Epistemic Actions, Abilities and Knowing-How: A Non-Reductive Account

ABSTRACT

The aim is to provide a synoptic view of the epistemic landscape in respect of epistemic actions, abilities and knowing how. The resulting view consists of the following propositions: (1) knowledge-by-acquaintance cannot be reduced to propositional knowledge or to knowing-how or some combination of these; the same point holds for propositional knowledge in relation to knowledge-by-acquaintance and knowing-how, and to knowing-how in relation to knowledge-by-acquaintance and propositional knowledge; (2) These categories of knowledge are, nevertheless, interdependent in a number of senses; (3) Abilities are not the same thing as know-how; (4) Epistemic actions need to be distinguished from behavioral actions; (5) Judgements are epistemic actions which, if successful, result in knowledge and, therefore, the sharp contrast drawn between, on the one hand, comings to believe and, in particular, judgments and, on the other hand, actions – with respect to being freely chosen – is not sustainable; (6) Judgements manifest both abilities and know-how.

KEYWORDS:

• Epistemic action
• knowing-how
• abilities
• propositional knowledge
• knowledge-by-acquaintance

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Notes

1. So this is not a survey article on relevant literature or an overview of possible perspectives, much less both.

2. Typically, belief states in the case of propositional knowledge and states of awareness in the case of knowledge-by-acquaintance.

3. See, for instance, Campbell (2011, ch. 4).

4. (Hetherington 2011, ch. 2).

5. See Russell (1910). For a survey article on knowledge-by-acquaintance see Hasan and Fumerton (2020). Knowles and Raleigh (2019) is a recent set of articles providing a good overview of the issues.

6. Although the term, ‘definition’ is used throughout this article there is no intention to imply that a formal definition, (e.g., in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions), is called for. Accordingly, only key properties of terms and illustrative instances are provided; and some existing definitions are discussed, (e.g., justified true belief).

7. Including perhaps another person, (i.e., a knowing subject), strictly speaking.

8. In speaking of direct experience I do not mean to imply a commitment to direct realism, as opposed to indirect realism in relation to external objects. Russell himself, at times, advocated a form of indirect realism according to which we only have direct experience of our sense data but not of external objects (although at times he argued for a view of external objects as constructed out of sense data).

9. See Moser (1989) for a moderate foundationalist perspective. See also Fumerton (2019).

10. Or, at least, of some forms of knowledge-by-acquaintance.

11. (Byrne 2005). Or, relatedly, if knowledge-by-acquaintance provides the representational content of the beliefs in question, Pollock and Oved (2005, 326).

12. Arguably, knowledge-by-acquaintance of the famous speckled hen is of this kind, albeit not in the service of knowledge-by-acquaintance as certain (Chisholm 1942; Fumerton 2005).

13. Such knowledge-by-acquaintance is a manifestation of a perceptual ability to receive and process visual data. At any rate, exercises of this ability are, therefore, not necessarily intentional actions.

14. Thanks to an anonymous referee for raising this issue.

15. For a recent survey article on propositional knowledge see Ichikawa and Steup (2018). For a useful introduction see Lehrer (1990) and for relevant articles see Moser (2002).

16. Since it is taken that there are Gettier-style counterexamples to this definition as it stands.

17. Interestingly, Williamson’s reductionist account (Williamson 2000) still seems to maintain that belief, truth and reliability are necessary conditions for knowledge. Perhaps, therefore, my pluralist account could be recast by an adherent of a non-reductive account of knowledge.

18. See Hawthorne (2002).

19. See, for instance, Moser (1989).

20. Albeit, arguably some beliefs are not themselves entirely internal since they are linguistically expressible and such beliefs often involve referring terms the meaning of which is determined at least in part by external objects. See Williamson (2000).

21. Famously, this definition does not rule out so-called Gettier counterexamples. According to Paul Moser (1989), for instance, there is therefore a need for a further condition, in his case that this justification does not rely on some other false belief. This condition rules out some but not all Gettier cases, (e.g., not fake barn examples). See Sosa (2015, 78–80) for an influential attempt to deal with fake barn examples.

22. For recent survey articles see Pavese (2021) and Cath (2019). For a useful collection of essays on knowing-how see Bengson and Moffett (2011). For works in which knowing how plays a central role see, for example, Polanyi (1967) and Hetherington (2011).

23. This is not to say that every instance of one of these sorts of knowledge directly depends on instances of one or other, or both, of the other sorts of knowledge.

24. This objection is, as far as I am aware, not made in the philosophical literature.

25. As, for instance, Stanley (2011) argues.

26. Here I utilize to some extent the work of Peels (2010).

27. Of course, A might know-how to bring it about that A (or, indeed, B, C etc.) does not know-how to x, (e.g., by destroying the relevant part of his brain) that enables him to know how to x. But this is a different matter.

