Knowledge by Acquaintance

The Acquaintance Relation

Acquaintance is a relation that holds between subjects and the objects of their acquaintance. But what kind of relation is it? It is sometimes said that the nature of acquaintance cannot be known by description, but only by acquaintance—in other words, one must be acquainted with acquaintance in order to know what it is.

Acquaintance with an object is usually defined as a conscious state of direct and unmediated awareness of an object. This follows Russell's (1912) definition: “We shall say that we have acquaintance with anything of which we are directly aware, without the intermediary of any process of inference or any knowledge of truth” (p. 25).

According to Russell, there are various different forms of acquaintance, including not only perception, but also memory, introspection, and conceptual awareness of universals. Nevertheless, perception is the least controversial example: In perception, we are acquainted with objects. But what are the objects of our perceptual acquaintance?

The Objects of Acquaintance

According to common sense, we are acquainted in perception with ordinary physical objects, including tables, chairs, and other people. According to Russell, however, when I see a table, I am not directly acquainted with the table, but rather with mental objects, which he calls sense data. Therefore, I do not know the table by acquaintance, but merely by description, as “the physical object which causes such-and-such sense data.” On this view, expressions used to refer to physical objects, including demonstratives and proper names, are really descriptions in disguise.

Russell uses a version of the argument from illusion to support his view. He argues that, when I view a tilted coin and seem to see an elliptical object, there is in fact an elliptical object that I am seeing. However, this object is not the coin, which is circular, but rather a mental sense datum. Critics of the argument deny that, in cases of illusion, if it seems that I am seeing an object that has certain properties, there is in fact an object that I am seeing, which has the relevant properties. Thus, there is no elliptical object that I am seeing; rather, I am seeing the circular coin, but its apparently elliptical shape is illusory. However, the problem of giving an adequate account of illusion remains one of the central problems in contemporary philosophy of perception.

The Role of Acquaintance

Acquaintance is central to Russell's theory of knowledge and his theory of conceptual thought. He draws a distinction between knowledge of things [Page 453]and knowledge of truths, which is best understood in terms of the distinction between our conceptual ability to think about things and our epistemic ability to know truths about those things. According to Russell (1912), acquaintance plays a foundational role in explaining each of these abilities: “All our knowledge, both knowledge of things and knowledge of truths, rests on acquaintance as its foundation” (p. 48).

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