Subject: Re: [lojban] Set of answers encore

From: And Rosta <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 18:09:38 +0100

pc:
[email-masked] writes:
#> #But then next morning, looking at it again, I see that it is very 
#> different, 
#> #for I doubt that John (even this one) even thinks about "the extension of 
#> " 
#> #some property. In fact, I doubt that most people, who use indirect 
#> question 
#> #all the time, would even understand the locution. So, if the property is 
#> #within the scope of the believing, where, because of intensioonality, it 
#> has 
#> #to be that property and not something incidentally equivalent to it, then 
#> I 
#> #would say that it was very rarely the case that anyone had an opinion 
#> about 
#> #who the first American President was. But, of course, the other version, 
#> #which moves the property outside still works ok.
#> 
#> Jorge raised this objection at the time that I originally made the proposal.
#> My answer is that if the extension-claim analysis correctly characterizes
#> the logic of indirect questions, then if John knows that 'Bill' is the 
#> answer
#> to 'Who went', then John knows that {Bill} is the extension of the
#> category of goers.
#
#Well, it is quite possible that John knows that Bill went, without knowing 
#that "Bill" is the answer to the question "Who went?" for the very reason you 
#note later, that he never thought of the question. It is also not at all 
#clear that the equation of the two things John knows works intensionally.

As I said in my previous message, the problem applies to djuno and jinvi/krici
generally -- the "John knows/believes Bill is not king of France" ambiguity.
So I won't accept this as a fault specifically of the extension-claim analysis.

#The first problem does offer some evidence for the set-of-answers theory, 
#since even if John never thinks of the question "Who went?" he does know the 
#answer to that question, since "Bill went" is just that answer. I suspect 
#that this fact can be mechanically transformed into an extension-claim 
#version, though doing so makes the analysis more wordy apparently. (The 
#second problem does not arise for set-of-answers.)
#
#<However, there is a valid case not quite covered by my extension-claim
#analysis. An example is where John knows that Chelsea is Bill's
#daughter but doesn't know that Bill has no other daughters [by Hillary,
#that is, I hasten to add, having watched the splendid Primary Colours
#twice in the last week). So, as it were, John knows who Bill's daughters 
#are, but doesn't know he knows. The extension-claim analysis can 
#handle John's actual beliefs thus:
#
# la djan djuno tu'odu'u da cmima tu'o -extension be tu'odu'u la bil patfu 
#ce'u>
#
#This seem complex compares to {la djan djuno lo du'u la bil patfu makau}, 

True, but I don't accept complexity and wordiness as a valid standard of
comparison. We've already discussed the incommensurability of the
analyses.

#which says he knows some, but not necessarily all, the answers. That it may 
#turn out to be all is an open case.  

Okay. "Bill knows who went" normally means Bill knows every answer,
i.e. {la djan djuno ro du'u la bil patfu makau}, on the set-of-answers interpretation.

#I suppose the simplicity is in the lack 
#of unpacking, but set-of-answers doen't need much unpacking, since it stays 
#at about the same level, without metalanguage: da poi cmima lo'i du'u la bil 
#patfu makau zo'u la djan djuno da
#Notice that there appears to be no de-intensionalization problem here.

True, but the deintensionalization problem is a general one, and the general
solution will extend to the extension-claim analysis.

#<And the version where we deintensionalize our description of John's
#knowledge can, I very very very tentatively think, be done thus:
#
# da poi ke'a du'u de -extension tu'odu'u la bil patfu ce'u zo'u la djan 
#djuno da
#
#I am very much not convinced that this solution is valid, but if it isn't, 
#it's just a
#further instance of the more general problem of how to refer to se djuno
#and se jinvi extensionally rather than intensionally, and any solution of
#the more general problem will also resolve the residual problems with the
#extension-claim analysis.>
#
#Your version seems to say merely that John knows "Bill is the father of ..." 
#has an extension, which seems a) not likely to be somehting John thought of, 
#and, b) if he did -- or if you want it not to matter that he did, is too 
#trivial to help explain what "John knows who Bill is the father of" means.I 
#think that something ahs to be done with that floating {de} to make any sense 
#at all and I don't feel comfortable enough with the extesnion-claim formatto 
#suggest what that something might be.

You're right. It should be:

de da poi ke'a du'u de -extension tu'odu'u la bil patfu ce'u zo'u la djan 
djuno da

But let's not get too hung up on this, or accept it as a valid solution. First
off I want to know how to render the two readings of "John knows/believes that
Bill is not king of France" -- the intensional reading (which is the current Lojban
one) and the extensional reading, where John's beliefs are such that were they
true, Bill would not be king of France.

--And.