Where Does the Knowledge Argument Go Wrong?

Abstract

In his well-known Knowledge Argument (KA) Frank Jackson attempted to show that physicalism is false by offering a case that allegedly showed that a complete physicalist description of the world leaves something crucial out, namely the phenomenal qualities of experience. Eventually Jackson himself retracted and claimed that the interesting task is to explain where and why intuition-pumping arguments against physicalism such as the KA go wrong. This is exactly the task that occupies this paper: to discuss and criticize three of the most important diagnoses of the KA’s weak points and to offer my own view about the latter. Along the way, several important but often neglected features of the KA are expounded and clarified.