Philosophical Investigations 29:1 January 2006

ISSN 0190-0536

About Puzzles, Muddles and

First Person Inferences
Peter Cave, The Open University (U.K.)

1. Puzzling
Although good at estimating how many people there are in crowded
rooms, I cannot usually tell merely by looking how many exactly
at least, I cannot tell for any number greater than about ten. People
refuse to keep still and be counted. There is my failing eyesight; and,
being no bird, I have no birds eye view. Right now, I can see that
there are about forty people here but whether there be exactly
forty, or forty-two, or thirty-nine etc., who knows.
Puzzling about heaps and everyday perceptions and measurements, I wonder whether in saying the above I promote paradox.1
Before setting out the paradox, let us be reminded that such estimation success, yet accuracy failure, forms no special case. Coarsely
grained perceptually that I am, I certainly cannot tell, merely by
looking, numerous measurements to numerous fine accuracies; but I
can often tell and do often know roughly how things are. (In such
contexts we use can tell that and know that interchangeably.) After
scanning through equity portfolios, I am pretty good at assessing their
approximate value; others are reliable judges of rough heights of
trees, weights of poultry, and even arms lengths when at arms length
and, if it comes to bundles of used fivers, well, some, without prop1. Timothy Williamson, Knowledge and its Limits (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2000) chs 5 and 6 passim, discusses paradoxes resulting from our perceptual inability
to tell how things are exactly. Williamson discusses height and glimpse examples,
from which my about example is derived. We are assuming that the participants can
reason through the forthcoming deductions. Use of paradox and puzzle here indicates some plausible reasoning with a surprising conclusion, one that goes against
commonsense; it is reasoning which, given the conclusion, one assumes to be
aberrant.
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erly counting, have a knack for correctly estimating the total sum
and whether that final flight to Rio is therefore worthwhile.
Such examples involve degrees of perceptual impoverishment and
resultant estimations. Some crave greater accuracy, yet greater accuracy is often unnecessary, even a nuisance: witness Shylocks sticky
moment resulting from Portias demanding precision.2 Often a final
answer (where further accuracy and refinements are impossible) is
chimerical. Decimal places go on without end; our measurements do
not. Glances, estimates and rough calculations give answers that, for
our needs, can be accurate enough and whose other needs are
there? With the Christmas goose on the scales, with little Lizzie
stretching by a crudely chalked wall ruler, and with coins being fingered about four pounds eleven shillings and something in the
purse we acquire truths concerning weights, heights and available
cash.Yes, greater accuracies are often conceivable, even available; but,
for much of day-to-day living, they capture no truths intrinsically
superior to the ones just mentioned. France is hexagonal; and a bread
knife, when sliced bread is needed, is more valuable than the sharpest
of razor blades. Indeed, that there be greater accuracies and sharper
measurements would often be of no great interest, but for the
paradox (now to be addressed) to which they seem to give rise.
We return to my crowded room. Let us ignore possible caveats
concerning how, for example, the individuals desirability and similarities without, or my intoxications within, could affect my perceptual abilities, and how, by special dispensation, I might be permitted
to chalk and number members of a motionless crowd. Take any
crowd numbering about n: if it numbers n exactly, then I cannot tell
by looking that it does not number one more or one less, or two
more or less, and maybe more more or less, etc. (The indeterminacy
suggested by the etc. is of some significance here.) If the number
before me is thirty-nine, I cannot tell that it is not forty. Perceptually impoverished thus, with solely my eyesight to go on and for
the moment, in the forthcoming principle, we assume the caveat of
merely by looking, taking it to include any inferences justified from
2. I owe the Merchant of Venice example to Anthony Kenny. See J. L. Austin for the
imminent hexagonal example from his How To Do Things With Words (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1962) p. 142. The forthcoming knife example derives from
Wittgenstein (told me by Peter Hacker). For Wittgensteins reflections on exactness,
see Philosophical Investigations, 2nd ed., trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell,
1958), Part I 69, 72, 88 and 91.
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that looking I am subject, it seems, to the following principle of

the coarsely grained:3
PCG: For all numbers n, where n is greater than about ten, if the
number present is n, then I cannot tell that the number is not n + 1.

We shall question how this conditional is to be understood, but let

us give it a run for its money as best we can. It merits a run not
least because similar principles are deployed in sorites arguments and
by Timothy Williamson in his discussion of our typical inability to
judge tree heights all that accurately. For the moment being casual
in thinking as well as coarse in seeing I accept the principle.
Recalling that, right now, I can see that there are about forty
people present, I can certainly tell that there are not sixty; so it would
seem to follow, deploying modus tollendo tollens with the PCG, that
there are not fifty-nine. For sake of clarity, here it is.
Premiss One: If there are fifty-nine people present, then I cannot
tell that there are not sixty people present.
Premiss Two: I can tell that there are not sixty people present.
Conclusion One:Therefore, there are not fifty-nine people present.

