De Dicto versus De Facto Attitudes
Abstract
De dicto knowledge, to be contrasted with de re knowledge, is standardly assumed to be knowledge of a dictum. It is often understood as knowledge of a fact or of a proposition. Here it is conceived of as involving linguistic understanding of the components of the dictum. Hence de dicto and de re knowledge should have more complex relationships than usually presumed. The paper proposes a formalization of attitude ascriptions in first-order epistemic logic together with a semantics based on Hintikka’s worldlines, so that such distinctions can be regimented and classical puzzles about knowledge and identity be solved.