Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-mnklg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-12T10:46:35.093Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Beliefs and Attributes1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

Gershon Weiler
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Dublin.

Extract

In a philosophical paper the point one wishes to make should be stated at the very outset. And in dealing with a problem which is as controversial as religion, the bias should be confessed before any points are made. I want to conform at once to both these requirements. I want to discuss beliefs, ordinary beliefs but mainly religious ones, for the expression of which, oddly enough, we use the same word. “Belief” and “Faith” are admittedly different in English, but many languages possess only one word for these and further I shall try to show that even in English the difference is not very great and that they have, if not the same, at least a very similar logical grammar. The point of my argument is that beliefs can be discussed rationally and that they should be so discussed. Religious arguments have been going on for a very long time, and I find it incredible that people of immense intellectual qualities, who devoted their time and energy to these discussions, have been working under a simple delusion, not understanding the very nature of the thing they were doing.

Information

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1961

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable