This chapter examines some key developments in discussions of the social dimensions of knowing-how, focusing on work on the social function of the concept of knowing-how, testimony, demonstrating one's knowledge to other people, and epistemic injustice. I show how a conception of knowing-how as a form of 'downstream knowledge' can help to unify various phenomena discussed within this literature, and I also consider how these ideas might connect with issues concerning wisdom, moral knowledge, and moral testimony.

In this paper I consider the prospects for an epistemic norm which relates knowledge-how to showing in a way that parallels the knowledge norm of assertion. In the first part of the paper I show that this epistemic norm can be motivated by conversational evidence, and that it fits in with a plausible picture of the function of knowledge. In the second part of the paper I present a dilemma for this norm. If we understand showing in a (...) broad sense as a general kind of skill teaching, then the norm faces counterexamples of teachers who know how to teach, but not to do. On the other hand, it we understand showing more narrowly as involving only teaching by doing the relevant activity, then the data which initially supported the norm can be explained away by more general connections between knowledge-how and intentional action. (shrink)

This paper is roughly in two parts. The first deals with whether know-how is constituted by propositional knowledge, as discussed primarily by Gilbert Ryle (1949) The concept of mind. London: Hutchinson, Jason Stanley and Timothy Williamson (2001). Knowing how. Journal of Philosophy, 98, pp. 411–444 as well as Stephen Hetherington (2006). How to know that knowledge-that is knowledge-how. In S. Hetherington (Ed.) Epistemology futures. Oxford: Oxford University Press. The conclusion of this first part is that know-how sometimes does and (...) sometimes does not consist in propositional knowledge. The second part defends an analysis of know-how inspired by Katherine Hawley’ (2003). Success and knowledge-how. American Philosophical Quarterly, 40, pp. 19–31, insightful proposal that know-how requires counterfactual success. I conclude by showing how this analysis helps to explain why know-how sometimes does and sometimes does not consist of propositional knowledge. (shrink)

Four different accounts of the relationship between third-person mindreading and first-person metacognition are compared and evaluated. While three of them endorse the existence of introspection for propositional attitudes, the fourth (defended here) claims that our knowledge of our own attitudes results from turning our mindreading capacities upon ourselves. Section 1 of this target article introduces the four accounts. Section 2 develops the “mindreading is prior” model in more detail, showing how it predicts introspection for perceptual and quasi-perceptual (e.g., imagistic) (...) mental events while claiming that metacognitive access to our own attitudes always results from swift unconscious self-interpretation. This section also considers the model's relationship to the expression of attitudes in speech. Section 3 argues that the commonsense belief in the existence of introspection should be given no weight. Section 4 argues briefly that data from childhood development are of no help in resolving this debate. Section 5 considers the evolutionary claims to which the different accounts are committed, and argues that the three introspective views make predictions that are not borne out by the data. Section 6 examines the extensive evidence that people often confabulate when self-attributing attitudes. Section 7 considers “two systems” accounts of human thinking and reasoning, arguing that although there are introspectableeventswithin System 2, there are no introspectableattitudes. Section 8 examines alleged evidence of “unsymbolized thinking”. Section 9 considers the claim that schizophrenia exhibits a dissociation between mindreading and metacognition. Finally, section 10 evaluates the claim that autism presents a dissociation in the opposite direction, of metacognition without mindreading. (shrink)

This paper addresses a problem about aesthetic normativity raised by Kant. Can aesthetic experiences be appropriate or inappropriate to their objects? And, if so, how is that possible given that, according to Kant, aesthetic experience is not objective? Kant thought the answer to the first question was yes. But his official answer to the second question, in terms of the free play of the faculties, is obscure. The paper offers a clearer answer, inspired by Kant, which invokes Wittgenstein’s notion of (...) “knowing how to go on.” Aesthetic normativity is problematic only on the assumption that claims to the normativity of one’s responses to things must be based on the recognition of objective properties of those things. However, Wittgenstein’s discussion shows that we need not accept that assumption. There can be legitimate claims to the normativity of one’s responses which do not rely on those responses’ reflecting appreciation of objective facts. (shrink)

