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Full Idea
Endorsing Clifford's dictum threatens to undermine our right to hold many of our most cherished beliefs about morality, politics, and philosophy, for these are domains in which it is notoriously difficult to secure consensus.
Gist of Idea
Clifford's dictum seems to block our beliefs in morality, politics and philosophy
Source
Tim Bayne (Thought: a very short introduction [2013], Ch.7)
Book Ref
Bayne,Tim: 'Thought: a very short introduction' [OUP 2013], p.98
A Reaction
I would say that those beliefs are amenable to evidence, but the evidence is often highly generalised, which is what makes those subjects notoriously difficult. The existence of a convention is a sort of evidence.
Related Idea
Idea 6587 It is always wrong to believe things on insufficient evidence [Clifford]
| 17766 | Physicalism correlates brain and mind, explains causation by thought, and makes nature continuous [Bayne] |
| 17767 | The alternative to a language of thought is map-like or diagram-like thought [Bayne] |
| 17768 | Perception reveals what animals think, but humans can disengage thought from perception [Bayne] |
| 17769 | Some people centre space on themselves; others centre space on the earth [Bayne] |
| 17771 | How we evaluate evidence depends on our background beliefs [Bayne] |
| 17770 | Clifford's dictum seems to block our beliefs in morality, politics and philosophy [Bayne] |