Belief
Every belief, or proposition for that matter, can be analyzed into its logical constituents, thus removing all obfuscation and helping illicit a clear theory of belief.
For example: "I believe that the Earth orbits the sun."
The word "believe" is the primary relation of the proposition; it is the glue combining the subject and object of belief. Therefore, "I" serves as the subject of the belief and that leaves us with a complex unity on the other side of the relation: "the Earth orbits the sun".
Moving forward we have the symbolic notation: x R y, where x is the simple subject and y is a complex unity composed of simple objects.
We are now obligated to analyze what exactly y consists of, in this case "Earth orbits the sun". The complex unity y is cleary, in itself, three objects, one of which a relation. The three objects in the complex unity y are "Earth" and "orbits" and "sun", with the object "orbits" being the relational term and "Earth" and "sun" being the object terms.
Thus, we can for the purposes of clarity expand symbolically: x R (e R2 s)
The whole point of expanding y and interpretting it as a complex unity, that is constituated in this case by two object terms and one relational term, is because leaving y as a single object results in logical disarray.
Let us take an illustration: "I believe that Kerry is engaged to her fiancee," where, in fact, she is not. In this case, if we are to consider the complex unity "Kerry is engaged to her fiancee" as a whole, a single object, it would be impossible for me to have any relation whatsoever with it as the object as a whole does not exist. The whole unity, the entire object of belief, viz. "Kerry's engagement to her fiancee" is nonexistent and thus it cannot possibly be in relation to me; nothingness cannot be related to something.
I think we can see that it is only by disecting the complex unity into its composing objects that we can have any logical relation in belief. Going back to the example of engagement, it is true that Kerry exists and so does the man who was or may be her fiancee, but there is no actual relation of engagement. By the mere fact that the two object terms actually have existence, there can be an actual relation of belief between the subject of belief and the object of belief, i.e. the complex unity.
Now that the logical analysis of the structure and composition of propositions of belief is completed, it remains to see by what means we are able to employ to test the truth of falsehood of any given belief. Beliefs are dependent upon the mind for their existence, but their truth is contingent upon external facts. There must be, if a belief is to be true, a correspondence between the belief and reality. What exactly is this correspondence?
The correspondence between belief and fact consists of two factors, both of which must be met in order for a belief to be true: 1) the series order of the constituent objects in any given complex unity of belief, and 2) the actual existence of every constituent object within any given complex unity of belief.
The first requisite, series order, is fairly simple to understand. If I were to believe, for example, that "San Francisco is south of Seattle," I would have a true belief. However, if I were to believe that "Seattle is south of San Francisco," I would be believing falsly even though both object terms in the belief do exist. This leads us directly into the second requisite of truth, namely that of existence. All the object terms and relational terms within a complex unity of a belief must exist or correspond with fact in reality. As we can see, the two requisites of truth do go hand in hand.
Arriving at the end of this simple exposition concerning the philosophy of belief we have seen how a beliefs are logically structured and how we are to judge whether or not a belief is, in fact, true. However, the whole conception of correspondence with reality is fearfully vague. How is it we are to judge whether or not any object of belief actually exists? This is a question of utmost importance but I do not care to go into it here. Rest assured though that I shall tackle the topic in the future.