Frank I 654ff
Proposition/Knowledge/Russell: one can know propositions, even if one is not familiar with all components.
>
Proposition, >
Statement.
Donald Davidson (1987): Knowing One's Own Mind, in: Proceedings and
Adresses of the American Philosophical Association LX (1987),441-4 58
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Russell IV 116
Knowledge/wrong knowledge/false knowledge/Russell: E.g. Someone thinks that the name of the Prime Minister starts with B (Bannerman is correct) - but he thinks Balfour was Prime Minister - no true knowledge.
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Hintikka 167
Knowledge/who/what/where/HintikkaVsRussell: Russell cannot explicitly analyze constructions of the form white + W sentence. General:
(10) a knows who (e.g., x) is such that A (x)
becomes
(11) (Ex) a knows that A (x).
Hintikka: but this is only possible if we modify Russell's approach:
Problem: the existential generalization now collapses in a way that cannot be traced back to the non-existence, and which cannot be analyzed with Russell's theory of descriptions.
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Existential Generalization, >
Theory of descriptions.
Problem: for each person, there are a lot of people whose names the person knows and of whose existence the person knows, but of whom the person does not know who they are. ((s) celebrities, people of whom one has heard, hear-say) not aquaintance, but by description.
I 168
Charles Dodgson, for instance, was for Queen Victoria one person she had heard of, but she did not know herself.
Problem: if we assume that (11) is the correct analysis of (10) it applies:
(12) ~ (Ex) Victoria knew that Dodgson = x
But this is trivially wrong, even according to Russell.
The following is certainly true:
(13) Victoria knew that Dodgson = Dodgson
Existential Generalization/EG: results then in:
(14) (Ex) Victoria knew that Dodgson = x
So exactly the negation of (12) is a contradiction.
Descriptions/Hintikka: descriptions are not involved here at all. Therefore Russell's theory of descriptions cannot help here.
I 170
Existential Generalization/EG/Ambiguity/Uniqueness/Russell/Hintikka: What ways Russell could have taken?
Knowledge-who/Russell/Hintikka: Russell himself often speaks of the equivalence of knowledge who did something with the existence of an individual of whom is known that it has done so.
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Identification, >
Individuation.
