The Knowledge Argument Reviewed
Bethany Stevens
12- 4-03
Term Paper – Question #6
Murat Aydede
Study of Perception
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The Knowledge Argument Reviewed
Frank Jackson presents an anti-materialist argument known as the Knowledge
argument (KA) in his 1982 article “Epiphenomenal Quaila.” In this argument Jackson
explains why materialism is false through the use of two thought experiments, including
one thought experiment using a scientist named Mary as the primary subject. While there
are interesting features to the argument that would make one initially believe that
Jackson’s argument can logically lead to the disproval of materialism, the argument does
not establish its conclusion. The KA is problematic for several reasons; with most points
of contention centered on the equivocating of the meaning in terms premise in the
argument. The KA argument includes a lack of important features and semantic issues
within the construct of the premises which are necessary to flesh out the argument. An
initial problem can be raised concerning the idea that Mary in fact did know all about
color experience but could not recognize the fact. Another problem can be seen with
understanding how Mary can really learn all there is to know about color through a black
and white television. Another problem lays in the notion that Mary may not actually
learn anything new post-release, but is instead recalling notions that had not come to the
surface. Also Mary’s inability to understand what it is like to see color because of her
inability to understand her introspective perspective provides a point of contention.
The KA attempts to disprove materialist claims that all sense-perception
experiences and all information can be reduced to and explained exclusively through
scientific or objective facts. Jackson counters this argument with the KA, which explains
that there is some knowledge that is gained which goes beyond the scientific facts of an
experience. Jackson puts forth the idea that beyond the scientific facts of an event,
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experience, or idea there are some facts that cannot be garnered exclusively through the
understanding of objective facts. Jackson’s KA is based on two examples, one of which
is centered on a scientist named Mary, who specializes in the neurophysiology of vision
and physics. Mary is placed into a black and white room where she receives “all the
physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or
the sky, and use terms like ‘red’, ‘blue’, and so on” (Jackson 130). For example, she was
provided information about exactly how the rods and cons function in her eyes along with
other physical functions that combine to form the understanding of the perception of
color.
A problem could be raised about how all that is in Mary’s room could truly be
black and white, but it is logical to include the belief that if she were really to be in a
room void of color, this exclusively black and white realm would have to extend to her
ability to see her skin color as well. We can assume that Jackson intended the reader to
believe that Mary could not see her own skin color as well, as she may actually have been
painted grey or something of the like. Before being released into the world of color Mary
receives all the scientific and objective facts one could come to know about color, color
vision, color experience, and every other fact necessary to form thoughts or sensations
about the world’s colors through a black and white television yet according to Jackson
she still lacks the ability to know what it is like what it is like to see color.
The premise following the statement that upon Mary’s release from the black and
white room she learns what it is like to see color, a fact that she lacked prior to her release
raises another a point of contention. This premise states that if Mary knows all scientific
knowledge of color (fact one), then Mary must know what it is like to see color (fact
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two). The premise, otherwise known as the Leibnizian principle, initially fails because of
representation dependent properties (Lycan 3). The meaning of the Lebnizian principle
in KA can be derived through that understanding that if a person knows some fact, and
there is another fact that is equivalent to the first, then the second fact must be known to
the person. The problem with this premise is that while a person may realize they know
the first fact, they may not realize they know the second fact, nor that the two are
equivalent. For example, a person may observe that water is splashing but not understand
that they are actually looking at the molecular construction of the bond of two hydrogen
atoms with an oxygen atom linking the two.
While Mary may possess knowledge under certain circumstances this does not
necessarily mean that she will possess knowledge under all circumstances, so while she
may believe she does not know what the experience of color is like prior to her release
from the black and white room, she may in fact possess all the necessary knowledge
required to understand the experience of color but just not realize it. While Mary
possesses all scientific knowledge about color prior to her release from the black and
white room and upon her release seemingly learned something new, she may have
already possessed the knowledge but it was not thought of as the equivalent to the
knowledge acquired through the experience. Mary simply could not decode her own
knowledge until after the experience, and upon experiencing the color she may not have
been able to connect the meaning to the experience. Despite her inability to connect the
meaning of the color to the knowledge of the color that she possessed prior to her release
from the black and white room, she still possessed the knowledge of the color.
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The missing feature in her knowledge after her release from the black and white
room may be her ability to decode that the perception of experience of what it is like as
the same knowledge she possessed prior to release. The experience could not have
possibly occurred within in the room void of color simply because experience happens
only when one actually directly observes something or lives through. The ability to know
what it is like to visualize colors is an ability that is beyond her scientific or objective
knowledge presented within the black and white room. Jackson states that if materialism
is true then all the scientific or objective facts that Mary was presented while in the black
and white room must provide the all the knowledge required to understand what it is like
to see color. Clearly for Jackson her lack of experience of vision seems to connect to her
inability to understand all there is to know about color before encountering it.
There have been many objections raised against the argument of Jackson, with a
division between those who believe that the Mary does not truly learn anything new aside
from the objective or scientific knowledge she possessed within the black and white
room, and those who believe that while she did learn new knowledge after her release
from the black and white room, the conclusion that materialism is false does not follow.
As William G. Lycan delineated in his article “Perspectival Representation and the
Knowledge Argument” a rebuttal of the KA centered upon the notion that while Mary
may not have possessed all the knowledge about what it is like to experience color,
specifically red, “before she was cured, Mary could represent other people’s experiences
of red, but only from the various public perspectives and not introspectively” (Lycan 9).
This rebuttal appears to have some merit in deciphering the quandaries one would
have with Jackson’s KA. Even with scientific omnipotence Mary will not be able to
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work out what it is like to see color because of the ineffability of introspective
experience. The understanding of the introspective perspective of experience is needed
to decode what the experience is like. It is through experience that David Hume suggests
we form our ideas, and without experience or precedent impression we would not be able
to really know what something is. Hume’s theory of experience, being essential to
subjective meaning, can help defend the idea that it is through personal experience that
one truly grasps an understanding of what it is like, which is a personal or subjective
view. It would logically follow that if Mary was truly scientifically omnipotent and
could actually experience what others experience she could truly experience red prior to
her release from the black and white room. But if she were to experience other people’s
perspectives they would not be her own, so the question would remain if she would
actually know what it is like to see color.
Against the objections of Lycan and the perspectivalists, the KA does not stand
up. There is no logical reason to believe that there is something learned beyond physical
facts in an experience, unless one wanted to believe in a grand transcendental existence,
where there is some omnipotent being manipulating our actions in such a way as to make
us believe that there is some facts that cannot be understood through physical or objective
facts. But to attempt to argue such a claim would be futile, because such a claim would
be impossible to logically prove, so the perspectivalist objection to the KA establishes a
viable conclusion.
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Works Cited
Jackson, Frank “Epiphenomenal Qualia,” Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 32, Issue 127,
(April. 1982), 127-136.
Lycan, William G. “Perspectival Representation and the Knowledge Argument,”
<http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/maydede/perception/Lycan.PerspecKnowledgeArg.htm>
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