The Acquaintance Trilemma: Knowledge, Consciousness, and Mental Qualities
Erkenntnis February 21, 2026 Jacopo Pallagrosi
Recent discussions of acquaintance typically assume three claims: (i) acquaintance is a form of knowledge of qualitative character, (ii) acquaintance constitutes phenomenal consciousness, and (iii) necessarily, mental qualities are phenomenally conscious. This paper argues that, although each claim is independently attractive, together they generate a trilemma. Drawing on a general...