Stanley and Williamson

Gilbert Ryle attacks what he calls the intellectualist legend. Jason Stanley and Timothy Williamson have recently undertaken a defence of intellectualism. They argue that know how is really a species of knowledge-that. This idea puts the suggestion that tacit knowledge is practical knowledge under some pressure: just because it is practical does not imply that it cannot be put into words. If so, how is it tacit?Stanley and Williamson's argument has three aspects. First they contest Ryle’s regress argument against intellectualism. Second they argue that there is no important semantic distinction between knowledge-how and knowledge-that. And third, they develop an account of knowledge-how in knowledge-that terms.

They offer the following as a summary of the premises of Ryle’s argument.

Ryle’s argument has two premises:

(1) If one Fs, one employs knowledge how to F.

(2) If one employs knowledge that p, one contemplates the proposition that p...

If knowledge-how is a species of knowledge-that, the content of knowledge how to F is, for some φ, the proposition that φ(F).

So, the assumption for reductio is:

RA: knowledge how to F is knowledge that φ(F). [Stanley and Williamson 2001: 413-4]

This then leads, apparently, to a regress in the following way:

Suppose that Hannah Fs. By premise (1), Hannah employs the knowledge how to F. By RA, Hannah employs the knowledge that φ(F). So, by premise (2), Hannah C φ(F))s. Since C(φ(F)) is an act, we can reapply premise (1), to obtain the conclusion that Hannah knows how to C(φ(F)).By RA, it then follows that Hannah employs the knowledge that φ(C(φ(F))). By premise (2), it follows that Hannah C(φ(C(φ(F))))s. And so on. [ibid: 414]

Stanley and Williamson contest that there is a stable consistent way to interpret the premises of the argument.

First they dispute the claim that if one Fs, one employs knowledge how to F. Cases such as digestion surely undermine this. Thus for example:

• • If Hannah digests food, she knows how to digest food.

is surely false. ‘Digesting food is not the sort of action that one knows how to do’ [ibid: 414]

To preserve the truth of the first premiss, they argue, it has to be restricted to intentional actions. But then this seems to make problems for premiss 2: If one employs knowledge that p, one contemplates the proposition that p. In support of this objection they quote Carl Ginet:

I exercise (or manifest) my knowledge that one can get the door open by turning the knob and pushing it (as well as my knowledge that there is a door there) by performing that operation quite automatically as I leave the room; and I may do this, of course, without formulating (in my mind or out loud) that proposition or any other relevant proposition [Ginet 1975: 7]

This example, they argue, shows that instances of knowledge-that are often unaccompanied by distinct acts of contemplating propositions. To preserve the truth of premiss 2 requires construing the ‘act’ of contemplating a proposition as no more an intentional action than digesting food. If so, then it can be saved from refutation by cases such as the one Ginet cites. But, of course, if contemplating a proposition is not an intentional action then it does not fit the only plausible interpretation of premiss 1. And thus there is no consistent interpretation of both the premises, taken together, that can sustain a regress. If the contemplation is not an intentional action then it need not be a case of employing knowledge how to do something and thus need not itself presuppose the contemplation of any further proposition to encode it.

Two main questions. First, Is this a successful criticism of Ryle’s argument? Second, and separately, what are the consequences of their account of how knowledge-how is a species of knowledge-that. Could a modern Rylean adopt any aspect of this account?

Reading

• • Stanley, J. and Williamson, T. (2001) ‘Knowing how’ The Journal of Philosophy 97: 411-444

  • Noë, A. (2005) ‘Against intellectualism’ Analysis 65: 278-90

Reflections on Stanley and Williamson

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