Re: THEORY: Are commands to believe infelicitous?

Hi!

As for your off-topic stuff: please don't take this off-list if you
intend to continue, ok?


Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> writes:
> > What is the difference between belief and knowledge?
>
> Quite a bit IMO.
Indeed!!

> I _know_ the roses in my garden are flowering because I can see them
> & touch them. I have direct experience of them. If I said "I believe
> the roses in my garden are flowering" it would imply some degree of
> uncertainty: I don't know for sure, but the evidence points that
> way.
I'd not say 'belief' has a degree of uncertainty -- that's what I feel
is the point about belief: you are completely certain without any
evidence in *this* universe being available.  So both belief and
knowledge have full degree of certainty as I interpret them, only
belief is not based on evidence in this universe, while knowledge is.

> Belief to me means I _trust_ other sources of evidence, because I do
> not have direct, uncontrovertible evidence.
And thus those 'other sources of evidence' are not subject to any
science, of course.  The sources are really disjoint (so I don't
understand how religion and science can argue with each other: they
are based on totally different sources of evidence that are not
compatible, so there should be peace between these two. :-))))

> > In particular;  If Person A thinks Person B "believes" statement S,
>
> In other words, Person A believes Person B believes statement S - Person A
> does not know this for sure.
In this sentence, the first 'believe' (at least) is more like 'think',
which I'd indeed classify as lack of evidence in this universe (in
contrast to 'know').

However, as you say, usage of such words in languages is not so
well-defined as I'd like to see it...

ObConlang: At least my conlang Qthyn|gai distinguishes this in the way
*I* think it's defined. :-)

**Henrik

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