What Mary (doesn't) know

The philosopher Frank Jackson's thought experiment,What Mary Knows,has us imagine a scientist who throughout her life has lived in a black and white coloured room,herself painted black,so that she has no experience of colour.We are then told that Mary has instructed herself on all there is to know about colour. Mary then,some years after having acquired this knowledge goes out into the world and experiences technicolor.The question is whether any new knowledge is gained.After all she knew already everything there is to know about,for example,red.Jackson furthers this with the argument that to know a thing under one description but not another does not negate the identity.I can know that water is wet but not know that H2O is wet.This does not mean that water is not H2O.So it seems prima facia that Mary does not gain any further knowledge.But let us analyse this argument. The main premise and presupposition is that Mary can know all there is to know about redness without actually experiencing red.Redness being a certain frequency of light reected off a certain density of material before making its way to the occipital cortex. Mary must interpret what light is rstly,and after all she has had experience of both light and the colours white and black.Surely she can use this to arrive at the _meaning_ of redness.But what does redness mean and what is it to _know_ that meaning? The meaning of something is its truth value and its truth value is its meaning,and to know this truth value,to have it represented in memory which we can communicate or use for the betterment of our wellbeing,is to have knowledge of that thing.But surely that is circular reasoning?I can best explain what it is to know something,and what a truth value is with reference to an argument made by Aristotle in response to those who doubted his 'laws of thought'.It is the law of excluded middle which is of interest to us.This law shows that something cannot be both the case and not the case.Either it is or it is not.What Aristotle pointed out was that to doubt these laws rested on the use of that vey law and so could not be doubted.

"Aristotle's apodeixai elenctikos argument for his deepest laws of 'being qua being' is that no one can in practice formulate or express a doubt about the laws because the very act of formulating or expressing the denial of the laws already involves a commitment to those laws. They are required for the words to have sense and are implicated even in our acts of rational choice. If something could be both sharp and not-sharp, in violation of the Law of Contradiction, the sentence 'The knife is sharp' would no longer contain any information. Aristotle allows that there could be someone not committed to those laws, but that individual would be incapable of speech, thought or rational choice and no better than a vegetable' (that is, not a human){,} as Aristotle puts it."^^

What is the case is a proposition and propositions have truth values in order to have sense.To gain a truth value in memory and/or be able to relate that truth value in language,is to know the meaning of that proposition or thing.Truth in the case of redness is correspondence.The very meaning of redness is one set by the community to mean that perspectival experience of redness in our delineated vista.Mary cannot know all there is to know about redness as the very meaning of that word is set by our correspondence with red objects.Before she enters the world she has an interpretation which is then given true 'veridical' meaning. Not all knowledge is got from correspondence though,we interpret the world to gain meaning.The truth of a river I am faced with may be that it is an obstacle.To another with the correct equipment,a crossing point.We also seek to interpret propositions given by media,the behaviours and actions of other people and groups,and ourselves in relation to the world.But in the case of redness it is correspondence,it is our everyday experience of

redness which gives that word it's meaning.Mary can no more interpret red than she can interpret what is outside this universe.If colour experience does not exist out there in the world.If it is an inner qualitative experience only experienced within,it cannot be the case and not the case that we can only get knowledge of red from our qualitative inner experience-that makes no sense.Not to mention that If we can get knowledge of something without reference to empirical facts-empiricism is false For those who may feel that non-correspondence may admit of relativism,rstly I would charge that yes,as I hope the above example shows,one truth for me may not be a truth for another.I would then point out that certain of our group activities are exactly about interpreting the world based on mathematics which rest on Aristotle's laws.The truths of these propositions related to us in coherent language with corresponding images and in relation to other propositions we can all acquire the correct meaning from,as we continually exercise our most basic of interpretive skills.(Despite Descartes hyperbolic doubt,which he asks us not to take seriously,I cannot doubt that my hand is in front of me or that there is an external world.The term 'external world' gets its meaning from this world and so to doubt that there is an external world,using 'external world' in the proposition,and all the while stood in this world whilst expressing the doubt,makes no sense) There is also the fact that geometry was created out of human practices,with examples of its use throughout history,showing that we all perceive the world veridically the same way. There is also much literature from psychology which shows that we are good at interpreting others and being able to achieve common goals.Though that is not to say that interpretation is easy.I no more know what the associations which give the meaning of a metaphysical word given by a mystical tribesman than he would know what is meant by 'fermion',though we could both with patience,as we harness our skills,come to an understanding. Lastly a passage on our skills.

"Aristotle is dealing with laws of reason and assertion and the impossibility of their denial, laws which stand above human history itself and are therefore not historically conditioned. Those laws that Aristotle showed impossible to doubt were a condition of human rationality and human history and therefore stood outside of that history......And that truth consists in the fact that all human rationality and practice rest on {these} laws. Because they lie at the base of and are a condition for judgement itself, {these} laws are impregnable."^^

^^Philosophy and DeMystication (Guy Robinson)-available online free as out of copyright