What is Practical Knowledge? Christoph Lumer, University of Siena (original) (raw)
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Knowledge, Practical Reasoning and Action
Is knowledge necessary or sufficient or both necessary and sufficient for acceptable practical reasoning and rational action? Several authors (e.g., Williamson, Hawthorne, and Stanley) have recently argued that the answer to these questions is positive. In this paper I present several objections against this view (both in its basic form as well in more developed forms). I also offer a sketch of an alternative view: What matters for the acceptability of practical reasoning in at least many cases (and in all the cases discussed by the defenders of a strong link between knowledge and practical reasoning) is not so much knowledge but expected utility.
The Content of Practical Knowledge
Journal of Human Cognition, 2021
This paper aims to give a charitable and comprehensible interpretation of the concept of practical knowledge in Intention, G. E. M. Anscombe's famous monograph. In particular, it focuses on her claim that practical knowledge is present even if the agent fails to execute his intention. I argue that (1) a rejection of this claim is unacceptable, and that (2) the content of practical knowledge should be formulated as "I am X-ing", with which this concept can be coherently interpreted.
In Miguel Hoeltje, Thomas Spitzley und Wolfgang Spohn (eds.), Was sollen wir glauben? Was dürfen wir tun?, Sektionsbeiträge der GAP. 8., 392-403, 2013
The contribution deals with knowledge of what to do, and how, where, when and why to do it, as it is found in a multitude of plans, rules, procedures, maxims, and other instructions. It is argued that while this knowledge is conceptual and propositional, it is still irreducible to theoretical knowledge of what is the case and why it is the case. It is knowledge of goals, of ends and means, rather than of facts. It is knowledge-to that is irreducibly practical in having world to mind direction of fit and the essential function of guiding as yet uncompleted action. While practical knowledge is fundamentally different from theoretical knowledge in terms of mind-world relations, the practical and theoretical domains are still parallel in terms of justificatory and inferential relations, they are like mirror images of one another. It is shown that if this view of practical knowledge is accepted, convincing Gettier cases for practical knowledge can be constructed. An extensive analysis of these cases demonstrates the usefulness of the notions of practical deduction, abduction, and induction.
Philosophical Explorations
Most theories of practical reasoning, Jonathan Dancy tells us in his Practical Shape, 1 first explain practical reasoning on a model of theoretical reasoning independently conceived and then proceed to find practical reasoning lacking in comparison with the model. In this rich and tantalizing book Dancy urges us to turn our attention to the way an account of practical reasoning might look if it didn't have to conform to standards derived from an independently conceived picture of theoretical reasoning. If we managed to thus free our thinking we would find, Dancy argues, that practical reasoning issues directly in action, as the Neo-Aristotelians suppose, but that its form is not the form of deductive reasoning. This move kills two birds with one stone: it helps us into a rich an unprejudiced account of practical reasoning, on the one hand, and it allows us to better understand the nature of all reasoning, on the other. Thus, contrary to what one might expect, an account of practical reasoning is what may illuminate, rather than what may get illuminated by, our view of theoretical reasoning and of reasoning in general. What lies at the heart of all reasoning, Dancy argues, is the tracking of favoring relations: these are the relations in which a set of considerations (considerations giving reality its shape) stand to a kind of response on our part. And what distinguishes practical from theoretical reasoning is the nature of this response. When the response is an action the reasoning leading up to it is practical and when the response is a belief the reasoning leading up to it is theoretical. (PS, 45) Where our response is an action, the considerations that do the favoring favor the action in question by revealing its value. Whereas where the outcome is a belief, the considerations that do the favoring favor the belief in question by raising the probability that the belief is true. Dancy thinks on reflection that truth is itself a value and that once one has sufficiently distinguished practical from theoretical reasoning, one ought to bring them back together and "understand the theoretical side in terms of its 1 In what follows I refer to Dancy's book as Practical Shape or simply PS. The text I have used is Dancy, J. Practical Shape; a Theory of Practical Reasoning, Oxford University Press, 2018. The final draft of this paper has benefitted greatly from insightful comments by Thodoris Dimitrakos, Kim Frost and Megan Laverty. In writing this paper, I have also benefited from ongoing discussions with John McDowell, Robert Pippin and Talbot Brewer, from whom I never seize to learn. own, theoretical values". (PS, 101). In which case, I would add, the distinction between practical and theoretical reasoning amounts to a distinction between practical and theoretical values; i.e. between the values that lie in acting a certain way and the values that lie in believing in certain propositions. At this point, one could venture the thought that Dancy's philosophy is Neo-Aristotelian in a deeper sense; for his distinction between practical and theoretical values may be seen as mapping onto the distinction between phronesis and episteme in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. However, I think that Dancy's insightful account of practical reasoning is in fact not Aristotelian. Notice that in this admittedly sketchy summary of his view I have said nothing about the moral. Now, of course, Dancy dedicates a whole chapter of this book to the nature of moral reasoning (chapter 5). But my point in bringing attention to the lacuna in my retelling of Dancy's story is to underscore that his account