[maverickphilosopher] William F. Vallicella: A Pieperian Argument for Doxastic Voluntarism

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Posted by William F. Vallicella:
A Pieperian Argument for Doxastic Voluntarism
http://maverickphilosopher.powerblogs.com/posts/1198089505.shtml


   [1]Josef Pieper (1904-1997) was a 20th century German Thomist. I read
   his [2]Belief and Faith as an undergraduate and am now re-reading it
   very carefully. It is an excellent counterbalance to a lot of the
   current analytic stuff on belief and doxastic voluntarism. What
   follows is my reconstruction of Pieper's argument for doxastic
   voluntarism in Belief and Faith. His thesis, to be found in Augustine
   and Aquinas, is that "Belief rests upon volition." (p. 27. Augustine,
   De praedestinatione Sanctorum, cap. 5, 10: [Fides] quae in voluntate
   est . . . .) I shall first present the argument in outline, and then
   comment on the premises and inferences.

   1. Belief and knowledge are mutually exclusive. He who knows does not
   believe, and he who believes does not know.

   Therefore

   2. It is not the self-evident truth of the proposition believed that
   motivates the believer's acceptance of it.

   Therefore

   3. The believer's acceptance is motivated by the insight that "it is
   good to regard the subject matter as true and real on the strength of
   someone else's testimony." (p. 27)

   4. "It is the will, not cognition, that acknowledges the good." (p.
   27)

   Therefore

   5. Wherever there is belief, the will is operative. "We believe not
   because we see, perceive, deduce, something true, but because we
   desire something good." (p. 27)

   Interpretive gloss: We desire contact with the truth, as with
   something good. But in some cases we are not in a position to know the
   truth; so we must believe it on the basis of the testimony of a
   credible witness. We will our acceptance of the testimony of the
   witness. Our acceptance of the testimony is voluntary. One's coming to
   believe is thus subject to voluntary control.

   Ad (1). Most philosophers nowadays think of knowledge as including
   belief. Thus, on their use of 'believes' and 'knows,' if S knows that
   p, then S believes that p, though not conversely. Accordingly, if I
   know that the sun is shining, by seeing that it is, then I believe
   that the sun is shining. But Pieper, basing himself on Aquinas,
   doesn't view the matter in this way. For Pieper, if S believes that p,
   S unconditionally accepts p as true without knowing whether or not p
   is true. Accordingly, I do not believe that the sun is shining; I know
   that it is. This corresponds to ordinary usage. One can imagine Ron
   Radosh saying, "I don't believe that the Rosenbergs were guilty of
   espionage for the Soviets; I know they were!" Pieper quotes Aquinas
   (p.10): "Belief cannot refer to something that one sees. . .; and what
   can be proved likewise does not pertain to belief." Thus he who knows
   does not believe, and he who believes does not know.

   Ad (2). This is supposed to follow from (1) and it does.

   Ad (3). Since I did not see O. J. Simpson kill his ex-wife Nicole, I
   do not know that he killed her. But I believe he killed her on the
   basis of a massive amount of mutually supportive facts and testimony.
   Now what motivates (Aquinas would say 'causes') my unconditional
   acceptance of the proposition that O.J. killed Nicole? I want contact
   with the truth because the truth is good. Now I cannot in a case like
   this achieve contact via knowledge. So if I am to achieve truth- and
   reality-contact, it must be through belief, which is subordinate to
   knowledge in value though not included in knowledge.

   There is a sort of value-judgment here that needs to be treated fully
   in a separate post: it is better to achieve reality-contact via belief
   despite the epistemic risk involved, than to stick to what can
   strictly be known thereby foregoing reality-contact. We must of course
   try to avoid error. But the acquisition of truth is also an epistemic
   desideratum. I would argue that it is a mistake to let one's fear of
   error deprive one of second-rate reality-contact, i.e.,
   reality-content via belief. Believing a proposition on the basis of
   credible testimony is admittedly of less value than knowing it; but
   second-rate reality-contact is better than no reality-contact.

   Ad (4). This is a premise and it seems true. Good and evil are not
   'visible' except to conative/desiderative beings. If we were merely
   intellectual beings, mere cognizers, without wish, will, need, desire,
   appetite, then good and evil would be 'invisible.' This is not to be
   confused with the presumably false claim that good and evil would not
   exist in a world without conative/desiderative beings.

   Ad (5). To believe that p is to give my unconditional assent to the
   truth of p. I commit myself to p's truth despite my lack of knowledge
   of the subject matter. Thus my believing that O.J. killed Nicole is my
   unconditional acceptance of that proposition on the basis of
   inconclusive, but adequate, evidence. What motivates my acceptance is
   my will-to-truth. I am free to believe, to disbelieve, and to suspend
   jusdgment. How then can anyone deny that belief, disbelief, and
   suspension of belief are under the control of the will?

References

   1. http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/authors/josefpieper.asp
   2. http://search.abaa.org/dbp2/detailindex.php?booknr=343764522&membernr=1763&ordernr=84160&source=froogle