A wide variety of skills, abilities and knowledge are used in technological activities such as engineering design. Together, they enable problem solving and artefact creation. Gilbert Ryle’s division of knowledge into knowing how and knowing that is often referred to when discussing this technological knowledge. Ryle’s view has been questioned and criticised by those who claim that there is only one type, for instance, Jason Stanley and Timothy Williamson who claim that knowing how is really a form of knowing that (...) and Stephen Hetherington who claims that knowing that is knowing how. Neither Ryle himself nor any of his critics have discussed technological knowledge. Exposing both Ryle’s and his critics’ ideas to technological knowledge show that there are strong reasons to keep the knowing how–knowing that dichotomy in technological contexts. The main reasons are that they are justified in different ways, that Stanley’s and Williamson’s ideas have great difficulties to account for learning of technological knowing how through training, and that knowing that is susceptible to Gettier problems, which technological knowing how is not. (shrink)

In this dissertation I attempt to develop a better understanding of knowledge and belief. In Chapter 1 I offer an analysis of knowledge-wh . I argue that knowledge-wh ascriptions express that a subject stands in the knowledge relation to a question--where to stand in this knowledge relation to a question is to know an answer to the question. Additionally I adopt a contextualist picture of knowledge- wh . I raise some problems for invariantism about knowledge- wh and I argue that (...) contextualism about knowledge-wh fits nicely with a very natural understanding of the semantics of interrogatives, and the nature of questions. In Chapter 2 consider whether knowledge-how is importantly different from knowledge-wh . I argue that 'knows how' is ambiguous, but on one sense knowledge-how ascriptions should be treated just like the other knowledge ascriptions with interrogative complements. Hence this type of knowledge-how is not fundamentally distinct from knowledge-wh . In Chapter 3 I reconsider various theories about knowledge and knowledge- that ascriptions in light of our conclusions about knowledge- wh ascriptions. It seems that doing so can help adjudicate between contextualism and invariantism about knowledge-that and may help determine which form of contextualism about knowledge-that is the most plausible. In Chapter 4 I consider whether there is some fact about the nature of the attitudes that determines the verb's complement selection. Some have suggested that the embedding behavior of attitude verbs is correlated with the factivity of the attitude verb. I evaluate this suggestion and the possible explanations for the embedding behavior of the various attitude verbs. I attempt to determine the extent to which the factivity of verbs is correlated with their embedding behavior and I attempt to explain why factivity plays such an important role. I argue that these facts can provide important insights into the nature of the attitudes. In Chapter 5 I explore the way in which knowledge and action are related in an important way. I consider the claim that it is appropriate to treat the proposition that p as a reason for action if and only if you know that p . I first present and explain the principle. Next I consider some objections to the proposal, and I argue that none of these objections is successful. I claim that the contrastivist, in particular, has several moves available in the face of the alleged problems with this Reason-Knowledge principle. (shrink)

Is knowledge-how a hidden knowledge-that, and therefore also a relation between an epistemic subject and a proposition? What is the connection between knowledge-how and knowledge-that? I will deal with both questions in the course of my paper. In the first part, I argue that the term ‘knowledge-how’ is an ambiguous term in a semantic pragmatic sense, blending two distinct meanings: ‘knowledge-how’ in the sense of knowledge-that, and ‘knowledge-how’ in the sense of an ability. In the second part of my paper, (...) I construe five alternative ways of correlating knowledge-that and knowledge-how in the sense of an ability. I will argue in favour of one of them. I will show that knowledge-how is not a species of knowledge-that but rather that knowledge-that is a species of knowledge-how. More specifically, dispositional knowledge-how is at the core of propositional knowledge-that and accordingly should be understood to be at the center of epistemology. (shrink)

