William Cliffords Insight

In this reading Clifford goes back and fourth to believing in what’s wrong and what is right. It seems like he can’t make up his mind. Let’s get into this standard argument that I got from his writing..

1. People believing in revising their issue or situation to where they are correct and only they know the truth in their heads.
2. They believe in this and feel comfortable and satisfied with what they consider the “truth”.

Conclusion: Therefore, we should think about our thoughts and actions before we do something that can bring consequences, and not have to revise our words so we feel satisfied about the consequences.

From reading Cliffords work he really has a hard time deciding whether a belief is wrong or its right. According to Clifford his thesis is “Its wrong always, everywhere and for anyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” The standard argument, I agree is valid because all the premises are valid. I agree with these because to me it means they are sound and valid since we don’t have enough evidence to belief in whats wrong and right. For example he says” When I believe things because I want to believe them and because they are comforting and pleasant (pg 6). This tells us how in general society wants to hear what they want. We don’t want to know the truth but we must because as Clifford says without evidence we can’t make a judgement. We cannot continue and think It’s okay to judge without having both sides of a story.

Although Clifford has a very challenging way of writing, from reading this I understood how he believes without enough evidence its wrong to believe something or somebody. This is very clear but there are many cases where you don’t need much evidence to believe something. For example, if you know somebody for along time and you know how they are and their thoughts , you don’t need much evidence to believe in them. Yet, I know you could have different situations so Im not fully agreeing just with one side of the story. But there could always be that one where Cliffords thesis doesn’t apply too. (word count 364).