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Introspective knowledge by acquaintance

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Abstract

Introspective knowledge by acquaintance is (roughly) knowledge we have by being directly aware of our phenomenally conscious states. In this paper, I argue that introspective knowledge by acquaintance is a sui generis kind of knowledge: it is irreducible to any sort of propositional knowledge and is wholly constituted (rather than merely enabled) by a relationship of introspective acquaintance. My main argument is that this is the best explanation of some epistemic facts about phenomenal consciousness and introspection. In particular, it best explains the epistemic asymmetry between a subject who has never had a certain phenomenal state and one who has. I also consider two theoretical objections to my claim: an objection from disunity and an objection from mysteriousness. I show that these objections can be answered and that introspective knowledge by acquaintance being sui generis remains a live option on the table.

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Notes

  1. It is mentioned in passing already in his (1905) ‘On Denoting,’ but without real development.

  2. In fact, the idea that direct apprehension constitutes a kind of knowledge which is not only distinct from, but also more basic than, propositional knowledge was introduced much earlier. The idea is present in Plato and Aristotle as well as in later authors such as Aquinas and Spinoza (Hayner 1969; Peterson 2008: 92–93). Thanks to Ben Koons and Kara Richardson for pointing this out to me.

  3. I leave the question open here whether the relevant item is an object, a property, a trope, an event, or something else. “Objectual” should therefore be read as a broader notion then “object-directed,” possibly including “property-directed,” “trope-directed,” and so on. Mutatis mutandis, the same applies to “object” in the next two sentences.

  4. The metaphysically direct relationship is often spelled out by acquaintance theorists in terms of constitution. I will come back to this in §5.

  5. Russell also explores the hypothesis that we are acquainted with our selves (Russell 1912). Although he attributes a fairly high credence to that hypothesis, he is very careful not to commit to it.

  6. Raleigh (2019) and Duncan (2021) offer excellent and very useful introductions to the notion of acquaintance. See also Knowles and Raleigh (2019) for a recent collection devoted to acquaintance.

  7. Of those in the list above, Earl Conee (1994) is an exception: he explicitly endorses the Russellian notion of knowledge by acquaintance, though he does little argumentative work in defense of its epistemic significance.

  8. Uriah Kriegel, personal communication.

  9. In fact, Duncan’s (2018) arguments purport to generalize both to perceptual and introspective acquaintance. However, they seem to me to be mostly tailored to the perceptual case.

  10. And, perhaps, also in defense of knowledge by intuitive acquaintance, though I am not going to explore this here.

  11. Williamson (2000) rejects the idea that propositional knowledge is analyzable. The debate on “knowledge first” is orthogonal to the question I am outlining here, however.

  12. However, there is no universal consensus on this. Some philosophers (e.g. Hartland-Swann 1956), for example, attempt to show that propositional knowledge is a species of, or reducible to, knowledge-how. (On the notion of knowledge-how see next paragraph.)

  13. Although notions in the vicinity can be found throughout the history of thought, e.g. technê vs. episteme, practical vs. theoretical knowledge, and procedural vs. declarative knowledge (Fantl 2017).

  14. This approach is often also called anti-intellectualist, to underline the idea that knowledge-how does not require prior judgment formation or running through a series of previously known propositions.

  15. These challenges have also led other philosophers to develop alternative or more sophisticated non-reductivist accounts. Reviewing those, though, falls out of the scope of this paper.

  16. Recall, I am assuming that propositional knowledge is knowledge that entails belief, whose content is a proposition that is structured and made up of concepts.

  17. There is a rare condition, congenital analgesia, where the patient does not experience physical pain. Imagine, then, that you are conversing with a congenital analgesic.

  18. Having a “full grasp” of x implies having the maximal amount of information that can be acquired about x. Accordingly, having a full grasp of a phenomenal state φ’s phenomenology implies having the maximal amount of information that can be acquired about φ’s phenomenology: one gets a full grasp of φ’s phenomenology when one acquires all the information generated by φ’s phenomenology that can be acquired via introspection. More on the notion of information in a few paragraphs.

  19. As noted, this is partly because you have experienced φ, and thereby have become acquainted with φ, whereas I have not. I say “partly” because experiencing φ, although necessary, may not be sufficient for knowing φ—something more (e.g., attending to φ) may be required.