The conclusion, that there are not fifty-nine people present, I can
certainly tell. I know the principle, can manage the reasoning, and
draw the conclusion. Applying the PCG again, I can therefore tell
that there are not fifty-eight people and so on down the number
line. Reasoning thus, I conclude, after similar moves, that there are
neither forty-eight people present nor forty-seven and so on. We
pass through forty, through thirty and lower. All this started from
my knowing that there are about forty people present. Being unable
to give the exact number was not meant to imply that there exists
no exact number; yet that is the conclusion reached. Paradoxically,
ruling out some exact numbers for the crowd has led me to rule
out even those that I know the crowd might well number. Avoiding any liberationists or Walt Whitmans4 embrace of such contradiction, I assume something has misfired. Such paradoxical reasoning,
of course, can be deployed for other ranges, be they continuous or
ones of discrete individuals.
3. This is one of many principles. We could deploy ones with one less than n or
with two more or less than n, etc., and principles combining such. For simplicity, we
adopt the principle given.
4. He writes in Song of Myself, Do I contradict myself ? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.).
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A putative solution5 to this type of paradox is that, somewhere in

the reasoning, arguers mistakenly assume that, in knowing something,
one knows that one knows it. I am not justified in repeatedly deploying similar modus tollenss to that above; this is because, somewhere,
a conclusion such as Conclusion One does not enable me legitimately to conclude (and hence know) that I know that that conclusion is true. This paper, in section 3, will argue that this type of
solution is implausible. First, let us show how the paradox can be
dispelled without resorting to such a solution.
2.1 The puzzling assumption I
When puzzling at this papers beginning, I was perhaps hasty in
accepting the PCG. Applying the PCG to this case of my knowing
that there are about forty people present, what am I to make of the
claim that, if there are fifty-nine people present, then I do not know
that there are not sixty?6 There is no problem in my accepting it
counterfactually: were there fifty-nine people present, then I should
be unable to tell that there were not sixty; but were there fifty-nine
people present, then I should not be claiming that I could tell that
there were not sixty I should doubtless be telling that there
were about sixty present and so the modus tollens, leading to the
conclusion that there are not fifty-nine people present, would
be unsound: under the supposition of there being fifty-nine people
present, I should not assert Premiss Two. My coarse-grainedness
applies to those numbers within the range that (actually or
counterfactually) I consider the crowd roughly to number. When
discussing what follows regarding what I know about this crowd,
if it numbers what it blatantly does not number, I should feel at a
loss at least if an answer be demanded in terms of yes or no
concerning whether the consequent follows. If someone asks me to
assess the truth of Well, if there are fifty-nine, then you do not know
there are not sixty, my response in ordinary contexts should be of
the order, But there arent sixty! Ive just said they number about
forty or I might consider the counterfactual version above.
This is all very well, it might be replied, but either numbers are
included in your about forty or are not. If they are included, then
5. Williamson advocates this. His examples are third person examples, but his solution is intended to apply to both first and third person reasoning.
6. See section 2.2 below for the interpretation of the conditional materially.
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you accept that PCG applies in such cases; and in the other cases,
the PCG applies counterfactually. In those latter cases, the second
premise need not be considered counterfactually: were there fiftynine, you could not tell that there were not sixty; but, as a matter
of fact, you can tell that there are not sixty; hence you can conclude
that there are not fifty-nine.
The return reply to the above reply is to challenge the assumption that if one knows that there are about forty people present, one
therefore knows how to take PCG for all numbers; but, taken as a
non-material hypothetical, one does not. About forty has indeterminate edges see muddle numbers discussed below (2.2) and
just as in knowing that there are about forty, one is not committed
to specifying exactly which numbers are included and which are not
within the about forty range, so one cannot specify how to take
PCG for numbers in that indeterminate area, when knowing that
there are (in this example) about forty present.
If the PCG is to capture solely coarse-grainedness, it must be read
with the constraints mentioned above. It embraces all numbers of
individuals (an indeterminate number indeed) that I actually (for all
I know) might be seeing, compatible with my knowing about how
many people are present, and it can be taken to cover what I take
to be the counterfactual cases; but it does not apply to the numbers
that I know that I am not seeing, if not considered counterfactually,
and it does not cover the numbers that I do not know how to consider. With regard to the PCG, it is vacuous to be discussing of this
crowd, known by me to be about forty, what I do or do not know
if it does number sixty; thus, the PCG is not true. Concerning
anyone who can tell roughly how many people are present (and
anyone who makes similar perceptually based estimates of other measurements), the relevant principles equivalent to the unrestricted
PCG do not hold. Of course, when I am not seeing the crowd at
all a perceptually limiting case then I should accept the PCG
without restriction; for all I know (from looking), the unknown
crowd could be any number (or any number within a certain range,
determined by context). In those circumstances, I should be in no
position to put forward a Premise Two above and so no sound
modus tollens will go through.
I cannot tell exactly how many people are before me; but it does
not follow that I cannot tell some exact numbers, and adjacent exact
numbers, of people that are not before me. From my knowing that
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the crowd numbers about forty and certainly does not number about
sixty, I can infer that there are not exactly sixty and not exactly fiftynine before me; and I cannot infer that there are exactly forty, and
I cannot infer that there are exactly forty-one. Of course, I might
be uncertain what to say, if someone asks me to apply the PCG to
(say) forty-five; and such a number for me, in this context, would
be what we later designate a muddle number. This hesitation supports the thought that one has no good reason to accept the PCG
without restriction. My not knowing what to say about forty-five is
not accounted for in the same way as my not knowing whether the
number is forty or forty-one. Knowing that there are about forty
people present is, in part, my knowing that the number could be
exactly forty-one or forty-two; but it is also typically to leave me
unsure what to say about certain numbers on the fringes.
2.2 The puzzling assumption II
Yet now I see that perhaps I should take the PCG uncontentiously
(as Williamson arguably contentiously puts it, when discussing such
a principle),7 that is, as a generalized material implication (the GMI),
equivalent to
GMI: For all numbers n, where n is greater than about ten, it is
not the case both that the crowd numbers n individuals and I
know that it does not number n + 1.

