MindPapers: 1.3a. The Knowledge Argument

Allen, Keith (online). What it is like to perceive colour: Colour and the knowledge argument. (Google)

Abstract: I argue that the knowledge argument is best understood as an argument for the existence of non-physical properties of material objects, or colours. I suggest that the knowledge argument is standardly presented as an argument for the existence of qualia because it is implicitly assumed that physics “tell us” that what it is like to perceive colour is determined, not by properties of material objects, but by properties of perceiving subjects; hence any gaps in Mary’s knowledge must be gaps in her knowledge about perceiving subjects. If nothing else, this physicalist assumption is odd given that the knowledge argument is supposed to be an argument against physicalism. Using the knowledge argument as an argument for the existence of non-physical colours is consistent with the transparency of perceptual experience. Moreover, rejecting the physicalist assumption behind the orthodox interpretation of the knowledge argument undermines the motivation for thinking of non-physical colours as epiphenomenal

Alter, Torin (1998). A limited defense of the knowledge argument. Philosophical Studies 90 (1):35-56. (Cited by 15 | Google | More links)

Alter, Torin (2006). Does representationalism undermine the knowledge argument? In Torin Alter & Sven Walter (eds.), Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge: New Essays on Consciousness and Physicalism. Oxford University Press. (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)

Abstract: The knowledge argument aims to refute physicalism, the view that the world is entirely physical. The argument first establishes the existence of facts (or truths or information) about consciousness that are not a priori deducible from the complete physical truth, and then infers the falsity of physicalism from this lack of deducibility. Frank Jackson (1982, 1986) gave the argument its classic formulation. But now he rejects the argument (Jackson 1998b, 2003, chapter 3 of this volume). On his view, it relies on a false conception of sensory experience, which should be replaced with representationalism (also known as intentionalism), the view that phenomenal states are just representational states. And he argues that mental representation is physically explicable

Alter, Torin (2001). Know-how, ability, and the ability hypothesis. Theoria 67 (3):229-39. (Cited by 7 | Google)

Alter, Torin (1995). Mary's new perspective. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 73 (4):585-84. (Cited by 2 | Google | More links | Annotation)

Alter, Torin & Walter, Sven (eds.) (2007). Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge: New Essays on Consciousness and Physicalism. Oxford University Press. (Cited by 6 | Google | More links)

Alter, Torin (online). The knowledge argument. A Field Guide to the Philosophy of Mind. (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)

Abstract: Frank Jackson first presented the Knowledge Argument (henceforth KA) in "Epiphenomenal Qualia" 1982). The KA is an argument against physicalism, the doctrine that (very roughly put) everything is physical. The general thrust of the KA is that physicalism errs by misconstruing or denying the existence of the subjective features of experience. Physicalists have given numerous responses, and the debate continues about whether the KA ultimately succeeds in refuting any or all forms of physicalism. Jackson himself has recently

Alter, Torin (2007). The knowledge argument. In Max Velmans & Susan Schneider (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. Blackwell. (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)

Anderson, James T. (online). A simple refutation of the knowledge argument against physicalism. (Google | More links)

Abstract: One of the most persuasive objections to the identity thesis—the claim that mental states are numerically identical to certain brain states —is the argument from complete knowledge. It goes like this: If mental states were identical to physical brain states, then a complete physical description of a brain state would also be a complete description of the identical mental state

Aranyosi, Istvan A. (2004). Jackson's Knowledge Argument. Dissertation, Central European University (Google)

Bachrach, Jay E. (1990). Qualia and theory reduction: A criticism of Paul Churchland. Iyyun 281. (Google | Annotation)

Beaton, Michael (2005). What robodennett still doesn't know. Journal Of Consciousness Studies 12 (12):3-25. (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)

Abstract: Journal of Consciousness Studies , Volume 12, Number 12, December 2005, pp. 3-25, the only definitive repository of the content that has been certified and accepted after peer review. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by Imprint Academic. This material may not be copied or reposted without explicit permission

Beisecker, David (2000). There's something about Mary: Phenomenal consciousness and its attributions. Southwest Philosophy Review 16 (2):143-152. (Google)

Berntsen, J. (2004). Why physicalists needn't bother with Perry's recent response to the knowledge argument. Southern Journal of Philosophy 42 (2):135-148. (Google)

Bigelow, John C. & Pargetter, Robert (1990). Acquaintance with qualia. Theoria 61 (3):129-147. (Cited by 16 | Google | Annotation)

Bigelow, John C. & Pargetter, Robert (2006). Re-acquaintance with qualia. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 84 (3):353 – 378. (Google | More links)

