The Department of Philosophy, AU Philosophy Club,
and phi sigma tau proudly sponsor the
following presentation:
Understanding Knowing How
Dr. Evan Riley
Department of
Philosophy
College
of Wooster
Friday, September 25, 2015 at 3 pm
in the Ronk Lecture Hall (138), COE
In
recent years, the philosopher Jason Stanley has been defending a doctrine of
intellectualism about knowledge how. The basic thought is that knowing how to f
is fundamentally knowing a proposition; it is as propositional as any other kind
of knowledge that. This doctrine is
of course contrary to Gilbert Ryle’s view (with which many still have sympathy)
that there is a basic distinction of kind: knowing how to f
(on the one hand) and knowing that p
(on the other). Here, I consider an argument against Stanley’s intellectualism.
The argument hinges on appeal to the nature of skilled performance, and comes
in two stages. Stage one is an elementary objection, which I expect Stanley’s
defender to answer by appeal to the concept of a practical mode of presentation
(or practical way of thinking). In stage two, I submit this appeal to critical
scrutiny and find it wanting. The lesson I draw is that knowing how to f
should not be construed as the Stanley-style intellectualist would have it.
Evan
Riley is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at The College of Wooster, where
he teaches such subjects as ethical theory, logic, political philosophy,
biomedical ethics, and the philosophy of mind. He is a generalist by
temperament and was educated at the Universities of Louisville and of
Pittsburgh. Evan has published on the self-defeating character of
libertarianism and on the poverty of Amartya Sen’s criticisms of Rawls.
If you have a mind, you should attend! Please join us for an enlightening
discussion!
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