Title: Understanding Beliefs: An Essay on the Methodology of the Statement and Analysis of Belief Systems
Abstract:The essay sketches a comprehensive methodology for the study of beliefs and belief systems. It considers the situation of the anthropologist studying the beliefs of natives of whose language and socie...The essay sketches a comprehensive methodology for the study of beliefs and belief systems. It considers the situation of the anthropologist studying the beliefs of natives of whose language and society he is relatively ignorant, but its conclusions are thought to be applicable as well in understanding the beliefs of those speaking the same language and living in the same society. The essay elaborates and recommends a conception of beliefs as general propositions about the world (consciously) held to be true; it suggests that other concepts (e.g., of beliefs as unconscious as well as conscious) have never been adequately explicated. The remainder of the essay deals with the logic of the interpretation of beliefs and with the nature of anthropological formulations of foreign belief. Following Quine, it presents a referential theory of translation, arguing that one translates by correlating native utterances with one's own labels for the 'situations' to which both (utterances and labels) refer. It proceeds to discuss the implications of the dependence of the anthropologist's data on interaction with natives and the effect of his behavior on the native's sincerity. It then discusses the logic by which (1) a series of beliefs is stated as a system and (2) the beliefs and systems so stated are analyzed and compared with others. It concludes by enumerating the ways in which anthropologists' formulations of native beliefs and belief system are logically interactive products of the the beliefs of native and anthropologist. It relates the study of belief to other disciplines, and discusses some epistemological limits of the knowledge of foreign beliefs.Read More
Publication Year: 1973
Publication Date: 1973-06-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 56
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