Abstract​

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What is to know someone? The question is rarely considered as a separate issue in epistemology, though it arises in many guises in everyday life. Grammatically, it is a form of objectual or relational knowledge. But is this grammar just skin deep? In the first part of the talk I lay out what I take to be fairly common sense characterisations of our knowledge of people, all of which suggest that is has a sui generis form not shared with any other kinds of knowledge, including other kinds of objectual knowledge. In the second part I gesture very briefly at the potential implications of putting such knowledge centre stage when considering other issues, such as: the kind of understanding we employ when thinking about people; the relation between knowledge and the emotions, knowledge and ethics, and self-knowledge. ​