A good surgeon knows how to perform a surgery; a good architect knows how to design a house. We value their know-how. We ordinarily look for it. What makes it so valuable? A natural response is that know-how is valuable because it explains success. A surgeon’s know-how explains their success at performing a surgery. And an architect’s know-how explains their success at designing houses that stand up. We value know-how because of its special explanatory link to success. But in virtue (...) of what is know-how explanatorily linked to success? This essay provides a novel argument for the thesis that know-how’s special link to success is to be explained at least in part in terms of its being, or involving, a doxastic attitude that is epistemically alike propositional knowledge. It is argued that the role played by know-how in explaining intentional success shows that the epistemic differences between know-how and knowledge, if any, are less than usually thought; and that "revisionary intellectualism", the view that know-how is true belief that might well fall short of knowledge, is not really a stable position. If its explanatory link to success is what makes know-how valuable, an upshot of my argument is that the value of know-how is due, to a considerable extent, to its being, or involving, a kind of propositional knowledge. (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)

While recent studies suggest that augmented learning employing smart glasses increases overall learning performance, in this paper we are more interested in the question which repercussions ALSG will have on the type of knowledge that is acquired. Drawing from the theoretical discussion within epistemology about the differences between Knowledge-How and Knowledge-That, we will argue that ALSG furthers understanding as a series of epistemic and non-epistemic Knowing-Hows. Focusing on academic knowledge acquisition, especially with respect to early curriculum experiments in various (...) STEM disciplines as investigated by the BmBF “Be-Greifen” project, we take the Be-Greifen holo.lab setup as an example for showing that ALSG shifts the learning focus from propositional knowledge to epistemic competencies, which can be differentiated as “grasping”, “wielding”, and “transferring”. (shrink)

For sentences such as (1), "Columbus knows that the sea is unpredictable", there is a face-value theory, according to which ‘that’-clauses are singular terms denoting propositions. Famously, Prior raised an objection to the theory, but defenders of the face-value theory such as Forbes, King, Künne, Pietroski and Stanley urged that the objection could be met by maintaining that in (1) ‘to know’ designates a complex relation along the lines of being in a state of knowledge having as content. Is the (...) theory safe, then? The aim of this paper is to show that a new problem for the theory arises if we consider attributions of skills, knacks, propensities and abilities. (shrink)

Virtue epistemology is new in one sense but old in another. The new tradition starts with figures such as Code, Greco, Montmarquet, and Zagzebski. The old tradition has its pedigree in Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and their modern interpreters such as Anscombe and MacIntyre. Virtue epistemology recognizes that knowledge is something we value and that propositional knowledge requires intellectual virtues, that is to say, virtues as applied to the intellect. Although much pioneering work in the new tradition has been done on (...) propositional knowledge, comparatively little in it has been done on know-how. This is surprising, because one might naturally think of know-how as something to be refined into a skill, and virtues may be thought of as skills. In the modern epistemological tradition that does not take its direction from virtue ethics, propositional knowledge, as opposed to know-how, has received by far the bulk of the discussion, although since Ryle first argued that knowhow is not always propositional knowledge, there has been a fairly recent resurgence of interest in know-how.We value intellectual virtues because they are skills that promote our flourishing, both as individuals and as members of a community. The intellectual virtues are truth- seeking virtues and stem from a love of the truth. Since love is itself a virtue - indeed it was what Tyndale called the greatest Christian virtue before the King James translation renamed it as charity—it may be seen as the virtue that motivates all other intellectual virtues. A commitment to the truth is presupposed by any intellectual virtue. For example, logic is important to a community, and in particular to the intellectual community, not only because there are rules governing the activity of logic but also because there are those within the community who are trustworthy in following the activity and because there are publically accepted standards of accountability in the way the activity of logic is practiced. Here is how we will proceed. In section 2 we sketch a metaphysics of natural purposes that supports the claim that there are objective goods that beings need qua the kinds of being they are in order to flourish. In section 3 we argue that flourishing includes the acquisition of virtues. We give a general account of virtue, roughly as a stable disposition to act upon a habit elevated to a skill of putting one’s know-how into practice that springs from one’s motivation to pursue what one perceives as good. In section 4 we give a general sketch of intellectual virtues as truth-seeking virtues that stem from a love of the truth that are the skills to flourish intellectually. In section 5 we discuss connaturality, namely those specific metaphysical accidents readily acquired by beings due to their first nature. We make an original distinction between ontological connaturality, namely the connaturality that belongs to animals qua beings of a certain kind, and habitual connaturality, namely our first natures suffused with virtues—or vices, although we will concentrate only on virtues. Habitual connaturality is acquired through the practice of virtue and involves perceptiveness awakened by the possession of the virtue in question. The knowledge arising from this form of connaturality may be a form of know-how. In section 6 we give an account of connatural apprehension and connatural propositional knowledge. In section 7 we discuss connatural know-how and argue that it makes certain virtues possible. At this point we will have shown that intellectual and moral virtues are informed by know-how. In sections 8 and 9 we give analyses of know-how and skill in terms of counterfactual success. We show how skill is a refined form of know-how and how both know-how and skill are informed by moral and intellectual virtues. We conclude in section 10 that know-how informs intellectual and moral virtues in the sense that virtue is to be elucidated in terms of skill, which is in turn to be elucidated in terms of know-how. Moreover, virtues inform know-how in the sense that know-how is to be elucidated in terms of intellectual and moral virtues. No circularity arises because different virtues and different forms of know-how are involved. (shrink)

