For Russell, we have knowledge by acquaintance ``with anything of which we are directly aware, without the intermediary of any process of inference or any knowledge of truths.'' (46) * when we perceive a table (touching and seeing it), the things that we perceive (color, shape, hardness, smoothness: its appearance), is what I have acquaintance – “things immediately know to me just as they are.”. This is different frm knowledge of the table as the physical object.

* W’out knowledge of truth: which may very well be a belief rather than actual knowledge), since w’out truth: may be wrong.
- “things immediately know to me just as they are.”: sounds like some concrete, independent from experience knowledge. someone’s color blind?
Russell lists 5 kinds of things we know by acquaintance: sense data, our memories, our own thoughts (by introspection), our (probably) our own self, and universals. [Universals are general ideas which can apply to many different particular things in the world.
We have acquaintance with the data of the senses, and in introspection (---thoughts, feelings, desires, etc.; we have acquaintance in memory with things which have been data either of the outer senses or the inner sense. Further, it is probable, though not certain, that we have acquaintance with Self, as that which is aware of things or has desires toward things.
[[Include memories n thoughts: that this classifying of experience does involve an unconscious process of inference; and that this unconscious process of inference may be mistaken or then produces false memories, or delusions).]]
In addition to our acquaintance with particular existing things, we also have acquaintance with what we shall call universals, that is to say, general ideas such as whiteness, diversity, and brotherhood, and so on. Every complete sentence must contain at least one word which stands for a universal, since all verbs have a meaning which is universal. (51—52) * I find the idea that we have knowledge by acquaintance with “universals”. Acquaintance would seem to involve perceiving or in some way coming in contact with the thing and it is hard to see how we could do that with brotherhood. Moreover, knowledge by acquaintance is supposed to not involve knowing the truth of any sentences. Knowing what brotherhood is requires knowing the truth of a lot of sentences though. -> KNOW UNIVERSAL BY KNOWING PARTICULARS? For now it should be noted that at the end of this chapter Russell does say ``Many universals, like many particulars, are only known to us by description,'' (58) so perhaps he simply made a bad choice with ``brotherhood.'' 

-The self: As pointed out in the previous note, self-consciousness, especially of the adult human variety, that involves a lot of linguistic knowledge, is quite mysterious in many ways, one mystery being why we have it at all; another mystery being where is that self we suppose ourselves to be conscious of; and yet another mystery is how it comes about that people sometimes seem not to be able to see themselves as others see them, and to be quite blind to what is quite obvious to others. * And it is not "obvious" to me "that it is only what goes on in our own minds that can be thus known immediately", although I agree that's a way of putting a normal belief (that may be otherwise expressed as "we only can know our own experience from experience"). This dogmatically denies the possibility of extra-sensory perception; it passes very lightly over the knowledge a mother seems to have of her baby; and it also seems a bit misleading about many ordinary experiences that we believe we share with others, like a good meal, music, the appreciation of a joke and so on, where it at least seems as if the experiences we believe we share are very similar if not identical. And in any case there are such ordinary mental acts as imagining oneself to be in another's shoes; "identifying" with others; playing a role etc. all of which are ways of coming to know the mind of others. Back. what may be called the inner sense * Incidentally, it seems to me a sensible hypothesis to postulate an organ of inner sense, that is related to our memories, fantasies, and judgments in a similar way as the eye is related to our visual experiences. This inner sense may well be called (a bit misleading, perhaps, but in accordance with common usage) "I", and be explained as what the personal pronoun stands for - say, something in - a part of or a system of events in parts of - our brain that organises and presents experiences. Back.

