Practical knowledge and abilities

Abstract

The thesis is an exploration of the relations between know-how, abilities, and ordinary knowledge of facts. It is shown that there is a distinctively practical sort of know-how and a corresponding interpretation of 'S knows how to [phi]', and that this special sort of know-how, while possessing representational content, is not simply ordinary knowledge-that. The view rests on a novel distinction between two interpretations of the Intellectualist slogan, familiar from the work of Gilbert Ryle, that know-how is a kind of knowledge-that. The distinction allows us to clarify the issues that are at stake in the debate and see the possibility of a position that combines aspects of both Intellectualism and anti-Intellectualism. An entailment from knowhow to a certain sort of ability is defended, and it is shown that the present view preserves the possibility of appealing to know-how to block Frank Jackson's "knowledge argument" against physicalism.