Belief and (Personal) Truth

from Richard Ostrofsky

of Second Thoughts Bookstore (now closed)
www.secthoughts.com
quill@travel-net.com

November, 2010

What does it mean to believe something? Under what conditions should

one believe (rather than disbelieve, or doubt)? These questions are urgent
today, and anyone trying to live consciously needs to ask them: First,
because so many distinct belief-cultures are now in play – sniping at each
other, rather trying to make collective sense amongst their disparate
viewpoints. Second, because so many questions of public policy turn (or
appear to turn) on questions of belief, so that beliefs are political weapons.
Third, because (as Nietzsche and the post-modernists insisted), diverging
interpretative strategies always lead to disparate patterns of emphasis and
belief. And finally, (for all these reasons), because the accumulation of
scientific knowledge has not reduced either the number or the intensity of
conflicts between alternative belief-systems.
If anything, modern science has increased both the frequency and the
intensity of such conflicts – clashing with religious and social tradition in
a number of areas, while creating new possibilities for human intervention
in areas that formerly could only be shrugged off (or wept or prayed over)
as 'acts of God.' Then too, the accumulation of knowledge has made it
impossible to review the evidence and argument for most of our beliefs.
There is just too much of both, and the issues involved are too complex, so
that most of our beliefs must be taken second-hand either from persons
that we trust to have done the homework for us, and/or from groups whose
acceptance we seek.This is the case even for scientists outside their narrow
(and narrowing) areas of specialty. We live, all of us, by personal beliefs –
worldviews and working assumptions – that we hold, in the end, on little
more than faith.
Does this mean that one faith and worldview is just as good as
another? That there can be no grounds for reasoned criticism or argument
between one worldview and another? No, it does not. Critical reason and
dialogue remain feasible for any persons who prefer civil discourse to
intellectual chaos and violence. The problem today is to be pluralist
(respectful and tolerant of alternative cultures and their worldviews)
without falling into the nonsense of complete relativism. We must and can
judge rationally between the cultural suggestions on offer. In trying to do
so, however, we will not always come to the same conclusions. For that
reason, it becomes necessary to accept that not all truths are public, in the
sense that they must be true for everyone if they are true at all. We hold,
and are entitled to hold, our different cultural and personal beliefs. We
live, (truth be told) much more by personal or cultural truths than by
public, universal ones.
Once this is accepted, we must recognize two very different kinds of
affirmation, and two distinct epistemologies – philosophies of valid
knowledge. The grounds for claiming something as a public, universal
truth will be much stricter than those for claiming it as a personal truth – a
belief one intends to live by. Classical epistemology, recognizing no
margin between truth and error, deals only with the justification of public
beliefs and truth claims. What should we say about the private kind?
A first point might be that people are entitled to their private beliefs
and (in the last resort) need no special justification for holding them.
Philosophers of knowledge can suggest that a private belief is superstitious
or wishful or held on deficient grounds, and they can disagree and argue
about such questions. But fundamentally, we have no jurisdiction.
Philosophy itself is ultimately a thinking person's personal belief – belief
about the promptings of reason on issues for which the evidence is scant,
or its interpretation not universally agreed. By contrast, religion is about
the promptings of faith and hope.
That much declared at the outset, I can advance a few beliefs of mine
on the validity of personal beliefs: First, I think that valid ones still need to
be distinguished from sheer fantasy. This requires, in general that public
knowledge be accepted, though specific exceptions can be made as
needed. But then the burden of argument will always be on those who
doubt what the experts and most people believe. Obviously, this can
change over time, and from one society to another. But consider the
implications for the evolution battles, for example.
A second point is that superstitious and wishful beliefs are to be
avoided as best one can – for the pragmatic reason that both usually
reduce the quality of life. Superstions are constraining and potentially very
costly. Wishful thinking is liable to be mugged by reality, at some
inconvenient time. Both fail a more general test that I would call
'Matthew's Microscope' (by analogy with 'Occam's Razor') after the saying
in Matthew 7-16: "By their fruits ye shall know them." The fact is that
cultures and beliefs are not equal in their consequences. People can and do
judge between them with reference to their usual or likely results.
A third point is that genres need to be respected and kept straight to
avoid confusion. In particular, fiction and myth should be distinguished
from factual report. Their roles are different; they are not believed or
deployed in the same way. Myths are fictions that encode and propagate
some feature(s) of a collective or personal culture. Often, they serve as
banners to rally a collective or personal identity. Recounted, heard and
upheld in this spirit, they are harmless, and may serve an important
function. Confused with fact, however, they invite the challenge of critical
reason, and are bound to suffer and inflict considerable damage in the
conflicts that follow. As great myth, the religions (best considered as
separate systems of belief) offer much to chew on and much to teach. But
not when they put themselves in competition with science.
I agree with Santayana that we all live by a kind of faith – if only that
the sun will rise tomorrow, that we can drive to work without getting
killed, that earthquakes may happen elsewhere but not to me or my family,
tonight. Thus, I'm willing to embrace a version of faith that helps me get
through my days and nights without painful anxiety, but I also enjoy being
right rather than wrong.
A final point: Much of the difference between good faith, intellectually
respectable faith and superstition can be understood through the
distinction between truth and existential commitment. If a woman feels
that her baby is the most beautiful in the whole world, she means that he is
so for her – but presumably not for her next door neighbor who has a baby
of her own. In general, respectable faith accepts that existential
commitments are deeply personal, and not to be confused with public
truths. There seem to be people – many of them – who feel their identities
deeply threatened when it turns out that their private commitments are not
shared by everyone else. There are groups that have set themselves the
project of converting the whole world to their way of thinking. (In this
respect, Americans and Islamists have much in common.) Santayana is
correct that we all need existential commitments to get through a day and
through our lives. But most of these, certainly including people's ultimate
worldviews, are personal ones. You can suggest your own commitments to
others, you can even use Matthew's Microscope to argue their benefits, but
that is really as far as you can go.
In the end, good faith can only be a matter of intention. To attempt
with sincerity to think and live in good faith is actually to do so.