Knowing how and knowing that: artisans, bodies, and natural knowledge in the Scientific Revolution

ArgumentWithin the Republic of Letters the art of experiment led to immense reorientation and an extensive redrawing of the enlightened map of natural knowledge. This paper will investigate the formative period of the exact sciences from the late eighteenth to the nineteenth century when the persona of the experimentalist as a scientific expert was shaped. The paper focuses on Moritz Hermann Jacobi’s experimental knowledge derived from his modeling of an electro-magnetic self-acting machine and the social and epistemological problems of its integration into traditional academic life. His struggle to achieve academic recognition and credibility for his experimental work reflects not just his individual quandary, but important structural problems of the historical development of experimental knowledge traditions and science in what has been called the “second scientific revolution.”

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Knowing-How and Knowing-That

Philosophy Compass ◽

10.1111/j.1747-9991.2008.00137.x ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 3 (3) ◽

pp. 451-470 ◽

Cited By ~ 40

Author(s):

Jeremy Fantl

Keyword(s):

Knowing How ◽

Knowing That

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Knowing How, Knowing That, Knowing Technology

Philosophy & Technology ◽

10.1007/s13347-014-0178-3 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 28 (4) ◽

pp. 553-565 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Per Norström

Keyword(s):

Knowing How ◽

Knowing That

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Skill, Drill, and Intelligent Performance: Ryle and Intellectualism

Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy ◽

10.15173/jhap.v5i5.3205 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 5 (5) ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Stina Bäckström ◽

Martin Gustafsson

Keyword(s):

Current Debate ◽

Regress Argument ◽

Knowing How ◽

Know How ◽

Dispositional Account ◽

Knowing That ◽

Category Distinction

In this paper, we aim to show that a study of Gilbert Ryle’s work has much to contribute to the current debate between intellectualism and anti-intellectualism with respect to skill and know-how. According to Ryle, knowing how and skill are distinctive from and do not reduce to knowing that. What is often overlooked is that for Ryle this point is connected to the idea that the distinction between skill and mere habit is a category distinction, or a distinction in form. Criticizing the reading of Ryle presented by Jason Stanley, we argue that once the formal nature of Ryle’s investigation is recognized it becomes clear that his dispositional account is not an instance of reductionist behaviorism, and that his regress argument has a broader target than Stanley appears to recognize.

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