knowledge and belief

[Robin Turner <robin@BILKENT.EDU.TR>]

All this stuff about knowledge reminds me of a problem I once set myself
when I was trying to teach myself formal logic:

If Plato knows that Socrates knows everything, does Plato know everything?

I suggest we concentrate on the meanings of the Lojban words (as defined in
the Book) and how they could be used, rather than getting bound up in
discussions of the English word "know", or we'll end up with Wittgenstein
and toothache.  I think the important thing is not that Lojban come up with
exact equivalents of the English words "believe" and "know" (probably
impossible anyway, since they are not exact terms themselves) but that the
language be sufficiently powerful and flexible that:

(a) those masochists (zo'o) who really want to discuss epistemology can do
so in Lojban
(b) people with different cultural standards of what constitutes knowledge
can communicate in Lojban without misunderstanding.

All the best for Christmas/Yule/New Year/Hannukah/Ramadan.

co'o mi'e robin.


Robin Turner

Bilkent Universitesi,
IDMYO,
Ankara,
Turkey.

<http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/8309>