## 1. The Regress Argument



Ryle's most famous objection to intellectualist accounts of
skills and knowledge-how is that they lead to a vicious regress: 



> 
> 
> The consideration of propositions is itself an operation the execution
> of which can be more or less intelligent, less or more stupid. But if,
> for any operation to be intelligently executed, a prior theoretical
> operation had first to be performed and performed intelligently, it
> would be a logical impossibility for anyone ever to break into the
> circle. (1949: 19)
> 
> 
> 



Ryle concludes: 



> 
> 
> "Intelligent" cannot be defined in terms of
> "intellectual" or "knowing how" in terms of
> "knowing that", (1949: 20) 
> 
> 
> 



on pain of a vicious regress (see also Ryle 1946: 22). Exactly how to
reconstruct Ryle's argument is a matter of controversy (Stanley
& Williamson 2001; Stanley 2011b; Bengson & Moffett 2011a;
Cath 2013; Fantl 2011; Kremer 2020). The next sections discuss
different possible ways of understanding the regress challenge and
possible responses on behalf of intellectualism.


### 1.1 The Contemplation Argument



The contemplation argument assumes for *reductio* that for any
action to be intelligently executed, a prior theoretical operation of
"contemplating" has to be performed first : 




**Contemplation premise (CP):** In order to employ
one's knowledge that *p*, one must contemplate the
proposition *p*. 




Assume in addition the following definition of intellectualism:




**Strong intellectualism (SI)**: For an action Ph,
knowing how to Ph consists in knowing some proposition
*p*.




And assume further that in performing an action Ph, one employs
one's knowledge-how to Ph:




**Action premise (AP)**: For an action Ph, if one
Phs, then one employs one's knowledge-how to Ph.




With these premises the regress goes as follows. Suppose that one
performs an action Ph:


1. By AP, one employs one's knowledge-how to Ph.
2. By SI, one employs the knowledge that *p*, for some *p*.
3. So, by CP, one contemplates *p*.
4. But contemplating *p* is an action.
5. So by AP, if one contemplates *p,* one employs one's
knowledge-how to contemplate *p*.
6. By CP, one ought to contemplate another proposition *q*, for
some *q*.



And so on. 



The contemplation argument aims at showing the falsity of SI, by
showing that its truth, together with the truth of AP and CP, triggers
an infinite regress. If SI were true, then performing any action would
require contemplating an infinite number of propositions of
ever-increasing complexity. On the assumption that this cannot be done
in a finite amount of time, the argument goes, accepting SI would lead
to the clearly absurd conclusion that no agent could ever perform an
action within a finite time (see Fantl 2011: 122). 



The question is whether AP and CP are plausible premises. Following
Ginet (1975), Stanley & Williamson (2001) argue that AP is
plausible only if the relevant Ph is an *intentional*
action. To use one of Ryle's (1949: 33) own examples, if a
clumsy person inadvertently tumbles, it does not follow that in doing
so, they employ their knowledge-how to tumble. By contrast, the clown
employs their knowledge-how when they tumble on purpose. Nevertheless,
if we restrict AP to intentional actions, then the regress can be
stopped by observing that contemplating a proposition might happen
non-intentionally. For example, when I employ my knowledge that there
is a red light ahead by applying the brakes, I need not intentionally
contemplate the proposition that there is a red light ahead.
Correspondingly, if contemplating a proposition can be done
non-intentionally, such contemplation is not the kind of action that
requires us to know how to perform it--therefore, it does not
trigger the restricted AP and the regress is blocked altogether. Some
object that the contemplation in this example might be intentional but
*unconscious* (as suggested by Noe 2005: 282). But it is
unclear what reasons there are for thinking that every time one
employs one's knowledge, one intentionally contemplates the
relevant proposition (Cath 2013: 365-366). 



The Contemplation Argument also assumes CP--i.e., that in order
to employ propositional knowledge when acting, one ought to
contemplate the relevant proposition. Against CP, Ginet (1975: 7)
observes that one might manifest one's knowledge that one can
get the door open by turning the knob and pushing it (as well as my
knowledge that there is a door there) by performing that operation
quite automatically as one leaves the room; and one may do this
without formulating (in one's mind or out loud) that proposition
or any other relevant proposition. Ginet concludes that Ryle's
original argument does not teach us that intellectualism about
knowledge-how is false but only that knowledge can be acted upon and
manifested without requiring any contemplation on the part of the
agent. Indeed, some scholars think that this last weaker claim was the
only goal of Ryle's original argument (Rosefeldt 2004; Sax
2010).


### 1.2 The Employment Regress



However, CP is not needed in order to trigger a regress. Perhaps the
argument can be salvaged by replacing contemplation with a weaker
relation. Consider replacing CP with EP:




**The Employment Premise (EP):** If one employs knowledge
that *p*, one employs knowledge-how to employ one's
knowledge that *p* (and one's state of knowledge that
*p* is distinct from one's state of knowing how to employ
one's knowledge that *p*). (Cath 2013: 367-8)




The regress is triggered as before. Suppose one Phs:


1. By AP, one employs one's knowledge-how to Ph.
2. By SI, that amounts to employing one's knowledge that
*p*, for some *p*.
3. By EP, one needs to employ one's knowledge-how to employ
one's knowledge that *p*.
4. But employing one's knowledge-how is an action.
5. By AP, one employs one's knowledge-how about employing our
knowledge-how to employ one's knowledge that *p*.
6. By SI, that amounts to employing one's knowledge of
*q*, for some *q*.



and so on. 



Intellectualists might object to EP in ways similar to how CP was
resisted--i.e., that not every action requires for its
performance the employment of one's knowledge-how: only
intentional actions do, as the clown example suggests. According to
this line of reply, employing one's propositional knowledge
might be more like a reflex in response to stimuli, rather than an
action. Further, this version of the regress challenge may be accused
of assuming that knowledge-that is "behaviorally inert"
and needs to be intentionally selected or employed in order to be
manifested. Yet, intellectualists have independent reasons to resist
this picture (Stalnaker 2012). On the other hand, if Ryleans insist
that employments of knowledge-that are actions of sort, it seems there
is no principled reason why employments of knowledge-how would not be
subject to the same requirement. Therefore, it looks like any regress
generated for the intellectualist is generated for Ryle as well
(Stanley 2011b: 14, 26; though see Fantl 2011 for a possible
difference between the regress generated for Ryle and the regress
generated for intellectualism). 


### 1.3 A Revival of the Regress Argument



A variety of actions--say, remembering to check the car's
blindspot when reversing--can be intelligent even though they are
not intentional. Or one might manifest intelligence through
*processes*--e.g., by coming to understand a difficult
proposition, without them even being actions. If one accepts that
intelligent performances, whether intentional or not, are necessarily
guided by knowledge-how, one might try to recast the regress argument
by replacing AP with IPP (Weatherson 2017): 




**Intelligent performance premise (IPP):** For a
performance Ph, if one Phs intelligently, one manifests
one's knowledge-how to Ph.




Now it seems plausible that one's manifestation of propositional
knowledge can be intelligent in some cases but not in others. For
example, one might manifest one's knowledge intelligently by
bringing to bear one maxim that is appropriate instead of any other
that is not to the particular situation which the agent faces. By IPP,
if one's manifestation of knowledge-that in a particular
situation is intelligent, it requires one's manifesting
one's knowledge-how. If intellectualism is true, that would in
turn require manifesting one's knowledge-that. If this
manifesting of propositional knowledge is intelligent too, though
unintentional, it requires knowledge-how. And so on. We get an
infinite regress if one accepts that manifesting propositional
knowledge can be an intelligent performance, also when it is not an
intentional action. (For similar lines of argument, see also Fridland
2013, 2015; Lowenstein 2016: 276-80; Small 2017:
62-3).



