Is the Knowledge argument an argument about knowledge?

PEREZ, DIANA INÉS

Buenos Aires

Workshop; Tercer Coloquio de Metafísica Analítica; 2012

SADAF

According to Jackson´s Knowledge Argument, Mary -the neuroscientist- gains new propositional knowledge when liberated. But Lewis 1988 held that what Mary acquires is the ability to remember, imagine and recognize red experiences, i.e. a kind of knowing how. Conee 1994 and Tye 2009 held that Mary, when liberated, becomes acquainted with an experience, and so it is just a piece of knowledge by acquaintance that she acquires. The question I will raise in this paper will be: what kind of knowledge does Mary acquire when she leaves the black and white room? The aim of this paper is to defend two claims. First, I will try to show that all the existing answers to the question I am posing here have deep problems. Second, I want to propose a different reading of the conclusion of the knowledge argument denying that in the very moment of her liberation, Mary acquires something that could be understood as knowledge. More specifically, I propose to distinguish three different types of relations that we can have with our psychological contents: knowledge, awareness, and feeling (or experiencing). My proposal will be to consider the state of mind Mary undergoes when she is released as a new experience which does not constitute per se a state of knowledge.