I like this article (but then I liked Dennet’s ideas of belief in belief right from the start) and I’ve been thinking about this off and on all day.
But I think perhaps Eliezer over-analyses: On the surface this person’s beliefs and thoughts seem fuzzy, so Eliezer admiraly digs deeper—but perhaps it’s just fuzz all the way down.
Perhaps she believes P and ~P, perhaps she believes P>Q and she believes P but she beleives ~Q.
Perhaps you just have to shrug, and move on.
My experience is that most religious people give very, very, very little thought to what they actually believe. (About 10,000th of the introspection that Eliezer performs, say :-) ) and analysing it terms of doctrine, beliefs (or indeed impressions) is simply using the wrong tools. Perhaps better to think about emotions invovled in ‘being religious’ and being ‘part of’ a religion.
But for an academic actually doing that analysis (not that I’m necessarily calling EY an ‘academic’), one must invoke the principle of charity, which necessitates assuming she’s saying things that are reasonable, justified, and truthful, as far as you can push it.
Argue against the belief, not the person—if you can wrestle out some truth from what someone’s saying, count that as a win even if they oppose you.
What you say doesn’t account for the curious absence of any direct affirmation of her belief—it’s weird that she’s always at one remove from her own belief.
I like this article (but then I liked Dennet’s ideas of belief in belief right from the start) and I’ve been thinking about this off and on all day.
But I think perhaps Eliezer over-analyses: On the surface this person’s beliefs and thoughts seem fuzzy, so Eliezer admiraly digs deeper—but perhaps it’s just fuzz all the way down.
Perhaps she believes P and ~P, perhaps she believes P>Q and she believes P but she beleives ~Q.
Perhaps you just have to shrug, and move on.
My experience is that most religious people give very, very, very little thought to what they actually believe. (About 10,000th of the introspection that Eliezer performs, say :-) ) and analysing it terms of doctrine, beliefs (or indeed impressions) is simply using the wrong tools. Perhaps better to think about emotions invovled in ‘being religious’ and being ‘part of’ a religion.
But for an academic actually doing that analysis (not that I’m necessarily calling EY an ‘academic’), one must invoke the principle of charity, which necessitates assuming she’s saying things that are reasonable, justified, and truthful, as far as you can push it.
Argue against the belief, not the person—if you can wrestle out some truth from what someone’s saying, count that as a win even if they oppose you.
What you say doesn’t account for the curious absence of any direct affirmation of her belief—it’s weird that she’s always at one remove from her own belief.