Intellectualists might respond by distinguishing *two* senses
in which a performance can be intelligent and two corresponding senses
of manifestation, only one of which gives rise to the regress. First,
an intelligent action might manifest one's knowledge-how in the
case that it is *guided* by this knowledge-how. On this
reading, the regress is triggered. But there is also
another--epistemic--sense in which an intelligent action
manifests knowledge-how as long as it *provides evidence* for
that knowledge-how. For example, the rings on a tree provide evidence
for the tree's age (hence manifest its age in the epistemic
sense) but the rings on a tree are not guided by its age. Crucially,
the regress does not arise on the epistemic sense of manifestation.
Checking the blindspot might be intelligent in this epistemic sense of
manifesting --providing evidence of--knowledge-how. Yet,
this epistemic manifestation itself is not something that qualifies as
intelligent or unintelligent.


### 1.4 Lewis Carroll's Regress



A less discussed regress that can be found in Ryle (1946: 6-7)
is an adaptation of Lewis Carroll's (1895) regress. Suppose a
student understands the premises of an argument and also its
conclusion but fails to see that the conclusion follows. In order to
help him, the teacher teaches him another proposition
*P*--i.e., if the premises are true, then the conclusion is
true. The student understands this and yet fails to see how from the
premises and the additional premise *P* the conclusion follows. A
second hypothetical proposition is added to his store, the proposition
that if the premises is true, the conclusion is true too. The student
still fails to see. And so on. Ryle concludes: 



> 
> 
> Knowing a rule of inference is not possessing a bit of extra
> information but being able to perform an intelligent operation.
> Knowing a rule is knowing how. It is realized in performances which
> conform to the rule, not in theoretical citations of it. (1946: 7)
> 
> 
> 
> 



One might respond (cf. Stanley 2011b) to this regress challenge that
the student does not really understand the premises of an argument by
*modus ponens* (*p*, if *p* then *q*), for that
involves grasping the concept of a conditional, and on an
inferentialist understanding (Boghossian 1996, 2003), that would
dispose one to accept the conclusion of an inference by that rule.
Inferentialism about meaning is, however, a controversial doctrine
(for several criticisms, see Williamson 2011, 2012). Other replies
might be available. Maybe the student does not represent the rule
practically (see next section), or she is simply incapable of granting
that the rule applies to this case, for that would explain her failure
to be appropriately disposed to arrive at the conclusion, given the
truth of the premises. (For yet other versions of the regress
challenge, see Noe 2005: 285-6 and Hetherington 2006).


## 2. The Sufficiency Argument



The claim that knowledge-how is a kind of knowledge-that encounters an
immediate incredulous stare: how could propositional knowledge be
sufficient for knowing how to do something? Ryle (1946: 5) himself
poses this challenge as a starting point for his argument: 



> 
> 
> Obviously there is no truth or set of truths of which we could say
> "If only the stupid player had been informed of them, he would
> be a clever player", or "When once he had been apprised of
> these truths he would play well".
> 
> 
> 



Certainly, one might know all the propositions that are relevant to
how to perform a task, and yet fail to know how to perform it:
knowledge-that does not seem sufficient for knowledge-how (see also
Ryle 1940: 38-9). 



In order to assess this objection, it is helpful to start with a toy
intellectualist theory, on which knowledge-how is a matter of knowing,
for some way or method to perform a task *w*, that *w* is in
fact a way to perform it. In
 section 4,
 we will see in more detail a linguistic argument for identifying
knowledge-how with this sort of propositional knowledge (Stanley &
Williamson 2001; Snowdon 2004). How could, the insufficiency objection
goes, one know how to perform a task just in virtue of knowing a
proposition about a way to perform it? Consider the following
counterexample to intellectualism:




**Swimming**: Suppose I look at a swimmer's
swimming, and my swimming instructor pointing to the swimmer says to
me, "That is a way in which you could swim too". I believe
my instructor and we may suppose that what she said is in fact true. I
may thereby come to know a true answer to the question "How
could I swim?" However, in the relevant sense, I may not have
come to know how to swim. If I took a swimming test, I might still
fail it. If thrown in the swimming pool, I might still drown. I do not
know how to swim in the relevant sense and yet I do know a true
proposition about how to swim.