Knowledge by description

* The table, the physical object behind sense-data, is not direct knowledge. “The table is the physical object which causes such-and-such sense-data”. This describes the table by means of sense data.
2.2 Knowledge by description
We have knowledge by description of an object when we know that certain sentences that serve to distinguish that object from other objects are true. For Russell physical objects and other people's minds are not known by acquaintance but rather by description.
Grammatically, descriptions can be both definite and ambiguous. Definite descriptions are all of the form ``the so-and-so'' while ambiguous descriptions are all of the form ``a so-and-so.'' ``The cat'' refers to a particular cat. If I say ``the cat is over there'' it is definite because I am referring to a particular cat. If, however, I say ``A cat is a good companion'' I am not referring to any particular cat, but cats in general. Thus, this is an ambiguous description.
Russell thinks that our knowledge of truths about objects comes through our knowledge of the truth of definite descriptions. It is definite descriptions that play an important role in knowledge by description. * We shall say that an object is `known by description' when we know that it is `the so-and-so', i.e. when we know that there is one object, and no more, having a certain property; and it will generally be implied that we do not have knowledge of the same object by acquaintance. (53)
So I know Mary by description if I know that she is the person (the only person) who won the nobel peace prize this year. I can know this without having met her, in other words, without being acquainted with her.
Russell also shows us how to analyze certain sentences of English in terms of definite descriptions: * When we say `the so-and-so exists', we mean that there is just one object which is the so-and-so. The proposition `a is the so-and-so' means that a has the property so-and-so, and nothing else has. (53)
All of this so far is pretty unproblematic, and if you consider the examples given by Russell, seems to be obviously true. We can say that there is (just one) person who won the nobel peace prize this year. Mary is (or has the property of being) the one and only person who won the nobel peace prize this year. Thus Mary is the nobel peace prize winner for this year.
While the grammatical things Russell discovered about descriptions may strike us as pretty obvious, he uses these obvious truths to try to motivate claims that are not, at least at first glance, that obvious at all. On page 54 he writes: * Common words, even proper names, are usually really descriptions. That is to say, the thought in the mind of a person using a proper name correctly can generally only be expressed explicitly if we replace the proper name by a description. Moreover, the description required to express the thought will vary for different people, or for the same person at different times. The only thing constant (so long as the name is rightly used) is the object to which the name applies. But so long as this remains constant, the particular description involved usually makes no difference to the truth or falsehood of the proposition in which the name appears. (54)
This isn't really that strange if you think about it. If Russell is right, then my thought that ``Moses existed,'' is really a thought of the form ``The so-and-so existed.'' Perhaps something like ``The person who received the ten commandments, led his people out of bondage, and parted the red sea existed.'' 
 ===============
Chapter V. Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description
Since Russell wants to distinguish between what we know immediately (sense data) and what is know by inference from our sense data (physical objects), Russell needs to introduce two ways of talking about knowledge itself.
The first mode of knowing is immediate .
Russell calls this “Knowledge of things” or “Knowledge by Acquaintance”
“We have acquaintance with anything of which we are directly aware, without the intermediary of any process of inference, or any knowledge of truths.” (46)
The second mode of knowing is inferential and mediated
.
Russell calls this “Knowledge of truths” or “Knowledge by Description”
*Because all knowledge starts with experience, this means that all knowledge must be rooted in Acquaintance.
What can we be acquainted with? Types of DATA
Particular Data
P1) Sense data -- the experience of seeing red
P2) Introspection – awareness of our own internal states; thoughts, feelings, desires P3) Memory – awareness of past data
P4) The Self – known as that thing which has data presented to it.
*Acquaintance is relational: When we are aware in introspection of the fact that we are aware of a sense dataum D, there is a relation Self--aware of—D which we also are aware of
General Data
G1) Universals – abstract objects which are named by our general terms and concepts (redness itself) [We could not see red if we did not already have a concept of redness]
Ex: Whiteness, diversity, brotherhood
Awareness of Universals is called ‘conceiving’ a universal which we are aware of is called a ‘concept’
Knowledge by Description
Russell states “The chief importance of knowledge by description is that it enables us to pass beyond the limits of our private experience
. In spite of the fact that we can only know truths which are wholly composed of terms we have experienced in acquaintance, we can yet have knowledge by description of things which we have never experienced.”
(59)
What is a description: A description is a phrase of the form: ‘a so-and-so’ or ‘the so- and-so’ Examples: ‘A member of the Senate.’ ‘The Speaker of the House’
Descriptions are either indefinite or definite
Indefinite descriptions pick out individuals indiscriminately – many individuals are possible values for the description
‘A member of the Senate’ is satisfied by Trent Lott or by Ted Kennedy, or by 98 other people
Definite descriptions pick out specific individuals – one and only one individual is the value of a definite description.
‘The vice-president of the United States’ is satisfied by Dick Chaney and no one else We can pick out objects by description which we have never experienced:
