Knowledge Argument Physicalism

In this essay I will introduce the Knowledge Argument. I will also state and explain Premise 1 and Premise 2, and why the respective premise is plausible. Next, I will state and explain the Conclusion and why it is implied by the premises. I will then identify and explain what the strongest objection to the Knowledge Argument is as well as justify the objection. I will evaluate the argument, stating that the objection fails to scrutinize Premise 2 of the Knowledge Argument, and explain my overall evaluation of the Knowledge Argument. Finally, I will discuss how the discussion of the Knowledge Argument settles the Physicalism debate. The name of the argument to be discussed is the Knowledge Argument. The point of this argument is to present

Living in this black and white room, she has learned and specialized in the physics and physiology of color perception. She has never experienced any color herself, but she knows the exact properties and procedures in the brain that happen when one perceives color. She knows what happens in the eyes, brain, the wave lengths, and surface of the object. In other words, she knows every physical fact of what goes on when one perceives color. This is plausible because humans have the ability to thoroughly learn facts regarding a subject just as Mary acquired thorough knowledge of the physics and physiology of color perception.

The second premise of the Knowledge Argument is: when Mary leaves the room she learns a new fact about the conscious state of seeing red. After Mary leaves the room she learns something new because she is experiencing something that she didn’t experience before. This is plausible because she had never experienced the color red since she only experienced black and white during her whole life time. Therefore, experiencing red is a new thing for her so she learns a new fact about the conscious state of seeing

But the single strongest objection to the argument is the denial that Mary learns any new facts, which is an objection to Premise 2. According to the critics who object the Knowledge Argument, Mary represents the facts she already knew differently. They argue that the facts about the color experiences are captured completely by the information of the physics and physiology that Mary learns before she experiences color. Subsequently, they state that the same facts that Mary knew before she experienced color can be represented differently under phenomenal guises. But in this case the facts are not represented differently because the “pre-release” Mary fails to represent the facts under the right phenomenal guise. For example, Jacob knows every single fact about flowers, but has never heard of one type of flower called flower E. This does not mean that his knowledge is lacking of something, but it means that he fails to represent the relevant facts using the ‘flower E’-guise. In the same way, Mary fails to represent the relevant facts using the relevant guise (Alter, 2014). This is a plausible objection because Mary does know all the facts that are involved when dealing with perception of color, and it is just the manner of presentation that’s different when she comes out of the room and sees red. She’s not learning something new, but is only being presented with the same information presented in a different