In response to this sort of counterexample, intellectualists often
appeal to "practical modes of presentation": knowing a
proposition observationally or demonstratively is not the same as
knowing it practically. Knowledge-how is, at least in part, a matter
of representing propositions about tasks and ways of executing tasks
in a distinctively practical fashion. For one to know how to swim, in
the relevant sense, one must know of a way to swim represented under a
distinctive practical mode of presentation, which is essentially
different from the observational or demonstrative mode of presentation
in **Swimming**. This kind of practically represented
propositional knowledge is what (some) intellectualists call
knowledge-how and is what is absent in the example above.



The notion of practical modes of presentation has received several
criticisms (Schiffer 2002; Koethe 2002; Noe 2005; Fantl 2011;
Glick 2015), on the ground that it seems excessively obscure or even
question begging. Koethe (2002: 327) worries that practical modes of
presentation smuggle in an antecedent notion of knowledge-how (though
see Fantl 2008: 461 for a response). This widespread skepticism about
practical modes of presentation has led some intellectualists to
explore ways of responding to the insufficiency objection that do not
appeal to practical modes of presentation. For example, Stanley
(2011b: 126) considers answering the sufficiency challenge in
**Swimming** by appealing to the context-sensitivity of
the ability modal "could". According to Stanley, depending
on how the context for the modal is restricted, "That is how you
could swim" could mean either that that is how you can swim
*given your current physical state* or that that is how you
could swim *after training*. But coming to know that that is
how I could swim after training is clearly not enough for me to come
to know how to swim now. Instead, the argument goes, what one needs to
know is the former proposition: *that that is a way to swim given
my current physical state*.



Yet, it is unclear that even this response works. Consider a variant
of the previous scenario, where Mary is a skilled swimmer who is one
day affected by memory loss and so forgets how she is able to swim
(Glick 2015). Nothing has changed in Mary's physical state: she
is still able to swim but she just has forgotten how she is able to
swim. Suppose she is told, by looking at a recording of her swimming
the day before, that *that* is how she can in fact swim given
her current physical state. She might come to know how she is in fact
able to swim (just like that!). Yet, she would still fail to know how
to swim in the relevant sense and still drown if thrown into the pool.




So, practical modes of representation are hard to escape if
intellectualism is to be defended against the sufficiency objection.
To assuage concerns about the intelligibility of practical modes of
presentation, Pavese (2015b) proposes we think of them along the lines
of practical senses, which in turn can be modeled after computer
programs. Programs determine an output, just like Fregean senses
determine a referent; and they are practical in that they break down a
task into the smallest parts that the system can execute (the
primitive operations of the system as well as into primitive ways of
combining those parts) so they ground the ability to perform a complex
task in terms of the ability to perform all of its parts. On this
view, if one represents a task practically, one represents all of its
parts, and the combination of those parts, through instructions that
one has the ability to execute. So representing practically a task
entails that one has the ability to perform the corresponding task.
(For a critical discussion of practical ways of thinking, see Mosdell
2019. Habgood-Coote 2018c argues that the classical generality problem
for reliabilism (Feldman 1985; Conee & Feldman 1998) arises for
intellectualism.)



The notion of distinctively practical concepts is motivated by work
outside the debate on intellectualism about knowledge-how. Other
scholars have discussed concepts that are practical in that they
dissociate from semantic and observational concepts and play a central
role in explaining behavior. Peacocke (1986: 49-50) talks of
"action-based ways of thinking", Israel, Perry,and Tutiya
(1993: 534) of "executable ideas", and Pacherie (2000,
2006) of "action concepts". Mylopoulous and Pacherie
(2017) suggest that executable action concepts might be needed to
overcome the interface problem--the problem of how cognitive
representations (intentions) interact with motor representations
(Butterfill & Sinigaglia 2014). Pavese (forthcoming-b) advances an
empirical-functional case for practical concepts, arguing that they
are needed to explain a distinctive sort of productive reasoning. Yet,
other intellectualists argue we can dispense with practical modes of
presentation altogether and instead appeal to *ways of knowing*
that are distinctively practical or executive (Waights Hickman 2019;
Cath 2020).



