As a first approximation, I define belief not as the object of believing (a dogma, a program, etc.) but as the subject's investment in a proposition, the act of saying it and considering it as true.
Michel de CerteauNew York has never learnt the art of growing old by playing on all its pasts. Its present invents itself, from hour to hour, in the act of throwing away its previous accomplishments and challenging the future. A city composed of paroxysmal places in monumental reliefs.
Michel de CerteauWhen he grew old, Aristotle, who is not generally considered a tightrope dancer, liked to lose himself in the most labyrinthine and subtle of discourses [โฆ]. โThe more solitary and isolated I become, the more I come to like stories,โ he said.
Michel de CerteauPolitical organizations have slowly substituted themselves for the Churches as the places of believing practices, but for this very reason, they seem to have been haunted by the return of a very ancient (preChristian) and very โpaganโ alliance between power and religion. It is as though now that religion has ceased to be an autonomous power (the โpower of religion,โ people used to say), politics has once again become religious.
Michel de Certeau