Ch. 8 - Belief in Belief

Chris OConnor · Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 12:45 am Post subject: Ch. 8 - Belief in Belief

Ch. 8 - Belief in Belief

Use this thread for discussing Chapter 8...or don't. ::204

MadArchitect · Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 2:59 pm Post subject: Re: Ch. 8 - Belief in Belief

Okay, so I've burned through the last three chapters of the book, and here are my notes. I apologize for posting them all in one lump.

Eight. Belief in Belief
In this chapter, Dennett shifts more explicitly to the agenda of limiting and, to some degree, denying religion. His point of view is now atheist in the classical sense of "against God". He abandons, however briefly, the conjectural neutrality he established in the early chapters, and he hasn't really provided any justification for doing so.

1. You better believe it
As I read it, the major theme of this section -- and a continuing theme throughout the book -- is that many religionists don't believe the central claims of their religion at all, but rather believe that there is some concrete benefit to belief, and therefore profess belief, regardless of how they genuinely think or feel about those claims. And that is likely true in individual cases, but I'm not sure there's any practical benefit to treating religious belief accordingly. The way that Dennett accepts this assumption is somewhat facile, and he applies it to the determination of policy as though it were certain that those who believe in belief were more numerous or significant than those who genuinely believe in doctrine. This figures heavily in Part III of the book, where the two major justifications for religion addressed by Dennett are both justifications of belief in belief. But in addressing those to the exclusion of other justifications, Dennett fails to address the position of those who belief in doctrine, not in the efficacy of belief. But now I'm getting ahead of myself...

2 God as intentional object
Dennett's shift away from scientific neutrality becomes increasingly clear in this chapter. Don't take my word for it, though. Go through this section yourself and count up the number of times that Dennett compares God to some figure from fiction or contrived for the amusement of children. It's a consistent feature of the section; it's also a rhetorical style, employed to emphasize what Dennett considers to be the absurd features of doctrine or belief in doctrine. It's most effective as a way of closing off rational discussion, and it has almost no place in a presumably scientific consideration of any phenomenon, so it's a bit baffling that Dennett would think it appropriate here. It's worth comparing his treatment of religion in this section to the way he deals in ch. 9 ¤ 2 and ch. 10 ¤ 1 with academic concerns over whether or not the study of religion by scientists is conducted with respect.

On p. 210 Dennett discusses the cartoon versions of God (which are presumably acceptable to Christian religionists, though recent events in the Middle East have demonstrated that Dennett's generalization is not true across the board). In particular, Dennett compares these cartoon versions of God to the God of Genesis 2:21, emphasizing the literal interpretation of that figure. This is a rhetorical move. Dennett's purpose is best served by limiting his discussion of the Judeo-Christian God to the version endorsed by Christian, and particularly Protestant, fundamentalists congregations. He makes no move to consider the interpretations of non-literalists Christians, and does not bother just justify that omission, even by recourse to a statistical break down of what proportion of Christians believes the entire Bible to be literal truth.

In the relation between these two chapters, another question bears scrutiny: are the Christian literalists who affirm that God is the God of Genesis and Judges -- anthropomorphic, vengeful, at times crude -- are these people likely to be those who belief in belief? Are they likely to be those who actually believe doctrine? Or is there a third option, unconsidered by Dennett?

And one slight disparity I noticed here is that Dennett rejects out of hand the functional justification of religion -- ie. that religion is in some way justified by the practical uses to which it is put. Personally, I'm not one to argue for religion on those grounds, but I do find it slightly ironic given that the arguments in favor of the meme model and evolutionary psychology which Dennett has provided in this book almost all rely on their functionality rather than any demonstration of their certainty.

Harking back to a claim I questioned in ch. 6 ¤ 2, Dennett writes on p. 217 that "The mists of incomprehension and failure of communication are not just annoying impediments to rigorous refutation; they are themselves design features of religions worth looking at closely on their own." Again, we may ask how Dennett has determined that these are "design features" rather than a few isolated quirks that arise, in large part, because religion developed almost entirely prior to the development of scientific method, and thus could not have foreseen the demands that would be put on it in the modern era? The answer to that question, it would seem, is that Dennett has consistently interpreted theology as a defensive enterprise, as though every feature or ambiguity of theology were intended to answer an atheist objection. Study of the history of religion reveals that, in the development of most religious doctrines, the tensions which provoke one sohpistication or another are typically internal.

3. The division of doxastic labor
Why do people go along with the pronouncements of religious specialists? Dennett claims on p. 221, "The answer is obvious: belief in belief." I noted it previously: watch out for any assertion that a given answer is obvious. That usually means the person making the assertion is content with their answer, and isn't particularly eager to question it on their own. I'm not at all sure that it is obvious that "belief in belief" is the culprit here, and I think it entirely likely that Dennett has underestimated other factors: the allure of authority, the suggestive power inherent in division of labor ("I go to a cobbler for shoes, and I go to a priests for religion"), and so on.

