Re: knowledge

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

>>The following seems to me a good example of "know" with a subjective
>>truth, and it even is language based %^)
>>
>>John knows that in English it is improper to split an infinitive, but I
>>know that this is false.
>Perhaps, however, the first "know" is ironic in this case - when I imagine
>someone saying it I hear an intonation on the first "know" equivalent to
>quotation marks, but that could just be my imagination running loose.

My intention wasn't ironic in the example.  i could have used a different
"rule" perhaps that might not seem so ironic.  But the basis is that there
are somepeople, presumably including John, that accept language prescriptive-
ness as legitimate, and therefore "know" that language not following the
prescriptive rules is improper.  I also know those prescriptive rules,
but because I've read too much linguistics, I opine that prescriptivism is
a false standard, while accepting that "what a language is" is largely a
subjective sort of thing.

Thus for the two of us, the same epsitemology (language prescription)
generates somewhat different truth values, because for me, the spitemology
cannot generate absolute truth, but at best only a fuzzy truth, whereas a
prescriptiuvist does indeed "know" that nonstandard usages are "improper".

lojbab
----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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