Online research in philosophy

Ryle’s distinction between knowing that and knowing how has recently been challenged. The paper first briefly defends the distinction and then proceeds to address the question of classifying moral knowledge. Moral knowledge is special in that it is practical, that is, it is essentially a motive. Hence the way we understand moral knowledge crucially depends on the way we understand motivation. The Humean theory of motivation is wrong in saying that reason cannot be a motive, but right in saying that desire is essential for motivating us. The right response to the Humean theory of motivation is to see that moral knowledge is desire-related rationality or thought-related desire. Moral knowledge is neither knowing that nor knowing how but rather a third species of knowledge which we may call “knowing to do.” Knowing to do is to be rationally disposed to do the right thing. This understanding of moral knowledge is exactly what we can learn from Aristotle’s ethics.

I first outline the arguments by which Hegel upholds the validity of his ‘rationalistic’ ideal of an ‘absolute knowing’, and then attempt to state precisely the sense in which such a Hegelian conception can be rightfully styled ‘idealistic’, and the reasons why it turns out to be preferable to the opposite empirical-realistic outlook. Thirdly, I examine his critique of ‘finite knowing’. Finally, I enumerate the fundamental features of that ‘speculative (i.e., strictly philosophical) knowing’ which, as the Absolute Idea, Hegel sets against ‘finite knowing’ as the higher category in which the peculiar deficiencies and contradictions of the latter are integrated and reconciled.

You know that George W. Bush is the U.S. president, but you know how to ride a bicycle. What's the difference? According to intellectualists, not much: either knowing how to do something is a matter of knowing that something is the case or, at the very least, know-how requires a prior bit of theoretical knowledge. Anti-intellectualists deny this order of priority: either knowing-how and knowing-that are independent or, at the very least, knowing that something is the case requires a prior bit of know-how. Much of the dispute centers on the relationship between knowing how to do something and having an ability to do it. If having an ability is necessary and sufficient for knowing-how, this is thought to provide comfort for anti-intellectualists. This paper traces the place of ability in the know-how/know-that debate from Ryle's seminal statement of anti-intellectualism through Stanley and Williamson's more recent defense of intellectualism.

Sensory classification is a central theme of Mohan Matthen's wonderful book, Seeing, Doing, and Knowing.1 My plan for this commentary is simple: I shall list a series of claims that Matthen makes about the classes involved in sensory classification. Each member of the series is admirable, and seems credible on its own. The question at the end is whether we can hold them all, together.

This is a critical notice of Mohan Matthen's 2005 book "Seeing, Doing, and Knowing".

This paper outlines how we may understand knowing-that as a kind of knowing-how-to, and thereby as an ability. (Contrast this form of analysis with the more commonly attempted reduction, of knowing-how-to to knowing-that.) The sort of ability in question has much potential complexity. In general, questioning can, but need not, be part of this complexity. However, questioning is always an element in the complexity that is philosophical knowing. The paper comments on the nature of this particular form of knowing.

Sensory classification is a central theme of Mohan Matthen's wonderful book, Seeing, Doing, and Knowing. ( All page references are to Matthen 2005 unless otherwise indicated.) My plan for this commentary is simple: I shall list a series of claims that Matthen makes about the classes involved in sensory classification. Each member of the series is admirable, and seems credible on its own. The question at the end is whether we can hold them all, together.

Gilbert Ryle’s “Knowing How/Knowing That” distinction gave crisparticulation to a long-standing epistemological concern that Michael Oakeshott had: that is,what is the epistemic status of the area that comprises our waking lives, the domain of practical reasoning, of which political practice, on Oakeshott’s account, is but one aspect. This concern is set against a much broader purview: that of the nature of rationality, or more accurately the social nature of rationality.