Abstract
Developing an intellectualist account of skill, Stanley and Williamson define skill as a kind of disposition to action-guiding knowledge. The present paper challenges their definition of skill. While we don’t dispute that skill may consist of a cognitive, a dispositional, and an action-guiding component, we argue that Stanley and Williamson’s account of each component is problematic. In the first section, we argue, against Stanley and Williamson, that the cognitive component of skill is not a case of propositional knowledge-wh, which is typically indexical. In the second section, we seek to show that Stanley and Williamson face difficulties in arguing for a generic claim about skill as a kind of disposition, and they fail to defend intellectualism about skill based on the dispositional account. In the third section we argue that Stanley and Williamson need a more detailed account of the action-guiding aspect of skill to avoid several difficulties, including a threat of a regress. We close with some lessons for the debate over intellectualism and anti-intellectualism about skill.
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Notes
In Know How Stanley writes: “Practical ways of thinking are … necessary to explain the acquisition of skill on the basis of knowledge of facts, which are true propositions” (Stanley 2011: 130). Surprisingly, Stanley and Williamson propose an account of skill in their paper “Skill” without any mention of the notion of a practical mode of presentation or practical ways of thinking. The notion has always been controversial (see Glick 2015). Perhaps it was the threat of having to deal with these complaints that forced Stanley and Williamson to set the controversial notion aside in their most recent paper.
What is the justificatory status of this kind of knowledge? Although Stanley and Williamson don’t address this question in their paper “Skill,” Stanley elsewhere draws a fairly detailed picture of the justification required for skillful knowledge. In order to defend against an objection raised by Dickie (2012), Stanley maintains that “one of the main goals of the book [i.e., Know How] is to use the topic of knowledge how and skilled action to reject internalist conceptions of knowledge” (Stanley 2012: 763).
In fact, these cases show that the metaphysical thesis is not necessary for skill. It is worth noting that if the thesis is characterized as a sufficient condition for skill, it would face apparent counterexamples. For example, Pavese (2016a, 644) says “suppose one has the disposition to know the correct solution to math problems in virtue of having a disposition to look at and to trust one’s smart phone, which has a reliable math app. Clearly, one is not thereby skilled at solving math problems”. (See also Weatherson 2017.) However, there are reasons to doubt that Stanley and Williamson originally aimed to characterize the metaphysical thesis as a sufficiency thesis. For example, they write: “Both skills and perceptual abilities are dispositions to know” (Stanley and Williamson 2017: 723). If both skills and perceptual abilities are dispositions to know, and they differ from each other, it is clear that having a disposition to know cannot be enough for having a skill.
Drawing on Lowenstein (2017: 194–195), one might think that Stanley and Williamson can take the two following steps to block our argument: (1) allow that cases like flight simulator and lucky light bulb, in which the subject acquires the cognitive capacity by luck, do not undermine knowledge; (2) argue that the only kind of luck which is consistent with skill is luck which intervenes in the process of acquisition. However, insofar as Stanley and Williamson explicitly characterize the cases of flight simulator and lucky light bulb as Gettier cases, it is very hard to imagine that they would follow Lowenstein in taking step (1). Step (2) is also controversial. There are other kinds of (environmental) luck, which on the one hand are consistent with having skill (and know-how) and on the other intervene not only in the process of acquisition but also in the manifestation of skill. An example of this kind of luck can be found in the Fake Barn case.
One may complain that because skill requires knowledge-how, if Bob does not have knowledge-how, he does not have any skill either. Here is one possible response to this objection. We don’t want to deny the fact that our intuition accommodates the idea that there is an intimate connection between skill and knowledge-how. However, there are two reasons to reject this intuition as a basis for Stanley and Williamson’s account. The first is that although knowledge-how and skill have intuitive connections, this does not commit us to the idea that skill requires knowledge-how. Maybe, as Flight Simulator and Lucky Light Bulb suggest, skill requires merely an ascription of knowledge-how, either pragmatically or semantically. The second reason is that, even if we accept that skill intuitively requires knowledge-how, maybe this seems to be the case because, as some have argued, in this context knowledge-how means ability and not knowledge-that (e.g., Rosefeldt 2004). So, while keeping the intuitive connection between skill and knowledge-how in mind, there is philosophical work to be done in clarifying the precise relation between them, work which Stanley and Williamson don’t carry out, and which is beyond our purpose here.
