Re: Summary so far on DJUNO

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@access.digex.net>]

>> Within the system of knowledge that Sam and Frank used was it
>--More--
>> a justified true belief (did they have any reason beyond the normal
>> to doubt the truth of the newspapers report)?
>
>It was a justified *false* belief, because the newspaper report was
>false.  I see no reason to think that Sam and Frank had a system
>of knowledge containing a rule "Anything that is printed in the
>newspaper is true".


More likely, it was something like "everything printed in the newspaper is
*presumed* ture unless contrary evidence is recognized".


>> If not, then within
>> that system it was true and justified, and thus knowledge. The
>> system you persist in regarding the situation should be regarded
>> as seperated and more inclusive from the one Sam and Frank evaluated
>> it from.
>
>The point is that when they arrived on Bermuda, the justified false
>belief had become a justified true one, but they hadn't *learned*
>anything.  Therefore, their justified true belief on 12 November
>doesn't count as *knowledge*.

It was knowledgee THEN by the epistemology they had in place THEN.  It is 
only false to us because we are using a different epistemological basis.
It became false to them when they gained additional information, which
in turn changed their epistemology, which like most people's was/is a 
relative and ever-changing one.

>When talking about truth here I leave the
>basis for the truth vague, because that vagueness can be copied directly
>from the x2 of jetnu to the x4 of djuno.  The only exception is
>"belief-truth", in which the difference between knowledge and
>belief is reduced to a nullity.  

There is also cultural truth, truth by revelation, truth by assumption,
truth by authority (where the authority being human may say different things
at different times - we know that much of the Lojban design is based on
pc's pronouncements that he has on occasion waffled.  But I surely "knew what
Lojban was" in the relevamnt design areas - and all associated "truths" that
apply to that knowledge, on the epistemological basis of pc's pronouncements,
even if he later changed his mind multiple times).

Thus any knowledge of Lojban fits the category of knowledge that can be
true for some people and not for others, and not for the same person at a later
time.

>The point is that when they arrived on Bermuda, the justified false
>belief had become a justified true one, but they hadn't *learned*
>anything. 

Does learning have any relevance to knowledge?

>If "djuno" doesn't involve knowledge, then what does it involve?
>I haven't even introduced, he said with a malicious grin, Nozick's
>four-point definition of knowledge, viz:
>
>        A knows p iff:
>                1) A believes p;
>                2) p is true;
>                3) if p were false, then A wouldn't believe it;
>                4) if p were true, then A would believe it.


I don't accept this definition, since it does not cover cases where the truth
is not absolute, or multiple epistemological bases apply.  None of this
covers how my son can know that Santa Claus exists, and also to know that
Santa Claus does not exist, based on two separate epistemologies which he
is fully capable of entertaining at one time.  I myself can know that
Santa Claus exists, because I recognize that the referent of the sumti
"la santaklaus." is strongly tied if not identical to a si'o abstraction
which exists so long as someone contemplates it.

Given that we have largely thrown out the concept of a "real world" by all
this stuff about universes of discourse, the plasticity of the universe of
discourse seems to make all statements of existence "knowable".

Hmm, what a thought - with no tense information, djuno can refer to
potential knowledge as well as actual knowledge, and without specifying the
universe of dioscourse truth starts becoming very fuzzy indeed.

lojbab