Know-how, ability, and the ability hypothesis

Theoria 67 (3):229-39 (2001)
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Abstract

David Lewis and Laurence Nemirow claim that knowing what an experience is like is knowing-how, not knowing-that. They identify this know-how with the abilities to remember, imagine, and recognize experiences, and Lewis labels their view ‘the Ability Hypothesis’. The Ability Hypothesis has intrinsic interest. But Lewis and Nemirow devised it specifically to block certain anti-physicalist arguments due to Thomas Nagel and Frank Jackson . Does it?

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Torin Alter
University of Alabama

Citations of this work

Know-how as Competence. A Rylean Responsibilist Account.David Löwenstein - 2017 - Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.
Knowing-how and knowing-that.Jeremy Fantl - 2008 - Philosophy Compass 3 (3):451–470.
Knowledge How.Jeremy Fantl - 2012 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Knowledge of artefact functions.Wybo Houkes - 2006 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 37 (1):102-113.

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References found in this work

The View From Nowhere.Thomas Nagel - 1986 - New York: Oxford University Press.
What is it like to be a bat?Thomas Nagel - 1974 - Philosophical Review 83 (October):435-50.
Mortal questions.Thomas Nagel - 1979 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Rules and representations.Noam Chomsky (ed.) - 1980 - New York: Columbia University Press.

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