Philosophy and beliefs
“And when you embark upon the study of philosophy you must not suppose that you already believe
in this or that”—By Bertrand Russell, “ why I am not Christian ”.
Many people study
philosophy and at the same time, while reading, they feel sure that they are believers in this system or that, which prevents them from capturing the essence of philosophy. For them this study may be exciting because it clashes with what they believe, consequently study of philosophy for them remains to be a study for finding explanations for their beliefs or a reading hobby. Even in academies, students are, in many cases, not taught the way to internalize the method of philosophical inquiry and to be objectively impartial, hence few people achieve that philosophical stature that makes them genuine philosophers, otherwise some prostitute philosophy by making it justify religion, social institutions and cultural practices. For any one to be able to separate essential philosophy from beliefs, they must be clear as to the nature and definition of beliefs.
What is belief? “Belief is the acceptance of the truth of something; acceptance by the mind that some thing is true or real, often underpinned by an
emotional or spiritual sense of certainty.”—Encarta Dictionary. Belief is the acceptance of the truth of something, and then we must know what is truth! Truth is correspondence between the mind and the existence of something; it is the merging of the self with the outside world. If you believe that the sentence “ Alex studies in Cambridge” is true, you mean to say that this person exists in the same place and can be found! But coming to abstract things truth becomes less true and more relative. If you claim Christianity possesses the truth, you are speaking relatively, because the same position is held by people of other religions!
Belief in the truth of abstract things is enforced more by the society you live in, by the religious family you were born in and other not-self related facts. Though some other intellectual beliefs are formed later on through education, but they remain, for many people, unaffected by the early religious beliefs because of the primacy effect (psychologically speaking!) and because our education systems are already geared to that end and effectively punish any deviation from those teachings; on the contrary many people try to assimilate later beliefs and ideas to their early ones by selective elimination and avoidance. Considering that a child forms early beliefs at a time when he needs the emotional care and support of his parents and adults, he feels insecure if he does not learn and accept the beliefs given by those people. In time he develops an emotional attachment to his beliefs and resists all attempts at re-adaptation to new beliefs and situations. Hence when such belief-saturated children grow up and study philosophy, they are confused and disoriented, rather than trying to use philosophy to unravel their own potential, they tend to avoid any idea that shatters their belief and decomposes their mental cooling. Many such subjects become inert and unreceptive to new ideas and distort facts to achieve mental and religious complacence.
Philosophy is consideration of ultimate questions: what is justice in politics? What is equality in society? What is wrong and right in morality? Is truth a definable concept or is it just a relative term? For such things first thing needed is the ability to question our beliefs: Is our society the best? Do we think rightly? Is it the best that we have at present or we can achieve something better? But those who believe are impermeable to these qualms. Because beliefs are emotion-laden (emotional things take time to change, like the death of the beloved one or a grave insult by some one) they take time to change and so much so that many times people spend up their whole lives with no change in what they believed, while some are capable of some minor modifications only. Some quantity of skepticism is necessary in philosophy even about one’s philosophical ideas, not to speak of common sense beliefs and superstitions. When some one begins to believe in some thing, they make their ideas more a matter of ego than an intellectual rectitude and their fondness with the self prevents them from considering other point of views, not to speak of accepting them. And because attitude governs behavior, any one considering an outside point of view tends to more criticism than to appreciation, hence not benefiting positively from multiple perspectives.
The goals of philosophy are to achieve the coordination of human desire and harmonious organization of the society. This needs more open-mindedness and receptivity. If students are made to believe than to think and argue, prejudice and bigotry will get supporters but humanitarianism and liberal-mindedness will exist in small groups. Instead of beliefs that last whole their lives, students must be exposed to new ideas and impressions and they must be made to live in multiple perspectives and multiple moderate beliefs.