This paper examines what it takes for a state of knowledge-how to be extended (i.e. partly constituted by entities external to the organism) within an anti-intellectualist approach to knowledge-how. I begin by examining an account of extended knowledge-how developed by Carter, J. Adam, and Boleslaw Czarnecki. 2016 [“Extended Knowledge-How.” Erkenntnis 81 (2): 259–273], and argue that it fails to properly distinguish between cognitive outsourcing and extended knowing-how. I then introduce a solution to this problem which rests on the distribution of (...) tasks between agent and non-biological entity. On closer inspection, I show that this solution is ultimately unsatisfactory, though its failure is instructive as it illuminates the important role played by an agent’s skilled interaction with an external entity. Drawing on key anti-intellectualist ideas, as well as on insight from cognitive psychology, I propose an account according to which what ultimately matters for extending knowledge-how is whether a hybrid ability is self-regulated. In closing, I illuminate the practical value of extended knowledge-how vis-à-vis cognitive outsourcing. (shrink)

In chapter 4 of Autonomous Knowledge: Radical Enhancement, Autonomy and the Future of Knowing (OUP, 2021), Carter takes on the question of whether there is an epistemic autonomy condition on know-how, e.g. one that might rule out cases of radical performance enhancement as genuine cases of know-how. In this paper, I examine Carter’s proposal and identify an asymmetry in the way his epistemic autonomy condition is applied to enhanced and non-enhanced instances of know-how. In particular, it seems that either an (...) autonomy condition is required for all forms of knowledge-how or it is not. If it is, then a potential worry is that young children do not manifest their know-how when doing things that we would normally be inclined to say they know how to do. If it is not, then young children do manifest some forms of non-enhanced know-how. While Carter chooses the second option, I argue that it is better to choose the first one, that is, to claim that all know-how needs to be epistemically autonomous along the lines he has described. I also show how this does not exclude young children from knowing how to do things. (shrink)