I take it that A. W. Moore is right when he said that ‘Wittgenstein was right: some things cannot be put into words. Moreover, some things that cannot be put into words are of the utmost philosophical importance’. There is, however, a constant threat of self-stultification whenever an attempt is made to put the ineffable into words. As Pamela Sue Anderson notes in Re-visioning gender in philosophy of religion: reason, love, and epistemic locatedness, certain recent approaches to ineffability—including Moore’s approach—attempt (...) to find a ‘third way’ of engaging with it, which displaces the traditional dichotomy between the effable and the ineffable, that is, between what can be said and what cannot be said. In this way, they seek to overcome the threat of self-stultification mentioned above. Still, one important challenge to this kind of approach, which Moore addresses, is, as he puts it, ‘to show how it is possible’ to talk about the ineffable ‘without belying its very ineffability’. His solution to the problem of the ineffable takes the notion of ‘knowing how’ to play a central role, and is formulated in accordance with his commitments to truth and objectivity. A further important challenge to the kind of approach to the ineffable Moore proposes concerns the issue of objectivity. In Re-visioning gender in philosophy of religion, Anderson draws attention to our epistemic locatedness, which brings in questions concerning, for example, gender and culture. Pursuing this view, the challenge is to show ineffable insight without ignoring our epistemic locatedness and, in particular, the role of gender in the conceptualisation and imagery through which we seek to come to terms with the ineffable. My paper deals with these challenges. By engaging with Moore’s and Anderson’s discussions of the ineffable, I examine how it is possible to talk philosophically about the ineffable, without breaking a commitment to enlarged or objective thinking, and without ignoring the epistemic locatedness of thinking. (shrink)

Jason Stanley's Know How aims to offer an attractive intellectualist analysis of knowledge how that is compositionally predicted by the best available treatments of sentences like 'Emile knows how to make his dad smile.' This paper explores one significant way in which Stanley's compositional treatment fails to generate his preferred account, and advocates a minimal solution.

Pedagogy is a pillar of human culture and society. Telling each other information and showing each other how to do things comes naturally to us. A strong case has been made that declarative knowledge is the norm of assertion, which is our primary way of telling others information. This article presents an analogous case for the hypothesis that procedural knowledge is the norm of instructional demonstration, which is a primary way of showing others how to do things. Knowledge (...) is the norm of telling and showing. It is the prime pedagogical principle. (shrink)

How should deontological theories that prohibit actions of type K — such as intentionally killing an innocent person — deal with cases of uncertainty as to whether a particular action is of type K? Frank Jackson and Michael Smith, who raise this problem in their paper "Absolutist Moral Theories and Uncertainty" (2006), focus on a case where a skier is about to cause the death of ten innocent people — we don’t know for sure whether on purpose or not — (...) by causing an avalanche; and we can only save the people by shooting the skier. One possible deontological attitude towards such uncertainty is what Jackson and Smith call the threshold view, according to which whether or not the deontological constraint applies depends on our degree of (justified) certainty meets a given threshold. Jackson and Smith argue against the threshold view that it leads to implausible paradoxical moral dilemmas in a special kind of case. In this response, we show that the threshold view can avoid these implausible moral dilemmas, as long as the relevant deontological constraint is grounded in individualistic patient-based considerations, such as what an individual person is entitled to object to. (shrink)

Stanley and Williamson reject Ryle's knowing‐how/knowing‐that distinction charging that it obstructs our understanding of human action. Incorrectly interpreting the distinction to imply that knowledge‐how is non‐propositional, they object that Ryle's argument for it is unsound and linguistic theory contradicts it. I show that they (and their interlocutors) misconstrue the distinction and Ryle's argument. Consequently, their objections fail. On my reading, Ryle's distinction pertains to, not knowledge, but an explanatory gap between explicit and implicit content, and his argument for (...) it is sound. I defend the distinction's necessity in explaining human action and show that it propels a fruitful explanatory program. (shrink)

