Candace Vogler spoke with Reverend Lola Wright about about her work as principal investigator of our project on self-transcendence as the key to the connections between virtue, happiness, and the meaning of life, for the Chicago Humanities Festival Fallfest17: Belief! on Sunday, November 12, 2017 at the Chicago Sinai Congregation.
Research suggests that individuals who feel they belong to something bigger than just themselves—an extended family, a spiritual practice, work for social justice—often feel happier and have better life outcomes than those who do not. This sense of connection has a name in academia: “self-transcendence.”
Learn more about RevLo and Candace and this event here.
We were thrilled to participate in the Chicago Humanities Festival Fallfest17: Belief! and will post the video of Candace Vogler’s discussion with Rev. Lola Wright, once it becomes available.
In the meantime, we hope you enjoy a few photos from the event! Check our Flickr page for more.
G.E.M. Anscombe (1919-2001) was a British analytic philosopher often credited with initiating the return to the study of the virtues in her famous essay, “Modern Moral Philosophy” and with revitalizing interest in the philosophy of action with her enormously influential monograph, Intention. In this series of posts, we will explore some of her later writings about beliefs and how our epistemic agency might be part of our overall character formation. Note: This is part three of the three part series.
The St Andrews Studies in Philosophy and Public Affairs, a series run under the auspices of the Centre for Ethics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs at the University of St Andrews and overseen by John Haldane, has now published the fourth and final volume of Elizabeth Anscombe’s hitherto uncollected and unpublished papers, Logic, Truth and Meaning: Writings by G.E.M. Anscombe, Edited by Mary Geach and Luke Gormally. For those who have been waiting to see what remains of her Nachlass that has been deemed worthy of publication, this is a significant event. Of special interest in this volume are three essays on beliefs, all of which are undated typescripts. These are “Motives for Beliefs of All Sorts,” “Grounds for Belief,” and “Belief and Thought.” My previous two posts discussed “Motives for Beliefs of All Sorts” and “Grounds for Belief.”
And now we come to the most substantive essay on belief, “Belief and Thought.” It too is unfinished (there is a footnote that references two further sections that have either been lost or that never came to fruition). The essay is mostly taken up with various puzzles about belief and thought that arise as we think through assent and assertion, concepts that are central to the distinction between thinking and believing. Its main contribution, I think, is its attempt to take seriously the separation of the logical and the psychological in an account of belief.
Anscombe notes that belief is a “curious concept” because its grammar seems to shift when we apply the concept in different contexts. Sometimes belief is treated dispositionally, but in other cases it isn’t (cases of suddenly believing something, for instance). It seems wrong to say that there are two equivocal senses of belief, as there are two equivocal senses of bank. Nor does it seem right to say that the non-dispositional use signifies a mental act or state of consciousness, since we fail to find such a thing when we survey our mental lives.
A somewhat traditional understanding of the distinction between mere thought and belief is that belief is what one gets when something is added to a mere thought: a mental act of assent. We are tempted by the view that something needs to be added to thought because thought can be a mere grasping of a sense, and understanding, without endorsing what is thought – without in any sense taking it to be true. Thus we can separate judgeable content, something assertable, and assent to what is assertable. When someone does think that such and such is the case, he has done two things: grasped a judgeable content and inwardly assented to it.
Assent is assertion of what is assertable (perhaps the assertion is only inward). There are two ways we might conceive of this. The first is that it is an extra feature that attaches to thought; the second is that it is intrinsic to the thought unless special circumstances take it away. Let us call the former the additive view and the latter the defeasibility view.
There are many considerations that seem to support the additive view. First, the same judgeable content when placed in an if-then clause is not asserted. Second, one can obey a command to think something as being so without thinking it as so: one says, “think of a man with a horse’s tail” and straightaway I do it. Third, things can just cross my mind, but this in no way implies that I believe them. Fourth, when fictional accounts are brought to the mind I don’t believe that they are true. And so on.
But there are equally many reasons to think that assertion is not something added to thought. First and foremost, there is the fact that when I search around for this inner act of assent, I simply do not find it. And though it is true that thoughts can come before the mind, this is thought understood in its logical and not its psychological sense, and thought in its logical sense can contain within it assertion in its logical sense. Assertion needn’t be some extra, psychological ingredient.
Ultimately, Anscombe rejects both accounts. She writes:
Each seems to involve a myth: the defeasibility theory, that of a sort of content which if it occurs in the mind at all must be being believed, or must be being believed unless there is some explanation why not…; and the other, that of the indescribable addition, the act of assent. Both views must arise from a failure to understand. (163)
I think the failure that Anscombe is pointing to is the failure to see the distinction between logical and psychological accounts of assertion.
