Transformative Experience and Knowledge-Wh

Dr Yuri Cath (La Trobe University)

Abstract: Can I know what it is like to deliver a stand-up comedy routine, give birth to a child, or go to war, without having had those experiences myself? Is it possible to gain this ‘what it is like’-knowledge by reading stories or talking with the experienced? Philosophers typically hold a pessimistic attitude towards this possibility on the grounds that ‘what it is like’-knowledge is subject to an experience condition such that (normally) one can know what it is like to have an experience only if one has had an experience of that same type oneself (see e.g. Lewis 1998; Paul 2014). And endorsements of this pessimistic attitude can also be found in novels, films, and pop music. But, I shall argue, a puzzle now arises because there are also countless examples of everyday practices and judgments that testify to our holding an optimistic attitude towards this same possibility. In this paper I explore how this puzzle can be illuminated and potentially dissolved by appealing to recent work on the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of ‘knowledge-wh’ ascriptions. I also show how these same ideas can help us to better evaluate Paul’s (2014) argument that we cannot rationally decide whether to have a transformative experience (like becoming a parent for the first time) on the basis of our expectations of what it would be like to have that experience.