To know what it feels like to eat a blueberry, you need to have tasted a blueberry. But the same does not apply to what philosophers call “propositional” knowledge. Such knowledge is typically thought to consist of statements that are true or false; to know that blueberries are in the genus Vaccinium, for example, you need never have eaten or even laid eyes upon a blueberry. The key question, then, is whether the most important insights drawn from experiential knowledge can—especially insofar as they are relevant to social and political debates—be shared in the form of propositional knowledge.
