Concept
Knowledge argument
Overview
In philosophy of mind, the knowledge argument (also known as Mary's Room, Mary the Colour Scientist, or Mary the super-scientist) is a thought experiment proposed by Frank Jackson in his article "Epiphenomenal Qualia" (1982), and extended in "What Mary Didn't Know" (1986).
The thought experiment describes Mary, a scientist who exists in a black-and-white world where she has extensive access to physical descriptions of color, but no actual perceptual experience of color. Mary has learned everything there is to learn about color, but she has never actually experienced it for herself. The central question of the thought experiment is whether Mary will gain new knowledge when she goes outside of the colorless world and experiences seeing in color.
The thought experiment is intended to argue against physicalism—the view that the universe, including all that is mental, is entirely physical. Jackson says that the "irresistible conclusion" is that "there are more properties than physicalists talk about". Jackson would eventually call himself a physicalist and say, in 2023, "I no longer accept the argument" though he feels that the argument should be "addressed really seriously if you are a physicalist".
The debate that emerged following its publication became the subject of an edited volume, There's Something About Mary (2004), which includes replies from such philosophers as Daniel Dennett, David Lewis, and Paul Churchland.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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To prevent this, the mind makes the particular ideas received from particular objects to become general; which is done by considering them as they are in the mind such appearances,—separate from all other existences, and the circumstances of real existence, as time, place, or any other concomitant ideas. This is called ABSTRACTION, whereby ideas taken from particular beings become general representatives of all of…
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1
States what Knowledge argument is; the author is tied to Knowledge argument in the knowledge graph.
Thus what is called "knowing," in the sense in which we can ascertain what other people "know," is a phenomenon exemplified in their physical behaviour, including spoken and written words. There is no reason--so Watson argues--to suppose that their knowledge IS anything beyond the habits shown in this behaviour: the inference that other people have something nonphysical called "mind" or "thought" is…
Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind
States what Knowledge argument is.
To him it was clear that objects of knowledge are the things of ordinary perception, so far as they are referred to a form which comparison of perceived things, in the light of a final cause, makes evident. If this view of the objects of knowledge has gone into the discard, if quite other objects of knowledge are now received and employed, it is because the methods of _getting_ knowledge have been transformed, till…
John Dewey, Essays in Experimental Logic
Close in meaning to Knowledge argument; the term itself is not named.
Philosophers who discussed Knowledge argument
Related ideas
- What Is It Like to Be a Bat?
- John Locke
- Herbert Feigl
- Mind–body dualism
- Thomas Nagel
- Frank Cameron Jackson
- Qualia
- Synesthesia
- Declarative knowledge
- Physicalism
- Wayback Machine
- Physiology
- Evan Thompson
- David Chalmers
- David Lewis (philosopher)
- Philip Pettit
- Thought experiment
- Paul Churchland
- Direct and indirect realism
- Hard problem of consciousness
- Philosophy of mind
- C. D. Broad
- Daniel Dennett
- Epiphenomenalism
Place in the tradition
Part of Analytic philosophy.