The defeasibility theory fails as a psychological theory; it says that we must believe any judgeable content that is present to our minds unless special circumstances can explain our not doing it. But this denies the possibility of entertaining mere ideas. It also has trouble accounting for negation. If ‘p’ is before the mind, then the mind must be assenting to it. But if ~p is before the mind, then so is p, for the negation contains the thought that it negates. But I can’t be assenting to both at the same time. But if we say that the corresponding negative idea is not in the offing, then it is unclear what assent amounts to.
Anscombe thinks it will help us to distinguish between grammatical kinds of assertion – logical and psychological. Assertion might be a personal act of mind, but it might also be “a logical character of the proposition as such” such that it can be the “instrument of personal assertions” (166). But there is still logical unassertedness, such as what falls within an if-then clause – here the propositions are asserted in neither sense. How can we say both that the proposition itself asserts and that it occurs unasserted?
Anscombe’s solution, which she takes from Julianne Mott Rountree, is that assertion is context dependent and that we need to be able to grasp the completeness of a context in order to know whether a proposition is asserted. Skipping over the technical details, assertion is not a matter of adding something or taking it away in specified circumstances; rather, “a proposition in itself is an assertion” but “it is not asserted in every context in which it occurs.” The basic notion here is “assertedness in a context”; if the context is simply the proposition, then it is logically asserted, but if it is placed in a different context, say within an if-then clause, it is not. We can only get there if assertedness is fundamentally contextual. The understanding of the completeness of a context is a kind of skill or knowledge-how, rather than a knowledge that, and this implies that once again this knowledge is justified by one’s mastery of a practice and a set of rules. It is also important to this account that psychological assertion depends upon the logical character of assertedness. She writes:
Personal asserting is something we can do because the tools of assertion – the propositions we can construct in our language – lie ready to our hand, and it is not the personal act of asserting which confers their assertive character on the propositions. (169)
So much, then, for the traditional view of the distinction between thought and belief.
The essay ends with some reflections on Moore’s paradox. Moore thought it was absurd to say “I believe p, but not p” or “p, but I don’t believe that p.” It is tempting to understand the paradox in terms of contradictory assertions, but Anscombe thinks that would be a mistake. First, “I believe p, but perhaps not p” has nothing wrong with it; whereas both “p, but perhaps not p” and “I say that p, but perhaps not p” are objectionable. The absurdity of the paradox is better understood in terms of expressions of beliefs. For p does not occur asserted in “I believe that p” and the problem with assertion drops out. The absurdity is just that one cannot at one and the same time take p to be the case and p not to be the case. Here we see something fundamental about what it is to express a belief – to express that one does so take p. To believe something is indeed to mean to believe it.
This series originally appeared as “The Capacious and Consistent Mind of Elizabeth Anscombe” in International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Vol 24, 2016, Issue 2.
Jennifer A. Frey is a principal investigator with Virtue, Happiness, and the Meaning of Life.
Elizabeth Anscombe (G. E. M. Anscombe). Image from Cambridge Women Philosophers.
G.E.M. Anscombe (1919-2001) was a British analytic philosopher often credited with initiating the return to the study of the virtues in her famous essay, “Modern Moral Philosophy” and with revitalizing interest in the philosophy of action with her enormously influential monograph, Intention. In this series of posts, we will explore some of her later writings about beliefs and how our epistemic agency might be part of our overall character formation. Note: This is part two of a three part series.
The St Andrews Studies in Philosophy and Public Affairs, a series run under the auspices of the Centre for Ethics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs at the University of St Andrews and overseen by John Haldane, has now published the fourth and final volume of Elizabeth Anscombe’s hitherto uncollected and unpublished papers, Logic, Truth and Meaning: Writings by G.E.M. Anscombe, Edited by Mary Geach and Luke Gormally. For those who have been waiting to see what remains of her Nachlass that has been deemed worthy of publication, this is a significant event. Of special interest in this volume are three essays on beliefs, all of which are undated typescripts. These are “Motives for Beliefs of All Sorts,” “Grounds for Belief,” and “Belief and Thought.” Yesterday I discussed “Motives for Beliefs of All Sorts.” Today I will cover “Grounds for Belief.”
Grounds for belief, by contrast with motives, can serve as premises for arguments that purport to show that the belief is true. Anscombe’s main thesis in “Grounds for Belief” is that what typically serves as a ground for our beliefs belongs to the category of what she calls “common knowledge.” Take, for instance, our beliefs about the life of Julius Caesar – including his conquests, his rule in Rome, and his death by assassination. What grounds do we give for these beliefs in response to the doxastic sense of the question “Why?” All we can say, she argues, is that this is what we’ve been taught to believe.