  20. Of course, on a Stalnakerian conception of propositions, information so defined is always propositional, for it implies the ruling out of some possible worlds. However, as noted, this is not the notion of proposition that is relevant to my present purpose—whose scope is limited to an understanding of “proposition” as a structured entity made up of concepts.

  21. The information that s is G is nested in s’s being F iff s’s being F carries the information that s is G (Dretske 1981: 71).

  22. See Giustina (2019) for a more thorough discussion of information acquisition in introspective acquaintance.

  23. My reflection on this point benefitted from discussion with Luca Gasparri.

  24. I owe it to an anonymous referee.

  25. A pure demonstrative is a demonstrative with no descriptive component. Whereas a descriptive demonstrative, besides demonstration, uses a description to pick out its reference (e.g., “that dog”), a pure demonstrative picks out its reference only via demonstration (e.g., “this”).

  26. It may be that, even when S becomes acquainted with φ, there remains an epistemic asymmetry between you and S, say, because you have reflected about φ more than S has. Still, ceteris paribus with respect to cognitive capacities and background knowledge, introspective acquaintance with φ obliterates the asymmetry in what you and S can possibly know about φ: once she becomes introspectively acquainted with φ, by reflecting more about φ, S can get the same amount of knowledge about it as you have.

  27. I owe this objection to an anonymous referee.

  28. An argument along these lines was suggested to me by Uriah Kriegel.

  29. I owe this objection to an anonymous referee.

  30. I am clearly oversimplifying: the literatures on the analysis of propositional knowledge and knowledge-how are so huge that it makes no sense to summarize them here. The important point is simply that multiple potential analyses are available.

  31. Whether non-attentive direct awareness could be sufficient for knowledge by acquaintance is an interesting issue that unfortunately I do not have the space to address here. For some reflections on this see Duncan (2018) and Giustina (2019).

  32. On the connection between attention and access to more determinate properties see Nanay (2010). On the connection between attention and information acquisition see, e.g., Campbell (2002) and Smithies (2011).

  33. This is admittedly sketchy and speculative. Unfortunately, I do not have the space here to draw a more complete analysis of introspective knowledge by acquaintance, which is, in fact, topic of further work.

  34. I am admittedly stretching a bit Balog’s view. However, what I outline in the main text is a legitimate potential analysis of acquaintance—an analysis in terms of identity of neural realizers and reference. This is all that matters for my present purpose.

  35. I suggest an alternative analysis in Giustina (2021).

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the French National Research Agency’s grants ANR-10-IDEX-0001-02 PSL and ANR-17-EURE-0017 FrontCog. For extensive and thorough comments to previous drafts, and for helping me develop this paper’s ideas, I am infinitely grateful to Uriah Kriegel. I am also grateful to Matt Duncan, Andrew Lee, François Récanati, and Charles Siewert for their comments on a previous draft, and to two anonymous referees for Synthese. This paper has benefitted from being presented at the Columbia University Graduate Workshop, at the 21st Annual CUNY Graduate Philosophy Conference, at the IUSS NeTS epistemology and philosophy of mind seminar in Pavia, at The 13th SIFA conference ‘Philosophical Perspectives’ in Novara, at the Knowledge and Science seminar in Hamburg, and at the 6th Diaphora workshop: Self-Knowledge in Paris. I am grateful to the audiences there and particularly to Alberto Barbieri, Silvia Bianchi, Michel Croce, Michele di Francesco, Katalin Farkas, Manuel García-Carpintero, Marie Guillot, Matthew Heeney, Yarran Hominh, Ethan Jacobs, Matt Jope, Ben Koons, Uriah Kriegel, Thomas Kroedel, Yifan Li, Jorge Morales, Devin Morse, Michael Murez, Peter Pagin, Michele Palmira, David Papineau, Giulia Piredda, Nicolas Porot, Andrew Richmond, Andrea Sereni, Sergiu Spatan, Alfredo Tomasetta, and Helen Zhao.

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  1. Philosophy Department, University of Liège, Bât. A1 Phénoménologies, place du 20-Août 7, 4000, Liège, Belgique

    Anna Giustina

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Giustina, A. Introspective knowledge by acquaintance. Synthese 200, 128 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03578-1

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