A distinction I have come across in some of Zizek's informal lectures, as well as in my own ponderings, is that which describes those beliefs which, although we know formally to be true, we do not experience the world as if they were true.
As an example, I believe the threat posed by man-made climate change to be both immanent and catastrophic in nature, yet my day to day existence fails to be coloured by this belief, in the way that, say, it is coloured by the dangerousness of main roads. It floats in my consciousness, grounded in evidence, G conditions a-go-go, but uncoupled to my instincts. I know it is true, but I do not, as it were, 'realise' it.
In this sense it is a symbolic or purely formal belief, operating at the level of some generalisation of a language game (including such things as pictures).
Is there a correct term for such 'formal beliefs'? Is there a canonical term for their inverse (those coupled in some sense to our experience of the world)? My first approximation here is not as tidy or as crisp as a philosophical concept should require- has it, and can it, be crystallised into analytic terms? Where might I hope to read about such beliefs?