This article discusses three related aspects of know-how: skill, transversal abilities and project management abilities, which are often not distinguished within either the educational or the philosophical literature. Skill or the ability to perform tasks is distinguished from possession of technique which is a necessary but not sufficient condition for possession of a skill. The exercise of skill, contrary to much opinion, usually involves character aspects of agency. Skills usually have a social dimension and are subject to normative appraisal. Transversal (...) abilities rely on but are not reducible to the exercise of skill, but require a further degree of attention and seriousness in their exercise. Transversal abilities can be displayed in different ways using different skills, depending on context. They include: planning, communicating, evaluating—all important features of successful professional action. Project management or the putting into effect of relatively long-term sequences of action involves the articulation of different transversal abilities. It is a form of agency which is considered to be important in some European vocational and professional education systems and usually involves a strong social dimension. The article concludes with a discussion of the educational implications of these distinctions and of their interrelationships. (shrink)

Argues from the possibility of basic intentional action to a non-propositional theory of knowing how. The argument supports a broadly Anscombean conception of the will as a capacity for practical knowledge.

A central argument against Ryle’s (The concept of mind, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1949) distinction between propositional and non propositional knowledge has relied on linguistic evidence. Stanley and Williamson (J Philos 98:411–444, 2001) have claimed that knowing-how ascriptions do not differ in any relevant syntactic or semantic respect from ascriptions of propositional knowledge, concluding thereby that knowing-how ascriptions attribute propositional knowledge, or a kind thereof. In this paper I examine the cross-linguistic basis of this argument. I focus on the (...) linguistic analysis of practical knowledge ascriptions in Modern Greek, although the issues raised are not restricted to one language. It is relatively straightforward to show that none of the three types of practical knowledge ascriptions in Modern Greek is an embedded question configuration, and hence Stanley and Williamson original claim is confined to certain languages only. This is not the end of the matter, however, since Stanley (Nous 45:207–238, 2011) argues that the equivalents of ‘knowing-how’ ascriptions in certain languages should be semantically analyzed as embedded questions despite their syntactic form. I argue that this fallback position faces a host of empirical and theoretical problems, in view of which it cannot bear the weight Stanley puts on it, supporting a conclusion about the kind of knowledge thereby attributed. (shrink)

We begin with a puzzle: why do some know-how attributions entail ability attributions while others do not? After rejecting the tempting response that know-how attributions are ambiguous, we argue that a satisfactory answer to the puzzle must acknowledge the connection between know-how and concept possession (specifically, reasonable conceptual mastery, or understanding). This connection appears at first to be grounded solely in the cognitive nature of certain activities. However, we show that, contra anti-intellectualists, the connection between know-how and concept possession can (...) be generalized via reflection on the cognitive nature of intentional action and the potential of certain misunderstandings to undermine know-how even when the corresponding abilities and associated propositional knowledge are in place. Such considerations make explicit the intimate relation between know-how and understanding, motivating a general intellectualist analysis of the former in terms of the latter. (shrink)

In “Knowing How”, Jason Stanley and Timothy Williamson (2001) propose an intellectualist account of knowledge-how, according to which all knowledge-how is a type of propositional knowledge about ways to act. In this article, I examine this intellectualist account by applying it to the epistemology of language. I argue that (a) Stanley and Williamson mischaracterize the concept of knowledge-how in the epistemology of language, and (b) intellectualism about knowledge of language fails in its explanatory task. One lesson that can be drawn (...) from this case study is that Stanley and Williamson's intellectualism is limited in its explanatory scope and power insofar as it cannot explain the knowledge of language, which is usually conceived as knowledge-how and as non-propositional in character. Their intellectualist claim that all knowledge-how is knowledge-that should be withdrawn. (shrink)

I address the assumption that communicative interaction is made possible by knowledge of a language. I argue that this assumption as it is usually expressed depends on an unjustified reification of language, and on an unsatisfactory understanding of ‘knowledge’. I propose instead that communicative interaction is made possible by (Rylean) know-how and by the development of (Davidsonian) passing theories. We then come to see that our focus ought to be, not on propositional knowledge of a language which we internally represent, (...) but on the practical application of know-how in our understanding and interpretation of others. (shrink)

