Practical Knowledge

2019 ◽  
pp. 155-200
Author(s):  
John Schwenkler
Keyword(s):  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Efficient Cause ◽  
The World ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Strict Requirement ◽  
Observational Knowledge

This chapter discusses the argument of Sections 44-48 of G.E.M. Anscombe’s Intention. It begins by situating her appeal to the concept of practical knowledge in relation to the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. Following this, the chapter shows how several elements in Aquinas’ account are drawn on by Anscombe in her argument that an agent’s self-knowledge of her act is “the cause of what it understands”. It is argued that Anscombe meant to characterize an agent’s practical knowledge as both formal and efficient cause of its object. Finally, the chapter considers whether Anscombe succeeds in defending her thesis that intentional action is necessarily known without observation. Here it is argued, first, that knowledge of one’s act is not a strict requirement of doing something intentionally, and second, that the role of observation in an agent’s self-knowledge is different from that of evidence in observational knowledge of the world.

scholarly journals Anscombe and Davidson on Practical Knowledge. A Reply to Hunter

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Olav Gjelsvik
Keyword(s):  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Donald Davidson ◽  
Careful Consideration ◽  
Observational Knowledge

David Hunter has recently argued (in this journal) that Donald Davidson and Elizabeth Anscombe were in basic agreement about practical knowledge. In this reply, it is my contention that Hunter’s fascinating claim may not be satisfactorily warranted. To throw light on why, a more careful consideration of the role of the notion of practical knowledge in Anscombe’s approach to intentional action is undertaken. The result indicates a possible need to distinguish between what is called ‘practical knowledge’ and ‘(non-observational) knowledge of what one is doing’, and shows that Hunter’s claim concerning the closeness of Anscombe to Davidson only has plausibility for knowledge of what one is doing. Contrary to an interesting suggestion by Hunter, the paper argues that it is hard to see how Davidson’s position can benefit substantially from making use of the notion of knowledge of what one is doing.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Nisenbaum
Keyword(s):  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
German Idealism ◽  
Human Action ◽  
The World ◽  
Fundamental Tension

The concluding chapter draws on the story of Rosenzweig’s near conversion to Christianity and return to Judaism to explain why, for Kant and his heirs, what is at issue in reason’s conflict with itself is our ability to affirm both the value of the world and of human action in the world. The chapter explains why Rosenzweig came to view the conflict of reason as the manifestation of a more fundamental tension between one’s selfhood and one’s worldliness, which could only be dissolved by understanding human action in the world as the means by which God is both cognized and partly realized. To make Rosenzweig’s ideas more accessible, the chapter compares them with contemporary interpretations of Kant’s views on the nature of practical knowledge and (intentional) action. It also shows how the book’s take on the issues that shaped the contours of post-Kantian German Idealism can help us see that the conflict of reason can be regarded as the underlying concern that recent competing interpretations of this period share.

Averroism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sten Ebbesen
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Western Thought ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Faith And Reason ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual

‘Averroism’, ‘radical Aristotelianism’ and ‘heterodox Aristotelianism’ are nineteenth- and twentieth-century labels for a late thirteenth-century movement among Parisian philosophers whose views were not easily reconcilable with Christian doctrine. The three most important points of difference were the individual immortality of human intellectual souls, the attainability of happiness in this life and the eternity of the world. An ‘Averroist’ or ‘Radical Aristotelian’ would hold that philosophy leads to the conclusions that there is only one intellect shared by all humans, that happiness is attainable in earthly life and that the world has no temporal beginning or end. Averroists have generally been credited with a ‘theory of double truth’, according to which there is an irreconcilable clash between truths of faith and truths arrived at by means of reason. Averroism has often been assigned the role of a dangerous line of thought, against which Thomas Aquinas opposed his synthesis of faith and reason. The term ‘Averroism’ is also used more broadly to characterize Western thought from the thirteenth through sixteenth centuries which was influenced by Averroes, and/or some philosophers’ self-proclaimed allegiance to Averroes.

Knowledge without Observation

2019 ◽  
pp. 93-116
Author(s):  
John Schwenkler
Keyword(s):  
Intentional Action ◽  
Accurate Description ◽  
First Person ◽  
Blue Book ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Bodily Movements

This chapter discusses the argument of Sections 28–32 of G.E.M. Anscombe’s Intention. It begins by relating Anscombe’s thesis that intentional action is known without observation to Wittgenstein’s discussion in the Blue Book of the knowledge of oneself “as subject” and Anscombe’s discussion in “The First Person” of unmediated self-knowledge. Following this, the chapter explores the difficulties that herself Anscombe raises for her thesis, and considers her reasons for thinking that the scope of an agent’s non-observational self-knowledge is not limited to her interior states or immediate bodily movements. Finally, it considers how the difficulties that Anscombe has raised are supposed to be addressed by her discussion of how descriptions of one’s intentional action can be contradicted, and of the difference between a list that has the role of an order and one whose role is to provide an accurate description of some facts.

Emotion Experience, Rational Action, and Self-Knowledge

2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 272-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Lambie
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Rational Action ◽  
Emotion Experience ◽  
The World ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Source Of Information ◽  
Do So

This article examines the role of emotion experience in both rational action and self-knowledge. A key distinction is made between emotion experiences of which we are unaware, and those of which we are aware. The former motivate action and color our view of the world, but they do not do so in a rational way, and their nonreflective nature obscures self-understanding. The article provides arguments and evidence to support the view that emotion experiences contribute to rational action only if one is appropriately aware of them (because only then does one have the capacity to inhibit one's emotional reactions). Furthermore, it is argued that awareness of emotion increases self-knowledge because it is a source of information about our biases.

