What RoboMary Knows
Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge January 1, 2007 Daniel Dennett 91 citations
Daniel Dennett argues against the intuition that Mary gains new knowledge when she leaves her black-and-white room and sees color for the first time, a position he first presented in his 1991 book, Consciousness Explained. He contends that this intuition arises from failing to fully appreciate what it means to know all the physical facts. Dennett criticizes defenses of the intuition, devises variations of the Mary case to show how one might deduce what it is like to see in color from physical information, and defends his arguments against objections. He concludes that a proper understanding of phenomenal concepts and knowledge demonstrates there is no epistemic gap.