Know how and ability have a seemingly fraught relationship. I deepen the tension here, by arguing for two new pieces of data concerning know how and ability. First, know how ascriptions have two distinct readings that differ in their entailments to ability: one entails ability, the other does not. Second, in certain cases, the indeterminacy of certain ability claims infects both readings of know how claims. No existing accounts of the relationship between know how and ability captures both data points, (...) I argue; but a certain kind of intellectualism has special resources to account for them. Ascriptions of knowledge of infinitival questions give rise to a distinctive kind of context-sensitivity specific to infinitivals. I show how on an intellectualist view where, very roughly, knowing how to do something is knowing an answer to an infinitival question about your abilities, this context-sensitivity accounts for the relationship between know how and ability. (shrink)

In the Concept of Mind from 1949 Gilbert Ryle distinguished between knowing how and knowing that. What was Ryle’s basic idea and how is the discussion going on in philosophy today? How can sport philosophy use the idea of knowing how? My goal in this paper is first to bring Ryle and the post-Rylean discussion to light and then show how phenomenology can give some input to the discussion. The article focuses especially on the two main interpretations (...) of knowing how, intellectualism and anti-intellectualism. In the second part of the article I discuss how views from phenomenology and philosophy of mind can enrich and widen our understanding of what knowing how means in relation to sport practices. It is argued that knowing how is not limited to athletic abilities but includes knowledge of how the environing world operates in relation to athletic action. (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)

Most people believe that consciousness is real. But illusionists say it isn’t—they say consciousness is an illusion. One common illusionist strategy for defending their view involves a debunking argument. They explain why people _believe_ that consciousness exists in a way that doesn’t imply that it _does_ exist; and, in so doing, they aim to show that that belief is unjustified. In this paper I argue that we can know consciousness exists even if these debunking arguments are sound. To do this, (...) I draw on the claim that some knowledge is constituted, not by beliefs in propositions, but by awareness of properties and objects. Then I argue that accepting this claim allows us to evade illusionists’ debunking arguments by allowing us to hold that our knowledge of consciousness does not depend solely on potentially debunked _beliefs_ in consciousness. Finally, while considering potential illusionist responses, I suggest that my strategy also yields a plausible account of our most basic knowledge of consciousness and an explanation for why so few people accept illusionism even when they have (or had) no decisive reply to illusionists’ arguments. (shrink)

The author discusses the "knowing how--Knowing that dichotomy" utilized by ryle in "concept of mind". In this article he attempts to show that intuitions do not exist. He critiques an article by toulmin on the subject and concludes that knowing how cannot be used to "solve discussions of validity," and is no substitute for "proof, Evidence or grounds." (staff).

The main goal of this paper is to defend the thesis that the content of know-how states is an accuracy assessable type of nonconceptual content. My argument proceeds in two stages. I argue, first, that the intellectualist distinction between types of ways of grasping the same kind of content is uninformative unless it is tied in with a distinction between kinds of contents. Second, I consider and reject the objection that, if the content of know-how states is non-conceptual, it will (...) be mysterious why attributions of knowing how create opaque contexts. I show that the objection conflates two distinct issues: the nature of the content of know-how states and the semantic evaluability of know-how ascriptions. (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)

Contextualism is a linguistic thesis; it is a theory not about knowledge but about the word "knows." Almost invariably, contextualists defend their position as necessary for preserving our intuitions in the face of the so-called "skeptical paradox." In this paper, I undermine the case for contextualism by showing how a properly Chisholmed theory of knowledge might preserve our intuitions more successfully than the linguistic thesis forwarded by contextualism. My aim is not to demonstrate that contextualism is false. Rather, I (...) aim at orienting the debate away from the preservation of our intuitions and toward the linguistic data surrounding the word "knows.". (shrink)

In this paper, I expand our framework for epistemic injustice by shifting focus from epistemic evaluations of individuals in information exchange to epistemic evaluations of individuals engaging their know-how in performance. I call the injustice to individuals qua knowers-how performative injustice, and I argue that performative injustice has distinct features worth understanding apart from varieties of epistemic injustice devoted to information exchange. I develop an account of the performative authority that is unfairly evaluated in cases of performative injustice and show (...) how, in some cases, cognitive penetration can affect observers’ evaluations. Finally, I show how stereotype threat may short circuit what would otherwise be cases of performative injustice, which in turn reveals the significance of its systemic manifestations. (shrink)

