Understanding Beliefs

An Essay on the Methodology of the Statement and Analysis of Belief Systems

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2188641
AutoresR A Hahn (0000-0002-3197-2393, autor correspondente)
Ano1973
Volume14
Fascículo3
Páginas207-229
Data de publicação1973-06-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoCurrent Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0011-3204 • E-ISSN: 1537-5382
EditoraUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/201319
OpenAlexW2039852118
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas21

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

Apprehension · Belief system · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy · Linguistics · Quine · Sincerity · Sociology · Statement (logic · Unconscious mind · Philippine History and Culture · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies