AN EPISTEMOLOGICAL INQUIRY INTO KNOWLEDGE ASSERTION AND HUMAN ACTION
Human beings engage in different activities daily, the consequences of such activities either attracts praise or blame – the judgment can be an evaluation of the rationality or morality of the action involved. It is common belief among individuals that actions – potential or actual – are often warranted on the basis of knowledge available to the agent. Hence, people ordinarily would refrain from acting in situations where they are epistemically positioned well enough to know that their action will not produce the expected result. Also, in evaluating the action of others, we apportion blames or praise based on how well positioned a subject is to the proposition that warranted their action. This attitude guides our behaviour in the possible prediction and explanation of the action of an agent. Since we are involved in the business of predicting, explaining and passing verdict on the actions of others, this paper tries to critically examine the connection that knowledge assertion might bear to action. The paper further contends that assertoric utterances are not knowledge based, and as such, people do not act because they know that their action is the thing to do – given their situation. Instead, humans act because they are convinced that their action is the thing to do – given their situation.
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