss with someone who is actually thinking! :grin:

I find that this kind of glitch often results from the clash between categorical thinking and empirical thinking.

I'm working to understand what's going on with actual behavior from psychological and sociological perspectives, so it's really cool when I find a solid pattern that explains extant behavior. I'm aware of mainstream term definitions and categorizations, of course, but I don't approach experience (mine and others') through that filter, and I dispense with accepted definitions and categories if they don't fit what's really going on.

That's why I don't offer definitions. I want readers to use their own understandings/senses for the terms, because if I'm onto a legit pattern, it will hold for most or all people given their own unfunneled grasps of the terms. And if not, if someone introduces novel elements that don't fit the pattern, that's a find not a problem. Is it legit? What are the differences? Are they significant? Do they imply an important, different angle, etc?

I call this part of an exercise like this post a "sweep".

So, looking at people actually using those Part 2/prefixed terms, when they do and don't use them, what motivates their choice of term in different circumstances and to what end -- that's my study.

I'm interested in belief for reasons I've already explained on this post. Until a conversation I had with one of my sons a couple of years ago, I assumed belief/believing had a modicum of legitimacy and value. Since then I've had the suspicion that isn't true, so I've been digging into it. This post is the kind of thing I do as a last-chance, redeem-yourself-now-or-forever-hold-your-piece step (not really, always open to revision) before accepting my own confidence that it's true.

So, I put what everyone says, including philosophers, out of my head, observe what's really going on, find the patterns resident in actual behavior, and then I go about reconciling the differences with academic and mainstream thinking. I think this is important because, to the extant that our most respected and most predominate thinking are responsible for the FUBARs in the world that look like they're increasingly threatening our very existence, I think it behooves us to assess and fix their psycho-social and ideological causes.

Try approaching the syllogism (such as it is, it's not stellar, but you get the drift) and see where we come out.

So, do you get how there are two parts to the various think/believe/know/WHATEVER statements? "Epistemically identical" means that if you do exactly the same epistemic assessment on them (what warrants me considering P as true?) you come out with exactly the same results for all cases. Once I realized these statements have two parts and that the actual assertion part (P/"it's raining") for all forms is the exact same assertion, I realized that "epistemically identical" is an unnecessary qualification. They're the exact same. All that differs is the 2nd part that indicates the speaker's relationship to/attitude towards their assertion. I put it 2nd because it's far less important than the actual assertion. In fact, when you think about it, as far as the assertion goes, it's irrelevant. How I view the assertion and what relationship to it and confidence level I have in it makes no difference to whether it's true or not.

So, that begs the question why it's important to the speaker to prefix the assertion with an irrelevancy. That's kinda the first red flag that irrationality is involved. Why not simply say, "It's raining." ?? Part 2 (think/believe/know) is irrelevant to the rain and the question whether it's raining, but not irrelevant to the speaker.

I'll let you digest that and take another look at the post, then tell me if the reorientation helped.

Nice catch dude! You're right. I'm not at all interested in the 2nd or 3rd person cases because I'm not trying to build a theory here. I'm only interested in 1st person because my thinking (for me) and your thinking (for you) is at the root of all problems we have with thinking about others, so that's where we need to find the damage and fix it.

This post is how I'm trying to answer the question I have of myself, "Can I say that all belief is irrational?" This is how I stress test the hypothesis "All belief is irrational." It's an empirical way of doing philosophy (empirical in the sense that I'm getting real data from original sources, i.e., the best-effort thinking of other smart people.)

Yes, the debates around the remote possibility that p might be false can indeed rather tiresome. I'm prepared to concede that philosophers and scientists might have stricter criteria for truth (and so for knowledge) than we apply in the rough and tumble of everyday life. — Ludwig V

Ahh... if only that were true. Justified True Belief is a prime example showing that their criteria tend to be pretty shitty. And philosophers don't dictate the views of the vast majority of people. They don't even influence them directly. The work of philosophers is the stuff that "leaders" cherry-pick to rationalize their agendas. It works, because you'd have to be a philosopher to debunk the crap some of these guys came up with. Philosophy has always served as a foundation for building "civilized societies" (when the power-crazed even bother trying to rationalize what they do.)

