Mind: 18. The Knowledge Argument

Question 1

Who comes up with the Knowldge argument?

Answer 1

Frank Jackson

Question 2

Explain Mary’s situtation in the room.

Answer 2

• Mary is a neuroscientist specialising in colour vision.
  -She knows all the physical facts about the physiology of the eye and nervous system, how light waves are received, processed, and interpreted by the brain. She knows exactly how we see colour.
  Clarification By ‘all the physical facts’ = all the facts that a completed physics and neuroscience would discover and all the facts about how things function entailed by those facts.
• Mary has lived her entire life in a black and white room and has never seen any colour

Question 3

What does Frank Jackson think she learns when she leaves the room.

Answer 3

-Mary learns what it is like (for humans) to
see red.
-This aspect of visual experience – the’ ‘what-it’s-like-ness’ – is sometimes called the ‘phenomenal property’ of the experience..

Question 4

How may we explain a phenominal fact.

Answer 4

• When Mary sees the tomato, she learns a new
  ‘phenomenal’ fact
• Phenomenal facts are often difficult to describe.
  Sometimes we just have to point to them, e.g. ‘seeing red has this phenomenal property’ or ‘having toothache has this phenomenal property’

Question 5

Outline Frank Jackson’s knowledge argument for property dualism.

Answer 5

P1. If Physicalism is true, then all the facts are physical facts
P2. In her black and white room, Mary knows all the physical facts
P3. When Mary sees the tomato, she learns a new fact: “seeing red has this phenomenal property in humans”
P4. Some facts are not physical facts
C. Therefore Physicalism is false

Question 6

Define ablity knowldge.

Answer 6

Knowing ‘how’ to do something, e.g. ‘I know how to ride a bike’

Question 7

Define Acquaintance knowledge.

Answer 7

Knowledge of someone or something gained by direct experience (not description), e.g. ‘I know the
manager of the restaurant’ or ‘I know the colour red’

Question 8

Define Propositional knowledge.

Answer 8

Know ‘that’ some claim – a proposition- is true or false, e.g. ‘I know that Paris is the capital of France.

Question 9

Outline the knowledge/Mary argument for property dualism [5 marks]

Answer 9

Frank Jackson’s knowledge argument can be used to support property dualism (the theory that while only physical substance exists, there are two ontologically fundamental kinds of properties- physical properties and phenomenal properties of consciousness which are not reducible to nor supervenient on physical properties). Jackson presents the thought experiment of Mary the neuroscientist who has lived her entire life in a black and white room.
P1. If Physicalism is true, then all the facts are physical facts.
P2. In her black and white room, Mary knows all the physical facts.
P3. When Mary sees the tomato, she learns a new fact: “seeing red has this phenomenal property in humans”
P4. Some facts are not physical facts (some facts are phenomenal facts).
C. Therefore Physicalism is false.
If physicalism is false, this means that not everything that exists is physical or supervenes on the physical. This would then support property dualism’s claim that phenomenal propertiesof consciousness are not reducible to physical properties nor do they supervene on physical properties.

Question 10

What are the Three main objections to the knowledge argument?

Answer 10

1. New ability knowledge + no new propositional knowledge (Lewis)
2. New acquaintance + old fact
3. New description + old fact
   All 3 objections want to explain why we think Mary learns something new in a way that is plausible and consistent with Physicalism

Question 11

Explain the New ability knowledge + no new propositional knowledge (Lewis) objection to the knowledge argument.

Answer 11

Mary gains NEW ability knowledge, e.g. to imagine
seeing red, to recognise red things as red, to recall
seeing red

Question 12

Explain the response that Mary DOES gain
propositional knowledge! to objection that Mary only gains new ability knowledge + no new propositional knowledge (Lewis).

Answer 12

• Suppose that Mary wonders whether what it’s like for others to see red is the same as what it’s like
  for her…
• She is wondering about the truth of a proposition here not her ability to do something

Question 13

Explain how we may respond to Mary gains New ability knowledge + no new propositional knowledge (Lewis) through the ability to imagine seeing red is neither necessary nor sufficient for knowing what it’s like to see red

Answer 13

It’s not necessary: you can know what it’s like to see red without being able to imagine red (e.g. the part of your brain which allows you to imagine colour has been disabled but then you see a tomato – you will now know what it’s like to see red.
It’s not sufficient: someone with an incredible ability to imagine colours might be able to imagine a shade of
red (burgundy) between plum red and tomato red but until they actually see the colour burgundy, they don’t know what it’s like to see burgundy.

Question 14

Explain the objection to Mary’s knowldge argument that Mary only gains New acquaintance + old fact.

Answer 14

Mary gains NEW acquaintance knowledge and becomes directly aware of red.
Two stages to this explanation:
1. We assume mental properties (including phenomenal properties) = physical brain properties
2. Mary gains new direct acquaintance with a physical brain fact she already knew
Mary gains a new relation to a fact she already knew: ‘seeing red (a brain state has the phenomenal property [redness] (which is actually brain property P’
Before she had seen red, she knew this fact
from the outside .
After seeing red, she becomes directly acquainted with it from the inside.
(Patricia Churchland: Physicalism is complete but your brain needs to undergo the processes the theory describes as constituting colour experience)

Question 15

Explain how Acquaintance knowledge involves propositional knowledge responds to Mary only gains New acquaintance + old fact.

Answer 15

If Mary gains a new relation to a fact she already knew, she also learns a new fact: ‘direct acquaintance with
seeing red involves the [redness] phenomenal property’
This means Mary did not know all of the facts before seeing the tomato.Therefore, not all facts are physical
facts

Question 16

Explain how the objection misunderstands the argument –the argument is not about Mary’s experience responds to Mary only gains New acquaintance + old fact.

Answer 16

The argument is that Mary didn’t know everything about other people’s colour experiences before she left the room, even though she knew everything physical about their experiences.
There is a fact about human colour experience that Mary doesn’t know
She realises how impoverished her conception of other people’s colour experiences has been