Re: More about questions and the like (was:What I have for dinner...")

[John Cowan <jcowan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxxx]

Pycyn@aol.com wrote:
> 
> From: Pycyn@aol.com
> 
> << I think at one point that we decided that intentional descriptions and
> names are from the point of view of the speaker (bearing in mind the
> listener), so that if I use "la djan" in a sentence, the only thing that
> matters is whether I and the listener know who John is, not whether le
> djuno uses that name (or description) as part of lenu le djuno cu djuno.>>
> 
> I wonder if we could have decided that and then could make it stick for lo se
> djuno. In a lot of cases, it is clearly important what concept/name is
> involved in the clause: John knows that the number of planets is larger than
> seven has to be about the number of planets, not some other name of nine

But this is not a name in the sense meant above; it is a veridical description
of nine, not a name of nine. I can say "John knows that George is greater than
seven" if by "George" I mean "the number of planets" (quotes are mandatory here).

> (especially since John may not know it is nine) . If John thinks that the
> number of planets is eleven and knows that the number of players on a
> football team (which he has right) is larger than seven, that will not count
> as his knowing that the number of planets is larger than seven.

I agree with this.

> Similarly,
> if John knows Paul under some wrongheaded description but knows that the
> person he knows under that description went to the party, that may well count
> for knowing that Paul went to the party.

This sounds like Bernard J. Ortcutt again.

-- 

Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis vom dies! || John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com>
Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau, || http://www.reutershealth.com
Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau, || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Und trank die Milch vom Paradies. -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)