28. Note also that on this dualistic (doxastic/non-doxastic) account of ignorance, if A falsely believes that p then A is not ignorant of p, although A is wrong about p. Note further that on this account if A does not have any justification for A’s true belief that p then A is not ignorant, albeit one might want to hold that A does not have knowledge of p in some stronger sense than true belief that p (since A lacks any justification for his belief that p).

29. It might be argued that A does know a way to ride a bike, (i.e., by sitting on the seat), steering with his hands and peddling with this feet. True enough. But such knowledge does not count as knowing-how since ex hypothesi he can have this knowledge and not know how to ride a bike. One could add that this knowledge has to be under a mode of practical presentation to counts as knowing-how according to the view in question. Again, true enough. However, it is assumed in the example that A does not know how to ride a bike and, if the view in question is correct, then that is equivalent to A not knowing (under a mode of practical presentation) any way to ride a bike.

30. Different in terms of the numbers multiplied together. But the same point would hold for his performing the same multiplication calculation on different occasions.

31. I owe a version of this response to an anonymous referee.

32. However, given the above explained account of knowing-how, the techniques constitutive of knowledge-how are not sub-conscious processes in the motor system. Such processes would not count as knowledge since they are not in principle available to consciousness.

33. Of course, one could by definitional fiat insist that knowledge-how just is ability (and ability is knowledge-how) and, therefore, that basic actions manifest knowledge-how because they manifest abilities. However, this would be to beg the question.

34. Moreover, the above-described recourse to counterfactual circumstances is in danger of undermining the distinction between a person’s possession of an ability to perform a certain type of action and the possibility of a person performing the action type under certain circumstances. In some circumstances, (e.g., the absence of a piano), the ability possessed by a person cannot be exercised. So in the counterfactual circumstances in which there is no piano, the piano player cannot play the piano. But, nevertheless, the piano-player still possesses the ability to play the piano in these circumstances in which there is no piano (i.e., circumstances) in which there is no possibility of her playing the piano.

35. Ryle (1949) described some such exercises as intelligent. It might or might not be the case that the use of the word ‘intelligence’ implies the presence propositional knowledge. See Hetherington (2013).

36. (Ryle 1949). For criticisms of knowing-how as an ability see Stanley and Williamson (2001). See also John, Moffett, and Wright (2009).

37. The notion of a basic action while not unproblematic has some intuitive support, (e.g., simple bodily actions) such as raising one’s arm or walking. See, for instance, Danto (1965) and Setiya (2012).

38. For discussion of this issue see John, Moffett, and Wright (2009).

39. See, for instance, Loar (1986).

40. This use of the term, ‘proposition’ is not to commit to an ontology of entities (propositions) existing in an abstract realm.

41. Perhaps in so grasping reality the knower’s action is true (in some sense). See Campbell (2011, ch. 4). Note that most contemporary analytic philosophers support deflationary, correspondence or coherence accounts of truth, (i.e., not action-based accounts). Pragmatist theories of truth are action-based in a somewhat different sense than is discussed here. See, for instance, the survey provided in Schmitt (2004).

42. Hence epistemic actions have a different direction of fit from behavioural actions; the former have word-to- world fit, the latter a world- to word fit. See, for instance, Searle (1983, 7).

43. NB: Since the know-how in question is knowing-how to perform a behavioral action the action of repeatedly casting has a non-epistemic end.

44. Naturally, the definition of epistemic actions would vary in accordance with one’s definition of knowledge.

45. Some perceptual judgments do not involve the application of a learned technique, (e.g., the judgment) that there is a red patch in my visual field.

46. For a detailed analysis of assertion see Miller (2016).

47. The idea of truth as teleological has been advanced by Michael Dummett (Dummett 1978, 1981).

48. See Walker (1996) and Montmarquet (1993, ch. 1) for a related defence of the sort of view being espoused here. See also Christian Stern’s reply (Stern 1997). Walker replied to Stern in Walker (1998). For a more recent treatment favorable to my own view and that of Montmarque and Walker see Frankish (2007). Note that the general view being espousing here is that one can be directly responsible for some of one’s beliefs, (i.e., that one’s responsibility) for some of one’s beliefs is not dependent on one’s responsibility for some action that led to those beliefs. In short, doxastic responsibility does not reduce to responsibility for actions. Note also that there are different accounts of this general view that one can be directly responsible for some of one’s beliefs. For example, I disagree with Walker in that I hold that the judgment that p is partially independent of the desire or goal to know whether or not that p. See Miller (2015).

49. For the classic defense of this view see Geach (1957).

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Seumas Miller

Seumas Miller holds research appointments at the Australian Graduate School of Policing and Security & Cooperative Research Centre in Cybersecurity at Charles Sturt University (Canberra), 4TU Centre for Ethics and Technology at Delft University of Technology (The Hague) and the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford. He is the author or co-author of 20 books including Shooting to Kill: The Ethics of Police and Military Use of Lethal Force (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Institutional Corruption: A Study in Applied Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2017). He is the principal investigator on a European Research Council Advanced Grant on the ethics of counter-terrorism.