Abstract

SummaryIn this paper I will strive towards three main objectives. First of all, I will try to show that a very commonplace property of knowledge, that of yielding truth, can be used to characterize an ideal and radical notion of knowledge. It will be argued that this property generates a basic and autonomous concept of knowledge, i.e., a purely logical concept of knowledge that can be clearly separated from the psychological, intentional or epistemological aspects of knowledge. What results can thus be regarded as a kind of reduction of the concept of knowledge to that of truth. This reduction will be expressed by means of a criterion which a relation between an agent and a sentence must satisfy in order to be interpreted as exemplifying the relation of knowing.Secondly, 1 will offer an analysis of presuppositional knowledge which shows how the very strong and ideal notion of knowledge previously developed can be useful in interpreting the ordinary use of “knowing”.My third and last objective will be to use this criterion to characterize formally the semantic interpretation associated to a rational and competent agent, i.e. the space of his knowledge