It has been claimed that the attempt to analyze know-how in terms of propositional knowledge over-intellectualizes the mind. Exploiting the methods of so-called “experimental philosophy”, we show that the charge of over-intellectualization is baseless. Contra neo-Ryleans, who analyze know-how in terms of ability, the concrete-case judgments of ordinary folk are most consistent with the view that there exists a set of correct necessary and sufficient conditions for know-how that does not invoke ability, but rather a certain sort of propositional knowledge. (...) To the extent that one’s considered judgments agree with those of the folk (or to the extent that one is unwilling to contravene widespread judgments), this constitutes a strong prima facie case against neo-Ryleanism. (shrink)

Jason Stanley and Timothy Williamson have argued that there is no fundamental distinction between what Gilbert Ryle famously called 'knowing how' and 'knowing that', and that the former can be treated as a special kind of the latter. I will endeavour to show that sentences of the form 'a knows how to F' are ambiguous between a reading in which we ascribe knowledge-that to a and another in which we ascribe something to a which is irreducible to any (...) kind of knowledge-that and can most appropriately be characterized as an ability. The authors' attempt to reduce also the latter reading to an ascription of knowledge-that fails because it rests on an unexplained conception of practical modes of presentation. (shrink)

Research Ethics Committees (RECs) play a critical gatekeeping role in clinical trials. This role is meant to ensure that only those trials that meet certain ethical thresholds proceed through their gate. Two of these thresholds are that the potential benefits of trials are reasonable in relation to risks and that trials are capable of producing a requisite amount of social value. While one ought not expect perfect execution by RECs of their gatekeeping role, one should expect routine success in it. (...) This article reviews a range of evidence showing that substantial numbers of ethically tainted trials are receiving REC approvals. Many of the trials are early phase trials that evidence shows have benefits that may not be reasonable compared with their risks and many others are later trials that evidence shows may lack sufficient social value. The evidence pertains to such matters as methodologically inadequate preclinical studies incapable of supporting the inferences that REC members must make about the prospects for potential benefit needed to offset the risks in early phase trials and sponsorship bias that can cause improperly designed, conducted, analysed and reported later phase trials. The analysis of the evidence makes clear that REC practices need to be strengthened if they are to adequately fulfil their gatekeeping role. The article also explores options that RECs could use in order to improve their gatekeeping function. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to discuss Stanley and Williamson’s take on Ryle’s argument against know-how being know-that. For this, I provide an initial consideration of the possibility of isolating Ryle’s argument from his overall philosophical outlook and Stanley and Williamson’s purpose in their discussion of Ryle. I then examine in detail Stanley and Williamson’s reconstruction of Ryle’s argument with the specific aim of showing where they have introduced extraneous elements: I examine what they take to bes additional (...) assumptions needed for the argument to be valid and how they construct the premises in order to attempt to show that Ryle's argument is not sound. I end the paper showing the limits of Stanley and Williamson’s attack, suggesting how the extraneous elements Stanley and Williamson introduce already bias the discussion against Ryle. The main aim is not to defend a form of Ryle’s regress but rather advocate the need for a deeper discussion of Ryle’s views of mind and action when discussing his views on know-how. (shrink)

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)

This paper aims to show that widespread, serious errors in the self-assessment of affect are a genuine possibility-one worth taking very seriously. For we are subject to a variety of errors concerning the character of our present and past affective states, or "affective ignorance." For example, some affects, particularly moods, can greatly affect the quality of our experience even when we are unable to discern them. I note several implications of these arguments. First, we may be less competent pursuers of (...) happiness than is commonly believed, raising difficult questions for political thought. Second, some of the errors discussed ramify for our understanding of consciousness, including Ned Block's controversial distinction between access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness. Third, empirical results based on self-reports about affect may be systematically misleading in certain ways. (shrink)

The adoption question asks whether there are logical rules that cannot be adopted if one does not already infer in accordance with them. Several philosophers, most famously Saul Kripke and Romina Padró, agree that there are such rules. Accordingly, they agree that there is an adoption problem. However, there is disagreement over which rules are unadoptable. In particular, while most agree that if there is an adoption problem, modus ponens and universal instantiation are in its scope, many would exclude adjunction (...) from the list. In this paper, I argue that adjunction is in the scope of the adoption problem. Then I show that the most straightforward counterargument against adjunction being in the scope of the problem, which tries to reformulate the adjunction rule into a more palatable one, does not work. (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)

