Belief Systems

1. What is really real?

• Is only what we perceive real?
• Is God real? Then we may have to own up to a higher law.
• Are societal groups real? Then they would have a force of their own, apart from the individuals that comprise them.

2. What is the basis for reasoning?

• Is there a universal rationality?
• What counts as logical?
• Is rationality determined completely by non-rational forces: power, self-interest?
• Maybe we call something rational because it gets us what we want.
• Or maybe rationality corresponds to some objective world out there (correspondance).
• Maybe something is rational if it works (pragmatism).

3. What is the basis for meaning?

• Do we decide that something is meaningful because it corresponds to a divine plan?
• Natural order?
• Maybe meaning is just what we make it.
• Maybe we're radically free, and can choose meaning for ourselves.
• Maybe it is imposed on us by society, family, tradition, religion.

4. What is the basis for action?

• What grounds do we have for saying that one action is good and another is not? Pragmatics? Is something right if it "works"?
• Is something right if it follows some law? Where did the law come from?
• Is it right simply because we chose it?