On the Nature of Belief E-mail: contact(at)onbelief.org List of Articles Important Caveats Concerning Personal Belief Revision: A Health Warning Despite the value of continuously adapting and elaborating our descriptions of the world and our associated philosophy it is important to guard against the emptiness of belief change as a goal in itself. Change of belief can be life enhancing in an intellectual, materialistic, moral, motivational and emotional sense and when it does so this is to be welcomed. We should however be cognisant of some important caveats, some of which refer to the logic of belief revision: Changing, expanding or contracting our belief system might not be the equivalent to making intellectual progress. Changing our belief system might not be equivalent to changing our sense of well being for better or worse. Beliefs should be seen as linked or interrelated rather than be viewed as independent countable entities that are individually meaningful. Evidence in favour of a belief does not equate to truthfulness. Consistency, coherence and comprehensiveness of belief sets although satisfying does not equate to truth in an absolute sense. Components of our belief system may be erroneous despite favourable logical arguments to the contrary. Beliefs do not have to be correct in all circumstances to be useful. Changing our belief set may cause us to wrongly reject existing component beliefs of our present world view. Belief sets can on occasions be expanded or contracted without contradiction. On some occasions existing belief sets need to be revised for the sake of consistency when new beliefs are added. Rejection of one component belief can lead logically to the rejection of a related belief. Acceptance of a new belief can lead logically to the acceptance of a related belief. Symbolic beliefs can change in meaning or implication. The practices associated with belief systems may have value even although explanatory beliefs which motivate and inform common practices might be erroneous. Beliefs can be lost or forgotten so we can individually or communally exhibit regression of our belief systems. Next >   List of Articles On the Philosophy of Belief www.onbelief.org Scotland, 12th October 2007 and thereafter Copyright 2007 onwards contact (at) onbelief.org