scholarly journals Volume Introduction: Gilbert Ryle on Propositions, Propositional Attitudes, and Theoretical Knowledge

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Tanney
Keyword(s):  
Propositional Attitudes ◽  
Mechanistic Explanation ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Theoretical Knowledge ◽  
Special Volume ◽  
Knowing How ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Theories Of Meaning ◽  
Contemporary Epistemology ◽  
States Of Knowledge

In the introduction to the special volume, Gilbert Ryle: Intelligence, Practice and Skill, Julia Tanney introduces the contributions of Michael Kremer, Stina Bäckström and Martin Gustafsson, and Will Small, each of which indicates concern about the appropriation of Ryle’s distinction between knowing-how and knowing-that in seminal work in contemporary epistemology. Expressing agreement with the authors that something has gone awry in these borrowings from Ryle, Tanney takes this criticism to a deeper level. She argues that the very notion of content-bearing, causally-efficacious mental states, let alone representational states of knowledge-that or knowledge-how, embodies the very presuppositions that Ryle calls into question in his rejection of classical theories of meaning and his related warning of the type-errors involved in conflating rational and mechanistic explanation. That these mental posits are presupposed, unchallenged, in today’s debates make his arguments against intellectualism particularly difficult to discern.

Accounting for Place and Space

1985 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 447-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Shotter
Keyword(s):  
Technical Skills ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Theoretical Knowledge ◽  
Social Activities ◽  
Place And Space ◽  
Knowing How ◽  
The Third ◽  
Knowing That

It is proposed that social practices—practical social activities—involve a kind of knowledge distinct both from technical skills (knowing-how) and the application of theoretical knowledge (knowing-that); they involve a knowing of the third kind (knowing-from), a contextual form of knowing from within a situation which takes into account, in what is known, the situation within which it is known. Such a kind of knowledge cannot be communicated in the form of theories, only in the form of narrative accounts. The nature of how people are placed in or determined by their surroundings, and the space of possibilities open to them for further action, are discussed.

Is all knowledge prepositional?

2005 ◽  
Vol 48 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 7-19
Author(s):  
Miroslava Andjelkovic
Keyword(s):  
Propositional Knowledge ◽  
The Other ◽  
Infinite Regress ◽  
Important Distinction ◽  
Knowing How ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
Contemporary Epistemology

This paper deals with a criticism of Ryle's claim that the so called Intellectualist legend leads to an infinite regress. Critics have attempted to show that Ryle's argument cannot even get off the ground since its two basic premises cannot be true at the same time. In the paper I argue that this objection is based on a misinterpretation of Ryle's argumentation, which is complex and consists of two arguments, not of a single one as it is claimed. One of Ryle's argument attacks the thesis that an intelligent act is an indirect result of propositional knowledge, while the other, which I call the Asymmetry argument, claims that not every manifestation of knowledge that is accompanied with the manifestation of knowing how. In the paper I argue that both Ryle's arguments are valid and resistant to recent critique so it can be said that Ryle's distinction between knowledge that and knowing how is still an important distinction within contemporary epistemology.

Methodological solipsism considered as a research strategy in cognitive psychology

1980 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Fodor
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Propositional Attitudes ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
Computational Theory Of Mind ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Computational Theory ◽  
Methodological Solipsism ◽  
Semantic Properties

AbstractThe paper explores the distinction between two doctrines, both of which inform theory construction in much of modern cognitive psychology: the representational theory of mind and the computational theory of mind. According to the former, propositional attitudes are to be construed as relations that organisms bear to mental representations. According to the latter, mental processes have access only to formal (nonsemantic) properties of the mental representations over which they are defined.The following claims are defended: (1) That the traditional dispute between “rational” and “naturalistic” psychology is plausibly viewed as an argument about the status of the computational theory of mind. Rational psychologists accept a formality condition on the specification of mental processes; naturalists do not. (2) That to accept the formality condition is to endorse a version of methodological solipsism. (3) That the acceptance of some such condition is warranted, at least for that part of psychology which concerns itself with theories of the mental causation of behavior. This is because: (4) such theories require nontransparent taxonomies of mental states; and (5) nontransparent taxonomies individuate mental states without reference to their semantic properties. Equivalently, (6) nontransparent taxonomies respect the way that the organism represents the object of its propositional attitudes to itself, and it is this representation which functions in the causation of behavior.The final section of the paper considers the prospect for a naturalistic psychology: one which defines its generalizations over relations between mental representations and their environmental causes, thus seeking to account for the semantic properties of propositional attitudes. Two related arguments are proposed, both leading to the conclusion that no such research strategy is likely to prove fruitful.

Knowing-How and Knowing-That

2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 451-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Fantl
Keyword(s):  
Knowing How ◽  
Knowing That

Knowing How, Knowing That, Knowing Technology

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 553-565 ◽  
Author(s):  
Per Norström
Keyword(s):  
Knowing How ◽  
Knowing That

scholarly journals Skill, Drill, and Intelligent Performance: Ryle and Intellectualism

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
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.

Naturalist Theories of Meaning

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Papineau
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representation ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Linguistic Representation ◽  
Theories Of Meaning

Naturalist theories of meaning aim to account for representation within a naturalist framework. This programme involves two ideas: representation and naturalism. Both of these call for some initial comment. To begin with the former, representation is as familiar as it is puzzling. Sentences can represent, and so can mental states. By and large, naturalist theories of meaning take mental representation to be basic, and linguistic representation to be derivative. Most such theories aim first to account for the representational powers of mental states — paradigmatically beliefs — and then to account for the representational powers of sentences in public languages by viewing the latter as in some sense ‘expressing’ mental states.

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