Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 19:53:05 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199801100053.TAA00909@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Steven Belknap Sender: Lojban list From: Steven Belknap Subject: knowledge and belief X-To: LOJBAN@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan X-UIDL: 46730113c1648a2378c45a1701ed7313 Status: OR X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 Content-Length: 1808 X-From-Space-Date: Mon Jan 12 15:47:38 1998 X-From-Space-Address: - >I perceive a split here between what I might describe as >logically minded people & what I might describe as more >pragmatically minded people. > >A pragmatically minded person has no problem saying >something like, "I don't know what her name is, but Genaro >does; go ask him." > >This is outrageous to the logically minded person. "How >can you say that Genaro 'knows' her name when you haven't >even verified that what Genaro claims to 'know' is really >her name?" > >The pragmatically minded person is typically either >amused, annoyed or both. "Why waste time asking me how >I can say what I said? If you want to learn her name, >go ask Genaro!" I find that I fall into neither the logically minded nor the pragmatically minded as you have described them. I have no problem with: "I don't know what her name is, but Genero does; go ask him." This is a reasonable and common use of "know" in English. However, I am struggling with the use of . I fear that you are projecting all of the various definitions and semantics of the English word "know" on to the lojban word . This is not a good idea. I have nowhere criticized how people are using in English utterances. I use know in much the same way. But has only one (very terse) definition, is a word in a radically different language, and we are struggling to discover how to use it in a way which is distinct from other gismu, yet still has utility for description of sedjuno (knowledge). Jorge suggests that the x4 place is superfluous; I am trying to figure out what it tells us about the word; lojbab suggests that le nu visku or similar "epistemologies" will suffice. -Steven Steven Belknap, M.D. Assistant Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Medicine University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria