Re: knowledge and belief

["Jorge J. Llambías" <jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR>]

Lojbab:
>>        la sokrates djuno le du'u la djan klama le zarci kei ko'a
>>        Socrates knows that John went to the market by epistemology A.
>
>I think that it entails that you know
>
>      le du'u la djan klama le zarci cu jetnu ko'e
>      That John goes to the market is true by epistemology B.
>
>where B is some indication of "by authority of Socrates", whatever
>the particular means you have in order to make the claim that Socrates
>knows about John.

I thought an epistemology was a theory of knowledge, something
like objectivism, subjectivism, and other isms. If  "by authority of
Socrates",
"by Socrates' direct observation", "by throwing two dice" are all possible
epistemologies, then what is the difference between {djuno} and {jinvi}:

djuno  x1 knows fact(s) x2 (du'u) about subject x3 by epistemology x4

jinvi   x1 thinks/opines x2 (du'u) is true about subject/issue x3 on grounds
x4

If an epistemology is simply the grounds for the knowledge, then
what is the difference between:

        la sokrates djuno le du'u la djan klama le zarci kei fo le nu viska
        Socrates knows that John goes to the market by having seen him.

        la sokrates jinvi le du'u la djan klama le zarci kei fo le nu viska
        Socrates thinks that John goes to the market by having seen him.

In English the difference is clear: in the first case the speaker also
believes that John goes to the market, whereas in the second case
the possibility is left open that the speaker disagrees with Socrates.
You can add "but I know better, it wasn't John the one going to the
market, it was Paul dressed as John". You can't add that to the first
sentence and make sense. If this difference doesn't exist in Lojban,
what is the difference between {djuno} and {jinvi}?

>For example, Galileo knows that a feather and a cannonball fall at the
>same rate, by epistemology of experimnentation at Pisa.  I know that
>a feather and a cannonball fall at the same rate, by epistemology of
>cultural legend about Galileo's experiment at the leaning tower.

In reporting that paragraph to someone else, I would have to say:
"Lojbab thinks that a feather and a cannonball fall at the same rate."
I couldn't say "Lojbab knows that a feather and a cannonball fall
at the same rate", because I know that's not the case. So in English
(just as in Spanish) the speaker's state of knowledge determines
whether to use "think" or "know" to report someone else's beliefs.
That seems to be the key difference in English (or Spanish) between
know/saber/djuno and think/pensar/jinvi. If that's not the difference
in Lojban, what is it?

>It seems that those who disagree with my opinion on this matter consider
any
>"knowledge" that is less than "certainty" to be merely a "belief", at least
in
>English.

I'm not sure who you're referring to. I don't think certainty has much
to do with it. It's more a matter of whether or not the reported beliefs
coincide with one's own/established beliefs or not. When you're
reporting your own beliefs, then "know"/"think" can be used to mark
the degree of certainty, because obviously the basic difference
collapses for the first person: normally your own beliefs coincide
with your own beliefs. But when reporting someone else's beliefs,
we use "know" for beliefs that coincide with our own, and "think"
for those beliefs which we don't necessarily share.

[Fuzzy logic is an interesting topic on its own, but I think
more or less orthogonal to this.]

co'o mi'e xorxes