Re: Summary of summaries on DJUNO

[And Rosta <a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK>]

Lojbab:
[excuse the long quote:]
> >Asserting "John knows X" DOES assert only that John knows X. However,
> >for all speakers of English with the implausibly self-proclaimed exception
> >of you, the relationship "know" denoted by the word _know_ is such
> >that John cannot know X if X is false. It therefore follows
> >inescapably that asserting only that John knows X includes an
> >assertion that X is true.
> >
> >This is said for the 100th time. I simply cannot comprehend that you
> >still don't see what I and others are saying.
>
> true under what metaphysics (and to whom if that is relevant).  If John is
> using a metaphysics that i accept and you do not (and presumably he accepts
> it), you would seem to be saying that, to me, John knows X, and to you
> John cannot know X.  But djuno does not include a metaphysics place so we
> have no way of knowing other than by implication from the epistemology.
> But as to John's knowing, who decides?  I was thinking that Jorge was arguing
> that the speaker decides based on his presumption of truth, but am not sure
> that Jorge still feels this way based on recent responses.  Other areas of
> Lojban pragmatic prescription have tried to make the onus on the speaker
> to make things plain to the listener, which would suggest that the
> speaker must defer to the listener's metaphysics if known.
>
> The bottom line is that we need to agree as to what it means for John to
> djuno le du'u la jegvo cu broda
> where broda is any number of religious assertions that a religious person
> would assert that they "know" and not merely "believe", but which an atheist
> would assert that they cannot "know".  But can they djuno by x4 their religion
> (I note int passing that there are people who would claim to know
> certain religious beliefs because they practice their religion, but in
> fact do not really "believe", certainly not in the krici sense of pure
> faith.  For them the religious beliefs are "true" so they can "know" them,
> but when they subject their beliefs to rational analysis, all of a sudden
> they don't believe - they are using a different epistemology.)
>
> The bottom line is that I recognize that "truth" is not universally agreed
> upon, and I want a definition of "djuno" that people can understand without
> necessarily agreeing on whether le se djuno is true.  If le djuno presumes
> it is true (when using the stated epistemology) that should be sufficient,
> even if I as speaker or listener do not so presume.

What you say does not seem ridiculous to me, but I nonetheless think
that it turns out that all of the above is not relevant. My reasoning
is as follows.
It is possible to say:

1.    ge ko`a jinvi le du`u broda gi go`i

-- where go`i's antecedent is the broda bridi. (If "go`i" cannot
access subordinate bridi then replace by something that can.)

Now this bridi (ge ko`a jinvi le du`u broda gi go`i), which is
perfectly kosher Lojban, would, on the view of me et al, mean the
same as

2.   ko`a djuno le du`u broda

And since (1) is kosher Lojban, I conclude that (2) can be too.
If (2) (if = (1)) is plagued by philosophical difficulties that one
wishes to avoid, and if (1) means the same as (2), then it would seem
to me that Lojban in its entirety is plagued by these difficulties.

> >Even if you had your way and {djuno} were defined as you would wish,
> >the definition that others are adovcating for {djuno} could be
> >assigned to some other brivla with exactly the same place structure.
> >Remember that.
>
> No - they need a metaphysics place tied to the x2 instead of or in addition to
> the x4 place that you have agreed is tied mnore strongly to x1 (recognizing
> that some epistemologies imply certain metaphysics and vice versa).

They might arguably be better with a metaphysics place (in addition
to the x4), but they don't have to have one. The meaning of a
predicate never dictates obligatorily the place structure. So, for
example, you can take any gismu and define another brivla with one or
more fewer sumti than the gismu as synonymous with the gismu.

As for whether a brivla whose sense involves notions of "truth" is
necessarily better off with a metaphysics place, I'm not sure that it
is. I cannot see any difference between

     x1 is true by metaphysics x2

and

     x1 is a cat by metaphysics x2

- either I'm not thinking straight, or it is the case that every
predicate has an equal claim to a metaphysics place.

I think Jorge has made the same point, and presumably you responded
to it, but I'm afraid I don't remember what your response was.

> >> krici and jinvi do not have epistemology places,
> >
> >This may be so. What do you think the difference is between jinvi's
> >x4, the "grounds" for the opinion, and djuno's x4, the "epistemology"
> >for the opinion?
>
> Well first of all, le jinvi can hold an opinion without "knowing" that it is
> true by any epistemology.  It is my opinion that Saddam Hussein should be
> removed from power.  I can justify this opinion, but I can recognize that
> there are counterarguments EVEN UNDER MY EPISTEMOLOGY, but the weight of
> argument to me leads to the conclusion.  In general, we use "thinks" and
> "opines" for propositions that we recognize are arguable - that others
> do not accept as true.

I follow this.

> A certain person haas argued on misc.education
> that taxes for public education are "coercion at the point of a gun
> " to support something he doesn't believe in.  He bases this on certain
> assumptions that I associate with libertarianism, coupled with the
> penalty for tax evasion being imprisonment (which might require that one
> be arrested by a policeman who typically carries a firearm).  Now I can see,
> given his odd collection of assumptions, how he reaches his conclusion.
>
> I would call this lo se jinvi.  I would not call it lo se krici.
> I am not sure that I would call it lo se djuno be ko'a - he is
> quite unclear in distinguishing his argued opinions from the
> "facts" he uses to justify them.  He probably is not of an open
> mind about the truth of his statements so HE probably consides that
> he knows/djuno this as "truth".

I follow this too, though the examples are equally consistent with
the other definition of {djuno}, and I'm not clear how the examples
illstrate the difference between jinvi's and djuno's x4.

> In contrast, I clearly jinvi that he is wrong.  I would not claim to djuno
> that he is wrong - our differences are based on differences in definitions of
> words and assumptions, and how we prioritze evidence.

Same remarks apply

> On the other hand, because I am certain (emotionally) that his assumpotions
> and definitions are non-standard, I could also say that mi birti that he is
> wrong.
>
> Do these examples help?

Not really - or sort of. I don't end up any clearer about the jinvi/djuno x4
difference, and I don't see examples of how we would use djuno
differently from me.
Birti seems to be a variant of jinvi: both acknowledge the possiblity
of doubt in the thinker, and the distinction between them is their
degree of confidence. (There are latinate terms for these in the
study of mood & modality, but i forget what they are; at any rate,
they are categories familiar from natural lg.)
But I would still like to hear more about djuno.

> I ahve done so in a recent message respoding to Jorge, but you may
> be missing much list traffic - AC.UK has been sending bounce
> messages like crazy the last few days.  The contarst I was referring
> to was working from krici to birti to djuno.

Is it AC.UK in general, or UCLAN.AC.UK in particular? I am missing
tone of stuff on all lists, and getting stuff totally out of temporal
sequence.

--And.