Re: Knowledge and belief

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

Jorge
>>IN any event, for a baby, I don't even think "belief" is necessarily
>>a valid claim - it is more like "insticntually expects that the mother is
>>about to feed her".
>
>You're branching into separte issues. If you use "know" then you
>require the presupposition. Whether babies are capable of
>knowing is a different matter.

In English usage, we certainly do not question whether a baby, or even my
cat is capable of "knowing" basic stuff like whether someone is about to feed
them.  My cat knows it on the basis of reading my body language and movements,
or something.  Now if I were to drop dead of a heart attack before putting the
can down, then you might say after  the fact that she didn't really know
that I was going to feed her because I didn't, but that sounds just as
clumsy to my ear as saying that she knew I was going to feed her, but I didn't.
No - on writing them, I think the latter sounds better.

In any event, for djuno, with the epistemology place filled in, one can
know something that later turns out to be false, because the epistemology will
have been found inadequate.  So far we have few epistemologies that predict
the future with 100% accxuracy (if any).  But we still can claim to know
9and to djuno) that something "will" happen.  What we say after the fact may
be something else, but djuno should still be valid before the event.

lojbab