Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 17:10:12 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199801232210.RAA18743@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: Knowledge and belief X-To: jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR X-cc: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan X-UIDL: b412a4608d7dce76d6a9ee1e1e89d31c Status: OR X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 1388 X-From-Space-Date: Mon Jan 26 12:40:28 1998 X-From-Space-Address: - >So you say, but that doesn't work for "know". You would not make >a claim like: "John knows by personal revelation from God that I have >three children", would you? I cannot say, since I have no basis of knowing myself what kinds of revelations John has recieved from God, if any. But there are some people with appropraite world views that accept that other people have knowledge because of their personal revelations from God. In general, such knowledge is not the kind of thing that can be easily independently verified, such as how many choldren you have (hmm, actually that cannot be independently verified - people can have children and not even know it themselves, if they are of the male gender and live certain lifestyles). This independent verificiation thing can have another tricky angle. If a person claiming to be a psychic says that they "know something" by means of their psychic powers, for people who do not believe in such powers, it is not sufficient that the knowledge be true and that the knower accept that truth. Cowan's 4 point definition also fails>> A knows p iff: >> 1) A believes p; >> 2) p is true; >> 3) if p were false, then A wouldn't believe it; >> 4) if p were true, then A would believe it. because we cannot say that A would believe it if p were false, since p is true. lojbab