There's Something About Mary Essays on Phenomenal Consciousness and Frank Jackson's Knowledge Argument

by Ludlow, Peter; Nagasawa, Yujin; Stoljar, Daniel

• ISBN13: 9780262621892
• ISBN10: 0262621894
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-11-19
• Publisher: Bradford Books

Summary

In Frank Jackson's famous thought experiment, Mary is confined to a black-and-white room and educated through black-and-white books and lectures on a black-and-white television. In this way, she learns everything there is to know about the physical world. If physicalism-the doctrine that everything is physical-is true, then Mary seems to know all there is to know. What happens, then, when she emerges from her black-and-white room and sees the color red for the first time? Jackson's knowledge argument says that Mary comes to know a new fact about color, and that, therefore, physicalism is false. The knowledge argument remains one of the most controversial and important arguments in contemporary philosophy. There's Something About Mary-the first book devoted solely to the argument-collects the main essays in which Jackson presents (and later rejects) his argument along with key responses by other philosophers. These responses are organized around a series of questions: Does Mary learn anything new? Does she gain only know-how (the ability hypothesis), or merely get acquainted with something she knew previously (the acquaintance hypothesis)? Does she learn a genuinely new fact or an old fact in disguise? And finally, does she really know all the physical facts before her release, or is this a "misdescription"? The arguments presented in this comprehensive collection have important implications for the philosophy of mind and the study of consciousness.

Author Biography

Peter Ludlow, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, is the author of Semantics, Tense, and Time: An Essay in the Metaphysics of Natural Language (MIT Press, 1999), among other books, and the editor of Crypto Anarchy, Cyberstates, and Pirate Utopias (MIT Press, 2001) and High Noon on the Electronic Frontier (MIT Press, 1996).

Yujin Nagasawa is Research Fellow at the Australian National University and Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Alberta.

Daniel Stoljar is Professor of Philosophy at Australian National University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Sources	xi
Contributors	xiii
Foreword: Looking Back on the Knowledge Argument	xv
Frank Jackson
Introduction	1	(36)
Daniel Stoljar and Yujin Nagasawa
Part I Black-and-White Mary	37	(20)
1 Epiphenomenal Qualia	39	(12)
Frank Jackson
2 What Mary Didn't Know	51	(8)
Frank Jackson
Part II Does She Learn Anything?	57	(18)
3 "Epiphenomenal" Qualia?	59	(10)
Daniel C. Dennett
4 Dennett on the Knowledge Argument	69	(8)
Howard Robinson
Part III The Ability Hypothesis	75	(86)
5 What Experience Teaches	77	(28)
David Lewis
6 Motion Blindness and the Knowledge Argument	105	(38)
Philip Pettit
7 Knowing What It Is Like: The Ability Hypothesis and the Knowledge Argument	143	(20)
Michael Tye
Part IV The Acquaintance Hypothesis	161	(56)
8 Knowing Qualia: A Reply to Jackson (with Postscript: 1997)	163	(16)
Paul M. Churchland
9 Acquaintance with Qualia	179	(18)
John Bigelow and Robert Pargetter
10 Phenomenal Knowledge	197	(20)
Earl Conee
Part V Old Facts, New Modes	217	(82)
11 Phenomenal States (Revised Version)	219	(22)
Brian Loar
12 What Mary Couldn't Know: Belief About Phenomenal States	241	(28)
Martine Nida-Rümelin
13 Phenomenal Concepts and the Knowledge Argument	269	(30)
David J. Chalmers
Part VI Did She Know Everything Physical?	299	(108)
14 Jackson on Physical Information and Qualia	301	(8)
Terence Horgan
15 Two Conceptions of the Physical	309	(24)
Daniel Stoljar
16 Inexpressible Truths and the Allure of the Knowledge Argument	333	(32)
Benj Hellie
17 So Many Ways of Saying No to Mary	365	(42)
Robert Van Gulick
Part VII Postscripts	407	(36)
18 Postscript	409	(8)
Frank Jackson
19 Postscript on Qualia	417	(4)
Frank Jackson
20 Mind and Illusion	421	(22)
Frank Jackson
Supplemental Bibliography	443	(14)
Index	457