The topic is about a criterion for belief, in addition to what it takes for something to be a bit/piece of knowledge. Specifically, I'm not talking about knowing how to breathe, how to cry, and that sort of stuff. That is innate know-how. Rather, I'm interested in discussing what constitutes sufficient reason to believe something(X), and what constitutes an adequate criterion to call something(X) knowledge.

I'll leave it there and see where it goes.

Positing a hypothetical scenario, well sorta...

The natives lived near a volcano. Within their belief system were the ideas that when the god of the volcano was angry, the volcano erupted and lava flows began anew. When this happened, it could be 'appeased' by sacrificing a virgin. The ritual was to take place by throwing her down into the main reservoir of molten lava. Throughout antiquity, these beliefs held firm and were passed on through stories and such. Sometimes, soon after the ritual was complete, the activity level of the volcano would settle down. Whenever that happened, it confirmed the set of beliefs, and perpetuated the continuation of the sacrifice. To the contrary, when the activity level increased afterwards, the natives concluded that the girl/woman was not a virgin.

Were the natives illogical in their beliefs? If not, why. If so, why?

belief & logic?

For me a belief don't need to be logically proven rather a logic could be belief driven


( Plz,don't ask why am I laughing....there is some logic of cource)

Well, I think that much formal logic is belief driven, or at least belief based. That won't get us very far though. I mean, all human conversation is belief driven. I'm not asking if a belief needs to be logically proven. Rather, I'm asking about what constitutes sufficient reason to believe something, in addition to asking whether or not that belief constitutes being knowledge. That was just an example to help the thread along.

So, what do you think? Were the natives illogical in their beliefs?

Hmmm, is it logical. I think logic devoid of a causal understanding can be done properly and still end with a false conclusion.

The natives did not understand the causal relationships involved. There knowledge base did not include the methods needed to make an informed decision about the eruptions cause. The belief structure of animism setup a framework that made sense of what they saw occurring. It may be true that a few skeptics existed who may have not had any better methods for determining why the volcano erupted but were not satisfied with the answers (perhaps one of them KNEW a specific sacrifice was REALLY a virgin, but did not appease the "gods".)

It is this doubt that leads to new understandings. It is doubt that drives the desire to find methods to test understandings.

--wish I could add more, its been crazy busy at work today!

You can't order a pizza for five people without someone b!tching....

Good luck finding the answer to the criterion of knowledge....

People still kill each other over religion and politics.....(all those f**kers swear that they are right)

Hate to bust your bubble brother, but, you may be giving humanity a bit too much credit.

There is no criterion except for personally set standards.

In the scenario you gave, the volcano god and his anger would be knowledge that is verifiable to the people that live there by the eruptions and lack of ability to know any better.

Man has had to go through these stages of knowledge being all that is available at the time and no way of acquiring the next level of knowledge at that time.

Lack of ability to know any better is the key to a situation like this. Once they had the ability to know better and chose to believe the past dis proven information anyway then they are "believers" and that is not knowledge anymore. At this stage it becomes tradition, superstition, stubbornness, political and social control, etc... But not knowledge.

If one just doesn't have the vision to see the next level of knowledge though and is ignorant because of this, that would be the part of the equation that gets messy. Is their own personal lack of vision their fault?

I did dissect the OP in the quote above, just to have the main points in front of me as I consider the scenario of the virgin sacrifice to the volcano god.

We would have to consider how the idea of such a sacrifice evolved. Likely the tribe was strongly patriarcical, possibly holding women in high regard, especially virgins.

So thinking like a man about the fire of desire, and what it takes to soothe the flame, a leader might possibly consider that the volcano god was a male. First, becasue of it's great strength and power, and secondly because of the great 'heat' it generated from 'below'.

The rational conclusion might be to give the burning god a virgin to soothe its desire. It would be easy to convince other males of this idea, because they could relate. It would not be necessary to convince the women of a strongly patriarchical system, as they are not normally allowed to dissent.

If the fist attempt seemed to work, there would be little reason to question the rational basis of the idea - and so it becomes the thing to do.

If the ritual fails to soothe the volcano god, it's very likely that the egocentrism within the patriarcical system would prohibit the consideration of having been wrong in the first place, so there must be another answer. This time the answer may not be as logical, because the answer must also serve as justification for the continuance of the ritual so that system of patriarchy does not suffer.

