{"id":7705,"date":"2015-09-23T17:53:08","date_gmt":"2015-09-24T01:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=7705"},"modified":"2021-04-04T04:44:29","modified_gmt":"2021-04-04T11:44:29","slug":"i-dont-know-why-you-ever-liked-that-guy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=7705","title":{"rendered":"I Still Don't Know Why He Ever Liked that Guy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Years ago, a friend and I were talking about something, and he mentioned Hitler.  I declared<\/p> <blockquote>I don't know why you ever liked that guy!<\/blockquote> <p>in reply to which he barked<\/p> <blockquote>Oh!  That is a lie!<span style=\"vertical-align: top ; font-size: smaller ;\">&#91;1&#93;<\/span><\/blockquote> <p>Well, no, it wasn't a lie.  I escalated by betting him dinner on the matter.  Then I explained to him that, since the truth of a proposition is a precondition for it to be known, one of the ways that I could <em>not<\/em> know why he'd ever liked Hitler would be if he'd <em>never<\/em> liked Hitler.  Another way would be if I'd never <em>believed<\/em> that he'd liked Hitler, regardless of how my friend really felt about Hitler.<\/p> <p>Indeed, the contradiction of <span style=\"display: block; text-align: center ; font-style: italic ;\">I don't know why you ever liked that guy!<\/span> is <span style=\"display: block; text-align: center ; font-style: italic ;\">I know why you at some time liked that guy!<\/span> Formally,<span style=\"vertical-align: top ; font-size: smaller ;\">&#91;2&#93;<\/span> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/not_not_know_why_like_hitler.png\" alt=\"[formal logical expression]\" width=\"690\" height=\"210\" style=\"display: block ; border: none ; margin-left: auto ; margin-right: auto ; width: 16.1em; height: 4.9em ;\" \/> So,<\/p> <blockquote>I don't know why you ever liked that guy!<\/blockquote> <p>was a truth (though perhaps not a <em>simple<\/em> truth, as he'd had trouble seeing it).<\/p> <p>Having won the wager, I waived the prize; my objectives in betting had all been met.  Now, had <em>he<\/em> won the wager, then I'm sure that he'd have collected; but had I claimed, as he'd thought, that he'd once liked Hitler, then he'd have been quite justified in extracting the dinner; it would have disincentivized my insulting him in such a way, and off-set the felt sting of the calumny.<\/p> <hr width=\"50%\" align=\"left\" \/> <p><span style=\"vertical-align: top ; font-size: smaller ;\">&#91;1&#93;<\/span> That was how he spoke.  He often began with <q>Oh!<\/q>, and when learning English in Hong Kong he had been taught to avoid contractions.<\/p> <p><span style=\"vertical-align: top ; font-size: smaller ;\">&#91;2&#93;<\/span> (2015:09\/24): I have edited the formal expression, seeking to have it capture more completely the structure of the natural-language expression.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Years ago, a friend and I were talking about something, and he mentioned Hitler. I declared I don't know why you ever liked that guy! in reply to which he barked Oh! That is a lie!&#91;1&#93; Well, no, it wasn't a lie. I escalated by betting him dinner on the matter. Then I explained to [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[117,29,720,5,4],"tags":[302],"class_list":["post-7705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communication","category-disturbing-the-peace","category-epistemology","category-personal","category-public","tag-logic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7705"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11709,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7705\/revisions\/11709"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}