Re: THEORY: Are commands to believe infelicitous?

On Friday, May 27, 2005, at 10:06 , tomhchappell wrote:
[snip]
> I was drawing a parallel between the computer instruction "STORE"
> and the command "believe".  You can tell a computer "this field is
> red" and the computer will/must "believe" it.  Whatever value you
> say must be stored in a certain field, the computer can, must, and
> will store there.  Computers can obey such commands.  They are
> machines.
I think it is misleading to make such comparisons. Storing binary digits
in a computer (which may or may not be later re-interpreted by humanly
constructed software in the same way the person storing them intended) is
not IMO analogous to believing.

In any case STORE would surely be more analogous to "know" rather than
"believe", would it not? I would not say "I believe there is a holly tree
in my garden" because I can see the darn tree, I can touch it and get
pricked by its leaves, and cut of branches to decorate the house at
Christmas etc - I _know_ it is there. 'Believe' is surely used of things,
acts and so on that we accept as true without being able to definitely
prove. We accept them as true on trust.

We may metaphorically speak of a computer 'knowing' something - but a
computer accepting something _on trust_??

> To command a person to believe, on the other hand, is to commit a
> categorical error of the kind Kant warned against.  It is to insult
> the person by treating them as if they are a machine (to wit, a
> computer).
I do not agree. I think you are putting too narrow a meaning on both
'believe' and on the function of the imperative mood.

> I did not introduce the word "faith" into the discussion.  AFAIK you
> did.
You are correct. But it seems to me that the concept is relevant to belief.

> My inspiration for this thread was my hearing that the gloss of the
> original etymon for "heresy" was "choose to believe".
"heresy" is from ancient Greek _hairesis_ = "choice" - it was also used to
mean  "election [of candidate]", "bid [at auction]" etc. It is a deverbal
abstract noun from the vern _haireein" "to choose" - nothing more or less
than that.

It was also used by ancient writers to mean "a school of philosophy" such
as the 'Pythagorean Choice' or the 'Platonic Choice', 'Aristotelian Choice'
, 'Stoic Choice' etc.; it could similarly mean a religious sect or group,
so for example the Pharisees and Sadducees are two Jewish 'Choices'.

IMO glossing it as "choose to belief" is somebody's subjective
interpretation. I would have thought in the case of philosophic schools
and religious sects it was rather either "choice [of a set of beliefs from
the universal set of (often conflicting) beliefs]" or "choice [of person
to belong to the school/sect])."

> The early
> Church Fathers referred to Christianity as "this is our heresy".
Obviously with the latter meaning above. Later it came specifically to
refer to those groups that did not follow the mainstream Christian
teachings authorized at various Church Councils. Hence the modern English
meaning of "an opinion contrary to the usual or accepted belief (whether
political, philosophical or religious or whatever)"

> Montaigne has an essay in which a servant whose master is a heretic
> does not understand the questions, but is sure his master is
> correct, and cannot bring himself to believe his master could be
> mistaken, even to save his life.
That's because he trusts his master or has faith in his master. "I don't
understand it but I'm sure my master cannot be wrong." In modern times
people have been willing to suspend reason to believe (often contrary to
evidence) that dictators like Hitler, Stalin & Mao Zedong were right.

> Modern psychotherapists often
> counsel patients to believe something other than what they now
> believe, as if it were possible to simply change one's mind.  I
> wondered, is "choose to believe" a verb in which the agent is really
> not all that agent-like?
It should be - but much depends upon circumstances. As the results of
torture, brainwashing, or simple obedience to a charismatic leader etc.
"choice" (of anything, not just belief) may be conditioned.

> Could all that blood have been spilled by the Church over a linguistic
> error?
Nope - I see no evidence at all of the supposed linguistic error - just
ordinary changes in use of word as it passes from one language to another
(Greek _hairesis_ --> Latin _haeresis_ --> Old French _heresie_ -->
English _heresy_).  Religious wars in Europe, at least, were seldom, if
indeed ever, just over religion. There were other factors - politics,
ambitions of opposing leaders, rise of nationalism etc, etc.  The
histories of these wars are complex and messy (as were the wars themselves)
.

[snip]
> One responder has shown that Hawaiian words translating "believe"
> have somewhat different connotations than English "believe", more
> like "rely on".  Can you think of other languages that might make a
> difference?
I suspect the verb 'to believe' in other languages rarely maps precisely
one-to-one with the range of meanings of the English verb.

The Greek _pisteuein_ (to believe) certainly has the idea of trust and
"rely on", "put one's faith in". The Latin _credere_ gives us not only
"creed" but also "credit" and "creditor"; in fact the original meaning of
_credere_ was "to make a loan", "to lend". The meanings "to trust to", "to
have confidence in", "to rely on", "to believe", "to suppose" derive from
metaphorical use.

Ray
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