As an expression of my coarse-grainedness, if taken generally, this is

far from contentious. As we have seen, my coarse-grainedness is
restricted to the numbers that might apply to a crowd that I perceive, either actually or under certain suppositions, but not thereby
to all numbers. The PCG, suitably restricted, therefore supports the
GMI, only if the GMI is so restricted.
Assuming a particular case for example, the one considered so
far, namely that I know that there are about forty people present
are there any good reasons for accepting the GMI, without the
restrictions found to hold with the PCG? It might well appear that,
if we run through the numbers, case by case, we shall see that the
GMI does hold.
For numbers well away, in this crowd example, from those around
forty, I quickly see that the GM1 readily holds for in telling that
this group is about forty in number, I am ruling out, for example,
7. Op. cit., note 1, p. 115.
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sixty-one and sixty etc. and so I can tell that the first conjunct is
false and hence, truth-table to hand, that the conjunction is false. As
for numbers within my range of about forty, the GM1 is seen easily
to hold; this is because the second conjunct is false. In judging that
there are about forty, and being unable to be more finely grained,
it certainly is not true that I can tell that, for example, there are not
forty-one present; the GMI tracks my coarse-grainedness here. The
mistake is to think that these two considerations cover all numbers
greater than about ten. Where the shoe pinches is with the fringe
numbers, the numbers middling between the central cases covered
by about and those clearly away from the about range. Yet, where
these fringe numbers are involved, shall we not discover that we must
still accept that the GMI holds because the second conjunct will
indeed be false with such numbers?
2.3 Muddle numbers
Those numbers middling, or muddling, between the central cases
covered by about and those clearly away from the about range are
to be termed the muddle numbers not least because they muddle.
Let us clear away one consideration. Were I to have a determinate edge to my aboutness range, to the fringes if, for example,
about forty is equivalent to either thirty-eight or thirty-nine or
forty or forty-one or forty-two then I should have no muddle
numbers, and I should not accept the GM1 for some cases (in this
example, when the crowd numbers forty-two). Were such disjunctive determinateness to hold, then when I know that there are about
forty people present and hence allow for the possibility that there
are forty-two, I yet know that there are not forty-three. So, I should
be able to tell a difference of just one and specify it: the number in
front of me might well be forty-two, yet I can tell that it is not
forty-three.8 This, arguably, ought not to be so, given my basic perceptual coarseness. Let us assume there to be no such determinate
edges.
With no determinate edges, there are muddle numbers. Should I
not be able to fix once and for all, in a particular case, where the
line is between muddle numbers and clear numbers? No, for this
8. Note that this response of how there might well be forty-two differs from the
responses later on, where I hesitate over quite what to say about the GMI when
applied to a muddle and non-muddle number.
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would be to reintroduce determinate boundaries. My ability to tell

only that that the number of people present is about forty rules out
(in many cases, though not in all) a determinate answer to questions
about, say, forty-five. Which numbers are muddle numbers varies
with contexts and degrees of coarse-grainedness. The correct use of
about does not fix determinate boundaries; and the person who
knows that there are about forty people present is typically under
no obligation to say exactly which numbers are covered; and when
he encounters the sorites challenge, which numbers he is unsure
about might well change.9
If asked whether the GMI applies, when n is a muddle number,
I should intuitively respond with varying hesitations or bewilderments.10 It is a mistake to think that I must give an answer one way
or another; it is a mistake to think that I must accept the GMI.11 In
judging that there are about forty people present, I need not have
already determined where I should hesitate, if confronted with the
challenge of the GMI for various numbers. And if, when initially
announcing that the crowd numbers about forty, I leave it open what
to say about (say) forty-five to forty-seven, that need not commit
me to displaying no hesitation until forty-seven is reached, when
subsequently led through the sorites reasoning, down from sixty.
This appeal to hesitation might smack of prevarication. Once any
hesitation sets in, someone might insist, that is good evidence that
the second conjunct in the instance of the GMI is false (rather than
its being the case that I do know that the crowd is not a certain
number, but do not know that I know); and so the overall negative
conjunction is true. When there is no hesitation and I do know the
second conjunct is true, then must it not be that the first conjunct
is false? Well, let us see. To set the scene, let us consider first a non9. Of course, there are contexts and contexts: if a bet with high stakes were being
considered concerning whether there are about forty people present, participants
might be well advised to set boundaries.
10. Many paradoxes give rise to such hesitations and bewilderments, of course. For
a discussion of some more paradoxes and hesitations, see my Humour and Paradox
Laid Bare, The Monist, 88.1 (2005).
11. For a persuasive approach, concerning heap versions of sorites arguments, stressing the importance of hesitation and resistance to being brow beaten into answering, see O. Hanfling,What Is Wrong With Sorites Arguments?, Analysis, 61.1 (2001),
pp. 2935. For earlier comments on the nature of sorites-type arguments and the
fallacy of continuous questioning, see John Neville Keynes, Studies and Exercises in
Formal Logic, 4th ed. (London: Macmillan, 1906), pp. 3712.
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muddle case (the NMC), where both numbers are non-muddle, with
the relevant modus tollens.
NMC:
It is not the case both that there are fifty people present and that
I know that there are not fifty-one people present.
I know that there are not fifty-one people present.
Therefore, there are not fifty people present.

