Epistemological physicalism and the knowledge argument

American Philosophical Quarterly 43 (1):1-23 (2006)
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Abstract

This paper offers a new solution to the knowledge argument. Both a priori and a posteriori physicalists reject the claim that Mary does not know all the facts, but they do so for different reasons. While the former think that Mary gains no new knowledge of any fact, the latter think that Mary gains new knowledge of an old fact. This paper argues that on a broad understanding of what counts as physical, it is consistent with physicalism that Mary does not know all the physical facts, and that on a narrow understanding, it is consistent with physicalism that Mary knows all the physical facts, but not all the facts. Either way, Mary gains new knowledge of a new fact that is not non-physical. The resultant view

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Jesper Kallestrup
University of Aberdeen

Citations of this work

Qualia: The Knowledge Argument.Martine Nida-Rumelin - 2002 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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Introspecting phenomenal states.Brie Gertler - 2001 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63 (2):305-28.

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