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> Beliefs are the same, and a relation to "facts" or "truth" is not a requrement for their utility. Is that statement true? > When presented with new facts an
by unit91 10y ago
> Beliefs are the same, and a relation to "facts" or "truth" is not a requrement for their utility.
Is that statement true?
> When presented with new facts and truths we always evaluate their utility before we ascribe to them.
Did you evaluate the utility of that "fact" before believing it?
I'm not trying to be rude here, but the problem with this sort of postmodern view is that it's ultimately self-refuting.
- enord 10y agoI cant find when i subscribed to that particular belief in my ledger, it feels self-evident to me at this point. Whether it's true or not is mostly a semantic argument. You might personally define a beliefs "utility" to be strictly tied to its "objective truth" (or whatever epistemic ideal you assume), but the linked article posits a particular intersection of "rationality" and "utility" of beliefs (as far as I read it anyway). I found it agreeable and chose to share my musings on the topic. I do not agree that the view is particularly post-modern, but since you called it first i guess i must concede. The point was not "all is subjective and nothing is true", rather "whether or not i take on this belief (or fact or whatever) presented to me is a function of the degree to which i understand it combined with my intuition of the ramifications of me holding this belief". We don't have truth-seeking minds, we have "value-" or "utility"-maximizing habits. We understand things and we underestimate things. We prefer things and we reject things. Not always knowingly and sometimes intentionally.