Assuming that I am not appealing to the PCG, I know the NMCs

first premise only because I already know, from what I can see (and,
maybe, also from a previous modus tollens), that there are not fifty
people present (fifty-one and fifty being both taken as non-muddle
numbers). I know that there are about forty people present; and from
what I can see fifty is ruled out. We can hence even doubt the sense
of the NMC as a good inference. To see its curiosity, let us spell it
out more fully:
There are not fifty people present.
Therefore, it is not the case that both there are fifty people present
and I know that there are not fifty-one people present.
I know that there are not fifty-one people present.
Therefore, there are not fifty people present.

One can hardly correctly be said to have inferred p from p.12 Still,
I accept the conclusion as known by me.
Perhaps forty-nine is where I start to hesitate and do not
announce that clearly there are not forty-nine people present: so let
us consider the GMI application that is one step down from the one
above, namely, one containing forty-nine and fifty (where forty-nine
is a muddle number and fifty is a non-muddle number), a
Muddle/Non-Muddle Case:
M/NMC:
It is not the case both that there are forty-nine people present and
that I know that there are not fifty people present.
I know that there are not fifty people present.
Therefore there are not forty-nine people present.

Now, why should I accept the negative conjunctive premiss of this

argument? I cannot appeal to the GMI; I am trying to establish the
GMI. I know that there are not fifty people present (from what I
12. An expression of this point is found in W. E. Johnson, Logic vol. II (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1922) pp. 89.
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can see). If I am to accept the overall negative conjunction, it must

be because I accept that the first conjunct is false; but why should
I accept that? That is precisely one of the things about which I am
hesitating over which I am abstaining. I hum and haw about it;
and so, at that stage I do not accept the GMI applied to this fortynine/fifty instance. Of course, that humming and hawing might then
infect my previous certainty over fifty, which I might then revisit. If
so, I might change my mind about the GMI for forty-nine/fifty, but
I should then have no good reason to accept it for fifty/fifty-one or
further along the scale. Whatever toing and froing here whatever
the degree of dynamism in such cases and whatever the toing and
froings extensiveness, I have no good reason to accept the GMI for
all cases. Let us remind ourselves that this abstention concerning the
truth of the GMI, a contrived conjunction, is no abstention concerning our perceptual coarse-grainedness. It is worth noting that
we are, indeed, probably abstaining rather than rejecting outright the
GMI.13 Either way, the important point is that we have no good
reason to accept it.
It might be responded that if I do hesitate in denying that there
are forty-nine people present, then my claim to know that there are
about forty people present is poorly grounded. That would be a
curious response: the very use of about typically presents such
muddle numbers, such hesitations and such dynamism. To rule them
out, if someone is to know that there are about so many people
present, is to insist that knowing that something is about so many
in number must deliver the same sort of information as knowing
that something is exactly so many.That I am able to tell the approximate number of people present has a use and can be checked
in various circumstances. I order sufficient boots, escorts, or wine
glasses, for example or an appropriate number of taxis to take
guests home. That I possess such about knowledge might be subsequently verified, even though it is unlikely to deliver precision.
(Some wine glasses will be left over.) Of course, I shall sometimes
be mistaken. I might not know what I thought I knew about how
many people roughly were present; yet I might well be correct in
13. For the importance of abstaining, see Laurence Goldstein, The Fallacy of the
Simple Question Analysis, 53.3 (1993), pp. 178181; and Hanfling, op. cit., note 11.
Of course, in some areas of sliding for example, changing a speed limit by 0.1 of
a mile would make no perceptible difference one can just decide on a boundary;
but that is because some boundary is needed.
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my knowledge that the crowd numbers nothing like (for example)

ninety and it is that which could, of course, still trigger the sorites
reasoning and its unhappy outcome, if not justifiably blocked.
I have no reason to accept the GMI; and hence the pathway to
paradox is closed. However, reflecting further, if I do not accept
M/NMCs first premise, am I not accepting that compatible with
my knowing that there are about forty people present is there being
forty-nine people present and my knowing that there are not fifty
people present? The response again would be one of hesitation:
knowing that there are about forty people present might well leave
it open what to say, if challenged the sorites way about hesitations
arising at (say) forty-nine, yet there being no (initial) hesitation over
fifty. About knowledge neither demands answers in advance of
where hesitations would start, if confronted with sorites inquisitions,
nor fixity in the answers. Hesitations, mind-changes instabilities
are how things are, when about knowledge confronts such
inquisitions.
2.4 Cross-dressings
The charge might now be that we have been cheating. Perhaps the
plausibility of our abstention concerning, or rejection of, the GMI
derives from our particular example, one that concerns discrete
medium size bulky objects people. Non-acceptance of the GMI
becomes utterly implausible, once we consider cases where measurements can be in terms of very small intervals. In order to respond
to this charge, we turn to a height example, with a relevant background that establishes a suitable perceptual impoverishment. Merely
by looking, I can tell that the tree before me is about forty feet high.
I can see that it clearly is not sixty feet high; perhaps I start to hesitate when it is suggested to me that maybe it is forty-five or so feet
high. Obviously I am unable to tell, merely by looking, the height
of a tree to the nearest thousandth of a foot.14 An instance of the
GMI, amended for my perception of the tree height, is the
following:
TH: It is not the case both that the tree is 45.999 feet high and
that I know that it is not 46.000 feet high.

