BELIEF: AN OWNER’S MANUAL
ARTICLE 20
CONCLUDING COMMENTS ON
THE PERIODIC TABLE,
SOME APPLICATIONS,
AND WHAT WE’VE ACHIEVED
JEWELS IN THE PERIODIC TABLE’S CROWN
“What,” you may be wondering, “does the absence of shading of the six cells near the lower left-hand corner of The Periodic Table of the Beliefs indicate?” Those six cells are home to the only beliefs that tell us – or even hint at – anything about reality. You can think of those cells as jewels of authentic reason in the warped and tarnished crown we take to be thought.
The area those cells occupy suggests an answer to one of humanity’s most intractable questions: “Why do science and technology progress by leaps and bounds while ethics and morality slog through the muck, disoriented and exhausted?” The answer? Our scientific and technical disciplines corral us in the small corner of the cognitive terrain in which we engage reality most effectively. Other fields of inquiry send us into treacherous and impenetrable intellectual wastelands, defenseless and oblivious to our plight.
EVALUATING AND COMPARING YOUR OWN BELIEFS
How do I suggest you evaluate a belief you may be questioning? By comparing the guidance you expect with the guidance it provides. When you’ve mastered the concepts and tools described in the articles on this website, you should usually be able to do so informally. However, until you become adept in the use of those concepts and tools (including The Periodic Table of the Beliefs), I suggest using A Procedure for Evaluating Individual Beliefs.
How do I suggest choosing between beliefs that compete for your credence? By using the procedure detailed in An Approach to Comparing Beliefs to identify the belief that does the best job of supplying beneficial guidance.
The analytic procedures described on this website are designed for self-examination. However, such self-examination is often most beneficial if done with a partner. Your partner must, of course, be open to Critical Belief Analysis and willing to do his/her best to understand its philosophy, concepts, and tools. He/she should relate to you noetically (See Article 15). Ideally, he/she should be perceptive, patient, candid, honest, self-aware, life-affirming, committed to open communication, and willing to respectfully point out your follies and foibles. He/she should wish the best for you and him/herself. He/she should cherish both your spirit and his/her own. He/she should have a sense of humor forged by acceptance of life’s limitations and ironies. And his/her commitment to confidentiality must be unquestionable.
AN OVERALL APPROACH TO MANAGING DISAGREEMENTS WITH OTHER CRITICAL BELIEF ANALYSTS
How do I suggest discussing beliefs with those with whom you disagree? If they are committed to and skilled in Critical Belief Analysis, your task is relatively easy. While it is difficult for anyone, regardless how sophisticated, to rise above attachment to being “right,” devotees of Critical Belief Analysis, if treated noetically and conversed with rationally (as Habermas used that term) are likely to respond positively to the invitation to collaborate in methodically comparing beliefs. If that offer is accepted, each of you should strive to embody the characteristics of ideal partners detailed above.
In my experience, most disagreements between Critical Belief Analysts are over competing catalytic narratives. In the ideal, discussion of such narratives should focus primarily on the questions, “Am I hoping that this belief will provide information or reassurance?”, “How well does the belief in question, if I look to it for information, embody the virtues proper to informative Existential Viewpoint beliefs?”, “To what extent does the belief in question, if I look to it for reassurance, embody the virtues and avoid the pitfalls proper to reassuring Existential Viewpoint beliefs?” and “To what extent does the belief in question, if relied upon for both information and reassurance, embody the virtues proper to informative Existential Viewpoint beliefs while avoiding the pitfalls proper to reassuring Existential Viewpoint beliefs?” I submit that such an approach, however imperfect, is superior to invariably unproductive arguments over competing “truths.”
AN OVERALL APPROACH TO MANAGING DISAGREEMENTS WITH NAÏVE BELIEVERS
If those with whom you disagree are convinced that the bubbles that encase them are infinite or transparent, I suggest treating them noetically and rationally whether they treat you that way or not. I urge you to recall how you once related to your beliefs and how you might once have responded if someone disputed them. I suggest that you reflect on the intellectual and emotional challenges you overcame to arrive at your current understanding of beliefs – the difficult concepts you learned; the daunting skills you mastered; the painstaking self-examination you endured; the treasured beliefs you grudgingly examined and reluctantly discarded; the uncertainty, confusion, and resentment you rose above. And I urge you to think about how radically your current view of beliefs differs from the view you once held – about how incomprehensible or absurd your current understanding of belief would have once appeared to you. Even if you are constitutionally open and flexible, the attitudes of the bubble-encased believer before you probably have much in common with those you once held. Be compassionate.