Stanley and Williamson (The Journal of Philosophy 98(8), 411–444 2001 ) reject the fundamental distinction between what Ryle once called ‘knowing-how’ and ‘knowing-that’. They claim that knowledge-how is just a species of knowledge-that, i.e. propositional knowledge, and try to establish their claim relying on the standard semantic analysis of ‘knowing-how’ sentences. We will undermine their strategy by arguing that ‘knowing-how’ phrases are under-determined such that there is not only one semantic analysis and by critically discussing and refuting the positive account (...) of knowing-how they offer. Furthermore, we argue for an extension of the classical ‘knowing-how’/‘knowing-that’-dichotomy by presenting a new threefold framework: Using some core-examples of the recent debate, we will show that we can analyze knowledge situations that are not captured by the Rylean dichotomy and argue that, therefore, the latter has to be displaced by a more fine-grained theory of knowledge-formats. We will distinguish three different formats of knowledge we can have of our actions, namely (1) propositional, (2) practical, and (3) image-like formats of knowledge. Furthermore, we will briefly analyze the underlying representations of each of these knowledge-formats. (shrink)

This article offers an analysis of ignorance. After a couple of preliminary remarks, I endeavor to show that, contrary to what one might expect and to what nearly all philosophers assume, being ignorant is not equivalent to failing to know, at least not on one of the stronger senses of knowledge. Subsequently, I offer two definitions of ignorance and argue that one’s definition of ignorance crucially depends on one’s account of belief. Finally, I illustrate the relevance of my analysis by (...) paying attention to four philosophical problems in which ignorance plays a crucial role. (shrink)

One of the main challenges in the philosophy of language is determining the form of knowledge of the rules of language. Michael Dummett has put forth the view that knowledge of the rules of language is a kind of implicit knowledge; some philosophers have mistakenly conceived of this type of knowledge as a kind of knowledge-that . In a recent paper in this journal, Patricia Hanna argues against Dummett’s knowledge-that view and proposes instead a knowledge-how view in which knowledge of (...) the rules of language is a kind of practical knowledge, like an agent’s non-propositional knowledge of counting. In this paper I argue, first, that Hanna misunderstands Dummett’s conception of knowledge of linguistic rules, and, second, that Dummett’s considerations of practical knowledge of language pose a problem for Hanna’s knowledge-how view. At the end of the paper, I briefly sketch an account of practical knowledge of language that meets the requirements set by Dummett. (shrink)

Over recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in arguments favouring intellectualism—the view that Ryle’s epistemic distinction is invalid because knowing how is in fact nothing but a species of knowing that. The aim of this paper is to challenge intellectualism by introducing empirical evidence supporting a form of knowing how that resists such a reduction. In presenting a form of visuomotor pathology known as visual agnosia, I argue that certain actions performed by patient DF can be distinguished (...) from a mere physical ability because they are (1) intentional and (2) knowledge-based; yet these actions fail to satisfy the criteria for propositional knowledge. It is therefore my contention that there exists a form of intentional action that not only constitutes a genuine claim to knowledge but, in being irreducible to knowing that, resists the intellectualist argument for exhaustive epistemic reduction. (shrink)

What is the epistemological role of speech perception in comprehension? More precisely, what is its role in episodes or states of comprehension able to mediate the communication of knowledge? One answer, developed in recent work by Tyler Burge, has it that its role may be limited to triggering mobilizations of the understanding. I argue that, while there is much to be said for such a view, it should not be accepted. I present an alternative account, on which episodes of comprehension (...) are better able to underwrite the interpersonal transmission of knowledge. (shrink)

I raise some doubts about the plausibility of Stanley and Williamson's view that all knowledge-how is just a species of propositional knowledge. By tackling the question of what is involved in entertaining a proposition, I try to show that Stanley and Williamson's position leads to an uncomfortable dilemma. Depending on how we understand the notion of contemplating a proposition, either intuitively central cases of knowing-how cannot be thus classified or we lose our grip on the very idea of propositional knowledge, (...) which then fails to demarcate any clear class of cases. I conclude with a brief discussion of the nature and role of knowledge-how, and its relation to the important, but less explored, notion of expertise. (shrink)

