Grounds of Acquaintance

Abstract

As an intentional relation, acquaintance depends on content, viz., an indexical content: A person is acquainted with an object in having an experience if and only if the experience has a certain indexical content and that content in that experience prescribes, or is satisfied by, that object. Furthermore, by the conditions of satisfaction for that content, the acquaintance depends on the context of the experience: The indexical content in an acquainting experience prescribes, or is satisfied by, a given object if and only if that object stands in an appropriate contextual relation to the experience. But acquaintance also depends on context in another way, for: An acquainting experience normally cannot occur unless the relevant contextual relation holds. Visual experience, for instance, normally cannot occur unless the object of vision is before the subject and causing the experience. That contextual relationship is thus a normal precondition of the experience. Similarly, inner awareness of one’s current experience, and of oneself, cannot occur unless the awareness is an appropriate part of the experience one is having.