There's no "erroneous assumption"; generally conference titles like this are simply treated as hypotheses to be addressed. If you don't believe that there is any such thing as the nature (in the sense of essential quality) of belief, then write an article addressing that. If it is well researched and argued, it would probably be accepted. Personally I doubt it would fly since (as far as I know) all beliefs are held in minds, which means there is at least one essential quality.
Personally, if I had the time, I wouldn't mind going; I find that conversation about "truth", "mind", "belief", and "art" can be quite engaging. OTOH,, I find sticking one's fingers in one's ears (metaphorically) while chanting "I can't hear you I can't hear you" kinda boring. Cheers; Chris On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 3:58 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Mando writes: "Don't they mean 'The Individual Nature of Belief'" > > Something like that is what they SHOULD mean. But notice that > philosophers repeatedly announce their topic with a reifying 'THE' right > up front: "THE > concept of existence", "THE concept of evil/freedom/salvation" etc. They > erroneously assume there are fixed, determinate, and definite GENERIC > concepts, like "pure forms" up in some kind of Platoland. The best they > can hope to > examine is 'Individual Notions of the Nature of Belief'. > > They do have the right to STIPULATE a notion they want to examine. They > need to describe it in detail, introduced with a line like, "This is the > notion > of 'God' I want to talk about." They then are counting on their description > occasioning in you, the reader, something close to the notion they have in > mind. But such stipulation is not creation. It cannot create "real" -- > not > simply notional -- heavens, angels, words, or mind-independent meanings and > concepts.
