He is illustrating that “belief” has more than one meaning, for all that he hasn’t
clarified the meanings.
A candidate theory would be belief-as-cold-hard-fact versus beliefs-as-hope-and-commitment.
Consider a politican fighting an election. Even if the polls are strongly against
them, they can’t admit that they are going to lose as a matter of fact, because
that will make the situation worse. They invariably refuse to admit defeat.
That is irrational if you treat belief as a solipsistic, pasive registration of
facts, but makes perfect sense if you recoginise that beliefs do things
in the world and influence other people. If one person commits
to something , others can, and that can lead to it becoming a fact.
Treating people as nicer than they are might make them nicer than they were.
He is illustrating that “belief” has more than one meaning, for all that he hasn’t clarified the meanings.
A candidate theory would be belief-as-cold-hard-fact versus beliefs-as-hope-and-commitment.
Consider a politican fighting an election. Even if the polls are strongly against them, they can’t admit that they are going to lose as a matter of fact, because that will make the situation worse. They invariably refuse to admit defeat. That is irrational if you treat belief as a solipsistic, pasive registration of facts, but makes perfect sense if you recoginise that beliefs do things in the world and influence other people. If one person commits to something , others can, and that can lead to it becoming a fact.
Treating people as nicer than they are might make them nicer than they were.
Of course , if “belief” does have these two meanings, the argument against dark side epistemolgoy largely unravels...