Category: Let's talk
Today in my philosophy class called Ways of Knowing, the subject of belief came up, primarily because we were discussing the problem of the criterion of knowledge. For you non-philosophers out there, the problem of criterion in short is that skeptics raise the question of how we know false appearances from true appearances. In order to figure this out, one must come up with a procedure to distinguish false from true appearances. But of course, this procedure must be successful, and you cannot know whether it is successful or not unless you already know which appearances are true and which are false, and thus you are caught in a vicious circle.
Stemming from this, , my professor says it is possible for one to be wrong about what they believe. (Please do not confuse this with believing wrongly.) He also says it is possible to be wrong about what you want. All his examples go a little something like this: You say to yourself that you want something, you pursue that something, but when you finally attain it, you realize that that thing or goal was not really what you wanted.
I cannot understand this for the life of me! How can anyone possibly be wrong about what they want or believe? I understand that often times, people will say after a certain experience: "That was not what I wanted." But do they really mean that? Or, do they just mean that they regret it?
For instance, I started out college wanting to major in Spanish. I loved the language, wanted to study abroad in Spain, and even apply it to my law career in the future. One semester of it, and I realized that I no longer wanted to major in it. How could I possibly look back and say: "That was not what I wanted, when in fact, it was the very thing I so strongly desired?
What my professor says is that when one says they want something, there is a certain level of satisfaction they want when they pursue a goal; so when they say: "That wasn't what I wanted," they mean that achieving that goal did not give them the satisfaction they were pursuing.
I say no. It is a given that in any goal one pursues, one expects it to bring them satisfaction. But if I specifically say I want to major in Spanish to attain that satisfaction, then even though I no longer want to attain satisfaction by that mean after I tried to, majoring in Spanish was how I wanted to achieve it.
My professor says that you can in fact believe something, but subconsciously hold a different belief. As a teenager, you can believe your parents are stupid and never know what they are talking about, but later on, you realize that they were not so dumb after all, and that they were really giving good advice. Is that a realization of a subconscious belief that one had at an earlier time; or is that simply changing your belief? He says one can dilude themselves into believing something. Another example he uses is self-reporting because people will often report beliefs that are opposite from beliefs they openly admit to later on.
The problem I see with that example is that with self-reporting, whether it is as simple as a response in a survey, or me telling everyone I love my mother, when I know that I hate her; is that people will lie to other people to escape negative judgment and mistreatment. Just because they lie to other people, does not mean they are lying to themselves. Just because a gay guy tells everyone else he is straight does not mean he believes he is.
My classmates and I agree that desire and belief are in the moment, so if you believe or want something in one moment or month, and no longer hold that belief or desire in the next, it is absolutely impossible to have in fact, not have wanted or believed that thing. But my prof says you can be mistaken about what you want or believe.
Hoepfully, someone could understand this. If you can, do you agree or disagree with my professor? If you agree with im, please explain and provide examples of how someone can be wrong about what they believe and/or want.
I think there is one factor being left out here. Maybe we do things that we think we want, when, in fact, there are alterior motives. I will use someone I know as an example. While this person enjoyed golf, he always enjoyed pleasing his parents more. So, indirectly, he wanted a career in golf, since his parents loved golf and it was something they could do to bond. He did the degree, manages a golfcourse, has a wife and a kid, but isn't happy with it. Why? Because he had to realize pleasing his parents was ultimatley not going to please him in this sense. But through so much positive and negative reenforcement, he truly thought that was what he wanted. He later admited as much to me in a conversation we had a few years after he took his job with the golfcourse. So saying that you want something specific, may not even be the case, since there may be something you want more that overshadows your ability to realize what you want from different situations. My point here is that, like the person in this example, often times when people say they want things, it's because society tells them that is what they desire. And when they achieve that goal, whatever others have layed out for them, they often times realize that whatever that thing was they felt they wanted actually wasn't it at all. On the other hand, some people can live through a life of validation from others and be content to live that way. Never exploring what it is they really like about life or what it is that makes them tick. As Abraham Maslow and other psychologists would say, they never achieve self actualization. There is a certain level of discomfort that comes from realizing who you are as an individual, and many people would rather cave in to the wants of others instead of discovering for themselves what trips their trigger so to speak. Certainly, there are times when an individual's goals/wants do line up with society, but I think there is always an amount of discourse somewhere. You have to discover for yourself what you want out of life, and a life full of people trying to tell you what that is won't work. I don't think you can generalize in the way you or your professor are attempting to, there are always so many contextual factors. Therein lies some of the issues with philosiphy in my opinion.
