Death as a “Concept” And “Belief”: An Analysis of “Belief-Statements” and “Belief-Knowledge” Relation

Abstract

Human cognition and perception is primarily governed by three elements – Knowledge, Concept and Belief. What we see, feel, understand and speak is firmly grounded on these three aspects. However, the relation among belief, knowledge and concept is difficult to trace. According to the contemporary philosophers of mind, the term belief need not be associated with reflection on something; it could simply be an attitude towards something, i.e. when something is regarded as true. Thus, “belief” is often considered as a propositional attitude: for instance, Helena says that “death is a phase in life and not the end of life”; this sentence is an example of a mental state indicating towards a certain attitude or stance where the proposition is true. Helena’s statement could be grounded on the belief or concepts of “after-life”, “immortality” or continuity of memory irrespective of the truth value of the proposition. Thus, the objective of this work is to study the intricate relationship between “belief” and “concept” in order to study the “concept” and “belief” called “death”.