Levy (2017) argues that a form of intellectualism that only invokes
practical ways of thinking and practical concepts might not be able to
explain skillful motor behavior, for motor representations of the sort
required for skilled action and posited by cognitive psychologists are
non-conceptual. Along similar lines, Fridland (2014, 2017) argues
motor control and motor representation cannot be countenanced by
Stanley & Williamson's (2001) and Stanley's (2011b)
forms of intellectualism. So, more promising forms of intellectualism
might have to invoke, in addition to practical ways of thinking,
*non-conceptual practical representations* (Pavese 2019;
Krakauer 2020). Just like perceptual concepts are distinguished from
non-conceptual perceptual representations, we might distinguish
between practical conceptual representations and practical
non-conceptual representations. Motor representations would fall under
the latter heading. Nonconceptual motor representations also represent
practically, as they break down a task in terms of the most basic
operations that a system can perform.


## 3. The Gradability Argument



Ryle (1949: 46) formulates the argument from gradability thus: 



> 
> 
> we never speak of a person having partial knowledge of a fact or truth
> ... it is proper and normal to speak of a person knowing in part
> how to do something. Learning how or improving in ability is not like
> learning that or acquiring information. Truths can be imparted,
> procedures can only be inculcated, and while inculcation is a gradual
> process, imparting is relatively sudden.
> 
> 
> 



As Kremer (2020: 102) points out, here Ryle is making two
distinguishable points: (i) ascriptions of knowledge-how are gradable,
whereas ascriptions of know-that are not; (ii) the gradability of
these ascriptions is explained by the fact that knowledge-how must
come in degrees, because learning-how brings improvement in
knowledge-how. There is no parallel phenomenon in learning-that, and
so no need for degrees of knowledge-that. Others have followed Ryle in
thinking that the gradability argument shows intellectualism wrong.
For example, Bengson and Moffett (2011b) argue that because
knowledge-how is gradable, knowledge-how is more similar to
acquaintance knowledge, which also comes in degrees (see also Ryle
1949: 46; Wiggins 2012; Santorio 2016; Kremer 2020: 102). 



Pavese (2017) distinguishes between two kinds of gradability of
knowledge-how ascriptions: one might know how to do something in part
or entirely (quantitative gradability) or one might know how to do
something better than somebody else (qualitative gradability).
Crucially, these two kinds of gradability are also present more
generally in other knowledge-wh (knowledge-when, who, why, where)
ascriptions, which do seem to reduce to propositional knowledge. For
instance, one might know in part *who* came to the party
(Lahiri 1991, 2000; Roberts 2009) or know a better answer to that
question than somebody else (see also Stanley 2011b: 31-5). If
parts of an answer are propositions, then knowing an answer might
still amount to knowledge of all of its parts. Knowing in part an
answer would then amount to knowing at least one of the propositions
that is part of that answer. Similarly, knowing a better answer
amounts to knowing a proposition that better answers the relevant
question. If this is true of other knowledge-wh ascriptions, it is
certainly plausible that it is true for knowledge-how. One might know
how to Ph in part by knowing only certain (propositional) parts of
the answer to "how does one Ph?" and one might know a
better answer to that question than someone else. 



This response to the first part of the gradability objection inspires
a further response to the second part concerning learning-how. Suppose
that knowledge-how is a matter of knowing a practical answer, where a
practical answer encompasses a practical representation for a task or
a way to Ph
 (section 2).
 As we have seen, practically representing requires possessing certain
practical capacities and entails certain sorts of abilities. On this
picture, one might gradually learn how to perform a task by gradually
learning a practical answer to that question, for one requires time
and practice to master a practical representation of how to perform
the task. Thus, gradual learning may be compatible with the
intellectualist picture, if it amounts to gradually coming to learn
more parts of a practical answer.


