Posted by zeugma on October 9, 2005, at 15:05:09
In reply to Russell, realism, and the albatross » alexandra_k, posted by zeugma on October 9, 2005, at 14:46:33
Thus, if I am acquianted with (and i really am!) this cup of coffee, this one from the coffee shop down the street, then I can understand such statements as that this cup of coffee has a reasonable milk-to-coffee ratio, >>
I meant that I could not be said to be acquianted with the cup of coffee (the particular cup of coffee) if I could say it was too hot, but I couldn't say or understand anything else about it. If I said the coffee was too hot, but didn't know the coffee was liquid (choosing an arbitrary predicate or 'universal') then I really didn't have a grip on the coffee itself. Of course I might not know what 'liquid' meant; substitute any other predicate known to me that could apply to a cup of coffee (e.g. the coffee is bitter): I have to be capable of understanding statements along the lines of the parenthesized one in order to claim acquiantance. I must be able to understand generalizations about the coffee. I don't think this means verbal generalizations: for example a dog could be acquianted with the coffee if it could identify the coffee that is now placidly in my styrofoam cup as the same substance flung across the room in a childish outburst at how the coffee shop overcharged me for coffee with spoiled milk.
Thus, the dog understands that the coffee that at time T1 was in the cup was the same stuff as the coffee splotching the refrigerator at time T2. It would involve a tracking ability on the part of the dog to follow its progress from T1 to T2. Thus, Evans emphasizes the ability to re-identify an object as a criterion for knowing which object it is- and I take 'knowing which object it is' as another way of saying that you are acquianted with the object.
what do you think of Evans?
-z
poster:zeugma
thread:561840
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20050910/msgs/564901.html