L’intime conviction et les formes de croyance : de l’expérience au regard philosophique

Abstract

The fundamental dimensions of personal convictions are to be considered from an anthropological perspective rooted in experience. Conviction is a certainty that is the result of a process. It brings all psychological functions to a stream of convincing proofs that have been accumulated amidst undercurrent doubts. It is interesting to invoke the thoughts of grand philosophers such as Kant concerning convictions and Descartes concerning beliefs. For, it is indispensable to distinguish beliefs that often fluctuate and belief. It is the problem of truth that is the focal point of belief (Kant). It can also be a form of knowledge from an etymological point of view. Jurists and practitioners distrust emotional and subjective beliefs. Whereas for Descartes and Kant and many other thinkers, belief is linked to the experience of a being searching to join the different facets of a principal recognized as universal. The personal aspect of a conviction is maybe what is the most profound. It is the interior view and language. It is the emergence of desire and the imaginary. Personal conviction develops in the context of an interior view of oneself and in one's own interior language. However, in this perspective of the profound being, the subject needs consciousness. It is a means to surpass the raw data of experience towards a world of sense (Henri Ey). Hence, we see that the thoughts on personal conviction bring us to depths on the subject in his conscious and unconscious dimensions.