14. Of course, what counts as the exact height of a swaying and growing tree generates it own questions. Exact need not be exactly applied.
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The GMI, modified for tree sightings, is clearly true, say, when we
are taking particular heights around fifty feet and around forty feet,
but what happens when we reach such muddle/non-muddle
numbers, as maybe in the TH instance above? Perhaps I am prepared
to insist that certainly the tree is not 46.000 feet high, but would
that sit comfortably with my hesitation at 45.999? A respondent
would reasonably be incredulous. You mean, you know that it is not
46.000 feet high, yet you are unsure about 45.999 feet high? The
difference of one thousandth of a foot can affect you in that way?
We need to attend to the caveat mentioned earlier concerning
merely by seeing: we allowed ourselves to speak of what we can
infer from our seeing. A can of worms would no doubt be opened,
if we sought to identity firm boundaries between exactly what is
seen in any particular case as opposed to what is inferred from that
seeing. In our examples, though, our judgements, on the basis of
what we perceive, and some background customs regarding judging
in terms of round numbers, are naturally dressed in terms of (for
example) about forty people present and nothing like sixty or
about forty feet high and not about fifty feet high. Yet, the PCG
and GMI seek far more exact dressings for our perceptions. The
about dressings allow some translation into exact dressings: my
knowledge that the tree is nothing like sixty-feet high permits me
to infer that it is not 59.999 feet high and not 59.998 but not to
continue such inferrings without restraint. That I can see that the
tree is about forty feet high permits me to infer that it could be
40.000 or 40.001 etc. but these inferrings also cannot continue
without restraint. My about perceptions can be crossed-dressed in
some exact clothing, but not comprehensively so not such that
every exact case has a place in the about space.
The demand that the GMI-type principle should hold throughout is a demand that about perceptions be determinately dressed by
exact. Yet the logic of about and exact differ. By way of simple
examples, if the crowd numbers exactly forty, then it does not
number exactly forty-one; but if the crowd is about forty, then it is
also about forty-one and about forty-two, but not thereby about
further numbers, increasing by one. Perhaps the curiosity of TH is
seen if we spell out its background assumption:
TH (expanded): From the fact that I can tell by seeing only that
the tree is about forty feet high, and nothing like sixty or fifty
feet high etc., it follows that it is not the case both that the tree
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is 45.999 feet high and that I know, by seeing and my inferences

from what I see, that it is not 46.000 feet high.

Now, when I can tell only that the tree is about forty feet high and
nothing like sixty, things are typically left open concerning about
forty-five and similar about applications; and, hence, things are left
open what to say about (say) 45.999. People will disagree in particular cases; and their disagreements will vary with contexts, questionings and significance and even decisions to be made.
To the response, But, you claim that you know that the tree is
not 46.000 feet high; so, your hesitation over 45.999 suggests you
can tell such a difference by mere sight, the counter response should
be that it is not merely a matter of what I see but of what I can
legitimately infer from what I can see and how far I am prepared to
infer. Looking at a tree I cannot simply tell whether it is 45.999 feet
high or 46.000 feet high; and, if I can tell that it is about forty feet
high, then there are some gaps inference gaps in what I am prepared to infer regarding height measurements and, indeed, in what
can be justifiably inferred. This results from the use of about
together with what I can see. I know that something is about n feet
(in height, say); that typically permits inferences to the proposition
that the item might be exactly n feet, and to the proposition that it
might be (n + 0.001) feet and we could cite many such propositions. Typically also permitted are some inferences to the proposition
that the item is not 2n feet and not (2n 0.001) feet and here
we could also cite many such propositions.15 That something is about
n feet does not determine, for every number j, legitimate inferences
either to the proposition that the item might be (n + j) feet or to
the proposition that it is not (n + j) feet; it also does not permit
endless iterations of such inferences, where j is small. Knowing that
something is nothing like 2n feet in height does not commit one to
the inferences taking one all the way down. Knowing, by sight and
inference, what things are about and what things are nothing like
affords no justification for accepting TH (expanded) for all cases; and
insistence, more generally, that the GMI holds for all numbers is a
failure to recognize such inference gaps. Such inference gaps do not
occur because I can tell, simply by seeing, that (for example) the tree
is not 46.000 feet high as opposed to 45.999, but because what I
15. Obviously, in this example, one can continue adding to 2n.
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see (and my way of describing such) justifies my assessment that the

tree is not about fifty feet high and that about knowledge permits
only some inferences and reiterations to be made before hesitations
and instabilities set in.
This has shown, it might be acknowledged, that I have no reason
to accept the GMI, but might not the GMI yet be true? The answer
is: it depends on the particular case. To return to the simple crowd
example, if there are forty-one people, but I merely know that there
are about forty people present, then as it transpires applied to
this case the GMI holds true; but, of course, I do not know that this
is a case where forty-one people are present. Use of about generates muddle numbers and if I am in circumstances where (unbeknownst to me, of course) the number before me is a muddle
number, then the GMI might not hold and even if it does hold, I
should have no reason to think it does. Once I know the exact
number, then I should, of course, treat the relevant GMI differently.
The underlying generator of the paradox is the conflict between
two assumptions: I know only that the crowd (or whatever) is about
n in number; and I cannot discriminate between the crowd (or whatever) being m in number and its being m + j in number, where j is
some suitably chosen small number.The first assumption is (wrongly)
taken to imply that there is a number k which permits the about
n being satisfied, yet also a number k + j which would show that
about n was not satisfied; and this implies that I can discriminate,
contrary to the second assumption. Our resolution of the paradox
has been to reject that implication. The logic or use of about fixes
no such k.16
Even if such indeterminacies, such muddle numbers, allow for
individuals to know that a tree is about n feet high, without being
able to specify boundaries, some might claim that those individuals
will not typically know that they know. We might reasonably reject
the claim. When individuals express the fact that they know that the

