[dreadgeek]

One of the books I have on my Kindle is "Fear of Knowledge" which, as it turns out, deals with the issues under discussion here. I want to quote at some length to illustrate part of the problem:

"A belief is a particular kind of mental state. If we ask precisely what kind of mental state it is, we can find that it is easy to say. We can describe it in other words, of course, but only in ones that cry out for as much explanation as talk about belief. To believe that Jupiter has sixteen moons, we could say, is to take the world to be such that in it Jupiter has sixteen moons; or to represent the world as containing a particular heavenly body with sixteen moons; and so forth.

Although we may not be able to analyze belief in terms of significantly other concepts, we can see clearly that three aspects are essential to it. Any belief must have a propositional content; any belief can be assessed as true or false; and any belief can be assessed as justfied or unjustified, rational or irrational. Condier Margo's belief that Jupiter has sixteen moons. We attribute this belief with the sentence:

Margo believes that Jupiter has sixteen moons. That Jupiter has sixteen moons, we may say, is the propositional content of what Margo believes.

The propositional content of a belief specifies how the world is according to the belief. It specifies, in other words, a truth condition--how the world would have to be if the belief is to be true. Thus, Margo's belief that Jupiter has sixteen moons is true if and only if Jupiter has sixteen moons. As we may also put it, Margo's belief is true if an only if it is a fact that Jupiter has sixteen moons...We could equally say that the belief that Jupiter has sixteen moons is true just in case the entity referred to by the concept in the subject position--namely, the concept Jupiter--has the property denoted by the concept in the object position--namely, the concept has sixteen moons. Since the entity in question doesn't have the property at issue--Jupiter, it turns out, has over thirty moons--the belief is false.

I have just asserted that Jupiter has over thirty moons. Obviously, my saying it is so doesn't automatically make it so, otherwise there could not be any such things as a false assertion. If my assertion is true it is because, in addition to my saying it, it's a fact that Jupiter has over thirty moons. Well, let us suppose my assertion is true--that is, that the corresponding fact obtains.

Here's an interesting question: Does it follow from its being a fact that Jupiter has over thirty moons that it's a fact for everyone that Jupiter has over thirty moons, that it's a fact for all communities?

Well, it depends upon what one means by the phrase 'it's a fact for everyone." It certainly not a fact for everyone in the sense that everyone believes that proposition that Jupiter has over thirty moons. Some may never have considered the question; others may have come to the opposite conclusion. So, in the utterly trivial sens in which I may believe in a fact while others don't, some facts are facts for me but not for others.

But if what we mean is something more ambitious--that the fact that Jupiter has over thirty moons can somehow "hold" for me but not for you, that seems harder to comprehend. After all, my belief is not in the proposition Jupiter has over thirty moons for me but, rather, in the impersonal proposition Jupiter has over thirty moons. So, if we say that that belief is true, then it looks as though the corresponding fact has to obtain for everyone, whether they are inclined to believe it or not...In the case of Jupiter's having over thirty moons, we can go further: it's not merely that it looks to be universal, it also looks to be completely mind-independent: it would have obtained even if human beings had never existed. By contrast, the fact that there is money in the world is not a mind-independent fact--money could not have existed without persons and their intentions to exchange goods with one another.

(Paul Boghassian -- Fear of Knowledge)

Again, my concerns are not those personal beliefs that are interior but about those impersonal facts about the world. Those are the point of maximum interest because those are the points of greatest possible tension.

So I have a question for those who hold to the idea that we each carry, in our own heads, our own truth about the *impersonal* world; what is it that such a belief is supposed to 'buy' us? What benefit are we gaining from this belief that justify the cost of it? (And as I've said, the cost we pay is non-trivial)

Cheers
Aj