The Unity of Understanding

Understanding comes in a variety of forms. This essay argues for the unity of these forms, against the common tendency to view them as fundamentally heteronomous, or disunified. After identifying ten core features of genuine understanding, which enable an argument for the existence of two distinct types of understanding, theoretical and practical, the essay poses a dilemma for theories that view them as disunified. Subsequently, it develops and defends a general account of understanding in terms of conceptions. What unifies diverse forms of understanding, on this account, is a generic cognitive structure—given by the notion of a noetic conception—that is realized in different ways in various cases.</p

References

This compilation of references includes all references for the knowledge-how chapters included in Bengson & Moffett's edited volume. The volume and the compilation of references may serve as a good starting point for people who are unfamiliar with the philosophical literature on knowledge-how

The intellectual given

textSome things we know just by thinking about them: for example, that identity is transitive, that three are more than two, that wantonly torturing innocents is wrong, and other propositions which simply strike us as true when we consider them. But how? This essay articulates and defends a rationalist answer which critically develops a significant analogy between intuition and perception. The central thesis is that intuition and perception, though different, are at a certain level of abstraction the same kind of state, and states of this kind are, by their very nature, poised to play a distinctive epistemic role. Specifically, in the case of intuition, we encounter an intellectual state that is so structured as to provide justified and even knowledgeable belief without requiring justification in turn—something which may, thus, be thought of as given. The essay proceeds in three stages. Stage one advances a fully general and psychologically realistic account of the nature of intuition, namely, as an intellectual presentation of an apparent truth. Stage two provides a modest treatment of the epistemic status of intuition, in particular, how intuition serves as a source of immediate prima facie justification. Stage three outlines a response to Benacerraf-style worries about intuitive knowledge regarding abstract objects (e.g., numbers, sets, and values); the proposal is a constitutive, rather than causal, explanation of the means by which a given intuition connects a thinker to the fact intuited.Philosoph

Two Conceptions of Mind and Action: Knowing How and the Philosophical Theory of Intelligence

Some of our actions manifest states or qualities of mind, such as intelligence and skill. But what are these states or qualities, and how are they manifested in action? We articulate and examine general intellectualist and anti-intellectualist answers to such questions. One aim is to illuminate some of the main issues and arguments in the contemporary debate over knowledge how. A second aim is to highlight the broader theoretical significance of knowledge how, which may serve as a hinge on which our general understanding of mind and action turns. The role of knowledge how in various debates in ethics, philosophy of action, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science is also discussed