Abstract

Statements purporting to convey practical knowledge in Anscombe's sense are subject to two distinctive kinds of error: errors in performance and errors of practical judgement. I argue that reflection on these kinds of errors sheds light both on the nature of practical knowledge and on the status of Anscombe's account of it. Briefly: practical knowledge is knowledge we ordinarily find intelligible in the light of the agent's non-defective exercise of practical judgement. And Anscombe's account is not primarily designed to make practical knowledge intelligible to philosophers but to make explicit how such knowledge is seen as intelligible — and claims to such knowledge are seen to be justifiable — by those who are engaged in the practice of sharing it. I go on to consider how this interpretation bears on the disagreement between Anscombe's view and what she calls a 'contemplative' conception of knowledge.