Yes, I think Frankfurt is right about that. However, I'm bewildered by your apparent belief that all beliefs are based on bullshit. That doesn't follow from anything that Frankfurt says, so far as I can see. — Ludwig V

It doesn't follow from Frankfurt. And no, lol, it's not a belief. For me, everything is provisional. I state hypotheticals that look like fully-believed assertions because that's exactly how hypotheticals are stated: as unquestionably true. This helps me understand the mentality of the person I'm talking with. If they take it as an authoritative statement of belief, they deal in the currency of authoritative belief. If they take it as a hypothesis to be falsified (and I make it so easy for them lol), then I'm dealing with someone who thinks scientifically, empirically. Guess which type I run into the most? :rofl:

Prefix: "I think/believe/know/WHATEVER"
Assertion: "it's raining" (P)

Once those two parts are clear, (along with the fact that P doesn't need prefixing in the first place,) the question becomes why the speaker chose the prefix they did. "I think" seems to be a simple admission that this is where the person is at. This is how they see it. I don't see much more implied. "I know" conveys that this isn't just how they see it -- they see it this way because they're thoroughly convinced it's this way, by whatever means they became convinced. So, if something doesn't just appear to be true (think) but we're sure/convinced/certain it's true (know), then why would a person choose "I believe"?

I'd like to hear what you think the answer to that question is. For example, why to people say, "I believe that God exists"? Why not, "I know God exists," or just, "God exists"? What's that hedging really about?

But I think that the third person is useful. It's an important moment in the development of children when they recognize that sometimes they may know something that someone else does not (and the possibility that someone else may know something that they do not). It would be impossible to deal with people if that were not possible. — Ludwig V

Absolutely. Nice to meet someone who thinks about childhood development. Ever real Lloyd deMause? He showed quite irrefutably (as far as I can see) that all the most severe and widespread problems in the world trace back to the FUBARed psyches of "leaders" who have engineered them, thanks to traumatic childhood abuse.

"I think" and "I believe" and "I know" shifts attention to the speaker's relationship with the empirical reality. The effect is to dissuade (to some degree) empirical investigation by deflecting attention onto the speaker.
— Millard J Melnyk
H'm. I think that depends on the context. — Ludwig V

Well, I can't think of any exceptions. What can you come up with?

Premises:

[1] Epistemically, belief and thought are identical.
[2] Preexisting attachment to an idea motivates a rhetorical shift from “I think” to “I believe,” implying a degree of veracity the idea lacks.
[3] This implication produces unwarranted confidence.
[4] Insisting on an idea’s truth beyond the limits of its epistemic warrant is irrational.


Conclusion ∴ All belief is irrational. — Millard J Melnyk

In [1], you seem to be suggesting that saying "I think X" is equivalent to saying "I believe X".
But then in [2], you seem to be implying the "I think X" and "I believe X" mean different things.

Then in [3], you're noting that when a person says "I think X" they're conveying a belief that is unwarranted.

But this means [4] applies exclusively to statements "I think X", and not necessarily to all expressions of belief. This makes your conclusion non-sequitur.

Independent of this analysis, I'll point out that your conclusion has an absurd implication: that all beliefs are equally irrational - and therefore all beliefs are equally arbitrary. That's prima facie absurd: it implies it's just as reasonable for a pedestrian at an intersection to walk straight into traffic as it is to wait for the light to change and oncoming traffic to stop.

So there can be warranted confidence in a belief - and that's what we ought to strive for.

Came in late on this, so forgive me if the following point has already been made.

There's an equivocation going on between two senses of "think":

Mary thinks the house is on fire.
Mary thinks, "The house is on fire."

