God and Knowledge by Acquaintance and Description

Abstract

In an earlier Chapter I suggested that the distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description is that between direct and indirect knowledge.¹ Knowledge by acquaintance is a matter of the direct cognitive awareness of some one. Knowledge by description is a matter of indirect knowledge of some thing or person. I argued that direct knowledge was foundational of indirect knowledge. There were four features of knowing by acquaintance to which I drew particular attention, namely:

• 1 Knowing by acquaintance is personal. It has a first hand quality about it necessarily. This is not to say that it is private, for it must admit of some description. It is by making some such description that what we know by acquaintance passes out of private experience into the world of public truth.

• 2 Knowing by acquaintance is non-transferrable. This is but to say that I cannot have your experience and you cannot have mine. It does not mean that we cannot have similar experiences and describe them to one another.

• 3 Knowing by acquaintance admits of degree and development. This is illustrated in that it makes sense to speak of knowing something or some one better.

• 4 Knowing by acquaintance is always more than the sum total of knowledge by description. No amount of description can be the same as the experience of knowing by acquaintance. However, if there is said to be no possibility of giving a description of what is claimed to be known by acquaintance then the claim to knowledge by acquaintance makes no sense.