Anscombe does not think we should worry about this, even though it’s true that ‘what everyone knows’ may be wrong. She reasons that “belief on grounds which can be considered as premises for arguments presupposes belief without grounds, or at any rate without grounds that can be so considered” (183). While many empiricist philosophers put forward sense impressions as candidates for these groundless beliefs, Anscombe suggests that what we know by transmission from past generations is a better suited to this necessary category. Such knowledge may be traced back to witnesses or not (she contrasts the case of Julius Caesar with the biblical story of Adam).
If pressed to give further grounds for one’s beliefs about Julius Caesar, Anscombe thinks we have to admit that we can’t. It’s no good to suggest that one read the ancient sources, because if I doubt whether Julius Caesar existed and did the things my common knowledge says he did, then how can I rely on the fact that Seutonius is a credible ancient source? Seutonius will face the same challenge as Caesar. The best one can do is read the history books, but that is simply to further rely upon and expand one’s common knowledge – of what we’ve been taught to believe or what we have received from tradition.
But can’t we justify the historical record itself by reference to something outside of it? It is strange that Anscombe does not consider the physical evidence that exists in support of the claims we find in our history books, such as the archeological records we have collected. This information has not simply been received – in fact, much of it has been discovered and collected only recently by comparison with the written sources. Archaeological data is not the stuff of common knowledge but surely stands in support of it. She remarks that the existence of Julius Caesar is not a theory, but that is compatible with the fact our belief in his existence need not be groundless: it can be supported by compelling physical evidence that fits what we have received by common knowledge. Perhaps she would insist that the physical evidence relies on common knowledge for interpretation. That is, we can take it as evidence but not as evidence that stands outside of the sphere of common knowledge; it provides no Archimedean point.
Anscombe argues that it is wrong to treat common knowledge as knowledge by testimony, since its relation to testimony is rather remote and only indirect. Nor is it knowledge I get from experience. This knowledge is taught to me, it is handed down or passed on, and what justifies it is my participation in the practice – the form of life – in which the common knowledge centrally figures. Nothing outside the practice justifies this sort of common knowledge. She writes:
I have been taught to join in doing something … but because everyone is taught to do such things, an object of belief is generated. The belief is so certainly correct (for it follows the practice) that it is knowledge; for here knowledge is no other than certainly correct belief in pursuit of a practice. (189)
We can read this essay as an attempt to expand on the idea that much of what we know is justified by our participation in a practice, a theme one finds throughout her work under various guises. It is a further attempt to push back against the empiricist claim that the foundations of our knowledge are the sensible deliverances of private objects of experience. To be initiated into a practice is to be justified in believing certain things with certainty.
What should we make of this suggestion? It is difficult to assess given how loosely defined the concept of common knowledge is. At one point Anscombe characterizes it as what “I have been given as part of my understanding of things.” This is very broad – surely too broad for us to accept. Given that the practice of being British (that is to say growing up in and participating in British forms of life) is what justifies this common knowledge, it is unclear how we can explain the rationality of questioning what we have been taught as members of “British civilization.” Perhaps we can say that common knowledge can only be called into question in a very piecemeal fashion, a bit like the metaphor of Neurath’s boat, in which we can only replace one plank at a time while the rest of the ship remains fixed in place as we travel on the sea.
Tomorrow, Part III: “Belief and Thought.”
This series originally appeared as “The Capacious and Consistent Mind of Elizabeth Anscombe” in International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Vol 24, 2016, Issue 2.
Jennifer A. Frey is a principal investigator with Virtue, Happiness, and the Meaning of Life.
G.E.M. Anscombe (1919-2001) was a British analytic philosopher often credited with initiating the return to the study of the virtues in her famous essay, “Modern Moral Philosophy” and with revitalizing interest in the philosophy of action with her enormously influential monograph, Intention. In this series of posts, we will explore some of her later writings about beliefs and how our epistemic agency might be part of our overall character formation. Note: This is part one of a three part series.
The St Andrews Studies in Philosophy and Public Affairs, a series run under the auspices of the Centre for Ethics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs at the University of St Andrews and overseen by John Haldane, has now published the fourth and final volume of Elizabeth Anscombe’s hitherto uncollected and unpublished papers, Logic, Truth and Meaning: Writings by G.E.M. Anscombe, Edited by Mary Geach and Luke Gormally. For those who have been waiting to see what remains of her Nachlass that has been deemed worthy of publication, this is a significant event. Of special interest in this volume are three essays on beliefs, all of which are undated typescripts. These are “Motives for Beliefs of All Sorts,” “Grounds for Belief,” and “Belief and Thought.”
In “Motives for Beliefs of All Sorts,” the question at issue is whether we can have motivated beliefs (that is, beliefs based not on grounds that show or tend to show the truth of the proposition believed, but motives that explain beliefs by reference to some end or good).
