What Is Knowledge of Things?

Abstract This chapter gives an account of “knowledge of things.” Knowledge of things is a genus with two species: Knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. Knowledge by acquaintance is constituted by direct conscious awareness of properties and objects. Knowledge by description is constituted by conscious awareness of properties and objects as falling under a concept. After saying more about the constituent relation (i.e., awareness) and content (i.e., properties and objects) of knowledge of things, the author considers whether there are further conditions on it parallel to conditions on propositional knowledge (e.g., truth, justification). He suggests that there are. The author calls them “veridicality” and “well-foundedness” conditions, and he spells out different ways to understand them. He concludes this chapter by discussing some ways knowledge of things relates to other forms of knowledge.