You know that George W. Bush is the U.S. president, but you know how to ride a bicycle. What's the difference? According to intellectualists, not much: either knowing how to do something is a matter of knowing that something is the case or, at the very least, know-how requires a prior bit of theoretical knowledge. Anti-intellectualists deny this order of priority: either knowing-how and knowing-that are independent or, at the very least, knowing that something is the case requires a prior (...) bit of know-how. Much of the dispute centers on the relationship between knowing how to do something and having an ability to do it. If having an ability is necessary and sufficient for knowing-how, this is thought to provide comfort for anti-intellectualists. This paper traces the place of ability in the know-how/know-that debate from Ryle's seminal statement of anti-intellectualism through Stanley and Williamson's more recent defense of intellectualism. (shrink)

The central claim is that the semantic knowledge exercised by people when they speak is practical knowledge. The relevant idea of practical knowledge is explicated, applied to the case of speaking, and connected with an idea of agents’ knowledge. Some defence of the claim is provided.

Nonconceptualists maintain that there are ways of representing the world that do not reflect the concepts a creature possesses. They claim that the content of these representational states is genuine content because it is subject to correctness conditions, but it is nonconceptual because the creature to which we attribute it need not possess any of the concepts involved in the specification of that content. Appeals to nonconceptual content have seemed especially useful in attempts to capture the representational properties of perceptual (...) experiences, the representational states of pre-linguistic children and non-human animals, the states of subpersonal visual information-processing systems, and the subdoxastic states involved in tacit knowledge of the grammar of a language. Nonconceptual content is also invoked in the explanation of concept possession, concept acquisition, sensorimotor behaviour, and in the analysis of the notion of self-consciousness. The notion of nonconceptual content plays an important role in many discussions about the relationships between perception and thought. (shrink)

In this paper, we present results of cross-linguistic studies of Japanese and English knowing how constructions that show radical differences in knowledge-how attributions with large effect sizes. The results suggest that the relevant ability is neither necessary nor sufficient for knowledge-how captured by Japanese constructions. We shall argue that such data will open up a gap between otherwise indistinguishable two conceptions of the very topic of knowledge-how, or the debate between intellectualism and anti-intellectualism, namely a debate about the nature of (...) knowledge-how and a debate about the state captured by “know how”, which we call the knowledge-how interpretation and the state interpretation, respectively. Consequently, the results have not only various possible philosophical implications that have not been considered or discussed in the literature but also provide new topics in the theory of knowledge-how, including the question of which interpretation of the topic is correct itself. (shrink)

Zeugmatic oddness is a linguistic intuition of oddness with respect to an instance of zeugma, i.e. a sentence containing an instance of a homonymous or polysemous word being used in different meanings or senses simultaneously. Zeugmatic oddness is important for philosophical debates as philosophers often use it to argue that a particular philosophically interesting expression is ambiguous and that the phenomenon referred to by the expression is disunified. This paper takes a closer look at zeugmatic oddness. Focusing on relevant psycholinguistic (...) literature on homonymy and polysemy processing and representation, I argue that there are two different ways in which zeugmatic oddness can arise. Philosophical upshots concerning zeugmatic oddness are then drawn. (shrink)

English continues to rise as the lingua franca of academic philosophy. Philosophers from all types of linguistic backgrounds use it to communicate with each other across the globe. In this paper, we identify how the rise of English leads to linguistic injustices. We argue that these injustices are similar in an important regard: they are all instances of distributive epistemic injustice. We then present six proposals for addressing unjust linguistic discrimination and evaluate them on how well they can mitigate the (...) specific types of distributive epistemic injustice that we identify. We accept that there is much more to be said. But we hope that what we say will motivate other philosophers to take these types of injustices more seriously and encourage them to make academic philosophy a more inclusive global community. (shrink)

A family of familiar linguistic tests purport to help identify when a term is ambiguous. These tests are philosophically important: a familiar philosophical strategy is to claim that some phenomenon is disunified and its accompanying term is ambiguous. The tests have been used to evaluate disunification proposals about causation, pain, and knowledge, among others. -/- These ambiguity tests, however, have come under fire. It has been alleged that the tests fail for polysemy, a common type of ambiguity, and one that (...) is at issue in philosophically interesting cases. Furthermore, the objection that the tests fail for polysemy is often taken to be an undeniable bit of linguistic data. -/- We argue that this is mistaken. The objection implicitly relies on controversial assumptions about how to account for copredicational sentences, in which a single argument is ascribed prima facie incompatible properties. Furthermore, on several viable theories of copredication, the objection fails. However, our discussion also reveals that even if ambiguity tests are preserved, they may be significantly harder to execute than previously thought. (shrink)

