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:
“There was a young man in Rome that was very like Augustus Caesar; Augustus took knowledge of it and sent for the man, and asked him “Was your mother never at Rome?” He answered “No Sir; but my father was.””
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
“An intentional object is given by a word or a phrase which gives a description under which.”
—Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe (b. 1919)