Mary has mastered every physical and functional fact about color vision. Jackson argues that when she leaves the black-and-white room and sees red, she learns something new. What, precisely, does Jackson claim she learns?
AShe learns that her previous physical knowledge contained factual errors about color perception
BShe learns what it is like to experience red — a phenomenal fact not captured by any physical description
CShe learns a more efficient cognitive procedure for identifying red objects in her environment
DShe learns that color is a physical property of surfaces, which she had mistakenly believed was relational
Jackson's argument hinges on a specific type of new knowledge: phenomenal or qualitative knowledge — knowledge of what an experience is like from the inside. Mary already knew all the physical, functional, and structural facts about red color vision. What she lacked was acquaintance with the quale itself. If she gains knowledge she didn't have before, and that knowledge isn't physical, then physical facts don't exhaust all facts — which is what physicalism denies. Option C (abilities) is actually the physicalist response (the ability hypothesis), not Jackson's claim.
Question 2 Multiple Choice
The 'ability hypothesis' (proposed by David Lewis and Sydney Nemirow) responds to the knowledge argument by claiming:
AMary does gain new propositional knowledge, but it is knowledge of a physical fact expressed in a new phenomenal concept
BMary acquires only new abilities — to recognize, remember, and imagine red — not new knowledge that any fact obtains
CThe thought experiment is incoherent because complete physical knowledge of color vision is impossible in principle
DMary's experience in the room was itself sufficient to give her knowledge of red qualia through physical inference
Lewis and Nemirow grant that Mary gains something when she leaves the room, but deny it is propositional knowledge (knowledge that some fact is the case). Instead, she gains know-how: the ability to recognize red when she sees it, to imagine the experience, to remember it. On this view, no new facts are acquired — only new skills. This preserves physicalism because abilities are not facts about the world. The phenomenal concepts strategy (option A) is a different physicalist reply that does accept new concepts but denies new facts.
Question 3 True / False
Jackson's knowledge argument concludes that the mind and body are made of mostly different substances — a form of substance dualism.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
Jackson's conclusion is property dualism, not substance dualism. He does not claim that minds are non-physical things (substances) separate from brains. He claims that phenomenal properties — like the qualitative character of seeing red — are real features of the world that are not identical to or reducible to physical properties. Substance dualism (Descartes's view) holds that mind and body are distinct kinds of stuff; property dualism holds that they are distinct kinds of properties, potentially in the same substrate.
Question 4 True / False
According to Jackson's original argument, the fact that Mary learns something new upon seeing red is evidence that physical facts alone do not constitute all the facts about conscious experience.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: True
This is the argument's central logical move: premise (1) Mary knows all physical facts before leaving the room; premise (2) Mary learns a new fact when she sees red; conclusion: there exist facts that are not physical facts. Jackson uses this to argue against physicalism — the view that the physical facts fix all facts. If both premises are accepted, the conclusion follows. Most responses to the argument attack one of the premises, either denying that Mary really knows 'all physical facts' or denying that she gains genuinely new propositional knowledge.
Question 5 Short Answer
What is the 'phenomenal concepts strategy' response to the knowledge argument, and how does it try to reconcile Mary's new knowledge with physicalism?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: The phenomenal concepts strategy holds that Mary knew the same physical fact both before and after leaving the room, but comes to grasp it through a new type of concept — a phenomenal concept, acquired through direct experience, rather than the functional or scientific concepts she used previously. On this view, the novelty is in the mode of representation, not in the fact represented. Mary gains a new way of thinking about a fact she already knew, not access to a new fact. This preserves physicalism: if there are no new facts, only new concepts, then physical facts can still be all the facts — the explanatory gap is a feature of our conceptual system, not a gap in reality.
The phenomenal concepts strategy is widely considered one of the most sophisticated physicalist responses because it grants the phenomenological force of the thought experiment (something does feel new) while denying the anti-physicalist conclusion (no new fact is acquired). Jackson himself eventually found this type of response convincing and retracted his anti-physicalist conclusion, though the debate continues.