Reason and Reasons

July 10, 2007 | Filed Under Small Talk 

I like thinking about how language affects the way we think.

I was in the shower this morning, where I do pretty much all my thinking for the day, and it occurred to me that some reasons are not based in reason. Ok, so what’s the big deal?

Well, most people will agree that when you think deeply enough about the world, things don’t just happen, they happen because of something else that happened. Beliefs are one such thing that we think come into existence because of something else (the reason).  In other words, you believe what you believe not *just* because you believe it, but because something happened to bring you to that belief.

Most of the beliefs that you have now, you did not have when you were born. So at some point in time, you acquired most of the beliefs that you have. But why?

Well, for reasons. Ah, but not all reasons are based in reason! In other words, many people have beliefs for reasons that we might describe as “just intuition” or “it’s obvious” or “that’s the way I see the world” or “that’s how I experienced it” - many of the reasons for our beliefs are attitudinal - based in feeling or brute preference.

Ok. Again…so what.

Well, many people, rightly, think that beliefs should be had for reasons. But, for whatever reason, the same people often make the mistake of thinking that such reasons should all be based in reason. In other words, many thoughtful people take the absurd view that the only good reason is a reason based in reason. But that would make most of our beliefs bad beliefs.

Does this mean that I’m anti-reason? Absolutely not. What it does mean is that I’m not so naive as to expect that all my beliefs be based in reason, and I’m also very comfortable holding beliefs that “seem” right even if I can’t demonstrate (using reason) the reason for the belief.

“So you’re one of those people who blindly believes in God, eh?” - No, I didn’t say that. But I do think that one can have reasons for believing in God which are not based in reason (though I suspect there are well-formed reasons that are based in reason too).

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