DV
Q
Is it possible for A to will belief, to choose b, not because he thinks b is true, but because he thinks b is good or useful to believe?
A
Yes, but I doubt that there are any cases in which the choice to believe b is 100% free and unconditioned or uninfluenced by truth-consideration. We will need a definition and analysis of belief.
A believes p =df A acts as if p is true (viz., mental/psychological action); or: A affirms the truth of p; or: A intellectually entertains p and, after and as a result of reflective assessment of p’s “form” against his own knowledge (or just his own established belief system), decides to incorporate p into that belief system, or “doxastic framework”, so to speak.
So there are two stages. First, the proposition is entertained by the mind as a mere proposition, a possibly-true state of affairs about reality. This mental entertainment is done by assessing the new belief-candidate in the light of either immediate knowledge or else one’s pre-existing system of judgments about external reality. Eventually, the intellect will either discover coherent, explanatory, supportive value in p (and likely accept it), spot a conflict with a pre-existing belief (contradiction, rejection of old or new, perhaps acceptance of its opposite), or both (might tentatively assign a weak position or hold in “limbo” pending further data), or neither (free-for-all?). Think of a new proposition as a pledge to a frat. An assessment panel judges him, then an executive committee ultimately makes a decision in light of the previous panel’s review. The more obvious his merits, the less of a “free decision” it really is.
I maintain that the will has the final say whenever a proposition’s merits are less than certain. The extent of its influence will vary with the degree of certainty. The more certainty, the less volitional power, etc.
Q
What is the nature of one’s “doxastic framework”?
A
It is the set of all one’s representational concepts, judgments, opinions, principles, etc., which maps how one sees the external world – at least once and whenever not immediately faced with it (in other words, whenever there’s uncertainty). It is A’s “intentional world”, his organized web of judgments,
about the external world, which serve to guide him through that world. The “mental world” is like the explorer’s individually drawn map; he can mark it up w/a private or public rule-based “grammar” to better get himself or others around in the future (especially, say, if what they once knew becomes “hidden”).
Q
Is A’s “doxastic incorporation” of p ultimately, or primarily, an act of the intellect or the will?
A
If the former, then the incorporation is in a sense “compelled” by a somewhat undeniable recognition of truth. If the latter, then it’s perhaps probably a selfish practical decision, arguably a “debasement” (of mind, of truth). The intellect is that which is naturally oriented to
the true; the will is that which tends by naturally to
the good.
The
true: a thing’s internal, causally inert existence within an intellect. (The intellect passively receives an external object, whereby it takes on an intentional mode, truth, or being-as-seen/known.)
The
good: the outward, or external, manifestation/realization of an intellect’s internal intention. (The will activates the passive intellect’s content.)
Q
What is the nature and purpose, or good, of A’s internal, intellectual representation of external reality?
A
A is acquainted with something intelligible and his intellect reflects its form into its own “ideal space”. This reflection is at the command of the will, which makes the decisions of which presented objects it desires to focus, or “shine the light of the intellect” on. The act of reflection amounts to abstraction; the form of the known object is abstracted from the thing itself and given its own sort of “conceptual matter”. (This may be brain matter, if you like. The abstraction of form, then, could be tantamount to the mind’s imposed organization of a neural network. In basically all cases, the brain’s reaction is influenced both by sensation of the thing and “itself”; but autonomy enters more w/judgment than w/conceptualization.)
EW
The mind’s map of the external world necessarily and by nature presupposes the existence of an external world. Whenever one makes any assertion or entertains a proposition, the underlying “assumption” is that it is
about something pre-existent or pre-established, something out of its control at the time, already settled. In that sense, “external” might be closely identified by being outside of the will’s range of causal command. The external world is what the intellect receives as pre-existing, not what only exists due to its current action (like, say, an imagined witch – though technically that very imagined being would be “external” once
it is presented to the intellect as a memory (which presumably is stored “in” the physical brain), since the new presentation would exist independently of the new intellectual action.
- Thing is presented to intellect;
- Intellect reflects thing internally;
- Will decides what to do with intellect’s intention;
4.(a) If good, the will manifests the intention externally via the body (belief; such as by informing the brain’s memory bank w/it and storing it for quick recall);
4.(b) If not good, the will may very well let it be forgotten.