The Role of Dialogue, Otherness and the Construction of Insight in Psychosis: Toward a Socio-Dialogic Model

2005 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Dolson
Keyword(s):  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Clinical Interview ◽  
Narrative Construction ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
The World ◽  
Clinical Phenomenon ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Individual

AbstractThe focus is on the intersubjective, narrative and dialogic aspects of the clinical phenomenon of insight in psychosis. By introducing a socio-dialogic model for the clinical production of insight, it can be learned how insight, as a form of self-knowledge (of a morbid alteration in one's relation to the world/others), is a product of the clinical interview, namely the dialogic relation between patient and clinical interviewer. Drawing upon the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, expressly his notion of the ethical encounter, the production of insight in the clinical interview is elucidated as both a synchronic and diachronic phenomenon—a provisional form of self-knowledge based on historically-produced frames of meaning which are recalled and narrated, i.e., produced at a specific moment in time. The production of insight, based on auto-biographical memory, is ultimately a processual and transactional phenomenon which arises out of the narrative construction of experience and the dialogic negotiation of the individual's "authored" experience. This process may be understood as a synergistic dynamic between intersubjective micro-processes (dialogue) and symbolic macro-processes (such as "culture"), which may, when crystallized at the individual level, precipitate a subjectively insightful account of the prodromal illness experience.

scholarly journals The Role of the Ethnographic Vocabulary in the English and Uzbek Languages

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (9S3) ◽  
pp. 1551-1554
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Content Knowledge ◽  
Focus Of Attention ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
The World ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Linguistic Units ◽  
Over Time

Various aspects of language and culture are currently the focus of attention of linguists, ethnolinguists, sociolinguists, psycholinguists, and cultural studies. It is the reflection in the language of ethnic and personal self-knowledge, ways of perceiving and conceptualizing the world, the formation of symbols and stereotypes inherent in certain people. Culture of a people is reflected in the values of linguistic units i.e. that stably fixed in them is invariant in content, knowledge of the language, and in terms of their ability to convey information over time, ranging in size and connotations, knowledge of which may not be necessary for the knowledge of the language. Cultural studies of vocabulary and in whole the language is the main point of our paper.

scholarly journals Practical Knowledge and Acting Together

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olle Blomberg
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Joint Action ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Philosophical View ◽  
Observational Knowledge

This chapter explores a problem that joint action raises for an influential philosophical view of the nature of intentional action. According to this view, an agent is intentionally -ing if and only if she has a special kind of practical and non-observational knowledge that she is -ing. It is here argued, however, that this view faces serious problems when extended to make sense of the possibility of an intentional action performed by several agents together. Since a general theory of intentional action should be applicable to both singular and joint intentional action, this suggests that practical and non-observational knowledge is not essential to intentional action as such.

scholarly journals Davidson on Practical Knowledge

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hunter
Keyword(s):  
Early Treatment ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Donald Davidson ◽  
Careful Study ◽  
Primary Reason ◽  
Standard Interpretation ◽  
General Belief

Did Donald Davidson agree with G.E.M. Anscombe that action requires a distinctive form of agential awareness? The answer is No, at least according to the standard interpretation of Davidson’s account of action. A careful study of Davidson’s early writings, however, reveals a much more subtle conception of the role of agential belief in action. While the role of the general belief in Davidson’s theory is familiar and has been much discussed, virtually no attention has been paid to the singular belief. This essay makes a start on remedying this neglect. I begin, in section 1, by examining Davidson’s claim that for a desire or belief to rationalize and cause an action it must have a suitable generality. It must, he says, be ‘logically independent’ of the action itself. While he was clear about this requirement in the case of the desire that forms part of a person’s primary reason, I show in section 2 that his early treatment of belief confuses general and singular beliefs. This confusion reflects his failure clearly to distinguish the two roles belief can play in his account of action: as rationalizing cause and as agential awareness. Somewhat surprisingly, though, after he carefully drew the distinction and announced that intentional action requires practical knowledge, he pretty much ignored it. This may explain why some have assumed that Davidson parted ways with Anscombe on this. But a careful study of their writings shows that in fact they held remarkably similar views on the nature and need for practical knowledge.  <br /><p> </p>

scholarly journals Deviant Formal Causation

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah K. Paul
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Causal Theory ◽  
Theory Of Action ◽  
Causal Theory Of Action ◽  
Causal Chains ◽  
The Right ◽  
Formal Causation

What is the role of practical thought in determining the intentional action that is performed? Donald Davidson’s influential answer to this question is that thought plays an efficient-causal role: intentional actions are those events that have the correct causal pedigree in the agent's beliefs and desires. But the Causal Theory of Action has always been plagued with the problem of “deviant causal chains,” in which the right action is caused by the right mental state but in the wrong way. This paper addresses an alternative approach to understanding intentional action inspired by G.E.M. Anscombe, interpreting that view as casting practical thought in the role of formal rather than efficient cause of action and thereby avoiding the problem of deviant (efficient) causal chains. Specifically, on the neo-Anscombean view, it is the agent’s “practical knowledge” – non-observational, non-inferential knowledge of what one is doing – that confers the form of intentional action on an event and is the contribution of thought to determining what is intentionally done. This paper argues that the Anscombean view is subject to its own problematic type of deviance: deviant formal causation. What we know non-observationally about what we are doing often includes more than what we intend to be doing; we also know that we are bringing about the foreseen side effects of acting in the intended way. It is argued that the neo-Anscombean view faces difficulty in excluding the expected side effects from the specification of what is intentionally done, whereas the Causal Theory has no such difficulty. Thus, the discussion amounts to an argument in favor of the Causal Theory of Action.

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