[MD] Know-how

[david buchanan]

James
In 1890, William James, agreeing there were two fundamental kinds of knowledge, and adopting Grote's terminology, further developed the distinctions made by Grote and Helmholtz:I am acquainted with many people and things, which I know very little about, except their presence in the places where I have met them. I know the color blue when I see it, and the flavor of a pear when I taste it; I know an inch when I move my finger through it; a second of time, when I feel it pass; an effort of attention when I make it; a difference between two things when I notice it; but about the inner nature of these facts or what makes them what they are, I can say nothing at all. I cannot impart acquaintance with them to any one who has not already made it himself I cannot describe them, make a blind man guess what blue is like, define to a child a syllogism, or tell a philosopher in just what respect distance is just what it is, and differs from other forms of relation. At most, I can say to my friends, Go to certain places and act in certain ways, and these objects will probably come. (1890, p.221)


Russell
According to Russell, knowledge by acquaintance is obtained through a direct causal (experience-based) interaction between a person and the object that person is perceiving. Sense-data from that object are the only things that people can ever become acquainted with; they can never truly KNOW the physical object itself. A person can also be acquainted with his own sense of self (cogito ergo sum) and his thoughts and ideas. However, other people could not become acquainted with another person's mind, for example. They have no way of directly interacting with it, since a mind is an internal object. They can only perceive that a mind could exist by observing that person's behaviour.To be fully justified in believing a proposition to be true one must be acquainted, not only with the fact that supposedly makes the proposition true, but with the relation of correspondence that holds between the proposition and the fact. In other words, justified true belief can only occur if I know that a proposition (e.g. "Snow is white") is true in virtue of a fact (e.g. that snow is indeed white). By way of example, John is justified in believing that he is in pain if he is directly and immediately acquainted with his pain. Not if John makes an inference regarding his pain ("I must be in pain because my arm is bleeding"), but feels it as an immediate sensation ("My arm hurts!"). This direct contact with the fact and the knowledge that this fact makes a proposition true is what is meant with knowledge by acquaintance.On the contrary, when one is not directly and immediately acquainted with a fact, such as Julius Caesar's assassination, we speak of knowledge by description. When one is not directly in contact with the fact, but knows it only indirectly by means of a description, one arguably is not entirely justified in holding a proposition true (such as e.g. "Caesar was killed by Brutus"). 


> > Matt:
> > > I remember reading a transcript of a lecture Pirsig gave
> > > once where (if memory serves) he used Bertrand Russell's
> > > distinction between knowledge by appearance and
> > > knowledge by description to catch hold of the same thing.
> > 
> > 
> > Steve:
> > Are you talking about SODV? If not, I don't think I ever read that one.
> > 
> 
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