What is the nature and structure of phronesis or practical wisdom? According to the view widely held by philosophers and psychologists, a person S is wise if and only if S knows how to live well. Given this view of practical wisdom, the guiding question is this: What exactly is “knowing how to live well”? It seems that no one has a clear idea of how to answer this simple but fundamental question. This paper explores knowing how to (...) live well (or “life know-how”) by showing how its nature and structure can be understood through contemporary epistemology of knowledge-how. I will achieve this by doing the following. In Section I, I highlight the two as-yet unanswered “integration questions” about life know-how. In Section II, I explain why the epistemology of knowledge-how has good potential to address the integration questions. In Sections III and IV, I construct two positions—intellectualism and anti-intellectualism—for the epistemology of life know-how and show how they address the two integration questions. In Section V, I show how the epistemology of life know-how established in the previous sections can be used in the philosophy of wisdom and the psychology of wisdom. (shrink)

In this article, we aim to evaluate the role of robots’ personality-driven behavioural patterns on users’ intention to use in an entertainment scenario. Toward such a goal, we designed two personalities: one introverted with an empathic and self-comparative interaction style, and the other extroverted with a provocative and other-comparative interaction style. To evaluate the proposed technology acceptance model, we conducted an experiment (N = 209) at a public venue where users were requested to play a game with the support of (...) the TIAGo robot. Our findings show that the robot personality affects the acceptance model and three relevant drivers: perceived enjoyment, perceived usefulness, and social influence. The extroverted robot was perceived as more useful than the introverted, and participants who interacted with it were faster at solving the game. On the other hand, the introverted robot was perceived as more enjoyable but less useful than the extroverted, and participants who interacted with it made fewer mistakes. Taken together, these findings support the importance of designing proper robot personalities in influencing users’ acceptance, featuring that a given style can elicit a different driver of acceptance. (shrink)

In this article, we aim to evaluate the role of robots’ personality-driven behavioural patterns on users’ intention to use in an entertainment scenario. Toward such a goal, we designed two personalities: one introverted with an empathic and self-comparative interaction style, and the other extroverted with a provocative and other-comparative interaction style. To evaluate the proposed technology acceptance model, we conducted an experiment (N = 209) at a public venue where users were requested to play a game with the support of (...) the TIAGo robot. Our findings show that the robot personality affects the acceptance model and three relevant drivers: perceived enjoyment, perceived usefulness, and social influence. The extroverted robot was perceived as more useful than the introverted, and participants who interacted with it were faster at solving the game. On the other hand, the introverted robot was perceived as more enjoyable but less useful than the extroverted, and participants who interacted with it made fewer mistakes. Taken together, these findings support the importance of designing proper robot personalities in influencing users’ acceptance, featuring that a given style can elicit a different driver of acceptance. (shrink)

I use some ideas of Keith DeRose's to develop an (invariantist!) account of why sceptical reasoning doesn't show that I don't know that I'm not a brain in a vat. I argue that knowledge is subject to the risk-of-error constraint: a true belief won’t have the status of knowledge if there is a substantial risk of the belief being in error that hasn’t been brought under control. When a substantial risk of error is present (i.e. beliefs in propositions that are (...) false in nearby worlds), satisfying the constraint requires bringing the risk under control. This is achieved either by sensitivity, i.e. you wouldn’t have the belief if it were false, or by identifying evidence for the proposition. However, when the risk of error is not substantial (i.e. beliefs in propositions that are not false in nearby worlds), the constraint is satisfied by default. My belief that I am not a brain in a vat is insensitive and I have no evidence for it, but since it is not false in nearby worlds, it satisfies the constraint by default. (shrink)

Mentalizing is our ability to infer agents’ mental states. Attributing beliefs, knowledge, desires, and intentions are frequently discussed forms of mentalizing. Attributing mentalistically loaded stereotypes, personality traits, and evaluating others’ rationality are forms of mentalizing, as well. This broad conception of mentalizing has interesting and important implications for social epistemology. Several topics in social epistemology involve judgments about others’ knowledge, rationality, and competence, e.g., peer disagreement, epistemic injustice, and identifying experts. Mentalizing is at the core of each of these debates. (...) In this chapter, I describe the broad conception of mentalizing and show how it is central to how we judge others’ knowledge, competence, and rationality. I will apply this perspective on mentalizing to two debates: the epistemology of peer disagreement and interventions on testimonial injustice. I argue that understanding how mentalizing works can help us see these debates in a different light. Such reframing can help us make progress on these challenging debates. (shrink)

Recent research suggests that individuals from East Asian and Western cultures differ in the degree to which they hold a folk world view known as naïve dialecticism, which is characterized by tolerance for contradiction, expectation of change, and cognitive holism. The current research utilizes the Mouse Paradigm to investigate the dynamic nature of naïve dialecticism in real time by measuring individuals’ fluctuations in judgment during the process of contemplation. The results showed cultural differences in dynamic measures of evaluation process: Japanese (...) participants took more time to stabilize their thought and showed more fluctuations in their judgment than American participants. These cultural differences were fully mediated by individual differences in levels of naïve dialecticism as measured by the level of dialectical self-views. Implications for cultural psychology and the psychology of dialectical thinking are discussed. (shrink)

