This article is part of the ongoing series How Belief Works, which is best read in order.
We all know what it means to believe something, from the significant, such as the belief that humans are apes, to the mundane, such as the belief that there's no milk in the fridge. Indeed, belief is one of the most basic concepts of human psychology. Yet it's also one of those everyday concepts that can be surprisingly difficult to define, like art or happiness.
Any attempt must include that it's a psychological state involving a claim. In the above examples it's believed that humans are apes and that there's no milk in the fridge.
Although claims are often asserted by someone, whether verbally or in writing, a believed claim hasn't necessarily been asserted by anyone, even the believer. Upon looking inside our fridge, we can form the belief There's no milk in the fridge without anyone, including ourselves, asserting on this occasion that there's no milk in our fridge.
Also note that the term belief can refer to either the psychological state or the believed claim. That is, it can refer to either believing something or something believed. In the first sense, my belief There's no milk in the fridge is a different thing from someone else's belief There's no milk in the fridge, regarding the same fridge, because they're separate psychological states existing in different heads. But in the second sense, they're the same thing.
So the term mundane belief can refer to either believing a mundane claim or a mundane claim that's believed – and likewise for the term significant belief. However, we often use the term belief by itself to mean a significant claim that's believed, whether moral, political, religious, historical, philosophical or scientific. For example, when we refer to defending our beliefs, we're referring to defending particular significant claims we believe.
This series concerns our belief of any kind of claim, however significant or mundane. Other examples of mundane beliefs are my current beliefs I’m in my flat, I'm sitting on a chair at my desk, I'm typing these words, It's Tuesday morning, It’s sunny outside, and I went for a hike along a river yesterday.
Given that the psychological state of belief involves a claim, the following definition can seem as obvious as it is simple: considering a claim to be true. But although this definition can seem irrefutable, it's fatally flawed – as I’ll explain in the next article, on how beliefs form.
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