The cognitive nature of faith

• Main Author: Alieksieieva Y. A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kamianets-Podilskyi National Ivan Ohiienko University, National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine, G.S.Kostiuk Institute of Psychology 2018-02-01
• Series: Проблеми сучасної психології
• Subjects: faith; cognitive nature of faith; thinking; hypothesis; knowledge; doubt; geshtalts
• Online Access: http://journals.uran.ua/index.php/2227-6246/article/view/156483/155888

The article presents the conceptual views on the cognitive aspects of the nature of faith. The faith is considered as a cognitive phenomenon from the standpoint of philosophical generalizations. The relationship of faith, cognitive processes and components of the personality is analyzed on the basis of the existing psychological concepts that enabled to develop the idea of a systematic organization of the cognitive-personal activities, where faith fulfills the function of the main system-based element. The development of belief from the hypotheses to the knowledge that is formed in the social and individual consciousness is presented. This way can be represented in the form of astable mechanism for generating hypotheses and their further examinations using the methods and ways of the rational thinking. In the case of the correspondence of the foreseen concepts or constructs with the criteria of authenticity, reality and certainty, they are recognized as genuine and relevant to reality. If the facts are refuted, the hypothesis is rejected, and those concepts that were based on it, are recognized to be false. It is stated that faith and doubt, as a product of the rational and critical thinking, are the main and complementary tools for structuring reality, the difference between them is nevertheless very significant. The differences between belief and doubt according to different criteria are revealed. It is concluded that in accordance with the principle of the continuum, which is understood as the continuous set, the unity and the connection of all that occurs at different levels and in different spheres (consciousness and unconscious, primary and secondary processes, principles of satisfaction and reality, the needed states expressed in the desires and the avoidance of the dissonant experiences, forms of adaptive activity, projection – reflection, etc.), belief and the critical forms of thinking should be regarded as the only mechanism that allows the transition of one state to another, where one state is a condition of the another state activity. Faith and doubt, excluding and complementing each other, become the main factor in the development of the thinking itself, the system of value relations and the individual as a whole