Transparent Knowledge Once AgainAuthor(s): Jaakko HintikkaSource: Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the AnalyticTradition, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Mar., 1973), pp. 125-127Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4318772 .

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JAAKKO HINTIKKA

TRANSPARENT KNOWLEDGE ONCE AGAIN

(Received 7 April, 1972)

R. Z. Parks' recent note' misconstrues badly my criticism of Quine in Knowledge and Belief.2 It is therefore in order to recapitulate the essentials once again. The problem is the status of the inference from

(2) a knows that (d = d),

transparently interpreted, to

(3) (Ex) (a knows that (d = x)).

According to Quine, this inference should be valid, for amenability to existential generalization is one of the touchstones of transparency. Yet on other principles Quine himself apparently adhers to, the inference should be invalid, for the premiss (2) is trivially true while the alleged conclusion (3) may be false. In order to see the latter, recall that for Quine bound variables range over real, honest-to-god individuals. Now to know of b that it equals some one such individual is surely to know who (or what) b is. But a need not know who b is merely because he knows that (b = b).

Matters are not helped much by Quine's recent shift from locutions of the type 'a knows that - b - ' to the type 'a knows of b that - he-' in ex- plaining his transparent sense. Surely a knows of b that b = b as trivially as he knows that b = b.

The only resonable way out of this sort of dilemma is for Quine to provide an explanation of the transparent sense of (2) which makes it non- trivial and makes it to imply legitimately (3). This is surely possible - by hook or crook. It has never been done by Quine, however, and giving such a reading to (2) and still keep within the range of Quinean ideas looks extremely unnatural and unlikely.

What is the relevance of Parks' note to this criticism? None. Parks points out, correctly, that there are in the system of my Knowledge and

Philosophical Studies 24 (1973) 125-127. All Rights Reserved Copyright ? 1973 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland

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126 JAAKKO HINTIKKA

Belief transparent readings of the semiformal sentences (2) and (3), re- spectively, for which the corresponding inference is in fact valid. They are

(2b) (Ey) (y = d & Ka(y = y))

and

(3b) (Ey) (y = d & (Ex) Ka(y = x)),

respectively. This valid observation is beside the point, however, for what is at stake is what happens to the inference on Quine's principles, not on some other interpretation someone else might devise. Quine could not avail himself of the reconstruction of (2) as (2b). This is shown already by the fact that in (2b) one quantifies into an opaque construction, which is the last thing Quine would do. Hence Parks' point does not offer any comfort whatsoever to Quine.

This is not a mere debating point, either. It is an essential part of Quine's intentions that what receives a peculiar interpretation under the trans- parent reading is the verb 'knows' itself. This central intention of Quine's is not preserved when the transparent sense is reconstructed in more com- plicated terms, for instance in terms of a precise opaque sense of knowing, as in (2b).

Furthermore, an inference from (2b) to (3b) is not what was at issue in my criticism of Quine because it is not an instance of existential generali- zation any longer. Hence it is not relevant to any evaluation of Quine.

There is plainly nothing to worry about in the inference from (2b) to (3b) when considered on its own merits. It is in fact a rather trivial infer- ence. In my semantics, both (2b) and (3b) in effect say that a knows who b is under some guise or other. In pointing out the implication from (2b) to (3b) Parks therefore only succeeds in showing that the system of Knowl- edge and Belief works as it should in this respect. There would be reason to worry here only if the inference vindicated Quine. It does not, and it is a little surprising to see that an inference which obviously is far removed from the orbit of Quinean ideas should be thought to do so.

A concluding general remark may be in order. Parks' note is predicated on the assumption that there is such a thing as the translation of such partially formalized expressions as (2)-(3) into a semantically interpreted (or interpretable) system like that of Knowledge and Belief. I do not see any reason for such a view. In fact, this view was already discredited by

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TRANSPARENT KNOWLEDGE ONCE AGAIN 127

my note 'Partially Transparent Senses of Knowing',3 where it was pointed out that there is no such thing as the transparent interpretation of (2). A large part of the troubles of such writers as Quine is that the precise im- port of their own formulation is highly unclear. Quine has never given anything remotely like a satisfactory semantics of his transparent sense of knowing.

This lingering presupposition of unique translatability makes me to disagree with several statements in Parks' note. They are not pertinent to any main critical point, however, and will therefore be left untouched here.

NOTES

1 R. Z. Parks, 'Hintikka and Sleigh onEpistemicLogic',Philosophical Studies 23(1972), 74-75. 2 Jaakko Hintikka, Knowledge and Belief, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N. Y., 1962, pp. 141-144. 3 See Quine's reply to Sellars in Words and Objections (ed. by Donald Davidson and Jaakko Hintikka), D. Reidel Publ. Co., Dordrecht, 1969, pp. 337-338. For some reason, Quine ascribes the criticism to Sleigh although a stronger form of it was put forward earlier in Knowledge and Belief. 4 Philosophical Studies 20 (1969), 4-8.

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