Abstract: Frank Jackson argued, in an astronomically frequently cited paper on 'Epiphenomenal qualia'[Jackson 1982 that materialism must be mistaken. His argument is called the knowledge argument. Over the years since he published that paper, he gradually came to the conviction that the conclusion of the knowledge argument must be mistaken. Yet he long remained totally unconvinced by any of the very numerous published attempts to explain where his knowledge argument had gone astray. Eventually, Jackson did publish a diagnosis of the reasons why, he now thinks, his knowledge argument against materialism fails to prove the falsity of materialism [Jackson 2005. He argues that you can block the knowledge argument against materialism - but only if you tie yourself to a dubious doctrine called representationalism. We argue that the knowledge argument fails as a refutation of either representational or nonrepresentational materialism. It does, however, furnish both materialists and dualists with a successful argument for the existence of distinctively first-person modes of acquaintance with mental states. Jackson's argument does not refute materialism: but it does bring to the surface significant features of thought and experience, which many dualists have sensed, and most materialists have missed

Byrne, Alex (2006). Review of There's Something About Mary. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. (Google)

Byrne, Alex (2002). Something about Mary. Grazer Philosophische Studien 63 (1):27-52. (Cited by 13 | Google | More links)

Abstract: Jackson's black-and-white Mary teaches us that the propositional content of perception cannot be fully expressed in language

Campbell, Neil (2003). An inconsistency in the knowledge argument. Erkenntnis 58 (2):261-266. (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)

Cath, Yuri (web). Knowing how without knowing that. (Google)

Cath, Yuri (forthcoming). The ability hypothesis and the new knowledge-how. Noûs. (Google)

Abstract: What follows for the ability hypothesis reply to the knowledge argument if knowledge-how is just a form of knowledge-that? The obvious answer is that the ability hypothesis is false. For the ability hypothesis says that, when Mary sees red for the first time, Frank Jackson’s super-scientist gains only knowledge-how and not knowledge-that. In this paper I argue that this obvious answer is wrong: the ability hypothesis might be true even if knowledge-how is a form of knowledge-that. To establish this conclusion I utilize Jason Stanley and Timothy Williamson’s account of knowledge-how as “simply a species of propositional knowledge” (Stanley and Williamson, 2001 p. 1). I demonstrate that the ability hypothesis can be restated within Stanley and Williamson’s account of knowledge-how

Chalmers, David J. (2004). Phenomenal concepts and the knowledge argument. In Peter Ludlow, Yujin Nagasawa & Daniel Stoljar (eds.), There's Something About Mary: Essays on Phenomenal Consciousness and Frank Jackson's Knowledge Argument. MIT Press. (Cited by 16 | Google | More links)

Abstract: *[[This paper is largely based on material in other papers. The first three sections and the appendix are drawn with minor modifications from Chalmers 2002c (which explores issues about phenomenal concepts and beliefs in much more depth, mostly independently of questions about materialism). The main ideas of the last three sections are drawn from Chalmers 1996, 1999, and 2002a, although with considerable revision and elaboration. ]]

Churchland, Paul M. (1989). Knowing qualia: A reply to Jackson. In A Neurocomputational Perspective. MIT Press. (Cited by 63 | Google | Annotation)

Churchland, Paul M. (1985). Reduction, qualia and the direct introspection of brain states. Journal of Philosophy 82 (January):8-28. (Cited by 110 | Google | More links | Annotation)

Conee, Earl (1985). Physicalism and phenomenal properties. Philosophical Quarterly 35 (July):296-302. (Cited by 5 | Google | Annotation)

Conee, Earl (1994). Phenomenal knowledge. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 72 (2):136-150. (Cited by 23 | Google | More links | Annotation)

Crane, Tim (2003). Subjective facts. In Real Metaphysics: Essays in Honour of D. H. Mellor. New York: Routledge. (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)

Cummins, Robert E. (1984). The mind of the matter: Comments on Paul Churchland. Philosophy of Science Association 1984. (Cited by 1 | Google | Annotation)

Dennett, Daniel C. (1991). "Epiphenomenal" qualia? In Consciousness Explained. Little, Brown. (Google | Annotation)

Dennett, Daniel C. (2006). What robomary knows. In Torin Alter & Sven Walter (eds.), Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge: New Essays on Consciousness and Physicalism. Oxford University Press. (Cited by 8 | Google)

Deutsch, Max (manuscript). Subjective physical facts. (Cited by 2 | Google)

Endicott, Ronald P. (1995). The refutation by analogous ectoqualia. Southern Journal of Philosophy 33 (1):19-30. (Cited by 1 | Google)

Furash, G. (1989). Frank Jackson's knowledge argument against materialism. Dialogue 32 (October):1-6. (Cited by 1 | Google | Annotation)