We are doubtful that this argument works. Stanley and Williamson state that “the amount of skill involved in lifting 100 lb is equal to the amount of skill involved in lifting 150 pounds in the envisaged scenario because the agents’ skills are dispositions to acquire the same amount of knowledge of the same type” (Stanley and Williamson 2017: 721). Given that the typical kind of skillful knowledge is indexical, and these powerlifters have knowledge of different indexical propositions, it is not clear how Stanley and Williamson can show that the powerlifters’ different instances of knowledge fall under the same type. One possible way is to say that, while knowing different propositions, both powerlifters have equally appropriate knowledge because their instances of knowledge guide them in the same way. In which case, Stanley and Williamson’s argument does not work, since a similar strategy would be available for anti-intellectualist. Stanley and Williamson claim that “both [powerlifters] are equally skilled, but clearly have different abilities (Ibid).” However, an anti-intellectualist can specify the skill not as particular abilities but as an appropriate ability to lift the barbells in way w. Therefore, while the powerlifters have different instances of ability insofar as they are equally able to lift the barbells in the same way, their particular abilities fall under the same type of ability, i.e., the ability to lift the barbells in way w. To show that the powerlifters have the same knowledge and different abilities, the burden is on Stanley and Williamson to specify skill as disposition to appropriate knowledge in a way which would not be available for anti-intellectualists to specify skill as ability (or disposition) to undertake appropriate action.
Very recently, Weatherson (2017) has followed a rather similar line of argument to show that some skills do not involve any kind of knowledge. Despite the general similarity, there are some crucial differences between Weatherson’s argument and ours which are well worth noting. First, Weatherson does not argue directly against the metaphysical thesis. Secondly, and more importantly, while we appealed to Flight Simulator designed by Stanley and Williamson themselves as a Gettier example, we remain doubtful that Stanley and Williamson can accommodate the claim that knowledge is absent in Weatherson’s case. In his case an agent has a false belief about her skill. However, Stanley (2011, 167) explicitly claims that having a false belief about a task is fully consistent with the possession of indexical, de re knowledge. Moreover, it seems that Weatherson is inclined to say that some skill does not consist of any cognitive aspect. However, it is unclear how he explains away the example of powerlifters.
It would seem obvious that while Messi has typical skillful knowledge of playing football even while eating dinner, he has a greater amount of knowledge while in the field of play. Habgood-coote’s and Farkas’s suggestion is consistent with this platitude, since it implies that Messi on the field of play not only has the ability to activate knowledge of answers but also parts of this knowledge of answers as well.
Stanley and Williamson don’t say explicitly that the example of the packed fragile glass suggested by them in the following passage is an instance of a masked disposition. However, it is precisely the same as the paradigm case of masked disposition suggested by Johnston (1992).
We restrict ourselves to the case of masking, but the same arguments can be given for the case of finkishness.
One problem for this objection is that there are reasons to think that Stanley and Williamson are committed to the generic claim about particulars as well. For example, they write: “Knowledge-wh ascriptions can express generic statements attributing dispositions. ‘John knows where to find the best view’ can be used roughly to mean that for most situations, John knows where to find the best view in that situation. The knowledge ascription ascribes to John a disposition to know, in situations s, where the best view can found in s, a different item of knowledge for different situations” (Stanley and Williamson 2017: 716).
A particular or a kind of disposition can exist not only without manifesting typically or generally or normally, but also even if the disposition is never manifested (Martin 1996: 166). Crane calls this feature the “possible absence of manifestation” (Crane 1996: 3). As Wasserman (2011) argues, the generic account of disposition has difficulty explaining this feature, and the same goes for Stanley and Williamson’s generic claim about skill. We can imagine a particular or even a kind of skill that never manifests in the actual world. In which case, it seems improper to say that “the skilled φ-ers know appropriate guiding facts at the time of φ-ing” when they never do this act.
Another challenge is that, to defend the generic claim against counterexamples like finks and maskers, Stanley and Williamson, like Fara (2005: 66), must be committed to the following statement: “A habitual [i.e., a generic] ‘NMs when C’ is true iff every exception to the habitual [i.e., the generic] is a permissible exception.” (Which is to say that finks and masks are not counterexamples but permissible exceptions.) However, as Yli-Vakkuri (2010) argues, this conditional is equivalent to a version of ceteris paribus conditional solutions to finkishness and masking, one which Martin discusses and rejects. Stanley and Williamson, on the one hand, reject all conditional solutions to the problems of masking and finkishness, and on the other hand are committed to the generic claim. Thus it seems that Yuli-Vakkuri’s argument that the generic claim is equivalent to a conditional solution is another challenge for Stanley and Williamson’s generic claim.
Choi and Fara (2012) call covert dispositions conventional and overt dispositions canonical. However, they recognize the same problem in explaining conventional dispositions in terms of canonical dispositions.
One might worry that Bird himself explains potency as a fundamental disposition in terms of its manifestation. However, due to the fact that, as Bird argues, there is no finkishness and masking at the fundamental level, he can define ‘potency’ (and not every disposition) by reference to its manifestation (Bird 2007: 61–63). But the same does not go for skill, because, as we have seen, skills seem to be vulnerable to the problems of finkishness and masking.
Stanley (2011: 164) also refers to “brain-damaged patients who deny that they know how to perform a certain task, but still know how to do that task” and also someone who has a “false descriptive belief about a certain way of Φ-ing”, while retaining know-how to do Φ (Ibid: 167). With these in mind, it would be fair to conclude that these cases are examples of being skilled at a certain task, while not knowing general formula about it.
