Common Knowledge and Sex

Common Knowledge and Sex

There is knowledge and there is common knowledge. Common knowledge is the situation in which A knows that B knows and B knows that A knows that B knows, etc. It is a fairly complex form of knowledge. Where does it come from? In what circumstances did it first arise? What is the paradigm case of it? Presumably it is not in economic contexts, such as it being common knowledge that money has value. I think sex is a good candidate: the proximity is such that it is common knowledge between the participants that they are having sex together. How could lovers miss it? The fact in question is evident to both parties, as is the knowledge of that fact possessed by both. It is obvious to both that the other knows what is happening. This is necessary for sexual coordination: you can’t coordinate your actions unless you know that the other knows (I leave it to the reader to fill in the details). Once you have the concept of knowledge it is a short step to the concept of common knowledge in a sexual dyad. It also becomes part of the nature of the sex act—this knowing that the other knows and he or she knowing that. If knowledge is inevitable in a sexual situation, then common knowledge is also inevitable in that situation. The fact impinges on the sensorium of both parties, but so does the knowledge of that fact—he or she knows that the other knows what is afoot. The other’s knowledge impinges on me, as my knowledge impinges on the other. Each phase of the unfolding act is accompanied by such common knowledge: I know that you know that I know that you know, and so on. So, this special type of knowledge arises naturally from the sexual nexus. The hypothesis is that the possibility of such knowledge arose from the sexual special case, it being so salient and integral to that act. Sexual epistemology is thus at the root of the general notion of common knowledge. It is the paradigm case and springboard. It probably arose in animal populations millions of years ago as a result of successful copulation. It is a useful biological adaptation. It then became a general phenomenon of group psychology. In the beginning was the deed. Knowledge arose in that context[1] and so did knowledge of knowledge.

[1] See my “Amatory Knowledge”. We could call this view “sexual foundationalism” (as opposed to sensory foundationalism). It is a kind of Freudian epistemology. If Freud were right, we could predict repression of the truth of this view: we don’t like to accept that our prized knowledge derives, ontogenetically and phylogenetically, from sexual roots. The oral, anal, genital, and cerebral phases (centered on the head).