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The knowledge argument

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Presentation on theme: "The knowledge argument"— Presentation transcript:

1 The knowledge argument
Frank Jackson: knowledge of physical reality does not on its own add up to knowledge of mental reality. Example of far future neuroscientist, Mary.

2 Thomas Nagel’s example: Bats
Science gives us only the objective, third-person facts about any phenomenon, leaving aside any aspect tied to a particular point of view. It is only from the particular, subjective point of view of a bat that a bat’s experiences can be understood. Mateialistic scientific accounts must necessarily be inadequate to capture all the facts about a bat’s consciousness.

3 Responses to the knowledge argument
First person phenomena & Third person phenomena Information, Knowledge & Wisdom Is the analysis of experience from outside and from inside, identical? No, that is intuitively implausible.

4 Paul Churchland’s criticism
Russellean distinction between ‘knowldege by acquintance’ and ‘knowledge by description’.

5 Response to Paul Churchland
Russell himself advocated for indirect realism on the theory of perception. The rejection of Russell’s distinction insist that knowledge by acquaintance does not involve knowledge of non-physical qualia. Otherwise, there will be a problem of begging the question.

6 David Lewis’s response:
New knowledge of Mary is knowledge of new abilities: knowledge of how to do something rather than knowledge that something is the case.

7 Robert van Gulick’ suggestion:
If Mary, having learned a new concept after leaving the room, is thereby also able to learn a new concept after leaving the room, is thereby also able to learn a new proposition, it would not follow that the fact that proposition describes is a fact she didn’t already know.

8 Fact Fact as information and fact as knowledge Information, knowledge and wisdom: the hierarchy


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