Jackson’s “black-and-white Mary” argument

Question 1

physicalism

Answer 1

The view that everything that exists is entirely physical

Question 2

jackson’s thoughts on physicalism

Answer 2

• He argues that “physicalism” is false, and he calls his argument for this conclusion the “knowledge argument”
• In speaking of “physicalism”, Jackson means to be speaking of the same view we have been calling “materialism”.

Question 3

black and white mary

Answer 3

• Uses a thought experiment involving Mary, “a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black-and-white room via a black-and-white television monitor”
• (P1) When she is released from her black-and-white room and first sees a red tomato, Mary will learn something : she will come to know something she didn’t know before.
• (P2) If physicalism is true, Mary will not learn anything when she is released.
• (C) Physicalism is false

Question 4

the ability hypothesis

Answer 4

• Mary does learn something when she sees red for the first time. And learning does indeed entail acquiring new knowledge. But the new knowledge Mary gains is not factual knowledge. Instead, it is ability knowledge, “know-how”.
  -> Counterexamples to the ability hypothesis
• Knowing what it’s like but without the abilities
• Having the abilities but without knowing what it’s like

Question 5

the new knowledge-old fact hypothesis

Answer 5

Contra the ability hypothesis, Mary will gain new factual knowledge when she sees red for the first time. But this is not incompatible with physicalism.

Question 6

epiphenomenal qualia

Answer 6

• If Mary does learn something, he reasons, then what she learns about isn’t physical, but rather a non-physical property of her experience, a property which determines its “reddish” qualitative character which he calls a “quale”.
• Thus, he’s advocating property dualism.
• He argues that non-physical qualia are epiphenomenal: they don’t cause anything physical to happen.