What's the point of time travel? Not to change the past; no matter how carefully a time traveler plans, all of her attempts to change the past end in failure. Paul Horwich has argued that the implausibility of such failures gives us reason to doubt that there will be frequent time travel to the local past. I defend a modified version of Horwich's argument and show how we might gain evidence about the chance of there being frequent time travel in (...) the future without having any information that explains why that chance value obtains. (shrink)

This article considers how professional knowledge should be assessed. It is maintained that the assessment of professional know-how raises distinctive issues from the assessment of know-how more generally. Intellectualist arguments which suggest that someone's giving an account of how to F should suffice for attributing to them knowledge of how to F are set out. The arguments fail to show that there is no necessary distinction between two kinds of know-how, namely the ability to F and knowing that w (...) is a way to F, such that the latter is more fundamental. The consequences of this failure for our understanding of professional assessment are then considered. The issue of the assessment of tacit knowledge is then addressed. It is concluded that there is no context-dependent codifiable or articulable propositional knowledge of how to F which could be substituted for being able to F and that therefore tacit knowledge can only be assessed in performance. The parallel with Gettier cases is reviewed and it is concluded that the provenance of accounts of and justifications for the attribution of know-how are not matters of indifference to its assessment. Finally, the question of evaluability or what Ryle would have called the applicability of intelligence epithets is discussed in relation to its relevance to our procedures for assessing practical knowledge. Once again, it is concluded that excellent performance is necessary to attribute excellence in know-how. However, the ability to give an account of how and why an agent would do something in hypothetical circumstances is also very important for the assessment of professional knowledge. (shrink)

Drawing on gender-role theories and considering the potential new media environments brought to the dynamics of strategic political communication, this study explores the nature of US Midwestern congresswomen’s strategic online self-presentations in comparison to those of congressmen. The discourse analysis presented in this study shows that in their official online biographies, that is, as given on websites provided by the US government, congresswomen devoted more space to describing their own personal traits than did congressmen. In particular, women tended to stress (...) the masculine aspects of their personalities by using so-called masculine words such as tough and fighter much more than their male counterparts did. Such masculine terminology was scarcely evident in the biographies of male House members in the same states and committees as the female members. These findings imply that female politicians are more active in strategically presenting themselves as tough leaders in what appears to be a self-conscious effort to counteract detrimental gender stereotypes. (shrink)

Some worry that semantic externalism is incompatible with knowing by introspection what content your thoughts have. In this paper, I examine one primary argument for this incompatibilist worry, the slow-switch argument. Following Goldberg , I construe the argument as attacking the conjunction of externalism and “skeptic immune” knowledge of content, where such knowledge would persist in a skeptical context. Goldberg, following Burge :649–663, 1988), attempts to reclaim such knowledge for the externalist; however, I contend that all Burge-style accounts vindicate (...) that a subject can introspectively know that she is thinking that “water is wet.” They do not yet show how a subject can introspectively know what she is thinking—which is the distinctive type of knowing at issue in the slow-switch argument. Nonetheless, I subsequently amend the Burge-style view to illustrate how an externalist can introspectively “know-what” content her thought has, and know it in a skeptic immune manner, despite what the slow-switch argument may suggest. For one, I emphasize that “knowing what” can be ontologically non-committal . For another, following Boer and Lycan , I stress that “knowing what” is purpose-relative–and for at least some purposes, it seems possible for the externalist to “know what” content her thought has, even if skeptical hypotheses about XYZ are relevant. (shrink)

How the Body Knows Its Mind takes you inside the amazing science of how the body affects the mind, and shows how to use that wisdom to live smarter and maximize what your body teaches your mind.

