Methods, minds, memory, and kinds

ABSTRACT

The acquisition of a skill, or knowledge-how, on the one hand, and the acquisition of a piece of propositional knowledge on the other, appear to be different sorts of epistemic achievements. Does this difference lie in the nature of the knowledge involved, marking a joint between knowledge-how and propositional knowledge? Intellectualists say no: All knowledge is propositional knowledge. Anti-intellectualists say yes: Knowledge-how and propositional knowledge are different in kind. What resources or methods may we legitimately and fruitfully employ to adjudicate this debate? What is (or are) the right way(s) to show the nature of the knowledge knowers know? Here too there is disagreement. I defend the legitimacy of the anti-intellectualist appeal to cognitive neuroscientific findings against a recent claim that anti-intellectualists conflate the scientific categories of procedural and declarative knowledge with the mental kinds of skill (knowledge-how) and propositional knowledge, respectively. I identify two kinds of arguments for this claim and argue that neither succeeds.

KEYWORDS:

• Procedural knowledge
• knowledge-how
• memory
• skill
• intellectualism
• practical knowledge

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for the many extremely helpful suggestions my anonymous reviewers provided, and for the generous and helpful feedback given by the editors of this special issue, namely Carlotta Pavese and Felipe de Brigard. The paper is far better than it began, and much credit is owed to them. Thanks also to the graduate students at the University of Pittsburgh who, in two contexts, in 2015 and 2016, provided insightful feedback and kind-hearted encouragement.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The distinction between know-how and ability is due to Stanley and Williamson (2016), Hawley (2003), and Bengson and Moffett (2012). The idea that know-how goes together with the ability to intentionally F is due to Hawley (2003), Setiya (2011), and Pavese (2015a, 2015b, 2016a, 2016b, p. 2017).

2. Stanley and Williamson (2016), Stanley (2011), Stanley and Krakauer (2013), Brogaard (2012).

3. See also Kremer (2016), Ryle (1949), Dreyfus (2005), Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1984, 1986), Noё (2005). For a review of the debate, see Bengson (2012), Fantl (2017), and Pavese (2016a, 2016b). There are also hybrid views that identify knowledge-how with a propositional representation corresponding to an intention, and a non-propositional motor representation concedes that knowledge-how requires a non-propositional kind of content (see, e.g., Fridland, 2014; Levy, 2017; Pavese, 2019; Sinigaglia & Butterfill, 2015; Mylopoulos & Pacherie, 2017; I also mention these views in Endnote 24). These hybrid or dual-component views arguably qualify neither as intellectualist nor as anti-intellectualist, for, on the one hand, they hold that intentional action requires propositional attitudes and treat as a necessary condition for something to count as knowledge-how or skill that it be is, in principle, such that it could be manifested in intentional action. On the other hand, they hold that the propositional-attitude component is not sufficient for knowledge-how and draw on non-propositional motor content instead. Thus, neither the propositional content nor the non-propositional content functions as knowledge-how; they do so only in combination. I also argue in Section 2.2 that minimally intentional agents and action may be sufficient to manifest knowledge-how or skill and that minimally intentional action may not require propositional attitudes after all. If that’s right, then a hybrid view could collapse into an anti-intellectualist view, according to which knowledge-how or its manifestation requires both a non-propositional motor representation and a non-propositional minimal intention. Alternatively, these could wind up being the same thing (perhaps a pushmi-pullyu representation a la Millikan, 1996).

4. See Bayley, Franscino & Squire, 2005; Cohen & Eichenbaum, 1993; Corkin, 1968; Knowlton & Squire, 1996; Knowlton, Mangels, & Squire, 1996; Knowlton & Foerde, 2008; Squire & Kandel, 2003; Squire & Wixted, 2016; Squire & Zola, 1992, 1997, 2007a, 2007b.

5. See, for example, Gabrielli et al. (1993) and Cohen and Squire (1980).

6. Or acquire so little that it could not account for the apparent skill acquisition.

7. See for example, Stanley (2011, p. 156).

8. See, for example, Crane (1988a, 1988b, 1992); Peacocke (1992, 1998, 2001).

9. This is far more controversial than S&K seem to recognize.

10. I am skeptical of this argument, but I will not challenge it here.

11. For example, Milner (1962), Cohen and Squire (1980).

12. Fantl (2017) notes that the literature is conflicted, but for examples of cognitive skills being counted as procedural knowledge, see, for example, Graybiel and Grafton (2015), Gluck. Shohamy, and Myers (2002), Poldrack, Prabakharan, Seger, and Gabrieli (1999), Cohen and Squire (1980), Gabrieli, Keane, and Corkin (1987), Squire and Frambach (1990).

