Re: truths and knowledge

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

>>(1) "I have two children but John knows that I really have only one."
>>
>>(2) "I have two children but John is absolutely convinced that I really
>>       have only one."
>>
 >>Do you agree that most people would find (1) odd and (2)
>>quite acceptable? If you do, how do you explain it?
>
>Very simply.  We do not normally imagine that there could be any
subjectivity
>to a statement abiut how many children that I have.

That doesn't explain why (2) is acceptable.  Are you saying
that "know" works only in cases of evident subjectivity and "is absolutely
convinced" works also when we don't imagine any subjectivity? Why?

>Now if you put this in the past tense, and start bring in the abortion
>debaters, you might indeed see:
>
>John knows that I have only one child, but I really have two children
>because I consider the aborted/stillborn child to also be my child.

So you're saying that in order for the "know" claim to make sense,
you have to imagine a scenario where the x2 is true.

But my question was not in what scenario (1) could be acceptable.
My question was why in our world, where you do have two children,
(1) is unacceptable while (2) is acceptable. What is it that makes them
so different?

co'o mi'e xorxes