PHILOS 1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 24: Durian, Physicalism, Qualia
Document Summary
Mary (before her release) knows everything physical there is to know about other people. Mary (before her release) does not know everything there is to know about other people (because she learns something about them on her release) Therefore, there are truth about other people and herself which escape the physicalist story. Suppose that you know a full-fledged physical description of other people"s experiencing the taste of durian, but you have not actually ate it. Are there truth about other people regarding the durian-experience which escape the physicalist story. In other words, does your durian-tasting experience tell you something more of other people than the full-fledged physical description. On her release, mary does not learn something or acquire knowledge in the relevant sense. What mary acquires when she is released is a certain representational or imaginative ability, it is knowledge how rather than knowledge that.
