Re: THEORY: Are commands to believe infelicitous?

Tom wrote:
<<
In thinking about Joseph Bridwell's response, I decided there might
be a difference between the kind of belief that comes from direct
observation, or from deducing from direct observation, and the kind
of belief that comes from adopting a necessary working hypothesis.
David, is that an example of what you meant?  Is there a better one?
 >>

That's certainly one example.  I think the main point I was trying to
bring up is that whenever you're translating (or creating words for
a language), there's never going to be a direct one-to-one mapping.
Sometimes it will be close--for example, the word for "car" in any
given language.  Chances are if you have a Honda, any word for
that concept "car" will refer to that in any given language.  But a
truck?  A railcar?  Etc.  These exceptions, though, are rather trivial,
in that you can simply list in the dictionary "word x refers to
everything
English 'car' does, except it also refers to horse-drawn carriages", or
something.  Even with a word like "mountain", one language may
distinguish mountains from hills lexically, and another may subsume
both definitions under the term "mountain", with a large mountain
being the most prototypical referent.

When you talk about an abstract concept like "believe", though, it's
nearly impossible.  First of all, there needs to be a discussion of what
"believe" means in English--exactly.  Once that's figured out, you need
to find words that are used to translate that word in other languages,
and see how well they map onto the English word "believe".  Entailed
in this process, though, will be a discussion about what *those* words
really mean in the other languages.

So what you've picked up on in your definition (quoted above) are two
different senses of English "believe".  So, if you see a person eating,
then you see them clutch their stomach, then put their hand to their
mouth, and then run to the bathroom, you can say that you believe
the food they ate made them sick, so that they had to go throw up.
You *believe* this because you didn't see them throw up, and you
don't know for a fact that it was the food that made them sick.  But,
based on your knowledge of the world, and what you saw, it seems
like a reasonable explanation, and so you say that you believe that's
what happened.

Your second definition is similar to the first, except that the direct
evidence is absent--or maybe simply more inference is involved.
Probably most importantly, this sense of believe should have to do
with something novel.  So, for example, let's say, out of the blue,
my mother won the lottery.  Millions of dollars.  Based on what I
know about my mother, it's my belief that she wouldn't quit her
job.  She would be thrilled, and she'd go out and buy things, but
she's dedicated to her work, and wouldn't just leave it--especially
without spending some time to find a suitable replacement.  That's
my belief, but it can't be based completely on observation, because
my mother's never won the lottery.  It is slightly based on observation,
though, because though my mother hasn't won the lottery, I have
observed *her* over the years, and so I believe I can make a reasonable
judgment about her behavior in a given situation.  So my belief
isn't groundless.

Now let's go back to the belief in an afterlife.  This is something
one would necessarily not have any knowledge about, unless
one believes in reincarnation, and remembers an afterlife (or
beforelife).  If one admits that one remembers no such thing,
and admits that one hasn't had any visions of an afterlife, then
it's reasonable to say that the *belief* in an afterlife isn't based
on any evidence whatsoever.  This, then, distinguishes it from
the previous type of "belief".

One thing, though, ties all these senses of belief together, and
that is assumptions about the world (or afterlife) based on some
sort of observation.  The third type is distinct simply because
it's based on a *lack* of observation.  Thus, crucial to each is the
idea of observation.

Now let's move to Hawaiian.  Hawaiian is a language I don't
speak, and I don't have access to a native speaker, but I do know
a thing or two about reading a dictionary and making inferences
based on what definitions are given.  I opened up the English to
Hawaiian side, and found four words for "believe": mana'o'i'o,
hilina'i, piliwi and paulele.  Obviously some of these are
morphologically
complex, or were at some stage of the language (just like English
"believe").  So that's something that would need to be studied.
Looking through the Hawaiian to English side, though, I noticed
something interesting about three out of the four of these definitions:
They all mentioned something about confidence in something, or
physically leaning on something.  None of them mentioned
anything about observation.  So, it might be the case that a basic
notion behind the idea of "belief" is the notion of relying on
something; being able to depend on something.  This idea isn't
absent from English "belief", but it doesn't seem to be the main
idea behind English "belief".

So back to Tom's original question about imperatives.  As an
English speaker, I can say it is odd to tell someone, "Believe in
x!"  You just can't do that; you can't expect someone to act on
that command.  Therefore, it's an "unhappy" command, in
Searle's terms (or was that Austin?).  If I'm right about "believe"
in Hawaiian, though, it would seem like a command form of
their "belief" would *not* be infelicitous, the way the command
form of "rely" isn't in English.  I should qualify that: The command
form of "rely" seems felicitous to *me*.  I can imagine someone
telling me to rely on such and such person, and depending on
whether or not the person telling me so was trustworthy, I'd
comply.  Probably more usual would be, "You can rely on x".
However, "You can believe in x"?  Say you're having a discussion
about an afterlife, and one person says, "I just think it's all
nonsense",
and another replies, "You can believe in an afterlife".  That would
seem unbelievably patronizing, the way the following exchange
would not:

A: "I just don't know if I can rely on Johnson."
B: "Don't worry about it: You can rely on Johnson."

So I think the question about the command form of "believe"
being infelicitous is actually language-specific.  Admittedly, I don't
have overwhelming evidence to suggest this, but I believe it to
be true.  ;)

-David
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-Jim Morrison

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