Certainly in this case propositional knowledge is useless - possibly
knowledge by acquaintance of a specific kind would not be so bad.
O.K.
On Fri, May 8, 2015 at 5:23 PM, Adriano Palma <Palma@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
We have laughably huge amounts of knowledge about idiots like the
cardsian sisters (who are tv celebrities for the imbeciles who watch tv)
*From:* lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:
lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf Of *Omar Kusturica
*Sent:* 08 May 2015 14:50
*To:* lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Subject:* [lit-ideas] Re: Getting to know this guy called Guy
That wasn't exactly what I said, but actually it is possible to have
'knowledge about' a person without knowing their identity. (And hence
possibly not being able to distinguish them from other persons in some
contexts.) The point is found in Russell's "Knowledge by acquaintance and
knowledge by description." The example Russell gives is ' the man with the
iron mask' about whom we know that he existed, that he lived in the
Bastille, and a number of other things but we don't know his identity.
O.K.
On Fri, May 8, 2015 at 12:59 AM, Redacted sender Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx for
DMARC <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Omar K. provides an alleged counterexample to Witters's criteria-based
theory of alleged knowledge, because O. K. says he knows about both G. R.
Grice
(the author of "The Grounds of Moral Judgement") and H. P. Grice (the
author of "W.O.W." -- or Studies in the Way of Words) but fails to
distinguish
them.
Geary was wondering whether someone knew about a guy.
(I'd use the historical present: "is wondering if someone knows about a
guy.")
In a message dated 5/7/2015 5:14:19 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx writes:
But now I'm told that not only Grice, but Hume, as well, insist that I'm
only my own fantasy. Well, damn, if I'd known that I'd have imagined
myself
[...]"
Well, technically, Grice acknowledges Gallie ("Is the self a substance?",
Mind), and Broad. From Broad, Grice borrows The Pure Ego Theory, and what
Broad calls "The Proper Name Theory," "The Disguised Description Theory,"
and "The Logical Construction Theory."
Grice returns the Pure Ego Theory, the Proper Name Theory, the Disguised
Description Theory, but keeps "The Logical Construction Theory".
Put it bluntly, the self is a logical construction out of memory, to quote
from Linsky.
Technically, too, Grice may be seen as LOCKEAN, rather than Humean,
although Grice discusses Reid's paradox of personal identity. The logical
construction of personal identity in terms of mnemonic states is Lockean
at heart.
Hume, who woke Kant up from his dogmatic slumber, is, in Kant's own
phrase, "another Animal" ('Tier' -- in the so-called "third critique",
section
9).
Hume says that the "I" is a "je-ne-sais-quoi", i.e. an intangible quality
that makes something distinctive or attractive (as in "She has a certain
je-ne-sais-quoi about her"), but he does not realise that "je-ne-sais-quoi"
includes "je", which is French for "I".
Note that the French expression, "je-ne-sais-quoi" is what logicians call
'squatitive negation', while "je sais quoi" is squatitive affirmation.
Cheers,
Speranza
Grice, H. P. Personal identity.
Grice, H. P. The logical construction of personal identity
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
