[lit-ideas] Re: Pirots and Squarrels: Grice on Ethology
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:47:27 -0700 (PDT)
surely
________________________________
From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, April 29, 2013 11:28 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Pirots and Squarrels: Grice on Ethology
>This Darwinian-Popperian view
of lexical items like 'know' and 'intuit' may well hold that one's
intuitions CAN get wrong. Similarly, a Darwinian-Popperian may not regard the
following as a contradiction: "I knew but I was wrong" (on knowing-the-false).
>
Philosophers of a stripe may baulk, but if someone in a play or in real-life
said "I knew but I was wrong" we might well understand them as saying "I
believed I had correct knowledge but I was wrong". Of course, if we define
"knowing" so that we can only "know" when we have correct knowledge (not merely
when we believe we have correct knowledge) then we cannot "know" and yet be
wrong: but this definition of "knowing" would only render the claim "I knew but
I was wrong" untenable as a contradiction-in-terms (of that definition) - it
would not render untenable the claim "I believed I had correct knowledge but I
was wrong". The point is: no serious epistemology can be premised on merely a
definition of "knowing" here: and much favours adopting a view of knowledge
where 'knowledge' can be false. Newton's physics may be false yet an immense
contribution to
human knowledge.
*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 square 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.
O.K.
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