Linguistic data are commonly considered a defeasible source of evidence from which it is legitimate to draw philosophical hypotheses and conclusions. Traditionally epistemologists have relied almost exclusively on linguistic data from western languages, with a primary focus on contemporary English. However, in the last two decades there has been an increasing interest in cross-linguistic studies in epistemology. In this entry, we provide a brief overview of cross-linguistic data discussed by contemporary epistemologists and the philosophical debates they have generated.

This compilation of references includes all references for the knowledge-how chapters included in Bengson & Moffett's edited volume. The volume and the compilation of references may serve as a good starting point for people who are unfamiliar with the philosophical literature on knowledge-how.

Analytic philosophy was introduced in Latin America in the mid-twentieth century. Its development has been heterogeneous in different countries of the region but has today reached a considerable degree of maturity and originality, with a strong community working within the analytic tradition in Latin America. This entry describes the historical development of analytic philosophy in Latin America and offers some examples of original contributions by Latin American analytic philosophers.

In this paper, I examine Gilbert Ryle’s claim that ordinary competence with logical principles or rules is a kind of knowing how, where such knowledge is understood as a skill, a multi-track disposition. Ryle argues that his account of ordinary logical competence helps avoid Lewis Carroll’s famous regress argument (Carroll 1895), which suggests that elementary deductive reasoning might be impossible. Indeed, Carroll’s regress is the central motivation for Ryle’s account. I argue that this account is inadequate on two counts: it (...) cannot serve to articulate the way ordinary reasoners might exercise their knowledge in reasoning and it does not do much to help us avoid Carroll’s regress. I sketch an alternative view, still Rylean in spirit, that fares better on both counts. (shrink)

What does it take for a group of people to know how to do something? An account of collective practical knowledge ought to be compatible with the linguistic evidence about the semantics for collective knowledge-how ascriptions, be able to explain the practicality of collective knowledge, be able to explain both the connection between individual and collective know-how and the possibility of a group knowing how to do something none of its members know, and be applicable to a suitably wide range (...) of groups. In this paper I develop a view which can meet all of these desiderata, which combines a Fragmented account of collective knowledge (Habgood-Coote, 2019a), with the view that practical knowledge is an Interrogative Capacity (Habgood-Coote, 2019b). (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

I demarcate skills from other kinds of cognitive and bodily abilities and I discuss old and novel issues that arise for the epistemology of skills.

Cross-linguistic comparisons serve as empirical tests generating evidence for and against lexical ambiguity in words like “good”, “know”, “the”, “can”, and “may”. Critics question such comparisons' validity. This article examines how cross-linguistic comparisons are treated as tests and shows that they have two predominant forms: one modeled on modus tollens, and another on Bayes' theorem, where the former is an enthymematic version of the latter. This analysis reveals the strengths and weaknesses of cross-linguistic comparisons, and thereby guides interpretation of their (...) results. It concludes that cross-linguistic comparisons generally yield stronger evidence against lexical ambiguity than for it. (shrink)

Metaphilosophy, Volume 53, Issue 2-3, Page 221-237, April 2022.

Introspective knowledge by acquaintance is knowledge we have by being directly aware of our phenomenally conscious states. In this paper, I argue that introspective knowledge by acquaintance is a sui generis kind of knowledge: it is irreducible to any sort of propositional knowledge and is wholly constituted by a relationship of introspective acquaintance. My main argument is that this is the best explanation of some epistemic facts about phenomenal consciousness and introspection. In particular, it best explains the epistemic asymmetry between (...) a subject who has never had a certain phenomenal state and one who has. I also consider two theoretical objections to my claim: an objection from disunity and an objection from mysteriousness. I show that these objections can be answered and that introspective knowledge by acquaintance being sui generis remains a live option on the table. (shrink)

