Whether to Kill. Stephanie Dornschneider

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СКАЧАТЬ Rather, they are incoherent.

      These examples suggest that coherence is the same as logical consistency. However, it is helpful to add that some researchers have put forward the stronger notion of “continuity of senses” to define coherence (De Beaugrande and Dressler 1981, chap. 5). Continuity of senses means that two beliefs cannot only be considered connected but also to complement each other. In the example above, one could say that B1 complements B2 (by offering information about what dogs can do with wings).

      Figure 3. Example of a coherent and incoherent belief connection.

      Based on these observations, coherence can indicate whether it is possible for a person who holds a particular belief to also hold a particular other belief in a certain belief context.¹¹ This can be evaluated from a perspective that is external to the subject who believes certain things to be connected (or even by the subject himself, as he considers the beliefs he holds). The examples above suggest that, while belief connections in certain belief contexts are not limited to true beliefs, they cannot contain opposite types of beliefs whose propositional contents address the same thing: a person can believe that dogs can fly and that dogs have wings (example 1), but it is not possible for a person to believe that dogs can fly and that they do not fly (example 2). The first example is a coherent connection between two false beliefs about the same thing,¹² and the second is an incoherent connection between a false and a true belief about the same thing.

      Absence of Connection

      Apart from being connected coherently or incoherently, particular beliefs can also be considered unconnected. This emphasizes that beliefs are context dependent, even though all beliefs are embedded in mental processes and may therefore be considered connected on a more general basis. Take the example of B5 “I believe that Germany is in Europe” and B6 “I believe that fish live in water.” By themselves, B5 and B6 do not address anything by which they could be considered connected. Another example are the beliefs B3 “I believe that dogs cannot fly” and B7 “I believe that John is the son of Jack and Pamela,” which by themselves do not address anything that allows us to consider these beliefs connected, either.

      Whether particular beliefs are connected is subject to their belief context. It is possible, and indeed quite common, that all the beliefs somebody holds include beliefs that are contradictory. For example, I may hold the true belief that Alexander is wearing a green shirt in a belief context about my meeting with Alexander on Monday, and hold the true belief that Alexander is wearing a yellow shirt in a belief context about my meeting with Alexander on Tuesday. Considered in the same belief context, or by themselves, the beliefs that Alexander is wearing a green shirt and that Alexander is wearing a yellow shirt are contradictory, or incoherent. However, since they are related to different belief contexts addressing different situations, they can be considered unconnected rather than incoherent.

      Directedness

      Directed belief connections address objects whose characteristics can be considered logically dependent on each other. Specifically, a characteristic of an object can be considered logically prior to another characteristic of another object, or to the same object. Consider the connection between two true beliefs, describing something that is verifiable in the external world (see Figure 4):

      B1 I believe that my glass of water fell to the floor.

      B2 I believe that the floor is wet.

      In this example, B1 addresses something that can be considered a logical antecedent (water falling to the floor) of what is addressed by B2 (wet state of floor). Conversely, what is addressed by B2 can be considered a logical consequent of B1. This can be represented as B1 → B2.

      Figure 4. Example of a directed belief connection I.

      Figure 5. Example of a directed belief connection II.

      Consider another example about the connection between two true beliefs that describe something that is verifiable in the external world (B1) and addresses an internal sensation (B2) (see Figure 5):

      B1 I believe that I ran 10 kilometers.

      B2 I believe that my muscles are sore.

      In this example, B1 also addresses something that can be considered a logical antecedent (running 10 km) of what is addressed by B2 (sore muscles). This can also be represented as B1 → B2.

      Possibility Versus Necessity

      Such belief connections indicate possibilities rather than necessities. Specifically, there are other possible antecedents of a floor’s being wet or muscles’ being sore (hence the terminology “logical antecedent” and “logical consequent”). Indeed, what is described by B2 (in both examples) may in reality be the consequence of something else, for example a person cleaning the floor (example 1) or climbing ten flights of stairs (example 2). This indicates the limits of human knowledge, which also become relevant later in this chapter (see section on External Interventions on Cognitive Maps). Here, it suffices to note that regardless whether what is described by B1 is the real antecedent of what is described by B2, it is possible for a person to consider B1 an antecedent of B2.

      Temporality

      Belief connections often represent common-sense temporal connections between physical things, and it might be tempting to think of directedness in terms of temporal structures.¹³ However, it is important to recall that all belief connections exist in human minds, and not in the external world where things unfold in time. Belief connections may give a cognitive account of time, but no chronological account of time. Cognitive accounts of time indicate people’s understanding about how things happen in time, and are not to be confused with the unfolding of time itself. Instead, they show how individuals at certain points in time believe time to be unfolding. It is therefore misleading to think of belief connections as representations of the chronological order by which things unfold.

      Figure 6. Logical versus chronological order of beliefs.

      On another level, the unfolding of time itself can be misleading for understanding certain phenomena or behavior. This becomes obvious from the following example of the connection between two true beliefs, based on Pearl’s Causality (2000: 252). It shows that the chronological order may differ from the logical order addressed by the beliefs (see Figure 6):

      B1: I believe that it is raining.

      B2: I believe that the barometer is falling.

      In this example, what is addressed by B1 (rain) can be considered a logical antecedent of what is addressed by B2 (falling of the barometer). Again, this can be expressed as B1 → B2. However, the temporal order of the propositional contents of these beliefs cannot be СКАЧАТЬ