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About 10,000 papers for “knowledge argument”

The knowledge argument

Luca Malatesti · Stirling Online Research Repository (University of Stirling) · 2004

Frank Jackson’s knowledge argument is a very influential piece of reasoning that seeks to show that colour experiences constitute an insoluble problem for science. This argument is based on a thought experiment concerning Mary. She is a vision scientist who has complete scientific knowledge of colours and colour vision but has never had colour experiences. According to Jackson, upon seeing coloured objects, Mary acquires new knowledge that escapes her complete scientific knowledge. He concludes that there are facts concerning colour experiences that scientific knowledge can neither describe nor explain. Specifically, these facts involve the occurrence of certain non-physical properties of experiences that he calls qualia. The present research considers whether a plausible formulation of the hypothesis that science can accommodate colour experiences is threatened by a version of the knowledge argument. The specific formulation of this problem has two motivations. Firstly, before investigating whether the knowledge argument raises a problem for the claim that science can account for colour experiences, we need a plausible formulation of this claim. I argue that the idea that science can accommodate colour experiences can be formulated as the modest reductionism hypothesis. Roughly speaking, this is the hypothesis that a science that can be explanatory interfaced with current physics of ordinary matter can account for conscious experiences. Secondly, an unintelligible premise figures in Jackson’s version the knowledge argument. Namely, it is assumed that Mary possesses a complete (future or possible) scientific knowledge. Nevertheless, the type of strategy involved in Jackson’s argument can be used to target modest reductionism. By considering contemporary psychophysics and neuroscience, I characterise Mary’s scientific knowledge. First, this characterisation is intelligible. In fact, it is elaborated on the basis of descriptions and explanations of colour experiences involved in current physics and neuroscience. Second, a supporter of modest reductionism can assume that the scientific knowledge ascribed to Mary might account for colour experiences. The main conclusion of the present research is that our version of the knowledge argument fails to threaten the modest reductionism hypothesis. In fact, I endorse what can be called the “two ways of thinking” reply to the knowledge argument. According to this response, the knowledge argument shows that there are different ways of thinking about colour experiences. One way of thinking is provided by scientific knowledge. The other way of thinking is provided by our ordinary conception of colour experiences. However, the existence of these two ways of thinking does not imply the existence of facts and properties that escape scientific knowledge. It might be the case that the ordinary way of thinking about colour experience concerns facts and properties described and explained by science. The principal conclusion of the research results from two investigations. The first line of research aims to reveal and evaluate the implicit assumptions that figure in the knowledge argument. The main body of the research is dedicated to this task. The principal result of this investigation is that the knowledge argument must rely on an account of introspective knowledge of colour experiences. I argue that an inferential model of introspection provides such account. On this model, Mary’s capacity to hold beliefs about her colour experiences when she sees coloured objects requires her mastery of colour concepts. The second main investigation seeks to justify the two ways of thinking strategy. As many opponents and supporters have recently started to realise, this strategy might be charged with being ad hoc. I offer a distinctive justification of this reply to the knowledge argument. Assuming the account of introspection mentioned above, the existence of visual recognitional colour concepts might justify this strategy. A person possesses these concepts when she is able to determine the colours of objects simply by having visual experiences.

Cited by 0Open access

The knowledge argument

Bermúdez, José Luis, Pitson, Anthony E, Millar, Alan et al. · OpenGrey (Institut de l'Information Scientifique et Technique) · 2004

