Ethics Under Construction

A belief is an attribution of “truth” to a thought. I defended this definition in a prior article and used it to show how “ Moorean Sentences” are meaningless. Here, I aim to clarify the idea further and address common criticisms and misunderstandings with this definition.

First, we need to understand the nature of language, particularly the difference between semantics and pragmatics. The abstract definition of “belief” and its specific uses are not the same, but the abstract definition of “belief” determines what “belief” means in every context.

Next, we’ll look at what it means to say something is “true.” A common misunderstanding is that saying something is  true means referring to something in the objective world. But the objective world is true without us saying that it is. Attributing truth to truth is redundant.

Statements of fact do not refer to reality. In language, we don’t claim that certain facts are true. The facts of the world are true without anyone else saying so. Statements would be completely useless if they were directed to the world.

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