4. The lowest common denominator
On p. 224: "Their leaders have come to realize that the robustness of the institution of religion doesn't depend on the uniformity of belief at all; it depends on the uniformity of professing." To whom does Dennett refer here? The claim may be true of particular leaders, or even of particular denominations, but the generalization potentially misrepresents the development, both historical and philosophical, of the question of the authority underlying any particular religious tradition.

In general, Dennett seems to interpret the role of religious authority along Marxist lines: ie. religious authority defines right belief. Along practical lines, though, religious authority is almost always engaged in the task of defining and shaping their own religious community. The goal of determining the only universally acceptable form of belief is more indicative of radical fundamentalism than of religion in toto.

5. Beliefs designed to be professed
Another claim worth questioning: "... the transition from folk religion to organized religion is marked by a shift from those with very clear, concrete consequences to those with systematically elusive consequences...." Again, where is Dennett's research to justify this general rule?

On p. 229, Dennett quotes Rappaport to the effect that, "If postulates are to be unquestionable, it is important that they be incomprehensible." This presumes (in line with Dennett's defensive interpretation of religion) that unquestionability is the obvious goal, and that postulates are developed in pursuance of that goal. Quite frankly, I think Dennett has left the realm of disinterested skepticism and is working from cynism. It would be interesting to see the full context in which Rappaport made the comment -- did he intend it as generally as Dennett has presented it here, or was he applying it to a particular instance within a particular religious tradition. His statement would be fairly irreproachable, for instance, if it were in reference to the doctrines given to neophytes in ancient Greek mystery religions.

The Rappaport quote is, in the context of "Breaking the Spell", part of a rhetorical structure: Dennett quotes Dawkins' conjecture in "The Selfish Gene" that psychological impact accounts for the perpetuation of an idea (like hell-fire) whether or not it is believed, then links that idea to Rappaports account of the role of incomprehensibility in the appeal and spread of such ideas. I don't know the context of Rappaport's quotation, but I do know that the Dawkins quote was presented in "The Selfish Gene" as conjecture -- Dawkins himself provided no proof, no research, in support of the conjecture. Knowing that, I can't help but wonder about Rappaport's quote as well, which seems highly conjectural, and is, at any rate, unsubstantiated here. What's most notable, though, is how content Dennett is to integrate at least one unsubstantiated conjecture into the structure of his argument -- and without any attempt to subject either premise to verification!

Getting back to the interpretation of folk religion (see my 1st note on this section), Dennett treats filk religion with the kind of naivity indicative of late Victorian anthropologists (p. 227 and 233). Given what he's already said about the disparity between profession and belief, why would he take at face value folk religion claims to invulnerability, for instance? (cf. his similar treatment of rain dances among Native American religions, ch. 5 ¤1) This tendency goes back, I'd say, to his discussion in ch. 8 ¤1 as to the continuity of ideas between primitive and modern man. Dennett apparantly wants to believe that it's possible to interpret primitive ideas with a high degree of ease and fidelity, and part of that is taking folk religion claims at more or less face value.

7. Does God exist?
Dennett gives summary and inconclusive notice to one argument from authority and three philosophical arguments which even he admits don't play much part in the formation and continuance of religious belief, then feels content to declare "So much for the belief in God." (p. 245) Nevermind the fact that he's barely scratched the surface of belief here; what, really, is the point of this section in the larger scheme of the book? Does it have anything to do with Dennett's stated goal of subjecting religion to scientific method? Is there any science at all in this section? It seems more likely that this section is part of Dennett's covert rhetorical argument against religion.

Chris OConnor · Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 3:07 pm Post subject: Re: Ch. 8 - Belief in Belief

No need to apologize for lumping them all together. I'm still on Ch. 2 so expect some posts from me soon. ::04

JulianTheApostate · Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 2:07 pm Post subject: Re: Ch. 8 - Belief in Belief

This chapter contained a lot of interesting ideas, though there were parts I disagreed with. Here are some random comments.

The first section had a more psychological emphasis, which is fine but was an unexpected shift from the evolutionary perspective of the previous chapter.

As the start of the god as intentional object section, Dennett dismisses the anthropomorphic view of God far too quickly, since in practice many religious people conceive of their god or gods with human-like qualities. The intentional object approach seemed worthwhile, but it begged the question of what's really going on.

The subsequent comparison of physics and religious ideas seemed kind of circular. Dennett never justifies his belief (which I share) that physicists have a better grasp on the underlying reality than religious leaders.

This observation of Dennett's was striking, but I wonder how accurate it is:

...the transition from folk religion to organized religion is marked by a shift in beliefs from those with very clear, concrete consequences to those with systematically elusive consequences.

I didn't get the point of the Druze and Kim Philby tangents.

The Does God exist? concluding section seemed a like a cop-out, since Dennett states his conclusions without providing an explicit argument. Countering Anselm's Ontological Argument and the Cosmological Argument doesn't, by itself, prove atheism.


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