[lit-ideas] On Knowing What You Believe To Be False

From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:05:19 -0400 (EDT)

In a message dated 4/29/2013 9:47:33  P.M. UTC-02, omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx 
writes:
*Hm, ... I believe that this was  tackled by Wittgenstein, or maybe Ayer ? 
Anyway, we can say: "He knows it but he  is wrong" just as we can say: "Tom 
is a puppy but he is not" but we cannot say  it without a logical 
contradiction. The concept of knowing implies that a belief  is true and not 
false. 
(plus, the fact that we hold it) Now, it may not be the  whole truth, but the 
fact that I don't know how many miles there are from the  Earth to Jupiter 
doesn't prove that I am somehow wrong that there are two miles  to the 
nearest bar worth going to, or something like that.


---
 
I seem to agree with O. K. What is interesting is that we cannot claim it  
is a fact about the German word for 'knowledge' that got Popper thinking 
into  knowledge possibly being false. Since McEvoy speaks English and he feels 
that a  statement like Omar's above:
 
>the concept of knowing implies that a belief is true
 
does not quite hold for _all_ idiolects of 'know'.
 
 
--- I agree that there are complications with NOT knowing. 
 
In general, the 'implicatures' of 'know' can be fun, though. My favourite,  
from Harnish, "Implicature and Logical Form":
 
A: I didn't know you were pregnant.
B: You still don't.
 
Harnish analyses this as follows. He takes, indeed, list most English  
speakers (since Plato's Theaetetus) to be symbolised as
 
Kp = JTB
 
justified true belief.
 
Now, the negation of "Kp", as in "You still don't now that I'm pregnant"  
for some reason seems to implicate "I'm NOT pregnant", rather than "you are 
not  justified in saying so". Or something.
 
---
 
Grice holds a 'causal' theory of knowledge, though (parallel to his "Causal 
 Theory of Perception"). So that, if I know that p, that's because 
 
I believe that p
I am justified in believing that p
p is true.
 
AND "p" CAUSES my believing that p.
 
---
 
And so on.
 
Cheers,
 
Speranza
 
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[lit-ideas] On Knowing What You Believe To Be False

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