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    Russell's distinction between knowledge by acquaintance a... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→Knowledge of an object is only achieved when that object is related to still other objects.

    Russell's distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description shows that some knowledge is non-relational and immediate.

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    1 reason for
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    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Direct sensory experience of sense-data (e.g., the redness of red) requires no intervening conceptual framework or description.
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    • 2.Knowledge by description depends on chains of inference, while acquaintance is logically prior and independent of those chains.
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    • 3.We can be wrong about descriptions of objects, but not about the immediate phenomenal character of what we directly experience.
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    Reasons Against

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    Reason against
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    • 1.All cognitive states, including acquaintance, involve conceptual mediation and representational content, so true immediacy is illusory.
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    • 2.The sense-data theory Russell relies on is empirically questionable and epistemologically undermined by modern philosophy of perception.
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    • 3.Even Russell's own acquaintance with sense-data requires identifying, categorizing, and applying concepts—making it implicitly relational.
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    Key Terms

    knowledge(Distinguished from mere true belief, which may be the product of indoctrination and need not exercise deliberative capacities.)
    Justified true belief — true belief that has been arrived at through the exercise of deliberative capacities, including comparison of and deliberation among alternatives.

    Connections

    2 topics

    Truth & Knowledge1 linkedCausation1 linked

    Related

    All cognitive states, including acquaintance, involve conceptual mediation and r...Direct sensory experience of sense-data (e.g., the redness of red) requires no i...Even Russell's own acquaintance with sense-data requires identifying, categorizi...Knowledge by description depends on chains of inference, while acquaintance is l...
    +3 moreShow less
    Knowledge of an object is only achieved when that object is related to still oth...The sense-data theory Russell relies on is empirically questionable and epistemo...

    Details

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    claim
    Perspectives
    2 (1 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit
    We can be wrong about descriptions of objects, but not about the immediate pheno...