Awareness Is Knowledge

Abstract This chapter further develops the author’s case for the claim that some knowledge is constituted, not by beliefs in propositions, but by conscious awareness of properties and objects. He starts by considering how best to approach the debate over this claim. He adopts an approach that focuses on certain philosophical roles that are played by, and standardly attributed to, knowledge. He argues that conscious perceptual and introspective awareness sometimes plays those roles and, for that reason, should be considered a distinctive type of knowledge. After going through several examples, the author focuses especially on the roles that knowledge plays in guiding behavior and as the basis of knowledge-conferring reasoning. He argues that conscious awareness sometimes plays these roles and that it therefore should be considered knowledge.