Frank Jackson’s knowledge argument is a very influential piece of reasoning that seeks to show that colour experiences constitute an insoluble problem for science. This argument is based on a thought experiment concerning Mary. She is a vision scientist who has complete scientific knowledge of colours and colour vision but has never had colour experiences. According to Jackson, upon seeing coloured objects, Mary acquires new knowledge that escapes her complete scientific knowledge. He concludes that there are facts concerning colour experiences that scientific knowledge can neither describe nor explain. Specifically, these facts involve the occurrence of certain non-physical properties of experiences that he calls qualia. The present research considers whether a plausible formulation of the hypothesis that science can accommodate colour experiences is threatened by a version of the knowledge argument. The specific formulation of this problem has two motivations. Firstly, before investigating whether the knowledge argument raises a problem for the claim that science can account for colour experiences, we need a plausible formulation of this claim. I argue that the idea that science can accommodate colour experiences can be formulated as the modest reductionism hypothesis. Roughly speaking, this is the hypothesis that a science that can be explanatory interfaced with current physics of ordinary matter can account for conscious experiences. Secondly, an unintelligible premise figures in Jackson’s version the knowledge argument. Namely, it is assumed that Mary possesses a complete (future or possible) scientific knowledge. Nevertheless, the type of strategy involved in Jackson’s argument can be used to target modest reductionism. By considering contemporary psychophysics and neuroscience, I characterise Mary’s scientific knowledge. First, this characterisation is intelligible. In fact, it is elaborated on the basis of descriptions and explanations of colour experiences involved in current physics and neuroscience. Second, a supporter of modest reductionism can assume that the scientific knowledge ascribed to Mary might account for colour experiences. The main conclusion of the present research is that our version of the knowledge argument fails to threaten the modest reductionism hypothesis. In fact, I endorse what can be called the “two ways of thinking” reply to the knowledge argument. According to this response, the knowledge argument shows that there are different ways of thinking about colour experiences. One way of thinking is provided by scientific knowledge. The other way of thinking is provided by our ordinary conception of colour experiences. However, the existence of these two ways of thinking does not imply the existence of facts and properties that escape scientific knowledge. It might be the case that the ordinary way of thinking about colour experience concerns facts and properties described and explained by science. The principal conclusion of the research results from two investigations. The first line of research aims to reveal and evaluate the implicit assumptions that figure in the knowledge argument. The main body of the research is dedicated to this task. The principal result of this investigation is that the knowledge argument must rely on an account of introspective knowledge of colour experiences. I argue that an inferential model of introspection provides such account. On this model, Mary’s capacity to hold beliefs about her colour experiences when she sees coloured objects requires her mastery of colour concepts. The second main investigation seeks to justify the two ways of thinking strategy. As many opponents and supporters have recently started to realise, this strategy might be charged with being ad hoc. I offer a distinctive justification of this reply to the knowledge argument. Assuming the account of introspection mentioned above, the existence of visual recognitional colour concepts might justify this strategy. A person possesses these concepts when she is able to determine the colours of objects simply by having visual experiences.

Cited by 0

Implicit Event Argument Extraction With Argument-Argument Relational Knowledge

Kaiwen Wei, Xian Sun, Zequn Zhang et al. · IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering · 2022

As a challenging sub-task of event argument extraction, implicit event argument extraction seeks to identify document-level arguments that play direct or implicit roles in a given event. Prior work mainly focuses on capturing direct relations between arguments and the event trigger; however, the lack of reasoning ability imposes limitations to the extraction of implicit arguments. In this work, we propose an <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">A</b> rgument-argument <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">R</b> elation-enhanced <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">E</b> vent <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">A</b> rgument extraction (AREA) learning framework to tackle this issue through reasoning in event frame-level scope. The proposed method leverages related arguments of the expected one as clues, and utilizes such argument-argument dependencies to guide the reasoning process. To bridge the distribution gap between oracle knowledge used in the training phase and the imperfect related arguments in the test stage, we introduce a conventional knowledge distillation strategy to drive a final model that can work without extra inputs by mimicking the behaviour of a well-informed teacher model. In addition, considering that conventional knowledge distillation methods transfer knowledge individually, we integrate it with a novel relational knowledge distillation mechanism to explicitly capture the structural mutual argument-argument relation. Moreover, since the training process is not compatible with the real situation, a curriculum learning method is further introduced to make the training process smoother. Experimental results demonstrate that the learning framework obtains state-of-the-art performance on the RAMS and Wikievents datasets. Ablation study and further discussion also show it could handle long-range dependency and implicit argument problems effectively.

Cited by 14

A Temporal Knowledge Argument

Merriam, Paul · PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)

How does the temporal knowledge argument fair when exposed to Chalmers' 2-dimensional analysis of the knowledge argument?

Cited by 0Open access

A Knowledge Argument for Time

Merriam, Paul · PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)

On being released from her black-and-white room into a colorful world it would seem Mary learns something new (the Knowledge Argument). On being released from his B-theory room into an A-theory world it would seem Mark learns something new (the Temporal Knowledge Argument). These thought experiments are parallel to each other and can inform each other.

Cited by 0

The Knowledge Argument Against Dualism

Yujin Nagasawa · Theoria · 2002

Abstract: Paul Churchland argues that Frank Jackson's Knowledge Argument against physicalism is so strong that if it defeated physicalism it would, at the same time, defeat ‘substance dualism’. The purpose of this paper is to articulate this ‘parity of reasons’ objection. In the first part of the paper, I discuss Churchland's argument. I demonstrate that although his formulation of the objection is not wholly satisfactory, it may be revised so that the Knowledge Argument would defeat a certain form of dualism. In the second part, I apply the parity of reasons objection to David Chalmers' dualism. Chalmers rejects physicalism on the basis of the Knowledge Argument and introduces two possible forms of dualism. I show that of those two forms of dualism, Chalmers has to endorse the one that he does not prefer because the other is vulnerable to the parity of reasons objection.

Cited by 8Open access

Kripke's knowledge argument against materialism

Adriana Renero · Philosophical Perspectives · 2023

Abstract In his unpublished 1979 Lectures on the Philosophy of Mind, Saul Kripke offers a knowledge argument against materialism focusing on deaf people who lack knowledge of auditory experience. Kripke's argument is a precursor of Frank Jackson's better‐known knowledge argument against materialism (1982). The paper sets out Kripke's argument, brings out its interest and philosophical importance, and explores some similarities and differences between Kripke's knowledge argument and Jackson's.

Cited by 14Open access

Dennett on the knowledge Argument

H. Robinson · Analysis · 1993

Dennett on the knowledge Argument Howard Robinson Howard Robinson The University of Birmingham Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Analysis, Volume 53, Issue 3, July 1993, Pages 169–173, https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/53.3.169 Published: 01 July 1993

Cited by 5

Phenomenal Consciousness: A Critical Analysis of Knowledge Argument, Inverted Spectrum Argument and Conceivability Argument

Manas Kumar Sahu · Journal of Advances in Education and Philosophy · 2020

The objective of this paper is to defend the non-reductive thesis of phenomenal consciousness. This paper will give an overview of the arguments for the non-reductive explanation of phenomenal consciousness and justify why the reductionist approach is implausible in the context of explaining phenomenal subjective experience. The debate between reductionist and non-reductionist on the project of Demystifying and Mystifying phenomenal consciousness is driven by two fundamental assumptions-1) Reductive-Naturalistic Objectivism, 2) Phenomenal Realism. There are several arguments for the irreducibility of phenomenal consciousness; this paper will focus on the inverted spectrum argument, knowledge argument, and the conceivability argument.

Cited by 4Open access

Conceptual mastery and the knowledge argument

Gabriel Oak Rabin · Philosophical Studies · 2011

According to Frank Jackson’s famous knowledge argument, Mary, a brilliant neuroscientist raised in a black and white room and bestowed with complete physical knowledge, cannot know certain truths about phenomenal experience. This claim about knowledge, in turn, implies that physicalism is false. I argue that the knowledge argument founders on a dilemma. Either (i) Mary cannot know the relevant experiential truths because of trivial obstacles that have no bearing on the truth of physicalism or (ii) once the obstacles have been removed, Mary can know the relevant truths. If we give Mary the epistemological capabilities necessary to draw metaphysical conclusions about physicalism, she will, while trapped in the black and white room, be able to know every truth about phenomenal experience.

Cited by 49Open access

The Gap in the Knowledge Argument

Barbara Gail Montero · Philosophia · 2024

Abstract Alter (The Matter of Consciousness: From the Knowledge Argument to Russellian Monism, GB: Oxford University Pres, 2023) argues for something surprising: despite being widely rejected by philosophers, including Frank Jackson himself, Jackson’s knowledge argument succeeds. Alter’s defense of Jackson’s argument is not only surprising; it’s also exciting: the knowledge argument, if it’s sound, underscores the power of armchair philosophy, the power of pure thought to arrive at substantial conclusions about the world. In contrast, I aim to make a case for something unsurprising and unexciting: that the knowledge argument does not succeed, or, even less far-reaching, that Alter’s defense of it is not persuasive. Mine is a classic file-drawer thesis, but what it has going for it is that it’s true, or so I think, and hope to illustrate why you should too.

Cited by 0Open access

Grounding physicalism and the knowledge argument

Alex Moran · Philosophical Perspectives · 2023

Abstract Standard responses to the knowledge argument grant that Mary could know all of the physical facts even while trapped inside her black‐and‐white room. What they deny is that upon leaving her black‐and‐white room and experiencing red for the first time, Mary learns a genuinely new fact. This paper develops an alternate response in a grounding physicalist framework, on which Mary does not know all of the physical facts while trapped inside the room. The main thesis is that Mary does not know certain phenomenal facts while trapped inside the room, whereby these facts classify as physical due to being wholly and fully metaphysically grounded in the underlying fundamental facts which are themselves entirely physical.

Cited by 5Open access

Another argument for the knowledge norm

Jonathan E. Adler · Analysis · 2009

The knowledge norm of assertion (Unger 1975: 256–60; Williamson 2000: ch. 11) is mainly in competition with a high probability or rational credibility norm. (‘One should assert only what is rationally credible to one.’ Douven 2006: 458–59.) The argument for the knowledge norm that I offer turns on cases in which a hearer responds to a speaker's assertion by asserting another sentence that would lower the probability of the speaker's assertion, were its probability less than one. In cases like this, though with qualifications, is the hearer's contribution a challenge to the speaker's assertion or complementary to it? My answer is the latter, and that only the knowledge norm yields that answer. The cases that I rely on follow from an elementary probability relation, though one that is inconsistent with the still influential relevance criterion for confirmation and evidence (Carnap 1962: ch. VI). Assume, for illustrative purposes, that p is in your belief corpus, as a consequence of your believing (p & s & r) ∨ (p & ∼s & r) ∨ (p & ∼s & ∼r).1 You learn that ∼(p & s & r) & ∼(p & ∼s & r), which would lessen the probability of p, were its probability less than one,2 since it eliminates two rows of the truth-table in which p holds. What conclusion do you reach about p?

Cited by 8