Changing Our Minds — Worldview, Doubt, and Open-Mindedness

A knower is not fixed. Over a lifetime we adopt, revise, and sometimes abandon beliefs. This lesson examines the worldview that organizes a knower's beliefs, and the conditions under which we responsibly change our minds, a fitting close to the study of the knower.

Worldview as a web of belief

Our beliefs do not sit in isolation; they hang together in a worldview, an interconnected web in which core commitments support many others. Because beliefs are linked, changing one can strain or topple several, which is part of why people resist revising deeply held views. Peripheral beliefs are easy to update in light of new evidence; core beliefs are defended more stubbornly because so much else depends on them. Understanding knowledge as a web, rather than a list, explains why disagreement can fe