It is widely held in philosophy that knowing is not a state of mind. On this view, rather than knowledge itself constituting a mental state, when we know, we occupy a belief state that exhibits some additional non-mental characteristics. Fascinatingly, however, new empirical findings from cognitive neuroscience and experimental philosophy now offer direct, converging evidence that the brain can—and often does—treat knowledge as if it is a mental state in its own right. While some might be tempted to keep the metaphysics of epistemic states separate from the neurocognitive mechanics of our judgements about them, here I will argue that these empirical findings give us sufficient reason to conclude that knowledge is at least sometimes a mental state. The basis of this argument is the epistemological principle of neurocognitive parity—roughly, if the contents of a given judgement reflect the structure of knowledge, so do the neurocognitive mechanics that produced them. This principle, which I defend here, straightforwardly supports the inference from the empirical observation that the brain sometimes treats knowledge like a mental state to the epistemological conclusion that knowledge is at least sometimes a mental state. All told, the composite, belief-centric metaphysics of knowledge widely assumed in epistemology is almost certainly mistaken.

哲学中广泛认为知道不是一种精神状态。根据这种观点，当我们知道时，我们占据了一种表现出一些额外的非心理特征的信念状态，而不是知识本身构成一种心理状态。然而，令人着迷的是，来自认知神经科学和实验哲学的新经验发现现在提供了直接、一致的证据，表明大脑可以——而且经常确实——将知识视为一种精神状态。虽然有些人可能倾向于将认知状态的形而上学与我们对它们的判断的神经认知机制分开，但在这里我将论证，这些经验发现给了我们足够的理由得出结论，知识至少有时是一种精神状态。这个论点的基础是神经认知平等的认识论原理——粗略地说，如果给定判断的内容反映了知识的结构，那么产生它们的神经认知机制也能反映知识的结构。我在此捍卫的这一原则直接支持从经验观察得出的推论，即大脑有时将知识视为一种精神状态，以及知识至少有时是一种精神状态的认识论结论。总而言之，认识论中广泛假设的复合的、以信仰为中心的知识形而上学几乎肯定是错误的。直接支持从经验观察的推论，即大脑有时将知识视为一种精神状态，以及知识至少有时是一种精神状态的认识论结论。总而言之，认识论中广泛假设的复合的、以信仰为中心的知识形而上学几乎肯定是错误的。直接支持从经验观察的推论，即大脑有时将知识视为一种精神状态，以及知识至少有时是一种精神状态的认识论结论。总而言之，认识论中广泛假设的复合的、以信仰为中心的知识形而上学几乎肯定是错误的。