Re: knowledge and belief

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

la markl cusku di'e
>> >  You know you want me, so why not admit it?
>> >    - many sources
 >> The speaker presupposes (perhaps facetiously) that
>> "you want me" is true.
>
>A facetious presupposition?  I'm not sure what to make
>of that idea.  I observe from English usage that, when
>someone says "You know you want me, so why not admit it?",
>the speaker is usually an arrogant male in his late teens
>or twenties, the person being addressed is usually a woman,
>& she practically _never_ really wants him.  Oddly enough,
>the speaker is often well aware of that fact, but says
>"You know you want me" anyway - in too many cases, without
>a trace of humor or comical intent.

Ok, I did say perhaps, didn't I? I can think of contexts where
it would be facetious. In your context it would be a hypocritical
presupposition, then? In any case, it is presupposed that
"you want me" is true.

 >> >  I know you wanna leave me,
>> >  but I refuse to let you go.
>> >    - sung by Marvin Gaye
 >
>> Would you really accept something like: "I'm not
>> sure whether it is true that you wanna leave me, but
>> I know you wanna leave me." It doesn't sound normal
>> to me.
>
>But that's exactly what the quotation means.

I don't know what to say to that. We're not describing the same
language then. To me, "I'm not sure whether it is true that you
wanna leave me, but  I know you wanna leave me" is self-
contradictory, while Gaye's sentence is not.

 >> >  Everybody knows that O.J. was the killer.
>> >    - many sources
>>
>> And those sources don't think that O.J. was the
>> killer?
>
>The sources think so, yes.  But let's break this
>quotation down into its three component claims:
>
>  Claim A:  "O.J. was the killer."
>  Claim B:  "Claim A is known."
>  Claim C:  "Claim A is known to everybody."
>
>The sources are, in reality, uncertain about all
>three claims.  Despite their uncertainty, they
>use the verb "know", rather than "assume" or some
>other verb that, logically, would be more apropos.

That's a separate issue. How sure people are of what
they say is not relevant to whether or not a "knows" claim
presupposes truth. Maybe they're not sure of what they're
presupposing, but they are presupposing it. There's
nothing extraordinary in that.

 >> >  I know it's only rock'n'roll, but I like it.
>> >    - sung by the Rolling Stones
>>
>> Presupposition: "it's only rock'n'roll". You wouldn't
>> accept "I'm not sure whether it's only rock'n'roll, but
>> I know it's only rock'n'roll", would you?
>
>But that presupposition is obviously false!

That's beside the point. If they know that it is false,
and yet they claim to know that it is true, then they're
lying. But I don't agree that's the case anyway:

> How can
>_anything_ be "only rock'n'roll"?  If something is
>rock'n'roll, then it's also the subject of infinitely
>many other predications:  it's a song, it's a musical
>genre, it's a concert performance, it's a way of alluding
>to sex, it's a social phenomenon, it's an artform that my
>mother fails to grok, &or so forth, ad infinitum.

Yes, but  "only" has other meanings than that. In this case
it means "merely rock'n'roll", or "nothing of greater
importance than rock'n'roll". That's what they claim to
know, and that's what they presuppose to be true.

 >> >  I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.
>> >    - attributed to Socrates
>>
>> Presupposition: "the fact of my ignorance".
>
>But the impact of Socratic irony depends on the falsity
>of this presupposition; Socrates was acknowledged by all
>(including himself) as the wisest & most knowledgeable
>man in Athens.

That's fine. Irony is allowed. You can ironically presuppose
something, of course, just as you can ironically claim
something. The odd thing would be to say: "I am not ignorant,
but I know that I am."

 >> >  Teilhard knew the Piltdown fossil was a fake,
>> >  and may have known who the faker was; but he
>> >  died without revealing what he knew.
>> >    - several sources
>>
>> Presupposition: the Piltdown fossil was a fake.
>> The other two are indirect questions.
>
>The indirect questions are very revealing here IMO.  The
>authors say that Teilhard "may have known" the faker's
>identity, indicating their uncertainty about the extent
>of Teilhard's knowledge.  Then, in the very next line,
>they say that Teilhard knew something that he failed to
>reveal before his death.  If his knowledge really went
>unrevealed, then the authors can't be sure of its
>content, or of its accuracy, or of the truth of the
>claim that Teilhard "knew" it (rather than just believing
>or guessing it, or what have you).  Despite these
>uncertainties, the authors use words like "knew" & "known",
>apparently without qualm.  In fact, such comments are
>cliche' in English-language discussions of the infamous
>Piltdown hoax.

I don't follow your point. The first indirect question phrase
presupposes that "who was the faker?" has a true answer.
The second presupposes that "what did he know?" has
a true answer. I don't see any problem here. In no case
is the answer supposed to be known by the speaker.

 >> All that we're discussing is whether the claimant
>> presupposes the truth of what is supposedly known.
>
>Is that really all that _I'm_ discussing?  Or were you
>intending that "we" as an exclusive "we"?

Sorry, I assumed we were discussing the same thing.

>> In all those cases except in "all you know is wrong"
>> I find that there is a presupposition of truth.
>
>Obviously I dispute your findings.  Altho, if we allow
>facetious presuppositions, we can certainly find more
>presuppositions of truth than we would find otherwise.

Why would you not allow facetious presuppositions?

 >> > Despite our uncertainty, we
>> > often use the word "know", or some variant thereof,
>> > in statements like these, at least in English.
>> > Similar usages probably occur also in other natlangs.
>>
>> All of those would be translatable more or less word
>> for word into Spanish using "saber", yes. And also into
>> Lojban using {djuno}, don't you agree?
>
>I do agree with that, yes.  But it seems inconsistent with
>claims that I _think_ have been made here by you & John
>Cowan & others, which say that something must be true
>before it can be known.

Rather, the claim is that if you claim that someone knows
something, then your claim includes the presupposition
that that something is true.

If you don't agree with that, how do you explain the difference
between these two sentences:

(a) Lojbab has two children, but Jane is absolutely convinced
that he really has only one.

(b) Lojbab has two children, but Jane knows that he really has
only one.

Do you find both sentences equally acceptable? I think most
people would accept (a) with no problem and would reject (b)
as self-contradictory. Do you agree with that diagnostic?
If you do agree and there is no presupposition of truth in "know",
how do you account for the difference?

If you don't agree that (b) is unacceptable, then we are simply
describing different languages and so there is no reason to
expect that we will agree on how "know" works.

>Unless I misread him, pc even implied
>that "right-thinking philosophers" all subscribe to the
>notion of absolute truth as the only basis for knowledge!

I don't remember pc talking of "absolute" truth at all. Just
ordinary truth will do, I think.

>I hope I've shown that people frequently use the word "know"
>in ways that cannot be explained, or even successfully _read_,
>by such a ruthlessly strict interpretation of what it means to
>know something.

But it is you that seems to be making it ruthlessly strict.
Most of your examples fall well within the explanation.
But you haven't provided an alternative explanation of why
something like (b) above is not acceptable.

co'o mi'e xorxes