I agree with the previous post, it makes sense.
I wholeheartedly agree with Scott. in fact, I'll give another example: growing up, I was constantly told by teachers all I could ever be was a dj or TTY operator. so, with time, I genuinely believed that was what I wanted to become. however, upon high school graduation (even slightly beforehand) I started to admit to myself that I actually wanted and was gonna achieve something greater.
in short, we can indeed be wrong about our true desires. if we do everything in our power to convince ourselves what others want for us is the way to live our lives, instead of doing what brings us happiness, one can't get more wrong than that.
Unlike the two previous posts, I disagree with you Scott. Your example, in my opinion, only adds to what my professor was saying about ultimately desiring a certain level of satisfaction, more specifically happiness. As I've said, everyone's goal is happiness, so you can really only have desires about the means to reach that happiness.
My first opposition to your post is that if anyone thinks they want something, doesn't that mean that they want it? If I think I want a chicken potpie right now, doesn't that mean I want it? If I think I want to be a family lawyer right now, doesn't that mean I want it? Are you implying there is a difference between thinking you want something and knowing you want something? If so, please explain the difference.
Secondly, the guy in your example wanted to please his parents more than he wanted to please himself. After attaining the career to please his parents, he realizes that he no longer wants it. He did want to please his parents, instead of pleasing himself, because he believed it would bring him happiness. I think it is impossible to say he didn't want it; he did want it very much, and now he does not. He was wrong in believing this path would lead to happiness. He realized that he believed wrongly, but he did not realize that he is wrong about what he currently believes. He simply changed his mind about what he believes.
As I stated before, desire and belief are in the moment. If you realize that what you want or believe right now is wrong, you are rejecting that desire or belief, and thus you no longer hold it. You cannot realize you are wrong about what you want or believe without rejecting that desire or belief; if you reject it, you no longer want or believe it.
We seak out our own desires. Those of us who have the proper self-esteme will not always seak to please others. Rather, we will work to satisfy ourselves. That is the mark of the properly balanced person.
Circumstances are forever changing. I have to agree with Raven on this one. if you want something, no matter what your reasons, you do, in fact, want it, but when you discover that what you wanted in that moment didn't give you the desired results, you don't want it anymore. as for the example of believing your parents are stupid as a teenager, yes, you really do believe that, given what knowledge you have to go by at the current time. But later on, when you gain more insight, you will most likely no longer believe that. As for the argument of unconsciously believing in something, once again, what you believe and what you act on can be two very different things. the only way you can truly know what someone believes is to be able to read their thoughts.
when you dated your first partner, who is now your ex, hypothetically speaking, you really wanted to be with that person at the time, or at least, you probably did. for one reason or another, you wanted to stick around. But when you came to realize something, whether that be that your partner doesn't feel the same way, or that he or she is impossible to live with, you don't want the relationship anymore. Or at least, you probably shouldn't. But when you were in it, you weren't lying to them, were you? you really wanted to be in that relationship, didn't you? But now that you know what you know, you no longer want that.
Thanks Jess for factoring in knowledge. Just because one holds an incorrect belief does not mean they are wrong about their belief; it simply means that they believe wrongly about their parents according to the knowledge they have at the time.
According to my professor, there is not a definite distinction between being wrong about my desire or belief, and believing wrongly about the object of my belief. In my opinion, to say one was wrong about their belief or desire is to deny they ever believed or desired a thing. To believe wrongly about an object is to believe something that goes against reality or fact. How are those not distinct?
Here is an example my professor gave today, which I find extremely complicated, because this brings the matter of expressing belief through language.
A person says: "Everything Aristotle says is right." Then someone says: "Oh, so you believe slavery is good and that women are inferior to men?" The first person says: "Well no, of course I don't believe slavery is right or that women are inferior." In saying this, the person does not believe that everything ARistotle says is right, and realizes that they were wrong in thinking they believed everything Aristotle says is right.
