on certainty 347

15.3.51

347. “I know that that’s a tree.” Why does it strike me as if I did not understand the sentence? though it is after all an extremely simple sentence of the most ordinary kind? It is as if I could not focus my mind on any meaning. Simply because I don’t look for the focus where the meaning is. As soon as I think of an everyday use of the sentence instead of a philosophical one, its meaning becomes clear and ordinary.

‘I know that that’s a tree’ –

perhaps you don’t understand the sentence –

because the ‘I know’ –

which could well be seen as the focus of the sentence –

is irrelevant

the claim of knowledge is a claim of authority –

the only authority is authorship –

claiming the authorship – of your sentence –

which is just what ‘I know’ amounts to –

is irrelevant

if ‘I know’ is to be a claim of authority –

other than the claim of authorship –

it is false

perhaps it has rhetorical effect –

if so that effect –

can only be based on deception

meaning is not a ghost in the syntax –

the meaning of the non-rhetorical sentence –

‘that is a tree’ –

is the use the sentence is put to –

be that a sentence of ‘an everyday use’ –

or one of a ‘philosophical use’

and yes – just what that amounts to –

how it is interpreted –

will be uncertain –

it will be a matter open to question –

open to doubt –

and never in any final sense –

resolved

© greg t. charlton. 2010.