13. Knowlton and Squire (1996).

14. Cohen and Squire (1980).

15. Knowlton and Squire (1996).

16. See also Pavese (2019).

17. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this objection.

18. Pavese (2019) also notes the fact that amnesiacs can acquire what I am calling “cognitive skills” and argues that the representations involved in all skills may fall under the umbrella of what she calls “practical representations.” Pavese then argues that the intellectualist can accommodate practical representations – that they may be thought of as Fregean modes of presentation or as Russellian ways in which one may be related to or bear an attitude to a proposition. I address her proposal in a little more detail below. See also Springle (Unpublished).

19. It isn’t obvious that our pre-theoretical notion denies the possibility of something like an “innate skill,” perhaps especially when we think about the skills ascribed to non-human animals. For instance, a spider has the innate “skill” to spin webs. This use of “skill” treats it as largely interchangeable with “ability.” And indeed, “skill” and “ability” do appear to be very close kin. Definitions of one very often mention or link to the other and the notion of “knowledge-how” appears to be appropriate to both. That is, if someone were to say, “she has remarkable reading abilities” and I were to relay this information to someone as “she knows how to read very well” or “she is a very skilled reader,” this wouldn’t necessarily be an inaccurate or infelicitous translation.

20. Stanley might retort that he and Williamson have provided a semantic analysis of the know-how construction which reflects the lay concept of know-how, but it is not clear how much we can extract about lay concepts from semantic analyses of the linguistic constructions in which they figure. In addition, cognitive scientists take themselves to have vindicated the folk category of knowledge-how in their discovery of procedural knowledge (e.g., Cohen & Squire, 1980), while Stanley (2011) admits that knowledge-how might, should his analysis turn out to be inconsistent with findings in cognitive science, turn out to be the psychological version of phlogiston (p. 149). The fact that Stanley’s semantically based metaphysical analysis of knowledge would, under such circumstances, commit to a kind of epistemic error theory may be seen as a reason to be skeptical of the claim that it captures the lay concept, as one might think it ought to be robust against such a fate.

21. It may be that, in order to manifest some skills intentionally, propositional knowledge is needed. For instance, S&K discuss an experiment by Roy and Park (2010) in which amnesiac patients trained to use novel complex tools exhibited significant deficits at certain experimental tasks compared to controls, unless they were resupplied with the relevant propositional knowledge. However, for other skills, non-propositional motor representations may suffice (Levy, 2017). Indeed, skill at using less complex tools may not require propositional knowledge – affordances may suffice (Gibson, 1966, 1977, 1979; Roy & Park, 2010).

22. I want to note, however, that even if the manifestation of skill did require propositional attitudes, including propositional knowledge, this would not be sufficient to show that procedural knowledge reduces to acuity, for it would not follow that all of the knowledge involved in skill is propositional. Indeed, Fridland (2014) argues that propositional knowledge does not exhaust the intelligent aspects of skill (see also 2013, 2015a, 2015b), and Levy (2017) argues that skill involves both a propositional and a non-propositional, but still intelligent and representational, motor component. Sinigaglia and Butterfill (2015) and Mylopoulos and Pacherie (2017) argue that intentional action more generally requires non-propositional motor representations. If these philosophers are right, then, contra S&K’s claim that the only intelligent part of skill is propositional and the rest is mere acuity, procedural knowledge may well involve a non-propositional kind of knowledge. See also Pavese (2019). Although this wouldn’t show that procedural knowledge maps onto skill if skill really does require propositional knowledge, it would suggest that anti-intellectualists are right that there is a non-propositional kind of knowledge involved in skill, and procedural knowledge may well map onto that. In addition (and more relevant for my discussion), while these hybrid views claim that skill requires a non-propositional knowledge component, they, like S&K, typically assume a relatively “rich” notion of intentional action.

23. See also Kristin Andrews (2015), Natalie Thomas (2016), and Camp and Shupe (Camp & Shupe, 2017).

24. See also Devitt (2011) and Levy (2017).

25. Springle (Unpublished) also discusses the relationship between instructive representations and Pavese’s “practical senses” or “practical representations” (see Pavese, 2015b, 2017b, and 2019).

26. See also Fridland (2014).

27. see also Hutto and Myin(2013).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alison Springle

Alison Springleis a PhD Candidate in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh.