[lit-ideas] Re: Can You Imagine 2 + 2 = 5?
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 13:59:02 -0800
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.
Donal says
Clearly this is (unbelievably, unimaginably and certainly) naive as an
argument.
I'm not sure what part of this you think is an argument, but let's
assume it's the part in which I said that I saw the knowledge/belief
distinction used in 'real life.' Well, I did see it. So?
1. Why should such non-philosophical usage ground the philosophical debate?
Again, what debate? If you read what I wrote, you'll see that this
example supports nothing in any debate. What it does support is my
(implied) claim that the philosopher's distinction (which I'd always
suspected was mere philosophical jargon) was used (at least once)
outside philosophy in a context in which not only the 'courtroom'
audience but the theatre audience was expected to understand it.
Understand what? The distinction between knowledge and belief.
Is it clear what it means philosophically?
There is a standard take on it, certainly. If I know that Ursula lives
in Canada, then Ursula lives in Canada. If I believe (some would say
'merely' believe) she does, then she may not.
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.
I never thought I'd live to see Donal's conversion to ordinary language
philosophy.
4. Cinema audiences "understand" a wide range of (philosophically)
implausible claims. (See: endless list).
Since there were no claims involved in the example, this strikes me as
only marginally relevant to the grounded compressor.
Robert Paul
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