Welcome to Barney’s Place — a website devoted to exploring and refining a new approach to critical belief analysis.
I’m Barnet Feingold, a retired clinical psychologist. I earned my PhD at Penn State in 1977. My dissertation explored the questions, “What justifies classifying a belief as ‘superstitious’?” and “Why do people create and cling to superstitious beliefs?” Since then, I’ve devoted much of my personal and professional life to exploring questions like, “What distinguishes helpful beliefs from harmful ones?”, “What leads people to commit themselves to beliefs that are self-destructive or damaging to others?” and “How can people become more objective about the beliefs that guide them?” I’ll be sharing my answers to these questions and others in the articles you’ll find here.
Articles 1 – 6 will give you a sense of my approach to belief analysis. However, these articles provide only a general orientation to the conception that undergirds the rigorous, detailed analytical techniques described in the remaining articles.
I welcome critical analysis of everything I believe, including my approach to critical belief analysis, and look forward to passionate and challenging discussions of the ideas these articles (and others) provoke. Feel free to post comments on this website or to write to me at barnet.feingold@hotmail.com.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts, and, if you choose to enroll in one of the courses I hope to teach on this topic, to meeting you.
I’d say that the understanding you can get, both of yourself and of others, from the ideas and information in this program can be life altering. However, to get actual benefit, a participant must do more than simply read or listen; it will be necessary to apply the techniques that you find here to the beliefs that cause you both to be who you are and also to do what you do. Prepare to invest time, energy, and personal honesty with yourself.
I used to think of myself as a pretty cool guy, not that I had a DA haircut as a teenager, but that I didn’t take anything at face value – certainly nothing about who I was as a person and my place in the cosmos; I questioned it all. Teenage stuff, right? But now that I’m older (and wiser?) I realize that I’ve settled into a comfortable life of assumptions about myself, others, and life in general. These assumptions are what this course means by beliefs. Yet as comfortable as I thought I was with these beliefs, the observation of Socrates and the unexamined life nagged me. What would my younger self think of me now? “Hey, old man. Do you really think that wisdom comes with age? Are your smug assumptions about yourself, others, and your world really the right foundation for making your life the best it could be?” Man, that stings. But what could I do; things seem to be ok with my life, and besides, how would I ever know if I am just BS’ing myself?
Then I found a set of powerful tools in these writings at Barney’s Place – tools/techniques that facilitate an examination of these assumptions, my beliefs. Sure, it’s difficult – but it’s worth it! (If it were easy I’d be skeptical. It is never easy to question those things you [think] you firmly believe.) Unfortunately, it may be that those assumptions, though you may feel that they support you in who you are, are really shielding you from the reality of your real self. That is not who I wanted to be, and that is not who I am. Wow, what an awakening.
This is a course like no other. These will someday, be recognized as the seminal words on the subject. I heartily recommend to anyone who desires a well examined life, to read this material, follow the exercises, and know yourself. You will be better for it.
E.S. von Gehren – more comfortable with myself at 84 yrs.
Did get to find your website. Will check it out more later.
Did you ever get around to reading it, John? If so, what did you think?