tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post3885286798981443279..comments2024-03-28T19:56:42.305-05:00Comments on Alexander Pruss's Blog: Promising to tryAlexander R Prusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-72295840460251215572020-10-19T07:29:13.433-05:002020-10-19T07:29:13.433-05:00Pruss: This is very interesting and fits very well...Pruss: This is very interesting and fits very well with something I've been thinking about lately. It seems to me that people are too quick to think that, if Y is what we do when we fail to X, then Y must be X minus something. For example, if I want to lift an object and move it out of your way, but then the object turns out to be too heavy for me, I don't move it, but I tried. This could lead to the impression that doing things is a combination of trying plus something else (maybe "succeeding"?). A similar mistake happens with knowledge, since the statement "I was wrong, I didn't know that, I just believed it" makes sense, and so people are apt to think that knowing is believing + something, which is mistaken.<br /><br />I think this example of promising to try vs. promising to do, and how they are irreducibly different speech acts, is helpful in untying those knots.Michael Gonzalezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05279261871735286117noreply@blogger.com