The first usage is more or less synonymous with "believe." It refers to the content of a proposition. The second usage, however, is completely separate from the issue of belief. It refers to a mental event, a thought, that Mary is having at the moment. She may be having it for any number of reasons, some of which will have nothing to do with a particular blazing house. (Perhaps she's remembering a line in a poem she likes.). It is this usage that @Banno refers to when he says:

We can certainly entertain thoughts that are not true - that's where things like modality and error come from. — Banno

Mary, in the second usage, is "entertaining" the thought. Consider the different ways she would respond if you asked her, "Do you believe the house is on fire?"

Case 1: Yes, I do.
Case 2: What house? Oh, you misunderstood me. I had that thought for a completely unrelated reason, sorry. I was evaluating scary sentences, trying to decide how I felt about this one.

These two usages of "thought" and "think" are taken up in much more detail in the thread, "Can a Thought Cause Another Thought?".

What happened here is that Millard noted that we may have irrational thoughts (his step 2 and 3) then equated thinking and believing (step one) and concluded that all our beliefs are irrational (step 4)

It's just a confusion.

Yes, that too, but the equivocation I referred to shows up a lot. It's just how we use the English language. Sometimes "I think" is uttered to state something the speaker endorses; other times it's a report about a mental event, something "entertained" but not endorsed.

Epistemically, belief and thought are identical. — Millard J Melnyk

Sorry there appears to be so much ancillary concern/interpretation here. I understand where you are coming from. In fact, philosophy is littered with discussion of rational/irrational (or "emotional" as it is sometimes called). There may be some piling on that could be cleared up. Is a more accurate first premise to say: "To the degree that a belief is semantically and epistemically as rational as a thought..."?

It's only that there are at least three senses (versions/options) of “belief”:

One is as you say, interchangeable with a certain sense of thought--though as @Banno points out, there are a few versions of thought as well--but I think we would agree the one you are employing is the same as "I know" to the extent that it is a claim (to be knowledge). This would be the sense that, if you are overly "confident", and it is not "warranted" (it is not true), you will be arrogant (I have no idea what that is like though) or lose credibility (though you may not know it) as @Ludwig V points out.

Another is as a hypothesis, as in a guess. Which may be verified as correct, but does not put me in the same relationship to you—I can guess with no justification because I am not making a claim to you that "I know" anything (true). "Is it raining?" "I believe it is." "Why?" ... and the next thing I say does not have to be verified or verifiable (though that it is raining can). A guess may be silly or crazy, but it is not judged as to whether it is "irrational" because it is not a claim to "truth beyond the limits of its epistemic warrant".

But I believe it is the third version of belief where we get all jumbled together: belief as something I am willing to stand behind (say, on principal), such as “[My belief is that] everyone is created equal” (A moral claim discussed here). Now this is not the same as a justified claim or a verifiable guess but is not without reasons ("irrational"), even if only what I will be responsible for, what I stake or promise my actions to reflect. This is a conviction, which is just not in the same ballpark as what you term "confidence".

Perhaps what we are hoping for is a certain definition of "rational", but I believe the hitch might be that in including the second and excluding the third as being "rational", you thus pile together what is "irrational".

All of that is to say that with a tweak or two to some premises, this is all well and good. Unfortunately, without those tweaks, the relevance that you draw cannot be a claim to knowledge or truth (in certain senses of those) as "cannot" wishes to imply here:

You cannot create captive groups, cliques, cults, companies, “societies”, governments, nations, philosophies, or religions with just “I think”. — Millard J Melnyk

Now we could argue that "I wish you would...", or "You're an idiot to...", but, categorically, you cannot shift between think/belief as a claim or guess, and belief as a thing that creates nations. The leg we stand on is our consent to the social contract (even if implied). We are constituted in and by what we hold to be true--thus why countries don't speak of irrationality, or right or wrong, but treason. Now, if you want to talk political philosophy and about "authority and coercion", that is a timely matter, but, alas for all of us, not epistemological.

The following is my attempt to formalize your clarified argument. I hope it is reasonably accurate and valid. Some nuance is probably missed.