Of course, Railton’s suggestion includes the third constraint concerning exerting effort, which is not relevant to our following discussion.
Stanley and Williamson (2001: 414) themselves describe digesting food as a normal person’s action.
Note that to avoid this objection, Stanley and Williamson cannot simply limit actions in their account to intelligent actions. As Stanley (2011: 14) himself remarks: “The reasonable intellectualist about intelligent action will hold that an action is intelligent in virtue of being guided by propositional knowledge”. If they explain being guided in virtue of intelligent action, their theory faces the charge of circularity.
There is a consensus in the literature on know-how that while Irina does not know how to perform a Salchow, she has a reliable ability to do that (Stanley 2011: 177).
Note that Stanley and Williamson (2017: 718) acknowledge the Aristotelian insight that experts are able not to activate their knowledge in action.
In what follows, we argue that the notion of activation, which is relevant here, does not require conscious activation.
It is worth noting that while Stanley and Williamson describe manifestation1 as mere having knowledge in most parts of their paper, there is at least one paragraph in which they say that the manifestations of skill “are merely applications of considered truth (in particular, knowledge)” (emphasis ours) (718–719). Moreover, Stanley, in a paper with Krakauer, characterizes the principle of Guidance as follows: “[S]killed action is action guided by ongoing accrual and improving application of knowledge of facts about an activity” (emphasis ours) (Stanley and Krakauer 2013). Given that ‘application’ is a part of the notion of activation in our characterization of the revised versions of Guidance and Manifestation, these phrases make clear that it is not so strange to interpret these principles in the revised ways.
As Lowenstein (2017: 281–284) cogently argues, the Rylean regress can be formulated based on each of the notions of ‘application’ and ‘selection’.
See, for example, Brownstein (2014).
It seems that Stanley himself endorses this idea when he says “triggering a representation [is something which] can certainly be done” (emphasis ours).
Interestingly, Stanley and Williamson describe automatic triggering representations in tasting wine as intelligent decision: “even perceptual skill of this sort [such as wine-tasting] requires intelligent decision; what to look for, where to look for … it” (Stanley and Williamson 2017: 718). For another criticism of Stanley in this respect, see Lowenstein (2017: 285–287).
The objector might continue that, to avoid these difficulties, Stanley and Williamson can keep the primary version of Guidance intact, and, at the same time, improve their account of guidance by holding that the guidance entails activating knowledge. In this way, Stanley and Williamson can avoid the absurdity of Guidance and Manifestation as well as the unintuitive conclusions of the above cases. In reply, note that even with this line of defense at hand, Stanley and Williamson face the serious threat of a regress. As said above, the fact that the norms of activating knowledge and the skilled action which is relevant to it are different suggests that they are distinct acts. In the new way of putting the issues, skilled action still requires a distinct act of activating knowledge; and this is the basic premise of the regress. Moreover, even if Stanley and Williamson can demonstrate that activating knowledge and skilled action are the same, they would need to reform the brief suggestion entirely to meet the condition of entailment of activating knowledge. In this way, the burden is on them to show how the merely passive phenomenon of possessing knowledge entails the active phenomenon of activating knowledge and skilled action. Of course, we can continue these objections-replies in various ways. For example, following Lowenstein (2017: 138–142), Stanley and Williamson might admit that activating knowledge is a distinct action but try to avoid regress by appealing to its self-reflexivity, a move which still seems vulnerable to the charge of circularity. Due to lack of space we cannot discuss all of these options here. However, we hope that this is enough to show that Stanley and Williamson need something more than the obscure principle of Guidance and the brief suggestion to provide a convincing account of the action-guiding aspect of skill.
Of course, Boyle does not think of a belief as an occurrent action. However, as discussed above, to characterize the regress, knowledge does not need to be an occurrent action.
In a rather different context, Bengson and Moffett (2011: 39–40) indicate four concepts which can be appealed to by anti-intellectualists for describing the non-propositional cognitive component of skill.
From an anti-intellectualist viewpoint, our preferred option for skill’s cognitive component is non-propositional know-how, and for skill’s action-guiding component is non-propositional motor intentionality. According to another interesting option suggested by Lowenstein (2017), the cognitive component is understanding, and the guiding-component is explained in terms of responsible control.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to our colleagues at Shahid Beheshti University, Philosophy department, in general and Prof.Abdolkarim Rashidian,Mahmoud Vahidnia, Poria Panahi, Iman Khodafard, in specific. Also we are thankful to Prof. Ehsan Kabasizadeh, Ben Young, Mina Khorram and Minoo Javdan for their help and support. Two anonymous reviewers gave us very insightful comments which led to several improvements of earlier draft.
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Khalaj, M.H.M.A., Shirazi, S.M.H.A. Is Skill a Kind of Disposition to Action-Guiding Knowledge?. Erkenn 87, 1907–1930 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-020-00283-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-020-00283-8