Re: Knowledge and belief

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

>>In any event, WITH the epistemology place present, something false by one
>>epistemology (hindsight) can be true by another epistemology.
>
>My point was that {djuno ko'a fo ko'e} presupposes {ko'a jetnu ko'e}.
>Same ko'a and same ko'e.

This works ONLY if truth is observer independent, which may not be the case
for some epistemologies.  ko'a jetnu ko'e has no observer place, so that
it is only a true proposition if all who tested the truth using that
epistemology would arrive at the same truth value.  Since such a test is
not plausible for the kind of epistemologies that would cause problems, we
would not use "jetnu" for those kinds of truths.  djuno on the other hand
can be used for both objective truths and subjective ones, provided that the
subjectivity is on the part of le djuno.

The obvious example here is knowledge derived by personal faith or revelation.
For biblical literalists, John knows many X's about the Apocalypse by the
epiostemology of his personal revelation from God.  All the rest of the people
who beleive that the Apocalypse is "truth" do so by personal faith, by
biblical authority, or some other indirect epistemology, since they did not
experience the same revelation that John purportedly did.  With all 4 places
filled, John's knowledge is unique to him (and perhaps an omniscient God).
It would be folly to claim that X jetnu (John's revelation) because we have
no way to test that truth.  We can claim that X jetnu (biblical authority)
though because that is independtly verifiable truth.  But that is not the
epistemology by which John himself "knew" about the Apocalypse,s ince the
Bible had not yet been written.


This is a problem specific to particular epistemologies.  It is not likely
that djuno  doesn't imply jetnu for scientific knowledge of any kind,
except perhaps when we get into heavy-duty relativistic theory and
observations.

>>I am also bothered by the fact that time is critical to the truth of such a
>>claim. Lojban of course has tense optional.  I am bothered that truth of a
>given
>>proposition at a given time could depend on when the proposition is stated.
>
>I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. When a given sentence
>is uttered can certainly make a difference as to the truth value.

Yes, but I am not sure that this is true for an utterance with the time
specified.  The statement "At time X, Y" should be true at all times
that it is uttered, regardless of whether Y is true at the time that the
above statement is uttered, provided that Y is indeed true at time X.  Once
the time is fixed, then the truth value of Y is also fixed FOR THAT TIME.

On the other hand, knowledge of the truth of the above proposition may
be emphemeral.

Now if Y is a proposition based on djuno, then the above statement says that
someone knows the x2 of Y at time X.  If indeed that someone knows that x2 at
 time X, then the fact that this x2 is found to be false should not change
the truth valiue of the X-time knowledge claim.

lojbab