Socially extended knowledge has recently received much attention in mainstream epistemology. Knowledge here is not to be understood as wholly realised within a single individual who manipulates artefacts or tools but as collaboratively realised across plural agents. Because of its focus on the interpersonal dimension, socially extended epistemology appears to be a promising approach for investigating the deeply social nature of epistemic practices. I believe, however, that this line of inquiry could be made more fruitful if it is connected with (...) the critical notion of epistemic responsibility, as developed in feminist responsibilism. According to feminist responsibilists, at the core of epistemic responsibility is a critical disposition toward correcting epistemic injustice. This epistemic idea is highly relevant to the epistemological context of illness, where patient testimony is often disregarded. Hence, though restricted to the epistemological context of the experience of illness, this chapter delves into epistemic injustice and its robust mechanisms. I thus explore what responsible epistemic practices should involve in order to redress that injustice and how epistemic responsibility should be socially extended. The discussion proceeds as follows. First, by relying on Arthur Frank’s innovative work on illness narratives, I focus on chaotic bodily messages from patients overwhelmed by suffering and then explain why these messages should count as genuine narratives or testimonies despite their inarticulateness. Second, I elaborate on how epistemic injustice concerning such narratives (i.e., chaos narratives) is produced and reproduced, in particular how both a dominant sociocultural norm and our inherent vulnerability can contribute to its production and reproduction. Finally, I propose an extended form of epistemic responsibility that ameliorates this aspect. Laying particular emphasis on the epistemic role of mature empathy, I characterise the extended epistemic responsibility in terms of extended empathic knowledge. (shrink)

I argue that desire sometimes amounts to knowledge, in the same sense that belief sometimes amounts to knowledge. The argument rests on two assumptions: that goodness is the correctness condition for desire and that knowledge is apt mental representation. Desire that amounts to knowledge—or ‘conative knowledge’—is illustrated by cases in which someone knows the goodness of something despite not believing that it is good.

ABSTRACT A version of Meno’s paradox applies to intellectualism about knowledge-how. If one does not know that p, one does not know that w is a way of working out that p. According to intellectualists, the latter such knowledge constitutes knowledge how to work out that p. One thus knows how to work out that p only if one already knows that p. But if this is right, nobody can work anything out.

Some of the fundamental lessons of the so-called revolution against descriptivism that occurred in the 70s are negative and it is not immediately apparent what kind of semantic theory should emerge as regards proper names, the alleged paradigms of genuinely referential terms. Some of the claims about names, most notably Ruth Barcan Marcus’ characterization of names as tags, appear to be too picturesque to provide the basis for a positive theory and, without a theory, it would seem that the referential (...) link between name and bearer is established by pure magic. Some authors have appealed to the causal-historical picture to construct a positive theory, and have endorsed causal descriptivism, a variety of descriptivism that incorporates causal factors. I argue against causal descriptivism and I assess the demand for a positive semantic theory of names. (shrink)

For quite some time, cognitive science has offered philosophy an opportunity to address central problems with an arsenal of relevant theories and empirical data. However, even among those naturalistically inclined, it has been hard to find a universally accepted way to do so. In this article, we offer a case study of how cognitive-science input can elucidate an epistemological issue that has caused extensive debate. We explore Jason Stanley’s idea of the practical grasp of a propositional truth and present naturalistic (...) arguments against his reductive approach to knowledge. We argue that a plausible interpretation of cognitive-science input concerning knowledge—even if one accepts that knowledge how is partly propositional—must involve an element of knowing how to act correctly upon the proposition; and this element of knowing how to act correctly cannot itself be propositional. (shrink)

Roughly speaking, intellectualists contend that practical knowledge is always a matter of having the right kind of propositional knowledge. This article argues that intellectualism faces a serious explanatory challenge when practical knowledge crucially relies on ecological information, i.e. when know-how is scaffolded. More precisely, intellectualists struggle to provide a satisfactory explanation of seeming know-how contrasts in structurally similar cases of scaffolded ability manifestation. In contrast, even if anti-intellectualism is similarly challenged, at least some varieties of anti-intellectualism seemingly hold resources to (...) account for the relevant contrasts. (shrink)

An overview of the knowing-how debates over the last ten years.

