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:
“Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;
Everything is happy now,
Everything is upward striving;”
—James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)
“Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come.”
—James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)
“Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her;
And she, kissing back, could not know
That my kiss was given to her sister,
Folded close under deepening snow.”
—James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)