From cowan@ccil.org Mon Mar 19 00:12:16 2001
Return-Path: <cowan@mercury.ccil.org>
X-Sender: cowan@mercury.ccil.org
X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com
Received: (EGP: mail-7_0_4); 19 Mar 2001 08:12:16 -0000
Received: (qmail 78177 invoked from network); 19 Mar 2001 08:12:15 -0000
Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by l10.egroups.com with QMQP; 19 Mar 2001 08:12:15 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO mercury.ccil.org) (192.190.237.100) by mta2 with SMTP; 19 Mar 2001 08:12:15 -0000
Received: from cowan by mercury.ccil.org with local (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 14euma-0000qg-00; Mon, 19 Mar 2001 03:12:52 -0500
Subject: Re: [lojban] Random lojban questions/annoyances.
In-Reply-To: <20010318224308.W3953@calum.csclub.uwaterloo.ca> from Robin Lee Powell at "Mar 18, 2001 10:43:09 pm"
To: Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@calum.csclub.uwaterloo.ca>
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 03:12:52 -0500 (EST)
Cc: lojban@yahoogroups.com
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL66 (25)]
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Message-Id: <E14euma-0000qg-00@mercury.ccil.org>
X-eGroups-From: John Cowan <cowan@mercury.ccil.org>
From: John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org>

Robin Lee Powell scripsit:

> "I used to know how to change a spark plug".

Knowing-how is a different sense of the word; we are talking about
knowing-that only.

> > > I consider belief and knowledge to be equivalent, because 'the truth' is
> > > too elusive and always changing for us to ever be _SURE_ something is
> > > true.
> > 
> > Surety is not required, only truth. Do we really want a situation
> > in which A knows that G is a koala, whereas B knows that G is a chimpanzee?
> 
> Otherwise lack of accurate knowledge results in linguistic invalidity,
> which I don't find acceptable.

What do you mean by "invalidity"? Statements that X knows p are false
if p is false, and may be false even if p is true. "I know" is not
privileged in the way that "I feel" or "I believe" is.

-- 
John Cowan cowan@ccil.org
One art/there is/no less/no more/All things/to do/with sparks/galore
--Douglas Hofstadter

