A belief is a rule of behavior. Why would you want to hold that? What are you sayiing other than that people who bellieve x behave as if x were true? I would think rules of behavior might be the sort of thing you find in the bus or wherever : No swearing etc.
So what behavior is implied by my belief that it is raining or it is not raining?
I understand the term "illiocutionary" as refering to a type of linguistic act namely one in which by saying something you are doing something. For example, in saying "I promise" in certain circumstances I perform the act of promising. According to John Austin a number of verbs when used in the first person present tense are performative, and as such illocutionary. Other examples would be " I christen" " I forgive" and so on.
Austin's primary classification of linguistic acts consists of: locutionary acts (incorporating three distinct acts); locutionary acts; perlocutionary acts. For example if I utter the string "I promise to take you camping" then I do at least three linguistic acts. I say that I will take you (the kids say) camping. This is the locutionary act. I promise I will take them camping. This is the illocutionary act. Let us say they jump up and down for joy. I cause them to jump up and down for joy. This is the perlocutionary act.
John Searle's book Speech Acts carries on Austin's work to some degree and influenced Habermas as I recall. A more formalistic approach to speech acts is found in Jerrold Katz and John Ross.
A belief is not illocutionary because it is not a linguistic act.
The term "intuitition" is used in a variety of ways, some technical as in Kants forms of intuition. However I understood Justin to be referring to pre-philosophical thoughts or feelings. These of course may involve propositions. We think or feel that punishing the innocent is not right. Strong intuitions of this sort are not waiting to be recognised nor verified I should think. In fact as Justin claims often they will not be regarded as shown to be false through ordinary argument or philosophical arguments. Indeed utilitarianism is sometimes claimed to be inadquate as a moral theory because it conflicts with intuitions such as that with regard to punishing the innocent. For the utilitarian it would seem legitimate to punish the innocent if this act maximised the good. Anyway it seems that a religious person could very well feel so strongly that God would take care of him or her that the person would jump out of the plane thinking everything would be OK.
Cheers, Ken Hanly
----- Original Message ----- From: Kenneth MacKendrick <kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 12:47 AM Subject: Re: Ethical foundations of the left
> At 09:01 PM 7/24/01 -0500, you wrote:
> >But if all you mean is that good arguments (philosophical or otherwise)
do
> >not convince people who hold intuitions contradictory to the conclusion
why
> >not say that? Why use the word trump? The intuitions dont win. In fact
the
> >person with the intuition loses when the argument is sound and the
premisses
> >true. A person with a strong intuition that God will save him or her when
he
> >jumps out of an airplane at 10,000 feet with no parachute may not be
> >convinced by being reminded of elementary physical facts. Of course
> >restraining the person not argument would probably be the appropriate
course
> >of action not argument. The fact that an argument may not be
pragmatically
> >useful in convincing someone with strong intuitions opposed to the
> >conclusion tells only against its pragmatic usefulness in these
> >circumstances.
> >
> >Cheers, Ken Hanly
>
> I think the word intuition here is being overextended. I think it would be
> more appropriate to talk about a belief in God rather than just an
> intuition about God (at least in the case of someone jumpting out of an
> airplane at 10,000 feet with no parachute). A belief, in good pragmatic
> fashion, is a rule of behaviour. If one 'believes' something, then one
acts
> in accordance with those beliefs (except in instances of discrepancy
> between communicative and behavioural experience). And intuition is
> something different. In linguistic terms, and someone who knows better
> please correct me, a belief is illocutionary, it is backed up by a habit
of
> commitment to action. An intuition is propositional, i.e. just waiting to
> be redeemed, recognized, verified, and etc. (pardon the pu).
>
> clarifications limited,
> ken
>