Gava, Giacomo (2004). The Knowledge Argument: A Survey and a Proposal. Padova: Cleup Ed Padova. (Google)

Gertler, Brie (1999). A defense of the knowledge argument. Philosophical Studies 93 (3):317-336. (Cited by 13 | Google | More links)

Gleeson, Andres (1999). Deducing the mind. Inquiry 42 (3-4):385-410. (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)

Abstract: Frank Jackson has argued that, in principle, all mental truths are deducible from all physical science truths: 'deducibility'. Jackson's defence of deducibility relies upon the method for producing naturalistic definitions of mental states championed in the analytical functionalism of himself, David Lewis, and others. Two arguments are presented. The first contends that the particular naturalistic definitions of analytical functionalism fail because they do not take account of the extraordinary kind of bodily animation displayed by human beings, which I argue is necessary to (at least one kind of) mentality; machines lacking (at least this one kind of) mentality can satisfy the naturalistic definitions of analytical functionalism. So Jackson's defence of deducibility fails as it stands. The second argument contends that no naturalistic conceptual analysis of the mental can be adequate, because understanding (certain) mental concepts requires a special kind of affective reaction here named 'personal response', while understanding naturalistic concepts does not require this- therefore no naturalistic analysis can ever capture our common-sense mental concepts. The upshot is that Jackson's defence of deducibility cannot be repaired. No defence of deducibility will work which relies upon the possibility of naturalistic conceptual analyses of mentality

Graham, George & Horgan, Terence E. (2005). Mary Mary au contraire: Reply to Raffman. Philosophical Studies 122 (2):203-12. (Google | More links | View target article(s))

Graham, George & Horgan, Terence E. (2000). Mary Mary, quite contrary. Philosophical Studies 99 (1):59-87. (Cited by 14 | Google | More links | View replies)

Harman, Gilbert (1993). Can science understand the mind? In Gilbert Harman (ed.), Conceptions of the Human Mind: Essays on Honor of George A. Miller. Lawrence Erlbaum. (Cited by 3 | Google | Annotation)

Hellie, Benj (2004). Inexpressible truths and the lure of the knowledge argument. In Peter Ludlow, Yujin Nagasawa & Daniel Stoljar (eds.), There's Something About Mary: Essays on Phenomenal Consciousness and Frank Jackson's Knowledge Argument. MIT Press. (Google)

Hershfield, Jeffrey (1998). Lycan on the subjectivity of the mental. Philosophical Psychology 11 (2):229-38. (Google)

Holman, Emmett L. (2006). Dualism and secondary quality eliminativism: Putting a new spin on the knowledge argument. Philosophical Studies 128 (2):229-56. (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)

Abstract: Frank Jackson formulated his knowledge argument as an argument for dualism. In this paper I show how the argument can be modified to also establish the irreducibility of the secondary qualities to the properties of physical theory, and ultimately “secondary quality eliminativism”–the view that the secondary qualities are physically uninstantiated. In addition to being of interest in its own right, this new argument provides a perspective to better see that certain popular would-be refutations of the knowledge argument do not work (against either version). But it also introduces some complications that will force us to take an unexpected detour through the pros and cons of naturalizing intentionality before (tentatively) embracing Jackson’s dualist conclusion

Horgan, Terence E. (1984). Jackson on physical information and qualia. Philosophical Quarterly 34 (April):147-83. (Cited by 49 | Google | More links | Annotation)

Horowitz, Amir & Jacobson-Horowitz, Hilla (2005). The knowledge argument and higher-order properties. Ratio 18 (1):48-64. (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)

Howell, Robert J. (2007). The knowledge argument and objectivity. Philosophical Studies 135 (2). (Google | More links)

Abstract: In this paper I argue that Frank Jackson’s Knowledge Argument is better considered not as an argument against physicalism, but as an argument that objective theories must be incomplete. I argue that despite the apparent diversity of responses to the knowledge argument, they all boil down to a response according to which genuine epistemic gains are made when an individual has an experience. I call this the acquaintance response. I then argue that this response violates an intuitive stricture on the objectivity of theories. Therefore, the knowledge argument does show that objective theories cannot provide a complete understanding of the world. The result, however, is that both objective dualism and objective physicalism are refuted by the argument. In the end it is suggested that the notion of “subjective physicalism” is one that should be pursued

Jackson, Frank (1982). Epiphenomenal qualia. Philosophical Quarterly 32 (April):127-136. (Cited by 566 | Google | More links)

Jackson, Frank (2003). Mind and illusion. In Anthony O'Hear (ed.), Minds and Persons. Cambridge University Press. (Cited by 19 | Google | More links)

