Re: Summary so far on DJUNO

[Rob Zook <rzook@INFORMIX.COM>]

At 02:54 PM 1/21/98 -0500, John Cowan wrote:
<snip>
>
>> Within the system of knowledge that Sam and Frank used was it
>> a justified true belief (did they have any reason beyond the normal
>> to doubt the truth of the newspapers report)?
>
>It was a justified *false* belief, because the newspaper report was
>false.  I see no reason to think that Sam and Frank had a system
>of knowledge containing a rule "Anything that is printed in the
>newspaper is true".

Actually, change that to "newspapers are supposed to print facts,
and they printed the war was over" and it makes perfect sense in
the context of their knowledge system. So it still looks like
a justified true belief. We agree that it was justifed, however
I say it was true within that system. You say no, it was false, but
your looking at it from outside their system and saying that.



>> If not, then within
>> that system it was true and justified, and thus knowledge. The
>> system you persist in regarding the situation should be regarded
>> as seperated and more inclusive from the one Sam and Frank evaluated
>> it from.
>
>The point is that when they arrived on Bermuda, the justified false
>belief had become a justified true one, but they hadn't *learned*
>anything.  Therefore, their justified true belief on 12 November
>doesn't count as *knowledge*.

Within their system the _learned_ when they read the newspaper,
for them the truth value never changed so what you say does not
seem relavent for them. They learned the war was over. When they
arrived at Bermuda, the system gestalt changed. They learned that
what they had previously accepted as a true belief was a false
belief, so they had to re-evaluate. In the new system formed by
this re-evaluation they learned the actual date of the war ending
and in the new system they knew that as a justified true belief.


Rob Z.
--------------------------------------------------------
Were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection
to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only
asking the advantages authors have in a second edition to
correct some faults in the first.
-- Ben Franklin