Here is my objection:
First, it is clear that this person did not read all of Aristotle's works, but made an assumption from the few works they read. They agree with everything Aristotle says about virtue, voluntary and involuntary actions, freewill, and so on. In agreeing with these works, they assume that everything else Aristotle says in his other works must align with the books they read. Also, they believe that since they agree with what Aristotle wrote in these few books they read, that they will agree with everything else Aristotle wrote. Therefore, when this person says: "Everything Aristotle says is right," they really mean everything they've read by Aristotle is correct, and so they assume they would agree with everything else he wrote.
This is the problem with language here. In order to think about something, a belief in this case, we must use language. When we speak the words behind our beliefs, then other people will understand exactly what we mean. To that, I have to say that is a dangerous assumption. Obviously, the dictionary does a lovely job defining words for us, but even after learning what different words mean, we still appply our own subjective meanings to them. For instance, I believe that mint chocolate chip ice cream is the best of all ice creams in the world. But when I say "of all ice creams in the world," I only mean the ice creams that I have tasted, because I have not tasted all the ice creams in the world. I have not tasted Superman ice cream, moose tracks, breast milk ice cream, and a gamut of flavors. And so say that someone approaches me and says: "No, moose tracks is the best ice cream. Taste and see." So I taste moose tracks and say: "Damn, this is the best ice cream in the world!" Well then, according to my professor, I would have been wrong about believing mint chocolate chip was the best, even though that was what I believed before I tried the moose tracks.
According to Jess and I, correct me if I'm wrong Jess, because I had no knowledge of the flavor of moose tracks, my belief at the time was based on the knowledge of all the ice cream flavors I had tried, and thus I was correct in thinking I believed mint chocolate chip was the best.
But then, my professor throws in this idea that I will not try to explain because I don't understand it. He says it is possible to think you believe one thing, and believe you believe something else, kind of along the lines of what I believe Scott is saying. But then what is the difference between thinking and believing? Is it possible to form a belief without thought? Perhaps there is conscious and unconscious or subconscious thought? I’m not sure, I’d have to talk to someone who knows much more about psychology to understand if subconscious thought can occur, and if beliefs can thus be formed subconsciously.
the only thing I can think of that comes close to resembling that theory, and Raven, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I suppose it is possible to believe something, but also believe that for whatever reason you should not believe that, so you do everything in your power not to, because you believe that belief is unjustified. For example, if you know, deep down, that you're gay, but you honestly believe it would be in your best interest to go with society and live life as though you were straight, you'll do everything you possibly can do to make yourself believe you're straight. Maybe you're just going for the wrong types of partners. Or, maybe you just have to get to know them better before you can feel an attraction. All these things you tell yourself are in an effort to crush the deeper belief that you're gay with the belief that you should be straight. However, neither belief is wrong. You believe in your heart that you're gay based on your knowledge that members of the opposite sex aren't attractive to you, while members of the same sex are. But the belief that you should be straight isn't wrong either, because it's based on the knowledge you have that others in society are attracted to members of the opposite sex, and people, such as yourself, who find members of the same sex attractive, are ridiculed for their choices, so being gay must be wrong. However, if you acquire the knowledge and wisdom to know that at the end of the day, society's thoughts and feelings of you don't matter, and there are other people who are also attracted to the same gender, you will start to feel more comfortable bringing the belief that you're gay to the surface, and based on your new found wisdom, you will no longer believe that homosexuality is wrong. does that make sense? I know it was incredibly long-winded.
That goes back to my self-esteem arguement. If you try to please society it is time to look at the inner mirror.
yes. But what I'm trying to say is that you can have unconscious beliefs, but you're making them that way in an effort to disbelieve them by trying to believe the opposite. And at the time, you believe it's the right approach, but you later come to believe that may not be the case after all. No, I don't think it's possible to believe something without knowing it, but you can sure try, and I believe some of us do.
Jess, I think I believe that was a perfect example. Lol.
I think that actually kills two birds with one stone, explaining how one can be wrong about what they want, and about what they believe.
The true test now will be running this example by my professor on Friday and seeing what he says.
But for the moment, I think i understand my professor's point of view. Your example was much better than any of the ones he gave, so I'll see if this example supports what he is trying to prove.
glad I could help, Raven. these types of discussions are my favorite. *smiles*
I still hold my opinion, but to each their own.
I think most balanced people will end up doing what they feel is right.