[lit-ideas] Re: As Far As I Know (Not Far)
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 1 May 2013 14:29:31 +0100 (BST)
________________________________
From: "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
>
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
"there are many cases where I do not offend against standard usage by
using 'know' in relation to false belief......"
<snip>
Here we have a case of what Grice calls or dubs a 'disimplicature' ("If
with implicature we mean more than we say, with disimplicature we mean
_less_"). His lectures on disimplicature await publication ("The notion may
not be
of intrinsic philosophic interest").
Another term for 'disimplicature' is 'loose use'.
For, strictly,
"Smith KNEW that his wife would use the car to go shopping later that
afternoon"
is best replaced by the correct:
"Smith THOUGHT he knew that his wife would use the car to go shopping later
that afternoon.">
Best replaced according to who and which big army?
This "best replaced" is, in effect, an attempt to evade falsification - for
where my example shows a case "where [we] do not offend against standard usage
by using 'know' in relation to false belief", JLS seeks to merely evade this
counterexample to 'knowing = JTB' - not by showing that it does offend against
standard usage (it doesn't) but by stipulating it is "strictly" incorrect to
use 'know' as it is used in this counterexample.
Perhaps JLS needs some new buds so that he can hear standard usage more
clearly, without the background drone of his philosophical preconceptions, in
which case may I recommend:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B001MUYFS0/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new
With his hearing restored and bank account depleted, he might understand that
stipulations that claim that something that does not offend against standard
usage is nevertheless strictly incorrect, are not stipulations drawn from
standard usage and so cut no ice as an argument as to what standard usage
permits or does not permit.
Only a foolish pedant, or someone with a philosophical axe to grind, would
object to "Smith KNEW that his wife would use the car to go shopping later that
afternoon" because it is "correct" to say "Smith THOUGHT he knew that his wife
would use the car to go shopping later that afternoon."
In fact, the use of "KNEW" is preferable here to "THOUGHT" on several grounds -
not least in that it better brings out that it was not a mere stab in the dark
that Smith believed his wife would use the car: his belief was the product of
cold deliberation, as befits a would-be murderer. Now that makes "correct"
sense.
Donal
London
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