Aha- it must be the woman, she must not have been pure.

We learn a great deal through the collective and traditionally accepted knowledge of the tribe. As children we believe because, by nature, we are dependent for our knowledge on the elders of the tribe. Later, through trial and error and even more rational thought, an individual may begin to question the logic and the beliefs however, once again, due to our natural tendancies for social accord and personal well-being, we don't rock the boat.

So I would say that part of the criterion for belief is a natural tendancy to maintain social accord, along with limited freedom for dissention and in part due to an inability to come up with a more rational idea without exposing one's self to loss of status or upsetting the status quo of the tribe.

So, the lack of freedom to think and act for one's self (without negative reprocussion)allows for the continuance of irrational tribal behavior. At the same time, those who have the status of being in authority (parents, elders, males/females, leaders) are believed.

Agreed. Good to 'see' you and glad you joined in Bushido. Here's the reasoning behind the agreement...

Logic measures correct inference(validity) and presupposes truth. Thus, a set of reasonable inferences(an argument) can be valid(logical) and still be false. False premisses cannot logically lead to true conclusions, and vice-versa. I would note here that having causal understanding does not eliminate the possibly for arriving at falsehood. I mean, logic with causal understanding can also be done properly and still end with a false conclusion. Concerning the case at hand, however, we have accrued a substantial amount of knowledge regarding volcanic eruption and none of it lends support to the native's belief(s).



Agreed, as above.



This is a pivotal point that needs further developed. According to the natives belief system, it all made perfect(logical) sense. I mean, if it is true that an angry god caused the activity, then - if by pure coincidence - the first ritual coincided with the subsiding of volcanic activity, then it could constitute reason to believe that the god was appeased.

Furthermore, if the virgin sacrifice seemed to lose it's 'positive' effect after some time, the natives would have reason to change their approach somehow. That could be that the ritual itself was altered in some fashion or another. Then - if by pure coincidence - the activity subsided once again, the natives would be compelled to believe that they had solved that problem. Whereas, if the activity continued they would be more inclined to try something else... two virgins at once, perhaps.



Another good point. Doubt is a nuanced and often overlooked critical aspect of assenting to any given belief. This could be further developed as well.

Well, I think that we've got it narrowed down fairly well. It is in knowing whether or not we've met that criterion that we find difficulty. That is what falsification is all about. I would add here that there are most definitely some things we can be extremely certain of and yet other things not so much.



All the more reason to further hone our skills in order to offer as inpenetrable and irrefutable an exaplanation for the way things are as possible.



Bursting a bubble first requires that a bubble be present. If by "bursting your bubble" you mean something like "I hate to be the one to tell you otherwise, but..." or something to that affect, than by all means, let me have it. I mean - by all means, burst it. That's part of what doing philosophy is all about.



I strongly disagree. Language is a social convention. All criterions are language constructs, therefore it is impossible for the above claim to be true.

Hey Dragoness!

I would argue that knowledge cannot be false. It makes more sense to me to say that they held false beliefs, unbeknownst to them at the time of course.



I think that you're calling false belief "knowledge", and that doing increases the difficulty of understanding the difference between belief and knowledge - and they're not equal. I mean, belief is required for knowledge, but is insufficient - as the example clearly shows.



I see what you mean, but I would argue that it was never knowledge to begin with.



I don't think that blameworthiness and/or praiseworthiness applies. I mean, I agree that if one holds deep, unshakable convictions then it can get rather messy. Admitting that one has held a false belief can be a very difficult task for many of us I would guess. I think that the approach that is being taken by the one doing the shewing makes all the difference in the world.

What a fantastic response! I could not agree more with the possibilities and the partial political/social reflection of Western society in general. This is exactly what often makes our conversations turn out to be an intellectual adventure! Here's something else that you may find interesting. It comes from an actual society of antiquity where women were held in much higher regard.

What a fantastic story! I found it so very interesting that the progression of the volcanic activity down the chain of islands as the crustal shift moved the magma chamber was explained using the anthropomorphized allegorical story of Pele. It illustrates how we seek answers to questions we cannot fathom, and will find something to make sense of our environment even with a lack of methods and technology to really explore the causal nature.

Skepticism is the exception, not the rule. However story telling, and having answers is the rule not the exception.

So, it is clear that familial/cultural influences are in play in our adoption of belief. Can we call this learning a basis from which to 'weigh' what may come?