of practical reasoning is most un-Aristotelian in this respect: there is nothing inherently moral about practical reasoning, on his view of it. Whereas Aristotle's treatment of the syllogismos and of phronesis in the Nicomachean Ethics takes place in the context of an interrogation into the question of how to live and who to be. Of course, Dancy acknowledges the existence of moral practical reasoning, but in his view, it figures as merely a species of practical reasoning, whose treatment requires a whole chapter because it is a mischievous kind: one that on occasion issues in (moral) beliefs and not actions. This peculiarity of moral practical reasoning, Dancy takes it, raises a problem for the view that what really distinguishes practical from theoretical reasoning is that in the former case but not the latter the response on our part is an action. For moral reasoning seems to be a kind of reasoning which is both practical-for it is after all essentially concerned with the question of who to be and how to live-and one that issues in beliefs as much as in actions. And he worries that appreciating this may tempt one to view moral reasoning to belief as theoretical and so to fall back into the old habit of thinking practical reasoning as a semi-degenerate form of theoretical reasoning independently conceived. But I want to suggest in this paper that seeing what Dancy sees about moral reasoning puts one in the way of another temptation; one that he does not address in this book and one that I would like to invite him to address here. If we start from these phenomena concerning moral reasoning-the appearance that it is practical and the appearance that it may issue in action and belief alike-we may be tempted to take another route: attempt to save both of these appearances and draw the distinction between practical and theoretical reasoning not at the outcome of the reasoning but somewhere else. And, we may also be tempted to think that instead of trying to defuse the sense in which moral practical reasoning may issue in belief, as Dancy seems to be doing, we should, following Dancy's
Knowledge and Practical Reasoning
Dialectica, 2008
The idea that knowledge is conceptually related to practical reasoning is becoming increasingly popular. In defending this idea, philosophers have been relying on a conception of practical reasoning that drastically deviates from one which has been more traditionally advocated in analytic philosophy and which assigns no special role to knowledge. This paper argues that these philosophers have failed to give good reasons for thinking that the conception of practical reasoning they have been assuming is the right one, and that hence they have been rash to conclude that there is a conceptual relation between knowledge and practical reasoning.
Decision making in the real world
2007
Decisions are derived from assumptions. It is imperative to surface assumptions for making sensible and effective decisions in the real world. Assumptions and associated decision models are plenty and diverse, even conflicting. Pragmatism, as an inherent sensibility in Chinese traditions, in indigenous American thought and in the Aristotelian ‘phronesis’ of practical wisdom, is helpful for accommodating and acting upon diverse assumptions and models. Adopting pragmatism, good practice, good research and good science rely on open and engaging conversations.
Knowledge and Practical Reason
Philosophy Compass, 2008
It has become recently popular to suggest that knowledge is the epistemic norm of practical reasoning and that this provides an important constraint on the correct account of knowledge, one which favours subject-sensitive invariantism over contextualism and classic invariantism. I argue that there are putative counterexamples to both directions of the knowledge norm. Even if the knowledge norm can be defended against these counterexamples, I argue that it is a delicate issue whether it is true, one which relies on fine distinctions among a variety of relevant notions of propriety which our intuitions may reflect. These notions variously apply to the agent herself, her character traits, her beliefs, her reasoning and any resultant action. Given the delicacy of these issues, I argue that the knowledge norm is not a fixed point from which to defend substantive and controversial views in epistemology. Rather, these views need to be defended on other grounds.
"I Do What Happens": The Productive Character of Practical Knowledge
The Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 2020
Elizabeth Anscombe introduced the notion of "practical knowledge" into contemporary philosophy. Philosophers of action have criticized Anscombe's negative characterization of such knowledge as "non-observational," but have recently come to pay more attention to her positive characterization of practical knowledge as "the cause of what it understands." I argue that two recent Anscombean accounts of practical knowledge, "Formalism" and "Normativism," each fail to explain the productive character of practical knowledge in a way that secures its status as non-observational. I argue that to do this, we must appreciate the role of know-how or skill in practical knowledge.
In search of a principled theory of the ‘value’ of knowledge
SpringerPlus, 2016
A theory of the Value/Utility of information and knowledge (K) is not really there. This would require a theory of the centrality of Goals in minds, and of the role of K relative to Goals and their dynamics. K value is a notion relative to Goal value. Inf/K is precisely a resource, a means and the value of means depends on the value of their possible functions and uses. The claim of this paper is that Ks have a Value and Utility, they can be more or less 'precious'; they have a cost and imply some risks; they can be not only useful but negative and dangerous. We also examine the 'quality' of this resource: its reliability; and its crucial role in goal processing: activating goals, abandoning, choosing, planning, formulating intentions, decide to act. 'Relevance theory' , Information theory, Epistemic Utility theory, etc. are not enough for providing a theory of the Value/Utility of K. And also truthfulness is not 'the' Value of K. Even true information can be noxious for the subject.