[lit-ideas] Re: Can You Imagine 2 + 2 = 5?
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 18:33:23 +0000 (GMT)
--- Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > I saw the knowledge/belief distinction used in real (i.e.
> > nonphilosophical) life when in a film a prosecutor asked a witness,
> > 'Do you KNOW, Mr. Smith, or do you only BELIEVE?' All parties (well, it
> > was a film after all), seemed to understand the distinction.
Clearly this is (unbelievably, unimaginably and certainly) naive as an
argument.
1. Why should such non-philosophical usage ground the philosophical debate?
2. Is it clear what it means philosophically?
3. Surely the question just means:-
either (a)"Are you sure you're right or do you only think you're right?"
or (b) "Are you right or is it the case that you only think you're right?"
It's cleverness is perhaps that it trades on both senses and in a
rhetorically emphatic (but perhaps philosophically fatuous) way.
4. Cinema audiences "understand" a wide range of (philosophically)
implausible claims. (See: endless list).
Donal
Not making it up as he goes along
Working from the script
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