Frank Jackson's argument against physicalism about the mind, built around Mary, a scientist raised in a black-and-white room who learns every physical fact about colour vision, then sees red for the first time upon leaving the room. Jackson argues that Mary learns something new, what it is like to see red, on first seeing colour, even though she already knew every physical fact; since she gains new knowledge, that knowledge must be of a non-physical fact, so physicalism is false. Physicalist replies include the ability hypothesis, that Mary gains only a new ability rather than new propositional knowledge, and the acquaintance hypothesis, that she gains only a new way of knowing an old fact.
Facts
Origin YearFrank Jackson, Epiphenomenal Qualia, Philosophical Quarterly 32 (1982). Classification
Position Kind Connections
Associated With
Source Knowledge Argument (Wikipedia)
In Branch
Sources
1. Qualia: The Knowledge Argument (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Qualia: The Knowledge Argument, on Jackson 1982
The Knowledge Argument became the subject of intense philosophical discussion following its canonical formulation by Frank Jackson (1982).
Qualia: The Knowledge Argument
The knowledge argument aims to establish that conscious experience involves non-physical properties. It rests on the idea that someone who has complete physical knowledge about another conscious being might yet lack knowledge about how it feels to have the experiences of that being.
Knowledge Argument (Wikipedia)
WikipediaAssociated With: Frank Jackson, Lead sectionQuote, Associated With: Frank Jackson, Lead section
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).
Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Description
Lewis's Ability Hypothesis argues that knowing what an experience is like is the possession of abilities, to recognize, imagine and remember it, not the possession of any new propositional knowledge. On this view Mary gains only the ability to imagine, remember and recognize color experiences when she leaves her room, never any new factual knowledge about the world, so her case gives physicalism nothing to explain away.
A dissenting reading, from David LewisQualia: The Knowledge Argument (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Frequently Asked Questions
If Mary knows every physical fact about color vision while still confined to her black and white room, why can't she predict what red looks like before she ever leaves?
David Lewis's Ability Hypothesis answers that Mary gains new abilities on leaving the room, to recognize, remember and imagine color experiences, not new factual knowledge, so nothing physicalism claims is threatened.
Frank Jackson's thought experiment asks readers to imagine Mary, a scientist who knows every physical fact about color vision yet has only ever seen black, white and shades of gray. Jackson argues that when Mary finally sees red for the first time, she learns something new, so physical facts cannot be all the facts there are. David Lewis's Ability Hypothesis replies that what Mary gains on leaving the room is not new propositional knowledge, not any new fact about the world, but new abilities, to recognize red when she sees it again, to remember what it was like, and to imagine it. Since these are abilities rather than facts, her case poses no threat to the physicalist claim that all the facts are physical facts.
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