The contrasting expressions "knowledge by description" and "knowledge by acquaintance" were promoted by Bertrand Russell, who was extremely critical of the equivocal nature of the word know, and believed that the equivocation arose from a failure to distinguish between the two fundamentally different types of knowledge.
Read more about Knowledge By Description: Grote, Helmholtz, James, Russell
Famous quotes containing the words knowledge and/or description:
“What matters it that man should have a little more knowledge of the universe? If he has it, he gets little higher. Is he not always infinitely removed from the end, and is not the duration of our life equally removed from eternity, even if it lasts ten years longer?”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and to- morrow you arrive there, and know them by inhabiting them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)