The Argument
(1) For any assertion p, the epistemic warrant for p is identical for any prefix ("I believe," "I think," "I know," etc.).
(2) If any prefix is chosen above another prefix for any assertion p is motivated by wanting to make p seem more warranted than it is, and the epistemic warrant for p remains identical, then the choice rhetorically overstates the epistemic warrant for p.
(3) For any assertion p, every use of the prefix "I believe" is a choice over the prefix "I think" and is motivated by wanting to make p seem more warranted than it is.
(C1) Thus, every use of the prefix "I believe" before any assertion p is a choice that rhetorically overstates the epistemic warrant for p.
(4) Making a choice that rhetorically overstates epistemic warrant is irrational.
(C2) Thus, every use of the prefix "I believe" before an assertion is irrational.

If this is what you're saying, then you avoid my earlier objections and the self-defeat worry levelled at your argument by @Banno and others. However, that comes at the cost of making the conclusion far more modest than it initially seemed. "All belief is irrational" is more provocative than (C2), which might have been your intention. Still, from what I understand, your line of argument only yields something akin to (C2). At most.

(3) seems dubious to me. Usage of "I believe" does not appear to be due to that motivation most of the time, at least based on my linguistic intuitions. Still, even if my intuition is very off, as long as there is one counter-example, the argument (as I reconstructed it, at least) is unsound. One could of course weaken (3) and (C2) to only concern "most" or "some" of the use of the prefix "I believe," but then the argument become even more modest.

Do you think this reconstruction is roughly right? Feel free to clarify or add further support to premises, if you want.

Neither you or Banno can tell the difference between "identical" and "epistemically identical", apparently. — Millard J Melnyk

Can you explain as clearly and as succinctly as possible then please?

So, if something doesn't just appear to be true (think) but we're sure/convinced/certain it's true (know), then why would a person choose "I believe"? — Millard J Melnyk

Normally, they wouldn't. That's why it seems to odd that you want to ignore "know". I know you explained that, but it seems to me a pragmatic reason, rather than anything to do with a philosophical understanding of these cognitive verbs.

"I think" and "I believe" and "I know" shifts attention to the speaker's relationship with the empirical reality. The effect is to dissuade (to some degree) empirical investigation by deflecting attention onto the speaker.
— Millard J Melnyk
H'm. I think that depends on the context.
— Ludwig V
Well, I can't think of any exceptions. What can you come up with? — Millard J Melnyk

Well, how about a group of people wanting to extract a vital document from a safe. But no-one knows the combination. Then someone says, "Oh, I know the combination?" What's they will focus on is not that that person knows it, but what the combination is. The first question will be "What is the combination", not "How do you know it?" Later on, when the police are trying to work out who stole the document, they will be more interested in how you know it.

I'd like to hear what you think the answer to that question is. For example, why to people say, "I believe that God exists"? Why not, "I know God exists," or just, "God exists"? What's that hedging really about? — Millard J Melnyk

I believe that people who say that they know that God exists are keen to emphasize their certainty. I would expect them to be very keen to cite their grounds. People who say that they believe that God exists are not necessarily any less certain, but are more likely to recognize that their faith in God is not based on purely rational grounds. When we say we believe in someone or something, we are expressing faith and loyalty, not just a cognitive achievement. It's a wrinkle in the standard use.

Now, if you want to talk political philosophy and about "authority and coercion", that is a timely matter, but, alas for all of us, not epistemological. — Antony Nickles

I think that's a philosopher's narrow view. Most of what we know, we know on authority. Naturally, a good deal then hangs on the warrant for that authority, but it is not a marginal source for our knowledge. Of course, sadly, it is all to easy to misuse authority, once it is conceded, but that doesn't undermine its importance in practice.

The first usage is more or less synonymous with "believe." It refers to the content of a proposition. The second usage, however, is completely separate from the issue of belief. It refers to a mental event, a thought, that Mary is having at the moment. She may be having it for any number of reasons, some of which will have nothing to do with a particular blazing house. (Perhaps she's remembering a line in a poem she likes.). — J

That's one of the ways in which thinking, thought etc. are hideously complicated concepts. It covers not only the activity of thinking, but also its results. It covers actual activities that we would call thinking and situations where thinking is not an overt process, but happens, it would seem, unconsciously or at least without our conscious involvement.