Re: knowledge and belief

[Steven Belknap <sbelknap@UIC.EDU>]

>>At 1997-12-31 09:13, Steven Belknap wrote:
>>
>>><la stivn djuno le du'u la xorxes djuno le du'u la lojbab klama le zarci
>>>kei fo da>
>>>
>>>"Steven knows that Jorge knows that Lojbab goes to the store."
>>>
>>>The above statement is always false, which considerably limits its utility.
>>>I am asserting that it is not possible to directly know that some else
>>>knows something.
>>
>I'm not sure about the Lojban, but the English is NOT always false.

True. There is enough epistemologic wiggle room in English to cover this
use of "know." But lojban is not English. lojban has only one meaning for
each gismu. I am currently of the opinion that the lojban word <djuno>
could not reasonably be used in a sentence such as

<la stivn djuno le du'u la xorxes djuno le du'u la lojbab klama le zarci
kei fo da>

"Steven knows (under epistemology ?) that Jorge knows (under epistemology
X)  that Lojbab went to the store."

unless there were a lot more information about what <da> represents.
Certainly I can conceive of ways in which this *could* be a reasonable
lojban statement. Perhaps this is a text fragment from a science fiction
story where Steven is a telepathic being. Or perhaps the epistemology used
to make this statement is something like "seeing is believing." In these
cases it would be perfectly acceptable to make this lojban statement. I
assert that there is no standard, routine, culturally neutral, universally
accepted standard epistemology by which <djuno> could be used in lojban in
this way. The problem is that one can not <djuno> what someone else
<djuno>s, although it is certainly possible to know what someone knows.
English is sloppy, and this use of "know" is consistent with how "know" is
used in English.

>Let's
>say Steven saw Lojbab go to the store.  At the same time, he noticed Jorge
>watching Lojbab going to the store.  Unless Steven was hallucinating or
>Jorge suffered temporarily blindness, Steven knows that Jorge knows that
>Lojbab went to the store, not just that Jorge _said_ he knows.  The type of
>qualifications mentioned (hallucination etc.) apply to almost any
>predication, not just to those with "know".  I would not normally say
>"Assuming I have not hallucinated my entire life, my name is Robin."

I agree entirely with Robin's analysis of these English statements. In
lojban, I would say:

<la stivn cu viska nu la xorxes cu viska nu la lojbab cu kamla le zerci kei>

or, if for some reason I want to emphasize Steven's knowing, and if the
epistemology/method/criteria is implicit or apparent from context, I would
say:

<la stivn cu djuno du'u la xorxes cu viska nu la lojbab cu kamla le zerci kei>




Steven Belknap, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Medicine
University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria