2. 外语
  3. Some people are accustomed to think that facts must either be believed or they must be disbelieved—as if belief were like a ligh

Some people are accustomed to think that facts must either be believed or they must be disbelieved—as if belief were like a ligh

admin2013-05-29  30
问题     Some people are accustomed to think that facts must either be believed or they must be disbelieved—as if belief were like a light switch with only two positions, on or off. My use of the bathtub hoax is intended to illustrate that belief does not have to operate as a simple yes or no choice, all or nothing. Belief can be more conditional; it can be something that we decide to have "up to a point" or "to a degree". And so, the question we might ask ourselves while reading does not have to be "Should I believe it or not?" but instead can be "How much should I believe it?" This latter question implies that the belief we have in any given fact, or in any given idea, is not determined by whether it sounds right or whether the source is an authority. It means that our beliefs are determined by the reasons that justify them. Belief is not a mechanical action, brought about by invariable rules of nature. It is a human activity, the exercise of judgment. With this in mind, we might say that we perform this action better when we know what the reasons are that have led to our belief, and why they are good reasons.
    These observations do not deprive us of our ability to believe in what we reaD. They are not intended to transform you from credulous believers into stubborn doubters. The process of weighing beliefs against the quality of reasons is one that you already go through all the time, whether you are aware of it or not. We all do. The practice of critical reading is the exercise of this kind of judgment on purpose. By doing it, we protect ourselves from being led into belief for inadequate reasons, but at the same time we open up our minds to the possibility of arriving at belief for adequate ones. If we decide to grant or withhold consent based on the quality of the reasons that we are given, we admit at the same time that two things are possible: We admit that we might consent less in the future if we discover that the reasons are not so good after all; and we admit that we might consent more if we are ever presented with better reasons than we had formerly known. This attitude is not pure skepticism any more than it is pure credulity. It is somewhere in between. It is the attitude of an open-minded thinker, of someone who wishes to be responsible for deciding for herself or himself what to believe.
According to the author, which of the following statements is TRUE?
选项 A、Our attitude toward what we read may change if we are given more reasons.
B、An open-minded thinker is responsible for what he/she says.
C、Critical reading can make us believe more in what we read.
D、We ought to question the value of what we read if its source is not authoritativ
答案A
解析 从文章第二段可以看出，只有A为正确选项，即如果我们得到更多的证据支持，我们对待书本知识所持的态度也应随之发生改变。其他三项都违背了作者的意思。
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