“Also in Chapter 6, Woodward and Denton explore the concept of beliefs. A belief is what we personally “know” to be true or false even if others disagree. There are many types of beliefs. Some are very crucial to our lives, while others provide connections to different objects. Do you believe that there are beliefs out there that could be concrete fact? Are there any beliefs that cannot be dismissed? An example of what I am talking about would be how everything in the study of science is still considered “theory”. I mean gravity, evolution, air and space, are all still theories, none of them has been said to be exact truth. So my question is, is everything a belief?”
Woodward and Denton describe the concept of belief as what we personally “know” to be true or false—our convictions, even if they are something others disagree with. They describe the different types of beliefs, some that may become core values, or ideals by which we lead our lives. Some are more secondary, such as what we believe is success, or how we define beauty. They continue on to say that beliefs are informal statements that link specific attributes to an object.
I like your example of air, evolution and gravity as things that we all know to be real yet are still called theories. It’s interesting to think of everything as a belief and that there are no actual facts. This idea brings me back to the beginning of the quarter where we discussed David Horsey’s question of why people ignore reality. There are some people who ignore aspects of poverty around the world or in their own country, simply because it’s easier to do so than to contribute, because they don’t believe that there is an actual issue, or because they believe that impoverished people, and this example can be used specifically with the US, are where they are because they put themselves there. There is no doubt that poverty exists, I would say that is a fact; I think the conflict arises in the idea of why it exists. And even to say that poverty exists could come into question when someone asks what poverty is. I think the descriptions will vary.
Woodward and Denton give examples of beliefs that contribute to someone’s attitude towards abortion. The first one on the list states that “The purpose of sexual intercourse is procreation.” Sexual intercourse does lead to procreation, and in many cases that is the purpose. But because there are other things that can be argued for the purpose of sex, such as love and happiness, this is a belief and not a fact. If you take out the word “purpose” and say, “sexual intercourse leads to procreation,” you might be making a true statement but even then it’s not a fact because sex doesn’t lead to procreation all the time.
We have learned in communication studies that language is abstract, therefore the word “cup” doesn’t make it is cup—it’s just a term that we have assigned to the object. Along with this, we have created numbers to show values. In this way, I guess someone could say that nothing we say has factual basis because it’s all created language. In relation to math and values however, there is no doubt that “2 + 2 = 4” right? I might be making this question way more philosophical than it needs to be.
Campbell argues that a lot of rhetoric is focused on getting people to move towards a particular kind of action. This goes hand in hand with the idea that we believe something about an object, and then develop an attitude towards it which influences our actions. The more we know about something the deeper and better we can form a belief. Ultimately, I think that there facts and not everything is a belief, because there are certain things that you can’t disagree upon, such as the value of 2 and 2 or primary colors. But I do think that more beliefs exist than fact, and perhaps we base many of our beliefs on these facts.
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