Specter of Reason

I. Can you become a great martial artist without breaking a sweat?  In this classic scene from the 1999 sci-fi film, The Matrix, Neo (played by Keanu Reeves) seems to learn Kung Fu by having the information uploaded directly to his brain. If you cannot view the video, here's what we see:  Computer monitors show simple, 3D images of a brain and a martial arts position.  The computer is plugged into Neo, who is strapped to a chair with his eyes closed.  Neo opens his eyes with a noticable exhale, blinks, turns to Morpheus (played by Laurence Fishburne), and says, "I know Kung Fu."  Morpheus leans in, intrigued, and replies, "Show me." Morpheus is not clearly convinced.  Perhaps he is not sure the upload was successful.  Or maybe Morpheus believes that the upload was successful, but that it was only part of the learning process.  The skill has not really been attained until it has been demonstrated. It doesn't matter what Morpheus thought. ...

Provoked by some Facebook posts by Jason Stanley (Yale) and an ensuing discussion with Jason and Michael Morris (Sussex), I've been arguing for a certain interpretation of Plato's distinction between medicine and cookery, or, more generally, between crafts and knacks.  By "crafts" we might take Plato to mean arts or skills, or perhaps even what today would be called "sciences."  The difficult question concerns what Plato means by "knacks," and whether or not they entail a particular kind of knowledge. In Gorgias (463a), Socrates refers to knacks as parts of flattery, which he calls "the habit of a bold and ready wit, which knows how to manage mankind."  In another translation, flattery is defined as "a shrewd, gallant spirit which has a natural bent for clever dealing with mankind."  Both translations indicate that flattery entails knowledge: either it is knowledge how to manage mankind, or it is whatever knowledge is required...

I want to clarify and expand on a point I recently raised against Ryle. A friend has suggested that I moved a little too quickly through the points, especially concerning the relevance of Wittgenstein, so I'll try to make it a bit more cogent. I'll draw some connections to Dennett, Millikan and Kripke in the process. It begins with Ryle's distinction between museum-possession and workshop-possession of factual knowledge (see Ryle, "Knowing How and Knowing That," 1946). Let MUSEUM(p) = museum-possession of knowledge that p. Let WORKSHOP(p) = workshop-possession of knowledge that p. Ryle claims that MUSEUM(p) is impoverished with respect to knowing-how, where "knowing how" is a general term for intelligence associated with the application or expression of knowledge. In order to intelligently exploit one's propositional knowledge that p, one needs WORKSHOP(p). Ryle is also clear that, in order to know that p, one must establish or derive the f...

I want to further explain my misgivings about Ryle's account of knowing-how ( see here ).  Ryle's positive view of knowing-how is embedded in his arguments against intellectualism. As Jason Stanley noted during his "meisterkurs," these arguments are targeted against a number of different positions at the same time, and Ryle lumps them all together under the banner of "intellectualism." First there is the notion that all knowledge is knowing the answer to a question. This is the position Jason wants to defend. Ryle is also arguing against the view that the intellect is the defining feature of the mind: that to be a person is to have a mind, and to have a mind is to have an intellect, where the intellect is defined as that which considers and grasps propositions, or truths. I think Jason wants to defend this position, as well; and it may very well be entailed by the first position. Along with these views is the view that, in order to act intelligently, ...

I'm just 24 hours back from Jason Stanley's "meisterkurs" at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain. It was phenomenal. It was great to finally meet Jason in person. He was wonderfully receptive and gracious. I didn't have time to ask him everything I wanted, but a number of important bases were covered. He was excited and good-humored and always kept me on the edge of my seat. I was glad to see him being critical of some of the arguments in his recent book. At one point, he seemed to want to reject the idea of practical ways of thinking as a natural kind or category of cognitive capacities. He said he had never claimed they were necessary in the first place, at which point I picked up my copy of his book and turned to page 130 and read aloud: "[Practical ways of thinking] are necessary to explain the acquisition of skill on the basis of knowledge of facts, which are true propositions." Jason responded that he didn't know what he meant by...