That said, if the opportunity arises, you may wish to occasionally make comments or ask questions about the believer’s relationship to his/her beliefs. A few examples are listed below.
• Comment: You seem to believe that _________.
• Question: How do you feel about talking about (the belief in question)?
• Comment: This belief seems to affect how you see yourself.
• Comment: You seem to be certain (or passionate) about this belief.
• Comment: Being part of a (group/community/church/political party) that believes this seems to be important to you.
• Comment: Telling others about this belief seems to be important to you.
• Question: What has that belief encouraged you to (think or do)? Follow-up questions: How has this belief made you feel? How has it “worked” for you?
• Questions: How do you feel about the fact that not everyone shares (the belief in question)? How do you explain that? What do you think of (or How do you feel about) those who see things differently? Does disagreement about (this issue) make friendships/relationships difficult?
You may have noticed that the most significant, provocative, and frequently asked question in these articles, “How would you know if you were wrong?”, is not among the suggested questions. That’s because these questions are not intended to challenge those of whom they’re asked. Rather, they are intended to gently open the eyes of the tautology-blind, however slightly, to the bubbles that surround them and to the possibility of examining those bubbles and what lies beyond them.
There is a chance that naïve believers whose eyes are thus opened may inquire about how you view beliefs, inviting you to introduce them to Critical Belief Analysis or your more specific views. Any such inquiries should be warmly welcomed and responded to with restraint. Your response should leave the inquirer wanting more.
A FINAL SELF-REFLEXIVE NOTE: HOW TO EVALUATE THIS APPROACH TO BELIEF ANALYSIS
There are two ways to determine whether the approach to belief analysis described on this website serves you well. On the one hand, you can use “A Procedure for Evaluating Individual Beliefs” to analyze either the belief that beliefs are worthy of credence only if they provide the guidance that believers rely on them to provide or, more colloquially, that the approach described on this website offers a firm foundation for belief analysis. If you use either of these procedures, remember to treat the belief in question as proper to the Existential Viewpoint.
On the other hand, if you’ve studied the ideas in these articles and chosen to embrace them, you can determine how well they serve you by observing their effects on your thoughts, feelings, and actions. If they live up to their promise, they should make it easier to take responsibility for your choices and their consequences. They should intensify your delight in life. They should make it easier to identify and transcend your biases and enhance your objectivity. They should sharpen your capacity to reason clearly and think critically. They should deepen your capacity for insight and creativity. They should render you more sensitive to your errors and more adept at correcting them. They should make your actions more efficacious. They should enhance the effectiveness of your communications. They should deepen your desire and your capacity to understand and feel close to others. They should intensify your delight in attentiveness, intelligence, reasonableness, and responsibility wherever you encounter them as well as the effectiveness with which you express that delight. They should render you more loving.
SUMMARY
I hope that these articles have helped you
• sharpen your awareness of how much beliefs matter
• recognize the five common habits of thought that interfere with being objective about beliefs, i.e.,
o the arbitrary and restrictive definition of the word “belief”
o the habit of treating beliefs as conscious entities rather than cognitive tools
o the view that the truth of a belief is a reliable guide to its value
o uncritical acceptance of second-order precepts
o lack of systematic attention to three characteristics that affect the guidance beliefs provide – the fundamental need that motivates our beliefs, the ambiguity of our beliefs, and their viewpoints
• free yourself of those habits of thought
• understand how need, ambiguity, and viewpoint affect the guidance beliefs can supply
• realize that we rely on many of our beliefs for guidance they can’t possibly provide
• realize that many of the presumably informative beliefs that guide and inspire us are inherently ambiguous, limited by the precision of the beliefs that ground them, and self-discrediting if they bias those beliefs
• realize how many of the beliefs we take to be undeniable insights into reality are existential choices that, by transforming our experience and judgment, create the illusion of truth
• familiarize yourself with the universal standards by which our existential choices can be judged, realizing that
o informative existential beliefs are wholesome if they help us deal effectively with reality
o reassuring beliefs, if used carefully, can help us create illusions we need to deal with life’s unavoidable stresses but that such beliefs, if used improperly, can create ruinous errors and render us vulnerable to addiction
• understand how The Periodic Table of the Beliefs depicts or implies the above insights
• adopt attitudes that can help you more effectively assess, compare, and discuss beliefs
EXERCISE 20:
Reflect on what you’ve experienced in the course of reading these articles and doing the exercises. How have those experiences changed you?