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Currently at UW: 17.6. High today: 30.4.
I'd figured that, what with the pond being so low--for something near half of its shrinking area, it can't be more than a foot deep, and a lot of it seems to be just a couple of inches, shallow enough for the geese to stand in--I ought to get a good look at one of the big turtles sooner or later, and today I got it. A snapping turtle, and my stars but what an ugly beastie it is. Like this one, except uglier, because it's got brown algae growing all over it. And what a big head and a big tail it's got.
The UW weather site says we got just over half the normal rainfall in July. For a while I've wondered somewhat whether some part of what's going on with the pond is that whoever's in charge of it has deliberately lowered it by knocking a bit off the lip of the waterfall at the end of it, before it disappears under Uptown Waterloo, my wondering which was enhanced when some willow trees were planted last week in some mucky bits of shore which, last year, didn't exist. Either whoever planted those trees knows something I don't know, or I know something they don't know....
So, I'd been trying to come up with some difference in content between Smith's belief "Jones will get the job" and his belief "a man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job". And today I thought, maybe changing the case a bit might make something stand out: say, Smith deduces from his beliefs that Jones will get the job and that Jones is a man that a man will get the job. That a man will get the job may be relevant in ways that Jones in particular getting the job wouldn't be (i.e., in relation to affirmative action purposes or whatever). But I don't know if this really makes any difference, or if the last sentence really makes any sense. It's still the case that everything that follows from "a man will get the job" also follows from "Jones will get the job"--obviously!
It struck me today that what disqualifies the justified true beliefs of people in Gettier cases can't be that their beliefs are luckily true--what Gettier cases show is that all true beliefs are luckily true, and that whenever we have knowledge, we're lucky to have it! When you have a justified true belief that actually is knowledge (on Gettier assumptions), you're just lucky that there isn't a Gettier circumstance defeating your claim to knowledge. The really disturbing thing about Gettier cases is this: say that everything in the "ten coins" example is the same, except that the president of the company, who had told Smith that he was going to give Jones the job but then decided to give Smith then job, then changes his mind back, and gives Jones the job after all. In that case, who wouldn't say that Smith knew Jones would get the job, and that a man with ten coins in his pocket would get the job? And yet the connection between the process of his belief-formation and the fact of the matter would be broken in exactly the same way as in Gettier's example. (Well, some might in fact say that Smith didn't know. I want to elaborate with a sports example, but the library is closing again....)
I'd figured that, what with the pond being so low--for something near half of its shrinking area, it can't be more than a foot deep, and a lot of it seems to be just a couple of inches, shallow enough for the geese to stand in--I ought to get a good look at one of the big turtles sooner or later, and today I got it. A snapping turtle, and my stars but what an ugly beastie it is. Like this one, except uglier, because it's got brown algae growing all over it. And what a big head and a big tail it's got.
The UW weather site says we got just over half the normal rainfall in July. For a while I've wondered somewhat whether some part of what's going on with the pond is that whoever's in charge of it has deliberately lowered it by knocking a bit off the lip of the waterfall at the end of it, before it disappears under Uptown Waterloo, my wondering which was enhanced when some willow trees were planted last week in some mucky bits of shore which, last year, didn't exist. Either whoever planted those trees knows something I don't know, or I know something they don't know....
So, I'd been trying to come up with some difference in content between Smith's belief "Jones will get the job" and his belief "a man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job". And today I thought, maybe changing the case a bit might make something stand out: say, Smith deduces from his beliefs that Jones will get the job and that Jones is a man that a man will get the job. That a man will get the job may be relevant in ways that Jones in particular getting the job wouldn't be (i.e., in relation to affirmative action purposes or whatever). But I don't know if this really makes any difference, or if the last sentence really makes any sense. It's still the case that everything that follows from "a man will get the job" also follows from "Jones will get the job"--obviously!
It struck me today that what disqualifies the justified true beliefs of people in Gettier cases can't be that their beliefs are luckily true--what Gettier cases show is that all true beliefs are luckily true, and that whenever we have knowledge, we're lucky to have it! When you have a justified true belief that actually is knowledge (on Gettier assumptions), you're just lucky that there isn't a Gettier circumstance defeating your claim to knowledge. The really disturbing thing about Gettier cases is this: say that everything in the "ten coins" example is the same, except that the president of the company, who had told Smith that he was going to give Jones the job but then decided to give Smith then job, then changes his mind back, and gives Jones the job after all. In that case, who wouldn't say that Smith knew Jones would get the job, and that a man with ten coins in his pocket would get the job? And yet the connection between the process of his belief-formation and the fact of the matter would be broken in exactly the same way as in Gettier's example. (Well, some might in fact say that Smith didn't know. I want to elaborate with a sports example, but the library is closing again....)
