Subject: Re: [lojban] "knowledge as to who saw who" readings

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2001 11:16:52 EDT

In a message dated 10/10/2001 10:35:50 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> la pycyn cusku di'e
> 
> >(is this where knowing a=b and Fa means you
> >ought to know Fb?).
> 
> You shouldn't be able to get away with this type of bamboozzlement
> in Lojban. Knowing that something is equal to itself only requires
> that you understand the meaning of 'equal'. Knowing that what is
> referred to by 'a' is the same as what is referred to by 'b' is
> a different issue, and of course requires to know what 'a' refers
> to and what 'b' refers to. {la djan djuno le du'u ko'a du ko'e}
> should not require at all that John knows who is being referred
> to by the prosumti {ko'a} and {ko'e}, which is something that only
> concerns the speaker and the listener. It is something that John
> can know only if {ko'a du ko'e} is true and all it requires is that
> John understands the meaning of identity. If he does understand it,
> then of course he knows that anything is equal (=) to itself.
> 
> Unfortunately we probably won't succeed in avoiding the
> bamboozzlement in Lojban. Indeed, apparently we can't even agree
> that {le broda} has to be a meaningful description for the speaker
> and listener only, not for the knower.
> 

I don't understand what bamboozlement you are talking about. 'a=b' tells us 
that the thing called by the name 'a' is identical with the thing called by 
the name 'b,' that is, that they are the same thing, despite their names. 
This is a significnat claim and different from the claim 'a=a', which is 
totally trivial. See, Frege on sense and reference "How is a=b, if true, 
different from a=a?" The answer, of course, is that the two names have 
different senses ("morning star", "evening star" are the traditional 
examples) even though that have the same reference, and it is the senses that 
guide the selection of references, so, in another world, these two names 
might attach to different things. Identity, however, is just about reference.
As for the case of {le}, this is not a problem only for knowers, but for all 
reporters -- and even for listeners. It is clear that the speaker has to 
know whaat he means, and the hearer does too, if the communication is to be 
successful. No one else does, apparently. But when one reports a person's 
speech *indirectly* -- or their thoughts -- it is not clear what forms are 
permitted for the sake of accuracy: should the indirect use the {le} form, 
even though the reporter does not know what the thinker means by it or must 
(even "may") the reporter unpack the form in some way? Sticking with the 
speaker's own form seems safest, but ti is not perfectly clear what the 
consequences of the alternate approaches are, except that they probably 
violate intensionality.