Jason Stanley says that we must understand the need for practical ways of thinking if we are going to understand what it means to know how to do something.  His thesis ( Know How , 2011, p. 130) is this:  "What happens when I acquire skill in the activity of catching fly balls?  What happens is that I come to the realization that a certain way of catching a fly ball, which I think of practically, is a way that will give me counterfactual success in fly ball catching."  Thus, one must not simply have a properly practical way of thinking about catching a fly ball; one must also realize that they have this practical way of thinking about that way.  One must thereby come to the conclusion that the way is a good way of doing it. Stanley's account implies two ways of thinking:  The first way is the practical one, and the second is the way of thinking  about  the practical way of thinking  such that it is about a good way of acting.   Is thi...

In a recent piece for  The Stone , Jason Stanley rejects the common distinction between theoretical knowledge and practical skill.  His goal, apparently, is to liberate society from a false and oppressive elitism. He says: "The distinction between the practical and the theoretical is used to warehouse society into groups. It alienates and divides. It is fortunate, then, that it is nothing more than a fiction."  I'm not sure why that would be fortunate.  I rather think it would be fortunate if the warehousing turned out to be for the better.  If there was a problem, the fact that it was based on a fiction would not make me feel better.  In any case, Stanley does not draw our attention to any documented evidence of any alienation or division resulting from the folk conception of a practical/theoretical distinction.  I'm not convinced the folk conception is a problem at all.  But that's not what I want to write about right now. Stanley's piece i...

Interesting philosophical issues can arise when we investigate what it is we know or perceive about our actions while we are acting intentionally.  It should probably go without saying that, when we are acting intelligently, we know what we are doing, at least to some extent and in some sense of the verb, "to know."  I'm going to try to motivate the thesis that what we know is not obviously propositional in nature. Consider the following question: (1) What is she doing? It goes without saying that, in many normal situations, a proper response to (1) is a description or identification of an action.  However, (1) has an idiomatic usage.  It can be used to communicate fear or anxiety about what somebody is doing.  It can communicate a desire for an explanation for an action.  Context usually makes it clear which usage is intended. Now consider what happens when (1) is embedded in the following knowledge ascription: (2) She knows what she is doing. It...

In Chapter 8 of Know How (2011), Jason Stanley discusses whether or not there can be Gettier cases for knowledge how, and whether or not this means knowledge how is not propositional knowledge.  He accepts the following proposition: (P1) Gettier cases for know-how, if they exist, require that the subject intelligently and successfully F, where F ranges over actions. (P1) is supposed to be self-evident, but this surely depends on how we understand "intelligently."  What counts as an intelligent action, in the sense that makes P1 self-evidently true?  Is it enough for the action to have been consciously decided upon? We might be tempted to read P1 as only requiring that F be successfully performed with the conscious decision to F, which would entail the following proposition: (P1*) Gettier cases for know-how, if they exist, require that the subject consciously decide to and successfully F, where F ranges over actions. However, (P1*) does not seem self-...

Updated on July 1, 2012.  See bottom. On page 229 of Know How (2011), Jason Stanley argues that ascriptions of knowing how create opaque contexts, which (he claims) implies that knowing how to do something is conceptual.  An opaque context is one in which co-extensive terms cannot be substituted without changing the truth-value of an expression.  Stanley is responding to the relatively familiar view that procedural knowledge or knowledge how is non-conceptual.  If it is non-conceptual, then why would it create opaque contexts? Stanley quotes David Carr to prove that knowing how ascriptions create opaque contexts: Suppose a famous dancer was to perform before an audience, an item from his repertoire to which he has himself given the following title:    (12) A performance of Improvisation No. 15    To the astonishment of a member of his audience who just happens to be an expert on communications, the movements of the dancer turn out to ...