We had a good meeting last week. Our discussion of Black-and-White Mary focused largely on three issues. First, there were questions about the plausibility of the situation described in the thought experiment. To some, the story does not make sense. For what it is worth, current research in color vision science does not rule out the possibility of some monochromatic person becoming a color perceiver. Second, we considered the possibility that Mary does not gain new propositional knowledge (factual knowledge, knowledge that something is the case) when she sees red, but instead gains several abilities, such as the ability to imagine red, or the ability to recognize red experiences. This approach is called the Ability Hypothesis. Knowing how to ride a bike (i.e., having an ability) is not the same as knowing that Barack Obama is the President (propositional knowledge). Some argue that knowing how is ultimately reducible to knowing that (a lot of knowings that, actually), but this is a minority view. This distinction is supposed to help the physicalist, who can then say that Mary’s knowledge of the physical world does include all knowledge that, even after she sees red, because all she gains after her release is an ability, knowledge how, and no new knowledge-that. Finally, we considered the possibility that some truths are necessary but also a posteriori, knowable only through empirical experience. On this view, the experience of seeing red is ultimately physical in nature, but is not something physical that can be deduced from analysis of other physical facts. Here physicalists draw on the work of Kripke.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Mar 2014 11:57:47 +0000
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