| English is actually better than Lojban for distinguishing belief from
assumption. Two idioms serve to point toward the difference. We *have* beliefs, we *make* assumptions. There is nothing odd about saying "I am assuming that," whereas "I am believing that," when said by a native speaker rather than an Indian (dot) can almost only be a Method actor describing his preparation for playing the part of a believer. The short of all this is that believing is a state, assuming is an activity. Furthermore (and not quite as a consequence), assuming is volitional, believing is not. We can choose to assume and be doing it immediately. We cannot exactly choose to believe at all, though we use that locution for choosing to come to believe. But it takes working at to achieve the state (see the comments by Pascal in The Wager pensee and GO Archbishop Michael's advice to a priest who could not honestly say the Creed: "Say the Creed." Also all of Existentialism). In other cases, we believe whether we want to or not-- the yellow patch, for example. Thirdly, assumptions have purposes, generally to help understand something, but often more precise ones ("for the sake of argument" we say, to "to prove the contrary", etc.). Beliefs don't. The problem with Lojban is that {sruma} lacks a place for the purpose, giving it the same place structure as {krici} (I pass over the picky-ass problem that the third place is just a subject-raising from the second as irrelevant at the moment. And equally applicable to both preds.) That means that an assumption is justified by its success, while a belief is justified by its evidence, if it has any, or by its foundational nature (i.e., that it is caused by a primary experience). An assumption is rejected (given up), if it doesn't do its job; a belief is rejected if the evidence doesn't support it (but, notice, this may not stop our believing -- it may just throw us into a credal oscillation or lead us to reject the evidence). To be sure, what counts as evidence for a belief may be important for an assumption, since it may be that the explanation the assumption (probably called a hypothesis by now) is trying to facilitate involves the integration of these facts into a greater whole. But this is a very different role from being a support, which is the relation between evidence and belief. |