Re: Knowledge and Belief

[Pycyn <Pycyn@AOL.COM>]

Though I have not yet worked my way through all of this thread (and it
s predecessors), I did startOat the latest items and work back.  Thus I ca
n see that the discussion is getting close to whatOright-
thinking philosophers tend to see as the situation.L1. The English "know" is
 ambiguous between what I take would be Lojban [djuno] and someOLojba
n attitudinal expressing subjective confidence.  The former is (but see later
) a claim toOjustified true belief, the latter is confidence without adequate
 pro evidence and often in the faceOof significant con evidence ("I just k
now that..." in a certain querulous tone of voice).O("Ambiguous" not "vague"
 because the intermediate positions, with declining pro evidenceOand/or incre
asing con are not generally expressed as "know" --
 not a bimodal distribution thenObut two separate peaks.  Down, Doc! Thi
s does not mean that [djuno]/"know1" is not fuzzy alongOthe justification li
ne at least.)L2. "Knowledge=justified true belief" or "a knows that p = p
and a believes that p on the basis ofOadequate evidence" are nice philosop
hical definitions but, as usual, useless where the rubberOmeets the road.
The "true" drops out, since the only truths we can apply in these judgme
nts areOthe ones we know, and applying them gets us into an infinite reg
ress and thus no decisions.  So,Owe are left with the justifications. The n
otion of adequacy is both fuzzy and contextual (for whatOpurpose, on what
 topic, using what pay-
off matrix? etc.

erriding shift in the balance against the claim to know it (what I suppose
 the claimOthat "know p" presupposes "p is true" means in practice).  In
 short, like most interesting words,O"know" is meaningful only in a context
 of dialog and settled only by exhaustion of theOinterlocutors (and the stan
dard scoring of dialogs is another good way to set fuzz factors).
(There is somethng conceptually odd odd about fuzzy logic as a technique for
representing human vagueness, since, paradoxically, even doubly fuzzy readings
seem too precise to catch the array of subjective and cultural factors
involved.  The amazing thing about fuzzy chips [very old chocolate drops?] is
that they do suceed in making rice just right and the like.)
>|83 pc