That motives can and do play such a role is evidenced by the fact that we sometimes make remarks such as “he was under a strong temptation to think that p” or “out of loyalty, he remains convinced that such and such.” One is only tempted by something one desires, and one desires what one finds (in some sense) good. Moreover, some beliefs, such as the belief that my spouse loves me and only me, may be too painful to give up in spite of compelling evidence to the contrary; contrariwise, some beliefs are so satisfying or so tied to my self-identity that I don’t even see the things that would count as evidence against them. In all such cases, the explanations of what I believe bring in factors about what I want (or what I am desperate to avoid). But all the same, Anscombe concedes that the idea that motives can and do play a role in our belief formation is “a bit queer” (190).
The queerness of the idea of motives for beliefs comes from certain features of the concept of motive that appear to divorce it from our concept of belief. First, Anscombe remarks that it’s “crazy” to announce that one believes something on purpose. If one does something on purpose, this implies that one might have done the thing accidentally (that is, not on purpose). But no one can believe something accidentally. It is absurd to say “By a slip of the believing mechanism I believed p when I meant to believe not p.” Anscombe thinks this reveals a deep metaphysical truth about belief: it is not the product of a mechanism that might misfire – to believe something is to mean to believe it.
It is possible, by contrast, to think of something on purpose in order to achieve some end: one might think of something boring in order to fall asleep, or think of something sad in order to elicit a certain emotion, as actors do. One can also believe something with a further purpose in mind, such as cases of wishful thinking, in which one believes that one will do something – make this free throw shot – in order to bring it about that one actually does it. But, she writes, “believing something on purpose … in the way in which one can think of something on purpose, though not with a further purpose: this concept has no foothold” (191).
It is also impossible to believe something just for the fun of it, or because one is feeling rambunctious or depressed, or for no reason at all. Nor is it possible to obey a command to believe a random proposition for which one has no reason other than the fact of the command. All this suggests that belief is simply involuntary but Anscombe rejects this. The very idea of motives for belief is the idea that one can give a reason for believing that does not point to the truth of its content, and Anscombe has already allowed that this is possible and even common in human life.
It is possible that one believes something because one sees that “it would be better to do so.” An example:
“It is rather beastly to harbor suspicion against a man if one hasn’t got to. It’s better – pleasanter or nobler or better general policy for the sake of human relations, if in the particular case it is not unwise – to think well of someone than ill, or to think well of him than to remember he may equally well deserve to be thought ill of, if one hasn’t got to, so let’s accept his story”(193).
One might be motivated by one’s conception of the good life to believe something, but only if one is faced with a case in which the evidence is underdetermined for believing one way or another. In such cases, one doesn’t dwell or seek out evidence against the belief, and one might have to remind oneself of other interpretations when such evidence is brought to one’s attention. These motives for belief, even though they do not relate to truth but the good, seem to be reasons we can give in response to a doxastic sense of the question “Why?” that do not immediately call the belief into question; for this reason Anscombe declares they are “announceable.” They are also “reputable” because they do not call into question one’s doxastic credentials.
Some motives for belief are of obvious ill repute. An example is “I believe it because I hate him.” This is announceable because in saying it one does not invalidate the claim to believe (though one does show bad character). But some motives are “unannounceable” because putting them forward shows that one doesn’t really believe; an example of such a motive is, “I believe it because, if it is true, the inheritance is mine.”
How can we come up with a satisfactory explanation of the difference between the unannounceable motives and the announceable ones? Anscombe says that of the former group, the general form of explanation is: “it is better, more pleasing to me, if p is the case” (194). This tends to show that one doesn’t really believe it at all, because beliefs cannot be indifferent to the way things are, what is actually true. Contrast this with “I believe that because I hate him.” This is a possible expression of belief, because the general form seems to be that “it is better to believe that p is the case” rather than “it is better if p is the case.” And while the former is of ill repute it is still possible as an expression of belief, whereas the latter is not.
Anscombe thinks that a distinction between belief and believing will help make the subject matter clearer. If I am under the strong influence of someone, a powerful man in my field who is mentoring me, I may be inclined to believe things just because he says them. But if you ask me why, the answer does not involve any appeal to truth, but just that he said it. His saying it leads me to believe. So I have a motive for believing but no ground for the belief. This is possible, but as soon as I admit that I have no grounds, the belief is called into question. In the end, Anscombe seems to be saying that motivated belief is possible but psychologically tenuous. It seems that she is suggesting that the more reflective we are about our beliefs and our reasons for holding them, the less likely we are to be motivated in our beliefs in a problematic way. This in turn would suggest that reflection is not similarly motivated, but we may ask why we are entitled to this assumption.
Tomorrow, Part II: “Grounds for Belief.”
This series originally appeared as “The Capacious and Consistent Mind of Elizabeth Anscombe” in International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Vol 24, 2016, Issue 2.
Jennifer A. Frey is a principal investigator with Virtue, Happiness, and the Meaning of Life.
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