Re: Summary so far on DJUNO

[John Cowan <cowan@locke.ccil.org>]

la lojbab. cusku di'e

> You seem to be contradictiong your earlier statements, which I remember as
> being that the presumption of the speaker is critical to the truth of a
> djuno statement.

More precisely: it is na'i to say "John knows p" when p is false,
and like most na'i sentences that do not contain explicit negations,
it is convenient to take such a knowledge claim as false.
This is no different from saying that "John met the current king of
France" is false because there is no current king of France.
 
> NOW it seems that you are saying that the critical factor is some absolute
> truth of the proposition, independent of speaker, listener, and presumed
> knower.

Absolute truth has nothing to do with it; relative (jetnu) truth
is adequate.

> But all this can lead to is that we can never use djuno for anything
> for which truth is not absolute.  We can never say that
> Alice knows that John loves her, because the truth of that statement will
> will never be known to Alice,

It may be possible to know something without knowing that it is true,
I'm not sure.  In any event, Alice's knowledge depends only on
Alice's true beliefs (with the conditions which we have already
discussed), not on Alice's knowledge of her beliefs (you can clearly
believe something without knowing that you believe it).

> and may not even be known to John (he may
> believe that he loves her, but his beehavior and subconscious thoughts,
> may demonstrate otherwise,

No problem there.  I may know that the mass of a certain rock is
357 g, but the rock doesn't need to know that.

> and indeed hios definition of love may
> differ from Alice's).

See below.

> We can never say that someone knows that there
> are 9 planets, because the truth of this depends on the definition of
> planet, and may be falsified by new information that has already been disocvered
> but not yet been publicized.

Now we get to the heart of the matter.  We cannot say FOR SURE
that X knows there are 9 planets, because it might turn out to be
false that there are 9 planets.  In that case we would say
RETROSPECTIVELY that "We thought X knew there were 9 planets, but
X knew-na'i there were 9 planets".

> But we don't explicitly or implicitly put
> all these caveats in staements about knowledge when we make them.

No more do we say:

	There are 9 planets, but it may be the case that I am
	wrong (and the first part of this sentence is false).

In fact, there is very little we can say FOR SURE ("incorrigibly", in the
jargon of philosophers).  Most claims are subject to later falsification,
even perhaps claims about what beliefs we hold now --- that's a disputed
point.

"Bethink ye, bethink ye, in the bowels of Christ, that ye *might* be mistaken!"
	--Oliver Cromwell, to some religious leaders who wanted
	to employ the secular arm to enforce their {krici}

> Peter knows that Alice loves John, but she doesn't (really) sounds odd
> but is plausible as a suggestion that they hold different definitions of
> love.

I think in Lojban we would say "Peter knows that Alice loves-xi-1 John, but
Alice loves-xi-2 [John]."  In Lojban, when a speaker uses a word, it means
what the speaker (not anyone else) wants it to mean, but speakers who use
two different meanings in one sentence are hardly going to be easily
understood, since that is what Lojban is supposed to be escaping from.

-- 
John Cowan	http://www.ccil.org/~cowan		cowan@ccil.org
	You tollerday donsk?  N.  You tolkatiff scowegian?  Nn.
	You spigotty anglease?  Nnn.  You phonio saxo?  Nnnn.
		Clear all so!  'Tis a Jute.... (FW 16.5)