Taking the term “private” literally, there are at least two reasons why a belief might be private.
The first is because of the reasons that this posts outlines: because one’s reasoning is illegible, because they don’t think that they have or can justify their reasoning by objective standards.
But another reason why a belief might be private is that, even though you think the arguments are solid and defensible, you expect that other people will have a strong negative reaction to your stating the belief, for non-epistemic reasons. There are always, in all times, things you can’t say.
And it is pretty bad if it becomes a default assumption that, if a person won’t share a belief, its because their arguments are implicit or their reasons not-fully-justified. That’s just not true.
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Overall, that seems right to me, and I’m happy to find a different word for “private beliefs” that doesn’t have that problem. Any suggestions?
Maybe “personal”?
Overall, I’m not trying to crystalize terms here so much as point at distinctions. Rather than say “this is a personal/private belief” I currently think people should just spell out “this is a thing that I believe, but I don’t think that I’ve made the arguments well enough to think that you should buy it yet.” But I agree that if this becomes commonplace, it will become jargon, and we want to pick the jargon well.
I don’t have any good suggestions for terms to replace the ones you used; I do reiterate that the distinction you’re pointing out in the OP is a real and useful one.
My paraphrase:
Taking the term “private” literally, there are at least two reasons why a belief might be private.
The first is because of the reasons that this posts outlines: because one’s reasoning is illegible, because they don’t think that they have or can justify their reasoning by objective standards.
But another reason why a belief might be private is that, even though you think the arguments are solid and defensible, you expect that other people will have a strong negative reaction to your stating the belief, for non-epistemic reasons. There are always, in all times, things you can’t say.
And it is pretty bad if it becomes a default assumption that, if a person won’t share a belief, its because their arguments are implicit or their reasons not-fully-justified. That’s just not true.
..
Overall, that seems right to me, and I’m happy to find a different word for “private beliefs” that doesn’t have that problem. Any suggestions?
Maybe “personal”?
Overall, I’m not trying to crystalize terms here so much as point at distinctions. Rather than say “this is a personal/private belief” I currently think people should just spell out “this is a thing that I believe, but I don’t think that I’ve made the arguments well enough to think that you should buy it yet.” But I agree that if this becomes commonplace, it will become jargon, and we want to pick the jargon well.
Your paraphrase passes my ITT.
I don’t have any good suggestions for terms to replace the ones you used; I do reiterate that the distinction you’re pointing out in the OP is a real and useful one.