[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Truth-ambiguous djuno [was Re: Summary so far on DJUNO]



From: Chris Bogart <cbogart@quetzal.com>

>la erik ba'o cusku di'e
>>I'm sorry if this muddies the waters further, but what would djuno
mean
>>if any requirement of truth of the predication was divorced from x2?

>...Interesting; if you elide x4, we'd assume "the obvious
epistemology",
>which in most contexts would probably be both the speaker's AND x1's
>epistemology, making x2 effectively true for purposes of conversation.


The obvious epistemology would usually be "belief," as people aren't
noted for using rigorous proofs in everyday life. :)  Or, in more
concrete matters, observation.  Neither of which are entirely reliable
for creating true statements.

>If Doug is a Buddhist studying Christian philosophy for purely academic
>reasons, his teacher might say {la dag. djuno lenu la xriso cu di'a
jmive}
>(Doug "djuno" that christ was resurrected), meaning that he understands
that
>point of philosophy without necessarily believing it.  But outside of
that
>special context, one would probably assume Doug was a Christian.


I wouldn't go quite that far.  That would also be assuming that Doug
"believed" in the truthfulness of the statement.  If we remove all
supposition of truth from "djuno," then we are neither saying that the
speaker or the x1 believes in the truthfulness of the x2, nor that
anyone believes the epistemology x4 produces true results.  The only
flawless epistemology would be omniscience.  Beyond that we are
restricted to believing in, dis-believing in, or withholding judgment on
the truth of any statement produced by an admittedly flawed
epistemology.  With truth being a much stickier subject than knowledge,
removing any trace of it from "djuno" allows one to speak of knowledge
without being bogged-down by truth.

Here's the scenario that produced this line of thought, for those
interested:

Supposing that djuno could only be used if both the speaker and the x1
believed x2 to be true.
If they both believed in the truth of x2, then the speaker could use
djuno.
If the x1 believed but the speaker did not, this would indicate that
they were not using the same epistemology.  Perhaps the x1 was using an
epistemology the speaker considered to be flawed, i.e., not producing
true statements, for the particular subject, and the speaker could not
use djuno.
Having recognized that the x1 is using an epistemology which x1 believes
to be producing true results, but which is actually in error, the
speaker must then doubt their own epistemology by which they judged the
x2 to be false.  It is directly observed that not all epistemologies
which are believed to be producing true results by their users actually
do produce true results.
The speaker now can neither unreservedly agree nor disagree with the x1
on the truthfulness of x2, unless to claim that their own personal
epistemology is infallible on the subject.  If the speaker cannot agree,
then per the initial supposition, they cannot use djuno.
Furthermore, the speaker can now not claim that anything they djuno is
absolutely true either, having recognized the fallibility of
epistemologies other than omniscience, and cannot use "mi djuno" either.
Thus, supposing that both the speaker and the x1 agree to the truth of
x2 results in no one ever being able to use djuno. :)
Removing the restriction that the speaker and the x1 agree to the truth
of the x2 allows the speaker to use "mi djuno" without regard for the
believed truth of x2, given the fallibility of epistemologies shown
above.  :) :)

So, Doug can djuno statements about some subject by some epistemology,
but no degree of truth or belief is ever implied at any point.  That's
just how I was thinking of a truth-less djuno. :)  It even allows one to
djuno things by some epistemology one is not decided on the truthfulness
of.  Anyway, enough rambling.  Just something to think about. :)

--
Erik W. Cornilsen
thanatos@dimensional.com