The knowledge argument (also known as Mary's room or Mary the super-scientist) is a philosophical thought experiment proposed by Frank Jackson in his article "Epiphenomenal Qualia" (1982) and extended in "What Mary Didn't Know" (1986). The argument is intended to motivate what is often called the "Knowledge Argument" against physicalism — the view that the universe, including all that is mental, is entirely physical. The debate that emerged following its publication became the subject of an edited volume — There's Something About Mary (2004) — which includes replies from such philosophers as Daniel Dennett, David Lewis, and Paul Churchland.
Read more about Knowledge Argument: Background, Thought Experiment, Implications, Objections
Famous quotes containing the words knowledge and/or argument:
“It is well worth the efforts of a lifetime to have attained knowledge which justifies an attack on the root of all evil—viz. the deadly atheism which asserts that because forms of evil have always existed in society, therefore they must always exist; and that the attainment of a high ideal is a hopeless chimera.”
—Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910)
“Because a person is born the subject of a given state, you deny the sovereignty of the people? How about the child of Cuban slaves who is born a slave, is that an argument for slavery? The one is a fact as well as the other. Why then, if you use legal arguments in the one case, you don’t in the other?”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)