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- Benj Hellie (2009). Acquaintance. In Tim Bayne, Axel Cleeremans & Patrick Wilken (eds.), Oxford Companion to Consciousness. Oxford University Press.In every familiar case, a conscious subject has a perspective on the world. From time to time, various things are brought within this perspective: when one sees a mockingbird, or entertains a thought about Tony Blair, the mockingbird---or Blair---comes within one’s perspective. Upon reflection, it seems that not all entries into a subject’s perspective are on a par: the mockingbird when seen seems to be in some sense more intimately within one’s perspective than is Blair when merely thought about. This suggests---and a number of philosophers have found theoretical utility in supposing--- that there may be a maximally intimate way of being in a subject’s perspective.
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I argue that if a subject's acquaintance with an object is necessary for him to think about and refer to the object, then the content of his thought cannot be a set of metaphysically possible worlds. Acquaintance resets what possibilities there are; it affects the powers of representation, and does not only limit the range of possibilities. If acquaintance restricts what a subject can think about, the theorist cannot specify what possibilities are open to the subject simply in terms of possible worlds.
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No categories
Jane’s fleeting glimpse of a mockingbird conscious is Jane’s taking a perspective on, or representing, that glimpse; or one might say that the specific feel of that fleeting glimpse can be understood by saying how things are from Jane’s perspective, or how Jane represented things to be (it was to Jane as if a mockingbird flashed by).
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