Re: knowledge and belief

[Chris Bogart <cbogart@QUETZAL.COM>]

Steven Belknap writes:
>I consider
>the predicates know/believe/think/suspect/uncertain to form a fuzzy
>continuum from certainty to uncertainty.=20

The examples you give all use "I" as the subject, though.  A strident =
pacifist probably wouldn't say "The president knows that the bombing was =
justified" -- they'd (perhaps derisively) use some term that marked =
their *own* skepticism:  "The president claims..." or "The president =
thinks..." or "the president imagines...".  The certainty/uncertainty =
scale of knows/claims/thinks/etc. is muddied by the question of whether =
it's the subject of the verb or the speaker who feels certain or =
uncertain.  With your "I" examples, that muddiness doesn't show up =
because the speaker and the subject are the same.

co'o mi'e kris