Stanley and Williamson :411–444, 2001) argue for intellectualism—the thesis that knowing how is a type of knowing that—in part by defending a thesis about the semantics of English ascriptions of knowing how. But ascriptions of practical knowledge seem to exhibit significant crosslinguistic variation. This observation has been invoked to argue that S&W’s analysis reflects a quirk of English rather than a general feature of the concept of knowledge. I argue that the type of argument employed by both S&W and their (...) critics presupposes that the categories of denotational semantics correspond to those of the theory of mental content. But the relation between the semantic theory and the theory of content is more complex than this. Specifically, a closer look at ascriptions of practical knowledge and other obligatory control constructions in various languages shows that semantic theory needs distinctions that are redundant from the perspective of the theory of content, and that important distinctions in the theory of content may fail to correspond to any distinctions in semantic theory. It follows that we may not be able to read off as much about mental states as S&W and their critics try to from the structure of their ascriptions. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on a recently discussed phenomenon illustrated by sentences containing predicates of taste: the phenomenon of " perspectival plurality " , whereby sentences containing two or more predicates of taste have readings according to which each predicate pertains to a different perspective. This phenomenon has been shown to be problematic for (at least certain versions of) relativism. My main aim is to further the discussion by showing that the phenomenon extends to other perspectival expressions than predicates (...) of taste and by proposing a general solution to the problem raised by it on behalf of the relativist. The core claim of the solution (" multiple indexing ") is that utterances of sentences containing perspectival expressions should be evaluated with respect to (possibly infinite) sequences of perspective parameters. (shrink)

We investigate claims about the frequency of "know" made by philosophers. Our investigation has several overlapping aims. First, we aim to show what is required to confirm or disconfirm philosophers’ claims about the comparative frequency of different uses of philosophically interesting expressions. Second, we aim to show how using linguistic corpora as tools for investigating meaning is a productive methodology, in the sense that it yields discoveries about the use of language that philosophers would have overlooked if they remained in (...) their "armchairs of an afternoon", to use J.L. Austin’s phrase. Third, we discuss facts about the meaning of "know" that so far have been ignored in philosophy, with the aim of reorienting discussions of the relevance of ordinary language for philosophical theorizing. (shrink)

Why is it useful to talk and think about knowledge-how? Using Edward Craig’s discussion of the function of the concepts of knowledge and knowledge-how as a jumping off point, this paper argues that considering this question can offer us new angles on the debate about knowledge-how. We consider two candidate functions for the concept of knowledge-how: pooling capacities, and mutual reliance. Craig makes the case for pooling capacities, which connects knowledge-how to our need to pool practical capacities. I argue that (...) the evidence is much more equivocal. My suggested diagnosis is that the concept of knowledge-how plays both functions, meaning that the concept of knowledge-how is inconsistent, and that the debate about knowledge-how is at least partly a metalinguistic negotiation. In closing, I suggest a way to revise the philosophical concept of knowledge how. (shrink)

Reductive intellectualists about knowledge-how hold, contra Ryle, that knowing how to do something is just a kind of propositional knowledge. In a similar vein, traditional reductivists about understanding-why insist, in accordance with a tradition beginning with Aristotle, that the epistemic standing one attains when one understands why something is so is itself just a kind of propositional knowledge—viz., propositional knowledge of causes. A point that has been granted on both sides of these debates is that if these reductive proposals are (...) right, then knowledge-how and understanding-why should be susceptible to the same extent as knowledge-that is to being undermined by epistemic luck. This paper reports experimental results that test these luck-based predictions. Interestingly, these results suggest a striking positive correlation between self-reported philosophical expertise and attributions of knowledge-how, understanding-why and knowledge-that which run contrary to reductive proposals. We contextualize these results by showing how they align very well with a particular kind of overarching non-reductive proposal, one that two of the authors have defended elsewhere according to which knowledge-how and understanding-why, but not knowledge-that, essentially involve cognitive achievement. We conclude by situating the interpretive narrative advanced within contemporary discussions about the role of expertise in philosophical judgment. (shrink)

This paper investigates the question of whether know-how can be regarded as a form of non-propositional intentionality.