Well, other than the obvious verb and precursor to a noun respectively, I would venture it [the difference] has to do more with 'knowledge' (implicit and explicit distinctions) than with 'truth'. I would 'believe' based on direct experience with something; and 'believe in' an ideal. Of course, these actions and ideals of belief would not be absolute: they're subject to change and levels of conviction, i.e. to what extent I can accept what *I believe to be true, to me* - and what *I believe in, based on a personal/social ideal*. That being said - I suppose connecting with social ideals would be a case of believing in a belief.
dear david, is your question between 'believe that' and 'believe in', where the first one could be said to precede propositions whose possible truth we're commited in, whereas latter could be said to entail some ontological commitment, as in 'i believe in numbers'?
Hmmm. I'd go along with both of you. The ontological commitment does *seem* evident, but I'm not sure we're making the same *kind* of commitment we'd be making in saying "there are computers" or "there are explosions". Also, what would it mean if someone said "I believe in computers" (or explosions)? We'd probably assign such utterances to some kind of 'world-view' rather than taking them as simple statements that computers exist and explosions happen.
This is perhaps one of the first errors in theology - 'believing in God' is not necessarily the same thing as believing that we are justified in asserting that God exists.
again my goldfish attention-span strikes. i don't see where justification enters the picture, in your last sentence. i thing that believing in God could be construed to be the same as asserting that God exists.
And I just showed that it can't. Perhaps it's your glasses that need changing...
no, you said we're justified in asserting it. i didn't say anything about justification.
Of course, you did say "could be construed" - it could, but I think it's an error. I believe tables exist, but I don't believe IN tables.
Michael - nice point! The question is not whether "believing in x" is identical to holding that x exists (it isn't), but whether it *entails* holding that x exists...
I was thinking in terms of linguistic analysis - in what contexts do we use "A believes in X" and "A believes that p", and what are the structural characteristics of the two forms (for instance, in "A believes in X", "X" is usually a noun or a nominal form, while in "A believes that p", "p" is a proposition). All the rest is idle, possibly meaningless, speculation.
Of course, one could reformulate "A believes in spiritual existence" as "A believes that there is spiritual existence" - but as Haris remarked before, there's probably more to "believing in" than a simple ontological commitment... I believe that there are chairs (to the degree of commiting myself to the "existence" of chairs), but I don't "believe IN chairs".
DH: "I believe that there are chairs (to the degree of commiting myself to the 'existence' of chairs), but I don't 'believe IN chairs.'"
Do you believe in the reality in which chairs are embedded? Or do you disbelieve in that reality?
Do I "have faith in reality"? No, I'd rather say that I have (a certain degree of) faith in my understanding of reality - that is, in the representation I would give of what "reality" could be. When writing that I "believe that there are chairs", I was nonetheless crossing my fingers behind my back ("lies-to-children"). As I've pointed out before, if we're using QM as our "model reality", "there are chairs" is probably meaningless (and yes, this IS a matter of "naive set theory").
The "reality" in which some thing is embedded is a matter of the domain of discourse chosen for this or that analysis. You can derive this from Peirce, if such exercises appeal to you... I prefer the more sophisticated tools developed by folks like Kripke and Lewis. However,the use of such tools do NOT imply a "generalised ontological commitment beyond the scope of the theory". For my part, the only "generalised commitment" I have is to spatiotemporal regions, and even this is crticably ad-hoc (ask friend Sunil). Am I, for example, commting myself to substantivalism? If not, how can I make sense of an ontological commitment to spatiotemporal regions?
The answer is, of course, that our ontology is relative to our language - and our language is relative to the pragmatic ends of our discourse.
Bill, your lack of philosophical sophistication makes debate with you rather difficult.
Bill, your lack of philosophical sophistication makes debate with you rather difficult.
Bill, your lack of philosophical sophistication makes debate with you rather difficult.
Bill, your lack of philosophical sophistication makes debate with you rather difficult.
"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.
"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What i tell you three times is true."
~Lewis Carroll; ***The Hunting of the Snark***
Thus there is no need to post something four times. Three is more than enough.
Language generally displays a high degree of redundancy - take it as the digital equivalent of a fit of stuttering.
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