Peter Dorman in the comments:
Jeez, Noah, you need a stiff shot of (later) Wittgenstein. Now.Exactly.
I did my dissertation on Wittgenstein's notes that were published posthumously as On Certainty. While the term "belief" has many meanings in ordinary language given different contexts, the type of belief under discussion is absolute unshakeable conviction in an assumption that is not grounded on publicly available criteria, without which there is no agreement outside that POV that the assertion is actually knowledge. See Plato on belief or opinion (doxa) v. knowledge (episteme).
Wittgenstein elucidates the logic of justification in ordinary language in contrast with formal languages where truth is deductive, being based on axioms or postulates. Wittgenstein's elucidations show how ordinary language description occurs through the lens of one's language, which is reflective of a worldview. I have been calling this a POV. Wittgenstein elucidates this using the Gestalt figure of a duck-rabbit, which can be seen as a rabbit from one POV and as a duck from another. We can conceive of two parties arguing over whether it is really a duck or a rabbit.
Certain propositions function as norms and criteria to delineate the boundary of one's worldview (POV). For example, functioning as normative they test admission and exclusion with respect to the POV.
While appearing to be descriptive propositions based on form and content, their function shows that they are not descriptive propositions in that they are not falsiable. This is, their position in the worldview privileges them from error. Their function is to assess other items in terms of inclusion or exclusion, truth and falsity.
Mises apriori method is a good example of this in economics and no evidence one adduces will falsify the priors for true believers since they are held to be "synthetic a priori" in Kant's sense. Same with religious dogmas and articles of faith. The invisible hand plays a similar normative role in conventional economics based on the neoliberal POV. But if one looks deeply enough into any POV, one will discover the boundary conditions.
We are all ideologues to one degree or another, because ordinary language use involves imposition of a POV in that there are no absolute criteria to ground general agreement. When there is general agreement, it is usually because we are talking to others who share that POV, which Wittgenstein calls "a form of life". But some POVs are more empirically based than other, hence, more "scientific." But that too involves the presumption that empirical criteria are paramount and that is in the final analysis a preference — pragmatically justified perhaps, but not known to be true in any absolute sense.
This is a quick summary and any explanation of Wittgenstein is bound to be wrong because he chose the method he did because the subject matter is ineffable. One has to see how the logic actually works since logic cannot describe itself without becoming involved in nonsense.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,
Through the Looking Glass and, "The Hunting of the Snark" and "Jabberwocky" should be read by adults as nonsense in this sense. Lewis Carroll (Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) was a logician playing with logic.
Noahpinion
What does it even mean to "believe" something?Noah Smith | Assistant Professor of Finance, Stony Brook University
