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11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 6. Knowing How

[having a skill which may be inarticulate]

7 ideas
Experience knows particulars, but only skill knows universals [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Experience is the knowledge of particulars and skill that of universals.
     From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0981a14)
It takes skill to know causes, not experience [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: The skilled know the cause, whereas the experienced do not.
     From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0981a29)
Things are produced from skill if the form of them is in the mind [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Things are produced from skill if the form of them is in the mind.
     From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1032a33)
     A reaction: This resembles the legal notion of 'mens rea', the conscious intention to commit the deed.
Knowing that must come before knowing how [Fodor]
     Full Idea: Thought about the world is prior to thought about how to change the world. Accordingly, knowing that is prior to knowing how. Descartes was right, and Ryle was wrong.
     From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.1)
     A reaction: The classical example is knowing how to ride a bicycle, when few people can explain what is involved. Clearly you need quite a bit of propositional knowledge before you step on a bike. How does Fodor's claim work for animals?
Knowing-that is a much richer kind of knowing-how [Gulick]
     Full Idea: Knowing-that is a much richer kind of knowing-how.
     From: Robert van Gulick (Mirror Mirror - Is That All? [2006], §II)
     A reaction: This thought could rather rapidly revive the discredited notion of knowing-how. I think it might slot into an account of the mind in terms of levels, so that my internalist view of knowledge emerges at higher levels, built on more basic responses.
Many cases of knowing how can be expressed in propositional terms (like how to get somewhere) [Crane]
     Full Idea: There are plenty of cases of knowing how to do something, where that knowledge can also be expressed - without remainder, as it were - in propositional terms (such as knowing how to get to the Albert Hall).
     From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 3.28)
     A reaction: Presumably all knowing how could be expressed propositionally by God.
Ryle's dichotomy between knowing how and knowing that is too simplistic [Maund]
     Full Idea: There is a convincing claim that we need to leave behind Ryle's dichotomy between knowing how and knowing that as being too simplistic.
     From: Barry Maund (Perception [2003], Ch. 2)
     A reaction: [John Campbell is mentioned as source of this idea] I find this proposal immediately appealing. I was taught that riding a bicycle shows the division, as hardly anyone knows the theory, but I am sure children need some propositional information.