‘The largest city in ancient Mesopotamia’
‘The highest point on the smallest planet orbiting Proxima Centauri’
When we say that something ‘exists’, what we mean is that an individual satisfies a definite description. If nothing satisfies a definite description then there is no such individual. The president of Egypt exists. = “There is one and only one thing that is president of Egypt”
The king of the fish people exists. = “there is one and only one thing that is king of the fish people”
More than one description can pick out the same individual
‘The victor at the Battle of Trenton’ ‘The first president of the United States’
“The most populous city in the World” “The most populous city in Mexico”
Our use of proper names is really shorthand for a description When I say: “Ted Kennedy is from Massachusetts” What I really mean (says
Russell) is “The senior senator from Massachusetts and younger brother of the president killed in 1963 is from Massachussets” The same individual makes both claims true.
All descriptions involve acquaintance
In order to pick out an individual by saying that it satisfies “the largest dog in
Kentucky” I must know what “largest” “Dog” “in” and “Kentucky” mean.
“largest” and “in” are universals. “Dog” is an indefinite description which I associate with a variety of dog experiences. “Kentucky” is a definite description which I might associate with Map experiences or experiences I had when traveling. In some cases, we use a term as a description only (e.g. Tibet). But the term acquires meaning because some one has been acquainted in the proper way with the object described, and introduced the term into our language. In those cases our acquaintance may simply ground out with the sound of the words.
Thus we have much more knowledge by description than by acquaintance, but all of our knowledge depends upon acquaintance.
Fundamental Principle of Analysis
“Every proposition which we understand must be compose wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted.
3 Propositions
For Russell and others a proposition is what a sentence means. For every sentence there exists a corresponding proposition which gives the meaning of that sentence. (This is analogous to saying that for every word there is a definition which gives the meaning of that word.)
One reason one might believe in propositions is because we want to explain how it is the case that different sentences have the same meaning. If two sentences both correspond to the same proposition, then with a theory of propositions we can explain why they have the same meaning. This is analogous to the way in which two words which have the same meaning have the same definition. Thus, consider the English sentence ``Snow is white'' and the German sentence ``Schnee ist weiss.'' With a theory of propositions we can explain why these sentences have the same meaning.
One way to think of propositions is to think of them as sentences of the language of thought. Some (though by no means all) linguists, psychologists, and philosophers believe there exists a language of thought in which all people think (regardless of the natural language they speak) and (1) when we speak a natural language such as English we are translating sentences from the language of thought into that natural language (2) when we hear and understand a sentence of a natural language such as English we are translating that sentence from the natural language into the language of thought. The idea is that there is a ``language'' called the language of thought all people have in common which they all think in, though it is not spoken. When we speak we translate this language to English (without even knowing it). For that matter when we think in English our minds are still translating the language of thought into English. If the language of thought is the same for all people, no matter what language they speak (and there are somewhat compelling reasons for thinking this to be the case), then sentences of different languages that have the same meaning (such as ``Snow is white'' and ``Schnee ist weiss'') both correspond to the same sentence of the language of thought.
People who believe in the language of thought think that it explains very well such data as: (1) how children are able to learn to speak and understand natural languages so quickly with little or no external help or teaching, (2) how deaf people who are taught a first language such as American Sign Language late in life were able to get about in the world before having a natural language at all (many of them led somewhat successful lives, and all of them report having a rich set of beliefs about the world prior to speaking or understanding a natural language), and (3) why the world's language are so similar to one another (they may not seem similar when you are learning new languages, but linguists find the similarity that is actually there to be shocking and in need of explanation).
For our purposes we will assume that a proposition is a sentence in the language of thought. Then Russell's statement that ``Every proposition which we can understand must be composed wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted'' can be understood as saying ``Every sentence in the language of thought must be composed wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted.'' This can still be made clearer. Since sentences are made of words, if we take propositions to be sentences in the language of thought, we should really say something like: * ``Every sentence in the language of thought must be such that the words in that sentence refer only to things which we are acquainted.''
Since our understanding of natural language sentences proceeds by translating those sentences into sentences of the language of thought, this implies: * Translation Thesis 
Every sentence is translatable into a sentence whose words refer only to things which we are acquainted.
Though Russell doesn't talk about a translation, but just talks about propositions which correspond to sentences, his discussion is much easier to track if we think about translation into a language of thought. In the next section we will try to make sense of how such a translation might work, and why somebody might believe something like this. 

