Re: knowledge and belief

[John Cowan <cowan@locke.ccil.org>]

la markl. cusku di'e

> > >  You know you want me, so why not admit it?
> > >    - many sources
> >
> > The speaker presupposes (perhaps facetiously) that
> > "you want me" is true.
> 
> A facetious presupposition?  I'm not sure what to make
> of that idea.  I observe from English usage that, when
> someone says "You know you want me, so why not admit it?",
> the speaker is usually an arrogant male in his late teens
> or twenties, the person being addressed is usually a woman,
> & she practically _never_ really wants him.  Oddly enough,
> the speaker is often well aware of that fact, but says
> "You know you want me" anyway - in too many cases, without
> a trace of humor or comical intent.

The remark is insincere.  If you are insincere (do not mean
what you say) then presuppositions fall to the ground, and
you can say "I know p" even firmly believing that p is false;
indeed, you can say "I believe p" even knowing that p is false.
 
> > >  I know you wanna leave me,
> > >  but I refuse to let you go.
> > >    - sung by Marvin Gaye
> >
> > The presupposition is "you wanna leave me".
> 
> Not at all.  The actual presupposition is something like,
> "If I handle this right, I may be able to persuade you
> that you don't want to leave me".

That is the (pragmatic) *meaning* of the sentence.  But the
claim "I know you wanna leave me" presupposes that the auditor
really does want to leave the speaker, at least at present;
people do change their minds (if they have a mind to change).

It may also be that this use of "know" is merely intensified
belief:  "I firmly believe (or am convinced) that you wanna
leave me."

> > >  It ain't what you don't know that worries me;
> > >  it's what you do know that ain't so.
> > >    - several sources
> >
> > That's an indirect question.
> 
> No, it's an assertion that I am worried by the event
> or state of your knowing things that are not true.

The second use of "know" is clearly ironic: of course, irony
is not restricted to literary registers at all!

> > >  All I know is what I read in the papers.
> > >    - Will Rogers
> >
> > Is there any indication that he doesn't think that
> > what he knows is true?
> 
> Yes!  That's the whole point of the quotation.

Now clearly there is an omitted x3 here: all he knows about
*some particular topic* is what he reads in the papers.
Either that, or the sentence is ironic, or both.

> > >  Everybody knows that O.J. was the killer.
> > >    - many sources
> >
> > And those sources don't think that O.J. was the
> > killer?
> 
> The sources think so, yes.  But let's break this
> quotation down into its three component claims:
> 
>   Claim A:  "O.J. was the killer."
>   Claim B:  "Claim A is known."
>   Claim C:  "Claim A is known to everybody."
> 
> The sources are, in reality, uncertain about all
> three claims.  Despite their uncertainty, they
> use the verb "know", rather than "assume" or some
> other verb that, logically, would be more apropos.

Claim C is downright false, but that is because English
uses "everybody" in a way incompatible with logic.
See the refgram.
 
> > Do you really find acceptable something like
> > "Everybody knows that O.J. was the killer, but maybe
> > he wasn't."
> 
> Those are the facts.  I may have trouble accepting
> them, but they're true anyway.  :-)

No, they are not the facts.  I don't know that O.J. was
the killer, because "mi na jinvil li'o [etc.]"
 
> > >  I know it's only rock'n'roll, but I like it.
> > >    - sung by the Rolling Stones
> >
> > Presupposition: "it's only rock'n'roll". You wouldn't
> > accept "I'm not sure whether it's only rock'n'roll, but
> > I know it's only rock'n'roll", would you?
> 
> But that presupposition is obviously false!  How can
> _anything_ be "only rock'n'roll"?  If something is
> rock'n'roll, then it's also the subject of infinitely
> many other predications:  it's a song, it's a musical
> genre, it's a concert performance, it's a way of alluding
> to sex, it's a social phenomenon, it's an artform that my
> mother fails to grok, &or so forth, ad infinitum.

"Only" here does not mean "and nothing else"; it assigns
(ironically) a low valuation.  To say someone is "only a
paper tiger" does not mean that he is not human.
 
> If there's a truthful presupposition behind this quote,
> it would have to be something more like:  "The importance
> of rock'n'roll is occasionally overestimated."  Which
> isn't even all that close to what the singers claim they
> "know".

Again, this is not a presupposition, but a pragmatic meaning. 

> > >  Teilhard knew the Piltdown fossil was a fake,
> > >  and may have known who the faker was; but he
> > >  died without revealing what he knew.
> > >    - several sources
> >
> > Presupposition: the Piltdown fossil was a fake.
> > The other two are indirect questions.
> 
> The indirect questions are very revealing here IMO.  The
> authors say that Teilhard "may have known" the faker's
> identity, indicating their uncertainty about the extent
> of Teilhard's knowledge.  Then, in the very next line,
> they say that Teilhard knew something that he failed to
> reveal before his death.  If his knowledge really went
> unrevealed, then the authors can't be sure of its
> content, or of its accuracy, or of the truth of the
> claim that Teilhard "knew" it (rather than just believing
> or guessing it, or what have you).  Despite these
> uncertainties, the authors use words like "knew" & "known",
> apparently without qualm.  In fact, such comments are
> cliche' in English-language discussions of the infamous
> Piltdown hoax.

This is a subtle point.  The authors do not say that they
*know* that Teilhard knew this, that, and the other, but
merely that Teilhard knew it.  This expresses a belief, not
knowledge.  AFAIK, there is no way to *express* knowledge
directly: we can only say what we believe that we know,
or for that matter what we believe that others know.

So the sentence "Teilhard knew p" expresses the
author's belief that Teilhard believed p, and also
the author's belief that p is true (plus the additional
qualifiers about satisfactory justification).

> I do agree with that, yes.  But it seems inconsistent with
> claims that I _think_ have been made here by you & John
> Cowan & others, which say that something must be true
> before it can be known.  Unless I misread him, pc even implied
> that "right-thinking philosophers" all subscribe to the
> notion of absolute truth as the only basis for knowledge!

The "absolute" bit is something you keep bringing up, even though
I have repeatedly repudiated it.  I have no trouble in believing
that "truth" is always relative to a worldview (seljetnu, call it what
you will), and "knowledge" therefore is too.  All I say is that
it's self-contradictory to say "X knows p by worldview S, and
p is false by worldview S."  Specifically, the claim "I know p
by worldview S" will be repudiated if the speaker learns that
p is false by worldview S.

-- 
John Cowan	http://www.ccil.org/~cowan		cowan@ccil.org
	You tollerday donsk?  N.  You tolkatiff scowegian?  Nn.
	You spigotty anglease?  Nnn.  You phonio saxo?  Nnnn.
		Clear all so!  'Tis a Jute.... (FW 16.5)