[lit-ideas] Re: Beyond Belief
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 01:09:38 EDT
In a message dated 8/23/2004 12:06:29 AM Eastern Standard Time,
atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
As a matter of fact, I've just started reading _Beyond Belief_ by Elaine
Pagels. Interesting book. Has anyone else read her [books or interviews]?
---
Not me (so far). The expression 'beyond belief' (a kind of cliche) I took
from an essay by Tufts philosopher Daniel Dennett ('Beyond belief') in A.
Woodfield, Thought and Object.
As I recall, Dennett is interested in the _basis_ of 'belief' (_any_ belief,
not just religious) and comes up with something like Stephen Stich's
"sub-doxastic states".
I thought the phrase 'beyond belief' was commoner than it was. The OED
quotes are not that many, or colloquial (below). There is in fact just _one_
quote, and the expression is "_almost_ beyond belief", which is (hardly)
'beyond
belief (and the subject his 'spectacles' -- the Pope's, one supposes).
Cheers,
JL
'beyond' -- with noun expressing a state of mind, as belief: not within the
range of, not according to, past, surpassing.
1701 W. WOTTON Hist. Rome 285
His Spectacles were almost beyond belief.
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