Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 22:31:41 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199801120331.WAA17465@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: "Mark E. Shoulson" Sender: Lojban list From: "Mark E. Shoulson" Subject: Re: knowledge and belief X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan In-Reply-To: <199801091732.MAA10815@cs.columbia.edu> (jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR) X-UIDL: d68bd2d923d1f29d9987f302f19a8e78 Status: RO X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 2021 X-From-Space-Date: Mon Jan 12 15:58:20 1998 X-From-Space-Address: - >Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 07:57:39 -0300 >From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Jorge_J._Llamb=EDas?=" > >Yes, but to claim that someone else is convinced of something one >need not consider it true, while to claim that someone else knows >something one must. That's the difference that I have been pointing >out, not the use in the first person. Insofar as I follow this discussion (which isn't far), I *think* I'm mostly in agreement with Jorge. But something occurred to me today; I don't know if it actually makes any difference or is at all meaningful or profound, but just something more to kick around... Let's take Jorge's reading for now (which I rather like), that "X knows Y" is the same as "X believes Y, and incidentally the I (the speaker) also believe Y." (which would make using "know" in first person redundant, btw). Now, John knows the Bob knows that Mary is ill. is mostly straightforward: Bob believes Mary is ill, John believes that Bob believes that, and I, the speaker, believe (a) that Bob believes Mary is ill, (b) that John believes that Bob believes that, and (c) that Mary is, in fact, ill. (at least, I *think* that's what it would entail. Intuitively it would seem it should also entail that John believe that Mary is ill, but that doesn't seem to follow from where I started). Now. It might be helpful to be able to say something like So far as John is concerned, Bob knows that Mary is ill. That is, Bob believes Mary is ill, and John believes (a) that Bob believes she's ill, and (b) that Mary is, in fact, ill. The speaker's beliefs are not at issue here, I think. Sort of projecting the "speaker" implicature of "knows" onto Bob (a la Lojban {ga'a}?). Note that all of these examples are in English, not Lojban. This is not least because the Lojban arguments are getting confusing. It's also because I'm not completely convinced it actually even applies to Lojban, no matter how you interpret things. Anyone enjoying playing with this thought? ~mark