16. Here is a further paradoxical thought. Suppose we have no concept of a finer

measurement for some items. For example, we accept that people know that lengths
are so and so in terms of, say, millimetres and no thought is given to the possibility of greater accuracy. A discovery comes about (more powerful magnifiers) that
introduces finer discriminations, allowing us now to run through the modus tollenss.
Would this paradoxically show that now we no longer know what we once knew?
Or that we never really knew in the first place?
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tree is about forty feet high, and express uncertainty what to say
with regard to, say, 44.002 feet, it is not at all clear why, if they are
right in their judgement of about forty feet the tree is (say) fortyone feet high we should insist that, even though they know it is
about forty, they do not know that they know, or that they really
know that it is not 44.002 feet, but do not know that they know
this. What more would we expect from them? If the answer is that
we should expect no hesitation at 44.002 or similar, then the answer
is rejecting the correct understanding of knowing that something is
about n feet high. It looks as if the demand has now become a
demand for knowledge of the exact height or knowledge of a determinate disjunctive height. Knowledge that something is about n
feet in height, or about n in number, differs from such determinate
knowledge.17
3.1 Williamsons puzzling solution
Williamson accepts the GMI and so he needs a different solution to
the type of puzzle outlined in this paper. The above shows, I hope,
that we have no reason to accept the GMI. Let us consider how
implausible are Williamsons own paradox diagnosis and resolution.
If I follow Williamsons diagnosis,18 then, following his diagnosis
and applying it to the crowd example, my mistake is to think that
given that I know that there are not n people present, it follows that
I know that I know that there are not n people present. There is, of
course, a problem in my expressing that I might both know something and yet not know that I know. As Williamson points out, if I
know the conjunction that I know that p and that I do not know
that I know that p, then it follows (from knowing the first conjunct)
that I do know that I know that p; and hence I contradict myself
in also holding the second conjunct. If I express the conjunction, I
therefore express a contradiction; but that I am loath to do. Typically, there is no problem in my saying of myself that I knew that
p, yet did not know that I knew that p; there is no problem in others
saying of Peter that he both knows that p and does not know that
17. When I talk about language (words, sentences, etc.) I must speak the language
of every day. Is this language somehow too coarse and material for what we want
to say? Then how is another one to be constructed? And how strange that we should
be able to do anything at all with the one we have! Wittgenstein, op. cit., note 2,
Part I, 120.
18. Op. cit., note 1, p. 119.
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he knows that p; and there is no problem in others constructing the

following (sound) modus tollens concerning me:19
If there are fifty-nine people present, then Peter does not know
that there are not sixty people present.
Peter does know that there are not sixty people present.
Therefore, there are not fifty-nine people present.

This argument, in the third person about Peter, leads us down no

paradoxical pathway. Although arguers conclude that there are not
fifty-nine people present, for the argument to continue with similar
modus tollenss and resultant paradox they need the premise that
Peter knows that there are not fifty-nine people present rather than
the conclusion so far reached. From the argument alone, the arguers
lack that required premise for the next modus tollens; and so, it is
claimed, Peter lacks the required premise (at least at some stage), if
he runs through the argument in the first person. Now, it is true
that the arguers, as so far described, lack the required premise; but
it is not thereby true of Peter that he lacks his required premise (and
we are accepting Williamsons assumption, that Peter knows the
GMI). If he is in a position whereby he can put forward the argument himself, with seeming paradox, others need to take that into
account and not be cloth-eared to the argument he expresses. Let
us, then, first of all see how the argument runs in the first person.
3.2 First person inferring I
For the first person argument to be soundly delivered, with a conclusion that the first person arguer (Peter, in this case) can then use
to move into the next modus tollens heading him towards paradox,
he needs to know, by way of conclusion, that he knows that there
are not fifty-nine people present. It is such iterated knowledge that
meets with Williamsons rebuff. Here is the (seemingly) equivalent
argument to the above in the first person again:
19. G. E. Moore highlighted a first and third person divergence in cases of believing and knowing, stimulating Wittgensteins discussion of the special features of
certain first person present tense locutions and the peculiarity of I falsely believe.
See G. E. Moore, Selected Writings, ed. Thomas Baldwin (London: Routledge, 1993)
pp. 207212; L. Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, trans. P. Winch (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980) p. 87; and op. cit., note 2, Part II x. For my later reference to first person
claims being felicitous, see Austin, op. cit., note 2, Lecture XI. For other first person
and third person divergencies, see, for example, my Too Self-fulfilling, Analysis, 61.2
(2001), pp. 14146.
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If there are fifty-nine people present, then I do not know that

there are not sixty people present.
I do know that there are not sixty people present.
Therefore, there are not fifty-nine people present.

