Friday Musings – August 22

While the narrative of beliefs and language has long and unsettled controversies and complexities, this is one basic, yet profound way of configuring a proposal. Beliefs are dependent on language, but not exclusively constructed by it. Both the poles of Realism (no dependence) and Idealism (full dependence), in the previous formulation, are marginalized – kept at bay – in the wager that there is more to beliefs than either can sufficiently explain. To attempt to avoid polarization in these discussions is like needing to duck when a totalizer is thrown at you – necessary – phew, another streamer avoided.