4 The idea of a sense data language
We now understand the view of descriptions well enough to understand Russell's curious claim that ``Every proposition which we can understand must be composed wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted.'' The thought is that some words name objects and properties which we are acquainted and some do not. For example, words that name color sense-data are words with which name stuff which we are acquainted. Words that name physical objects such as ``that table'' name objects which we are not acquainted. [This follows directly from the conclusion in Chapter I that our knowledge of properties of physical objects is obtained indirectly by inference from sense data (which we are directly acquainted with).] Russell asks how we can have knowledge that sentences involving the word ``table'' are true, when we do not have (remember Chapter I) any non-inferential, direct, knowledge of the physical object the table. Remember that Russell says that we infer that there is a table there from our sensations of sense data. So I have a sensation of a brown, square thing etc. and infer that there is a table there. We can then translate the sentence ``That is a table'' to ``that is a brown, square thing.'' So the thought is that the words that name the sense data which allow us to infer that a given table exists can themselves be used to replace the word ``table'' in our sentence.
[Note: our example is significantly simplified. At the very least a sense data language will have to have ways to refer to every place in our visual field and all of the different colors we can see at those places, as well as be able to name all of the different sensations of taste, touch, hearing, and smell as well as relations between those sensations (i.e. ``this tastes sweeter than that''). The phrase that translates the word ``table'' would have to be quite complicated to be at all plausible. Our example ``brown, square thing'' wouldn't work because there are a lot of brown, square things which are not tables. If this sounds horribly difficult, it is. One of the things we have learned from trying to get machines to do the various sorts of things that people can do unproblematically (such as recognizing tables) is that people's abilities to recognize and talk about things are fantastically complicated.] 
 
Russell concludes with the epistemic contribution he takes his doctrines to make: * The chief importance of knowledge by description is that it enables us to pass beyond the limits of our private experience. In spite of the fact that we can only know truths which are wholly composed of terms which we have experienced in acquaintance, we can yet have knowledge by description of things which we have never experienced. In view of the very narrow range of our immediate experience, this result is vital, and until it is understood, much of our knowledge must remain mysterious and therefore doubtful. (59)
The thought here is that it is precisely because we can have knowledge of things by description that we can know about things we are not acquainted with.
I liked this quote because it basically says that everything that we know is based on not just experiences but also things that we have never experienced.
This means that the knowledge we gain may not be true and because we have never personally experienced it, how do we know that it's true at all? This quote reminded me of the psychological disorder of schizophrenia for some reason; I think that it reminded me of this because of the general idea that a person that has schizophrenia lives in a different reality.
Thus we now have some appreciation both of what Russell means by ``Every proposition which we can understand must be composed wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted'' as well as why anyone would believe this.

All our knowledge, both knowledge of things and knowledge of truths, rests upon acquaintance as its foundation.
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For one thing, we seem to know quite a lot of things without acquaintance: intuition?