It is undeniable that I could put forward this argument, given that I

am seeing that there are about forty people present and given
that I accept my coarse-grainedness (and we are now pretending that
I accept the GMI). In putting forward the argument, I express the
premisses as known by me; and, by drawing the conclusion, I express,
as known by me, that there are not fifty-nine people present.20 Of
course, I might not know what I express as known by me; but if I am
not mistaken and convoluted deviant causal chain stories to one side
is it possible for me to be sincerely expressing that conclusion as
known by me and yet somehow not be knowing that that conclusion
is known by me? And, if I am mistaken and I do not know what I
think I know, is it possible for me to be sincerely expressing that
conclusion as known by me and yet somehow not be expressing
(wrongly, as it transpires) that I know that conclusion is known by
me? The answers are no. The answers might be no because,
somewhere in these arguments, I cannot draw a distinction that
does indeed exist between two different states, namely knowing and
knowing that I know (in the present tense, where I am expressing
what I know as known) and this seems to be Williamsons position
but it might be because, in these cases of such arguments, where I,
wittingly and sincerely, express that p as known by me, there is no
such distinction to draw between states. We argue for the latter.
I can easily recognize that I once knew things that I did not know
that I knew. I can rightly judge that in the future there will be things
that I know, yet I shall not then know that I know them. Further,
someone might point out to me now that I know something that I
do not know myself as knowing; and I might surprise myself because,
all by myself, I might come to realize that I know something that I
had not thought that I knew. I might even now express something
that I know and yet not know that I am expressing something that
I know. None of this is in doubt. What is being doubted is that I
20. When asserting that p, one typically puts forward that p as known by one. Moore
suggests this, op. cit., note 19, p. 211; and the line has been developed by Williamson,
op. cit., note 1, ch. 11. For those sceptical that assertions carry knowledge rather than
belief suggestions, we could construct arguments concerning belief, generating similar
first and third person divergences.
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can typically be in position whereby I consciously and sincerely

express that p as known by me (as in consciously drawing a conclusion from premisses known by me) and p is known by me
and yet there be some further distinct state rightly characterized as
my knowing that I know that p, but one such that I am not in that
state. Indeed, observers of my firm expression of my knowledge that
p, as knowledge, would have no good reason, in such circumstances,
to think that I knew yet did not know that I knew.
When I express that p as known by me, there typically is no use
for a distinction between my knowing that p and my knowing that
I know that p, if the distinction is meant to be one of different states.
There is no use for such a distinction; and there is no distinction
in such cases. My (appropriate) response to questioners who ask
whether I know that I know whatever it is that I express myself as
knowing is to take the questioners to be asking me to reconsider
my grounds or to justify my authority regarding the matter about
which I claim to know. I might then provide the evidence for what
I said I knew, or justify my authoritative position, or search for even
stronger evidence; or I might start wondering whether I do know,
but if I do start wondering, my doubts are doubts about, for example,
the evidence for that p, or whether I am in a position to claim that
I know that p. If the questioners object that I am confusing considering whether I know that p with the separate question of
whether I know that I know that p, I should feel some bewilderment. In a moment of exasperation or high excitement in the face
of these questioners, such that I am led to claim that I do indeed
know that I know that p, no meta-knowledge of that p is being proclaimed merely a strong commitment to my authoritative position
with regard to that p and its truth. If questioners continue to challenge me, I should end up thinking them playful philosophers or
serious sceptics or something much worse.
In the case under discussion, of my seeing that there are about
forty people present and being able to tell that there are not sixty
people present, if challenged about whether I know that I know
these matters, I might double-check, but there is no reason to think
that I cannot conclude that I am right to stay with the expression
of my knowledge that there are about forty people present and not
sixty people present, as knowledge possessed by me; and (pretending
still that I accept the GMI) the modus tollens leads me to express my
knowledge that there are not fifty-nine people present, a knowledge
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which I can then use to set me off with another modus tollens, concluding there are not fifty-eight people present and so forth.
Once due heed is paid to an argument being expressed in the
first person, it can be seen that the Williamson style of approach to
solving our little about puzzle is, at least, open to question. I can
tell that there are not sixty people present and it follows that there
are not fifty-nine people present which I also can tell and, given
the GMI, it looks as if modus tollens can be unhappily repeated, the
paradoxical outcome assured for me. It is true that the arguers about
Peter, who propounded the third person argument, generated no
paradox; but were they to witness my expressing the first person
argument (wittingly and sincerely), know my circumstances, and
witness my continuing in sorites fashion, they should be in no good
position to insist that I do not know what it is that I claim to know
and what I express as known by me, and so they should not, for that
reason, ignore my paradoxical reasoning. Of course, because I find
the argument paradoxical, I shall hesitate and not end up propounding all the modus tollenss, but this is not to be explained in
terms of my mistaking knowing that p with knowing that I know
that p. It is to be explained by the fact that the GMI should not be
accepted as true for all cases and that it is not readily accepted as
true in all cases.
3.3 First person inferring II
Bearing in mind the distinctiveness of first person present tense
expressions of knowledge, we see how an argument invalid in the
third person can run validly (or at least it can run well) in the first.
Here is one (we are assuming that the premises can be accepted, for
the sake of making this point):
If there are fifty-nine people present, then I do not know that
there are not sixty people present.
There are not sixty people present.
Therefore, there are not fifty-nine people present.

In propounding the argument, I assert the second premise and

hence express as known by me something that the first premise
denies if the crowd numbers fifty-nine; and, in drawing the conclusion, I am expressing something as known by me. Putting the argument forward in the first person maybe paradoxically can be to
give a good argument which, if put forward in the third person, with
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no further adjustment, is clearly invalid and bad.21 Putting the argument forward (such that it is valid) requires that I do express the
second premise as known by me, so some might baulk at valid being
ascribed to the argument. Let us, then, be happy, if it is so demanded,
to lose the accolade of valid; let us make do with good. The arguments goodness does indeed depend, in part, on whether the second
premise is expressed as known by the first person arguer; and its
soundness also requires, concerning the second premise, not just the
truth of the second premise but that it be expressed as known by
the first-person arguer and, indeed, that the expression be felicitous
(for example, the arguer is not lying).
In putting forward the argument, I express my knowledge that
there are not sixty people present by asserting the second premises
(in the right context), yet I do not thereby state that I possess that
knowledge. By expressing that knowledge, I can legitimately draw
the conclusion given. This argument, therefore, has a curious form,
one that merits further investigation. First, the argument requires first
person delivery. Secondly, its goodness depends on the second
premise being asserted as known. Thirdly, if a corresponding truthfunctional conditional is constructed for the argument, we should
have one with the structure, If (if p, then I do not know that q) and
q, then not-p which is no tautology.This last curiosity arises because
the correct understanding of an assertion of that q in an argument
does not thereby carry over into a correct understanding of that q
when embedded within a conditional. That is not, of course, to say
that there will be no common content between the propositions of
the argument and the propositions composing the corresponding
conditional.22