Intellectualists about knowledge-how state that knowledgehow is a kind of propositional knowledge. Anti-intellectualists try to show that there are cases where the agent has knowledge-how without knowing-that. This paper focuses on recent anti-intellectualists’ arguments by Carter and Pritchard. I argue that Carter and Pritchard’s arguments are not well succeeded and that, if we apply virtue epistemology to this debate, we can conclude that knowledge-how shares the same epistemic properties as propositional knowledge. If this is correct, we can say that (...) knowledge-how is a kind of propositional knowledge and intellectualism is safe again. (shrink)

Ryle, the most prominent proponent of anti-intellectualism, and Stanley and Williamson, the most influential intellectualists, both invoke dispositions to explain the ascription of knowledge-how. It is now well known that conditional analyses of disposition suffer from two types of counterexamples: finkish and masked dispositions. If it is the case that dispositions play a role in the analysis of ascription of knowledge-how, and dispositions can be masked and finkish, then an important question arises: Can knowing-how be masked or finkish too? (...) In response to this question, Hawley claims that unlike dispositions, knowledge-how does not seem liable to finkishness, and knowledge-how can be accounted for in terms of counterfactual success. In this paper both claims will be challenged. I seek to show that Hawley’s account faces two problems: an unjustified asymmetry and a puzzle. I also argue that knowledge-how can, intuitively, be finkish and masked, and therefore the counterfactual analysis of knowing-how suggested by Ryle, Stanley and Hawley fails. What is more, I show that the debate on finkish and masked dispositions can shed a new light on the practical component which is necessary for knowing-how. (shrink)

This paper aims to show that widespread, serious errors in the self-assessment of affect are a genuine possibility—one worth taking very seriously. For we are subject to a variety of errors concerning the character of our present and past affective states, or “affective ignorance.” For example, some affects, particularly moods, can greatly affect the quality of our experience even when we are unable to discern them. I note several implications of these arguments. First, we may be less competent pursuers of (...) happiness than is commonly believed, raising difficult questions for political thought. Second, some of the errors discussed ramify for our understanding of consciousness, including Ned Block’s controversial distinction between access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness. Third, empirical results based on self-reports about affect may be systematically misleading in certain ways. (shrink)

How do Humans Think? How should we think? Almost all of philosophy and a great deal else depends in large part on the answers that we provide to such questions. Yet they are almost impossible to deal with in isolation; notions about nature of thought are almost bound to connect with metaphysical notions about where ideas come from, with notions about appropriate arenas for certainty, doubt, and belief, and hence with moral and religious ideas. The Western tradition of thinking about (...) thinking takes shape with Socrates; among the other important strands covered in this book are Descartes’ recipe for discovering truth through systematic doubt, Hume’s notion that all our ideas are copies of sense impressions, Wollstonecraft’s introduction of the perspective of gender into such questions, and Wittgenstein’s claim that much of the traditional terrain of Western philosophy should be thought of as the proper domain only of linguistic assertion, possessing no content beyond the words. With each philosopher and school of thought dealt with, Govier shows how ideas about thinking connect to the other elements of the particular philosophy, and brings to life the social and intellectual context that the ideas spring from. Socrates’ Children is thus not only an investigation of notions of thinking and knowing in Western culture; it is a selective general history of much of Western philosophy, from a unique and fascinating perspective. (shrink)

For Bhartrhari, a fifth-century Indian grammarian-philosopher, all conscious beings—beasts, birds and humans—are capable of what he called pratibha, a flash of indescribable intuitive understanding such that one knows what the present object “means” and what to do with it. Such an understanding, if correct, amounts to a mode of knowing that may best be termed knowing-what, to distinguish it from both knowing-that and knowing-how. This paper attempts to expound Bhartrhari’s conception of pratibha in relation to the (...) notions of meaning, understanding, and knowing. First, I touch briefly on Bhartrhari’s views of consciousness and language, and examine at some length his indescribability thesis concerning the intuitive meaning of a sentence. Then, I delineate the general features of pratibha as intuitive understanding and discuss its probable range in relation to expert intuition and sense perception. Thereafter, I relate pratibha to the notion of knowing-what and show why these two notions are to be differentiated from knowing-that and knowing-how. The paper concludes with some remarks on the contemporary relevance of Bhartrhari’s conception of pratibha. (shrink)

Most land plants associate with mycorrhizal fungi that can connect roots of neighboring plants in common mycelial networks (CMNs). Recent evidence shows that CMNs transfer warning signals of pathogen and aphid attack between plants. However, we do not know how defence‐related signaling via CMNs operates or how ubiquitous it is. Nor do we know what the ecological relevance and fitness consequences are, particularly from the perspective of the mycorrhizal fungus. Here, we focus on the potential fitness benefits for mycorrhizal fungi (...) and outline hypothetical scenarios in which signal transfer via CMNs is modulated in order to acquire the most benefit for the fungus (i.e. acquisition of carbon) for minimal cost. We speculate that the signal may be quantitative and may elicit plant defence responses on different levels depending on the distance the signal is transferred. Finally, we discuss the possibility of practical applications of this phenomenon for crop protection. (shrink)