Analysis Of Frank Jackson's Knowledge Argument

The knowledge argument was created by Frank Jackson who was a great philosopher in the 1980’s. His argument is one the most discussed and important in philosophy. Frank Jackson’s argument is known as Mary’s room or Mary the super-scientist which is a philosophical thought experiment. In the whole experiment he argues against physicalism because everything is seen as physical or supervenes to physical. He says that this is false with the existence of consciousness.

Frank Jackson’s argument starts by inviting the reader to imagine the following scenario: Mary is an extraordinary neuroscientist who has spent her whole life in a room that is only visible to the colors black and white. Mary is thought by a black and white monitor all the physical facts about color vision. Mary specializes in neurophysiology of vision and suppossibly acquires all the physical information there is to know about when we see tulips or the sky and to use the terms red, blue etc. Mary discovers which wavelength combinations from the sky trigger the retina. Mary knows how exactly this produces via the central nervous system the shrinkage of

As a matter of fact Mary would not know. The argument does not rest on assuming falsely that, if S knows that a is F and if a = b, then S knows that b is F. The knowledge Mary lacked is knowledge about the experiences of others, not about her own. Obviously Mary gain new Knowledge by experiencing visually the color red.

When Mary left the room and witnessing color first-hand she obtains new knowledge. Mary might have had some knowledge prior to her release but she didn’t have all knowledge. Therefore, not all knowledge is physical knowledge. The knowledge argument is correct in my point of view but I still have some doubts in regards to physicalism but Frank Jackson does provide strong arguments against