4. Concluding
Often we can tell how things roughly are without telling how they
are in more finely tuned ways. We know that the goats weight is
21. One could insist that the argument is enthymematic, with the suppressed
premise, I know that there are not sixty people present, but this would still suggest
a difference between the first person and third person arguments.
22. For an early awareness of this now well-known point, see W. E. Johnson, op. cit,
note 12. See P. T. Geach, Assertion, in his Logic Matters (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
1972) pp. 254269, for much more and his typical and exhilarating robustness.
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around nine stone, that Esmeraldas age is about fifty and that the
hangover will clear in approximately two hours time. Indeed, even
without the rough caveat, in many contexts if claiming to know the
weight, the age, and the time, we are still taken as right and knowing,
if, respectively, what we claim is within a few pounds, years and
minutes of how things are. Acknowledgement of clear cases of such
knowledge cohabits with indeterminacy at the fringes. It would be
paradoxical indeed if such knowledge turned out to be illusory
because of our crowd puzzle.
Williamson has promoted awareness both of such approximate
knowledge and of resultant puzzles, of which our puzzling crowd
example is merely derivative.23 If our identification of a distinctive
first person inferring is right, then minimally Williamsons own
approach to solving the puzzles needs overhaul; and such puzzles
should not be seen as providing good reasons to challenge relevant
knowledge iterations. They can be seen to result from a misunderstanding of principles such as the PCG and GMI. More generally,
there is lurking an unjustified imposition of a finer grain dressing
upon perceptions when only the coarsely grained suit. While it is
tempting to quip that the resolution to such puzzles is that never
the grains should meet, for this paper at least some greater accuracy
is required: the puzzles dissolution, promoted here, is through attending to how the two types of grain often fail to meet. In the case of
about and more accurate dressings, never the twain shall wholly or
precisely meet.24
23. Williamson sees similarities between these puzzles, in particular, the glimpse
ones, and the Surprise Examination. If this papers approach to our crowd puzzle is
right, then the puzzling glimpses will also be similarly dissolved.The Surprise Examination is a different matter, an approach to a resolution of which is found in my
Reeling and A-Reasoning: Surprise Examinations and Newcombs Tale, Philosophy
79 (2004) pp. 609616. Perhaps it should be explicitly noted that this paper does
not address and does not purport to address Williamsons other arguments concerning iterated knowledge and anti-luminosity (op. cit. note 1, ch. 4).
24. My thanks go to Ardon Lyon, Laurence Goldstein, Michael Clark, Ossie Hanfling and Pippa Allison for surviving various meanderings of mine on this topic.
Especial gratitude is due to the uncomplaining Ardon for detailed comments and
thoughts on earlier drafts of this paper while, unbeknownst to him, new drafts and
mind changes were forever being explored. I should hasten to add that I have no
good reason to believe that any of these sufferers of my mullings agree with my
conclusions; and I sometimes wonder whether I do. As John Maynard Keynes writes,
A Treatise on Probability (London: Macmillan, 1921), p. 427, . . . the author must, if
he is to put his point of view clearly, pretend sometimes to a little more conviction
than he feels.
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13 Meard Street
Soho
London W1F 0ES
pc@petercave.com

OSWALD HANFLING (19272005)

When reading through the above papers proofs, I heard the
extremely sad news of the sudden and unexpected death of Oswald
Hanfling. Ossie, as his friends knew him, was an inspiration to
numerous students and colleagues at the Open University, and far
more widely in Britain, on the continent, and further still.
I first became acquainted with Ossie in the early 1980s and, in
recent times, became a friend of both his and his wife, Helga. I learnt
much.
Ossie was a fine philosopher, someone who did much to promote
careful analyses and attention to ordinary language in dealing with
both the grand and the humble of philosophical puzzles. A native
German speaker, Ossie arrived in Britain in the late 1930s, initially
learning English from the Beano. His perfect English and German
fitted well with his great interest in, admiration for, and meticulous
work on, the later Wittgenstein.
Descriptions of Ossie that come to mind are: extremely kind,
reliable and thoughtful; a man of integrity, widely read a gentle
gentleman, yet a philosopher tenacious in argument, allowing no
wooliness to befuddle without challenge.
I, and many others, delighted in Ossie: we delighted in his perceptiveness, his quietly spoken words on philosophy, on the world;
we delighted in his wonderful dry sense of humour.
Someone once commented that a paper he gave had an edge.
Well, actually, it has four, was his reply.
Ossie much admired the unblemished simplicity of A. E.
Housmans poetry; he was intending to read him again.
There, in the windless night-time,
The wanderer, marvelling why,
Halts on the bridge to hearken
How soft the poplars sigh.

Peter Cave
2006 The Author