Russell
According to Russell, all knowledge is ultimately dependent upon experience, but some of it is direct, which is when we have knowledge by acquaintance, and some of it is indirect, which depends on a description of a direct experience. Thus, for example, if someone feels a pain, he is directly acquainted with it and knows that he has a pain, which is knowledge by acquaintance. If someone else reports that he is experiencing a pain, then one only knows this by virtue of his description of the pain, and not because one is directly acquainted with it: this is knowledge by description.
Read more about this topic: Knowledge By Description
Famous quotes containing the word russell:
“They talk about their Pilgrim blood,
Their birthright high and holy!
A mountain-stream that ends in mud
Methinks is melancholy.”
—James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)
“Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;
Everything is happy now,
Everything is upward striving;”
—James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)
“The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts, and dwell a hermit anywhere.”
—James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)