I certainly think so. It appears to me that this is a foundational aspect of human nature.

So, in our learning how to talk we also simultaneously adopt an ideology(a worldview), or more philosophically speaking we learn a conceptual scheme. We believe that this or that is so because it is an integral part of learning how to put language to use.

However, it later becomes clear that just because someone say something is so, it does not make it so. We just do not have any way to doubt what we're first being taught as very young children. So, how then do we develop the ability to be able to see error in our teachers' view/teaching?

Perhaps it be better to ask what makes thinking that a god/dess causes volcanic eruptions a bit of belief and/or a bit of knowledge?

This is true. Each language comes with its own built-in biases. For a simple example, in English the individual pronoun (I) is capitalized. This is not the case in French, Spanish, German, Russian, Italian . . . the only other languages I'm familiar with, but you get the picture. Could this possibly indicate an increased emphasis on the importance of the individual?


Of course, not everybody does develop this ability by any means. Those who do, I think it's because they somehow "learned how to learn" either through experience or good teaching. They developed analytical skills. Also, they had enough self-sufficiency that this amount of change wasn't frightening to them. Or for a few people who were extremely damaged by their childhoods, when they became aware of a different way of seeing the world, they realized it could be a way out of their distress.

Everything individuals believe is considered to be part of their knowledge base. Humans are naturally reluctant to change their beliefs for several reasons. One of the reasons to ignore new knowledge is because people are not given the tools or freedom to re-evaluate and change beliefs (and all knowledge is held, by belief).

Another reason people do not accept new information is because they cannot (or will not) accept responsibility for previous actions that were based on faulty beliefs. Egocentrism is at play in all individuals, but it can be overcome to some degree under certain conditions.



How beliefs are formed is of little consequence if skepticism is punished, as it is in almost every ‘tribe’ or collective. Sometimes the punishment is something as simple as ostracism. Simple it may be, but extremely effective – we all need to be accepted and valued by some social group, which is why we have so many sub-culture in the U.S. As BraveLady inferred, individualistic societies have a greater range of social units to choose from than do collectivist societies.

When an individual recognizes an error in their knowledge base , he has to be able to consider a wide range of consequences for accepting the new information, specifically – how will incorporating the new information change his values and his behavior, and what will be the effects to self and others.

It is far less difficult to recognize errors in our knowledge than it is to pursue honest introspection objectively. It is even more difficult to make changes, upon introspection, that could upset the status quo and bring down wrath upon others and/or self.
So to answer the question in the next quote:



Our ability to see the errors in our beliefs simply requires skepticism (asking questions, even just of one’s self). The more information we are exposed to, the greater our ability to question current beliefs. But questioning requires both the ability to be objectively introspective and the liberty to adapt while still being an accepted and valued part of a social unit.

There are not many indivdualist cultures, most of the world is gathered into collectivist units. Collectivism limits our ability to change beliefs, which those in the United States can better understand simply by observing the various religious groups.

Information is abunant in the U.S. - but those who are strongly affiliated with collectivist social units, are the least likely to accept new information if it requires adapting to beliefs outside of the collective.

Sufficient reason to beleive something: lack of contrary evidence.

For instance, many believe in god for lack of contrary evidence. Many beleive that the world will end next month, and that the Flyers will win the Stanley cup, for lack of contrary evidence.


Knowledge: is not an on-off thing. Knowledge moves on a continuous sliding scale, and a piece of knowledge is liable to move up or down the scale of certainty. For knowledge is only an amount of certainty that backs up a belief.

For instance: I know that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. Is this true knowledge? No, because the earth or the sun could be destroyed in the interim. So my knowledge only is so with a high probability of prediction.

Knowledge always involves a prediction value. If i know a certain person or thing, or a certain rule, then it means that I can predict the behaviour of that person or that thing, and I can predict the behaviour of things or persons affected by a rule.

This means that I know how pain affects a person, but only to a point. I know some people reveal their sacrosanct secrets under torture, but I also know that a few of them do not. I also know that if I drop a pin, it will fall to the ground, and not fall up. But I don't know whether the pin would land with its point first, and if it does, does it get stuck in the floor like a thrown knife.

Knowledge is a faith which relies not only on lack of contrary evidence, but can be used as a tool to predict the future to a degree of precision.