Jackson, Frank (2006). The knowledge argument, diaphanousness, representationalism. In Torin Alter & Sven Walter (eds.), Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge: New Essays on Consciousness and Physicalism. Oxford University Press. (Cited by 4 | Google)

Jackson, Frank (1986). What Mary didn't know. Journal of Philosophy 83 (May):291-5. (Cited by 227 | Google | More links | Annotation)

Jacquette, Dale (1995). The blue banana trick: Dennett on Jackson's color scientist. Theoria 61 (3):217-30. (Cited by 6 | Google)

Jutronic, Dunja (2004). The knowledge argument--some comments. Croatian Journal of Philosophy 4 (11):193-197. (Google)

Kallestrup, Jesper (2006). Epistemological physicalism and the knowledge argument. American Philosophical Quarterly 43 (1):1-23. (Google)

Abstract: This paper offers a new solution to the knowledge argument. Both a priori and a posteriori physicalists reject the claim that Mary does not know all the facts, but they do so for different reasons. While the former think that Mary gains no new knowledge of any fact, the latter think that Mary gains new knowledge of an old fact. This paper argues that on a broad understanding of what counts as physical, it is consistent with physicalism that Mary does not know all the physical facts, and that on a narrow understanding, it is consistent with physicalism that Mary knows all the physical facts, but not all the facts. Either way, Mary gains new knowledge of a new fact that is not non-physical. The resultant view—epistemological physicalism—has it that although one cannot know everything just by knowing complete physical theory, everything is metaphysically necessitated by what one can know just by knowing such theory. Finally, some objections that have been raised against this view are presented and replies are considered

Levin, Janet (1986). Could love be like a heatwave? Physicalism and the subjective character of experience. Philosophical Studies 49 (March):245-61. (Cited by 14 | Google | Annotation)

Lewis, David (1990). What experience teaches. In William G. Lycan (ed.), Mind and Cognition. Blackwell. (Cited by 99 | Google | Annotation)

Loar, Brian (1990). Phenomenal states. Philosophical Perspectives 4:81-108. (Cited by 156 | Google | More links | Annotation)

Ludlow, Peter; Nagasawa, Yujin & Stoljar, Daniel (eds.) (2004). There's Something About Mary: Essays on Phenomenal Consciousness and Frank Jackson's Knowledge Argument. MIT Press. (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)

Lycan, William G. (1995). A limited defense of phenomenal information. In Thomas Metzinger (ed.), Conscious Experience. Imprint Academic. (Cited by 17 | Google | Annotation)

Lycan, William G. (1998). Phenomenal information again: It is both real and intrinsically perspectival. Philosophical Psychology 11 (2):239-42. (Google)

Lycan, William G. (2003). Perspectival representation and the knowledge argument. In Quentin Smith & Aleksandar Jokic (eds.), Consciousness: New Philosophical Perspectives. Oxford University Press. (Cited by 8 | Google | More links)

Abstract: Someday there will be no more articles written about the “Knowledge Argument” (Nagel (1974), Jackson (1982)). That is beyond dispute. What is less certain is, how much sooner that day will come than the heat death of the universe. I thought I had said my own last words on the topic (Lycan (1987, Ch. 7), (1990b), (1996, Ch. 3)), but it seems not. There is at least a bit of unfinished business

Malatesti, Luca (2004). The Knowledge Argument. Dissertation, University of Stirling (Google | More links)

McConnell, J. (1995). In defense of the knowledge argument. Philosophical Topics 22 (3):157-187. (Cited by 8 | Google | Annotation)

McGeer, Victoria (2003). The trouble with Mary. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 84 (4):384-393. (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)

Meyer, Ulrich (2001). The knowledge argument, abilities, and metalinguistic beliefs. Erkenntnis 55 (3):325-347. (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)

Montero, Barbara (2007). Physicalism could be true even if Mary learns something new. Philosophical Quarterly 57 (227):176-189. (Google)

Moreland, James P. (2003). The knowledge argument revisited. International Philosophical Quarterly 43 (2):218-228. (Google)

Nagasawa, Yujin (2002). The knowledge argument against dualism. Theoria 68 (3):205-223. (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)

Nanay, Bence (web). Imagining, recognizing and differentiating. Reconsidering the ability hypothesis. Philosophy and Phenomenal Research. (Google)

Nemirow, Laurence (2006). So this is what it's like: A defense of the ability hypothesis. In Torin Alter & Sven Walter (eds.), Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge: New Essays on Consciousness and Physicalism. Oxford University Press. (Google)

Nemirow, Laurence (1995). Understanding rules. Journal of Philosophy 92 (1):28-43. (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)

Newton, Natika (1986). Churchland on direct introspection of brain states. Analysis 46 (March):97-102. (Cited by 2 | Google | Annotation)

Nicholson,

3.7a	Color

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