Noun

Singular belief

Plural beliefs

belief (plural beliefs)

1. Mental acceptance of a claim as truth.
2. (countable) Something believed.

   The ancient people have a belief in many deities.

3. (uncountable) The quality or state of believing.

   My belief that it will rain tomorrow is strong.

4. (uncountable) Religious faith.

   She often said it was her belief that carried her through the hard times.

5. (in plural) One's religious or moral convictions.

   I can't do that. It's against my beliefs.

Related terms

• believe
• beyond belief
• disbelief
• self-belief
• unbelief

Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true.

Belief, knowledge and epistemology

The terms belief and knowledge are used differently in philosophy.

Epistemology is the philosophical study of knowledge and belief. The primary problem in epistemology is to understand exactly what is needed in order for us to have knowledge. In a notion derived from Plato's dialogue Theaetetus, philosophy has traditionally defined knowledge as justified true belief. The relationship between belief and knowledge is that a belief is knowledge if the belief is true, and if the believer has a justification (reasonable and necessarily plausible assertions/evidence/guidance) for believing it is true.

A false belief is not considered to be knowledge, even if it is sincere. A sincere believer in the flat earth theory does not know that the Earth is flat. Similarly, a truth that nobody believes is not knowledge, because in order to be knowledge, there must be some person who knows it.

Later epistemologists have questioned the "justified true belief" definition, and some philosophers have questioned whether "belief" is a useful notion at all.

Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true.

Sourced

• I would rather work with five people who really believe in what they are doing rather than five hundred who can't see the point.
  • Patrick Dixon in Building a Better Business, p. 14

• He who believes needs no explanation.
  • Euripides, Dionysus in "The Bacchae"

• He does not believe that does not live according to his belief
  • Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia (1732)

• Dream,believe,achieve
  • Paul White

• People want to believe in something-even if they know it is false.
  • "Tanis Half-Elven", in Dragonlance

• To succeed, we must first believe that we can.
  • Michael Korda, as quoted in Marketing Construction Services (2000) by Paul Pryor, p. 14

• Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.
  • Montaigne, Essays (1580-88)

• If there is anything I have learned in my travels across the Planes, it is that many things may change the nature of a man. Whether regret, or love, or revenge or fear - whatever you believe can change the nature of a man, can. I’ve seen belief move cities, make men stave off death, and turn an evil hag's heart half-circle. This entire Fortress has been constructed from belief. Belief damned a woman, whose heart clung to the hope that another loved her when he did not. Once, it made a man seek immortality and achieve it. And it has made a posturing spirit think it is something more than a part of me.
  • "The Nameless One" in Planescape: Torment

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Wed Oct 28 11:55:56 2009