## 4. The Linguistic Argument



Intellectualism has been motivated on the basis of a linguistic
argument concerning knowledge-how ascriptions in English (Vendler
1972; Stanley & Williamson 2001; Snowdon 2004; Stanley 2011b,
2011c). Begin by noticing that (1) is remarkably similar to
(2)-(3) ("finite knowledge wh ascriptions" as they
embed a complement with a finitival verb) and to (4)-(5)
("infinitive knowledge-wh ascriptions" as they embed a
complement with an infinitival verb):



(1)
 Marie knows how to play the piano
(2) 
 Mary knows where her piano is located in the house.
(3) 
 Mary knows who can play her piano.
(4) 
 Mary knows what to do in case of an emergency.
(5) 
 Mary knows where to find an Italian newspaper.


According to the standard syntactic analysis, (2)-(5) have an
interrogative as complement--"where is her piano located in
the house?", "who can play the piano?", "what
to do in case of an emergency?" are all interrogatives. Having
said this, in broad outline, the linguistic argument for
intellectualism has three steps. The first step is to follow the
syntactic cues from (1)-(5) and identify the logical form of
"*S* knows how to Ph" with that of "*S*
knows + interrogative *Q* (= "how to Ph"). Call
this premise **Logical Form**. The second step is to
accept the orthodox semantics of knowledge-wh ascriptions, according
to which in "*S* knows + interrogative *Q*",
*Q* denotes a question (C. Baker 1968) and according to which
"*S* knows + *Q*" is true just in case *S*
knows a proposition answering to the question expressed by *Q*.
Call this premise **Semantics for Knowledge-Wh** (cf.,
among many others, Hamblin 1958, 1973; Hintikka 1976; Karttunen 1977;
Heim 1994; Groenendijk & Stokhof 1982, 1997; and Higginbotham
1996). Finally, the third step is to extend this semantics to
knowledge-how ascriptions, such that knowing how to Ph requires
knowing a proposition that answers the question "how can one
Ph?" 



Next section (4.1) looks in some more detail to the intellectualist
analysis of the truth conditions for knowledge-how ascriptions. The
section after next
 (4.2)
 discusses several objections to the linguistic argument.


### 4.1 The Details of the Intellectualist Proposal



The linguistic argument concludes that Intellectualism is true:




**Intellectualism about knowing how** *S* knows how
to Ph just in case *S* knows a proposition answering the
question "how to Ph".




But what is the proposition that one knows by knowing how to Ph?




First, note that the subject of the infinitival construction
("How to Ph"), or PRO, can either be interpreted *de
se* (*de se* PRO) or generically (generic PRO). According
to the first interpretation, that an agent knows how to perform a ski
stunt requires their knowing how to perform a ski stunt
*themselves*. According to the latter interpretation, it
requires knowing how *one* (as a generic agent or any other
agent) would perform a ski stunt. When it comes to ascriptions of
knowledge-how, we care about *de se*, and not generic, readings
of knowing how. If an agent knows how to Ph in the relevant sense,
they know how to Ph themselves. 



Secondly, infinitival interrogatives such as "how to
Ph" and "what to Ph" are ambiguous between a
deontic reading (*how to* Ph = *how one should*
Ph; *what to* Ph = *what one should do*) and an
ability reading (*how to* Ph = *how one could* Ph;
*what to* Ph = *what one could do*). The deontic
reading does not seem relevant when we ascribe knowledge-how. Hence
the relevant reading must be an ability reading. Joining these two
disambiguations, the truth conditions of knowledge-how ascriptions are
(cf. Schroeder 2012):




(**Truth conditions**) "*S* knows how to
Ph" is true just in case *S* knows a proposition
answering the question "How could they themselves
Ph?"




Now, what counts as an answer to the question? Linguists distinguish
between different kinds of answers that one might give to a question.
An *exhaustive answer* to "How could *S*
Ph?" would specify all the ways in which *S* could
Ph; a *mention-some answer*, instead, would specify only one
way in which *S* could Ph. For example, an exhaustive answer
to the question "How could *S* make pasta?" would
specify all different recipes for making pasta. A mention-some answer
to the same question, instead, would specify (at least) only one
recipe. When we ascribe knowledge-how, we don't expect people to
know all the possible ways of performing the relevant task. For
example, "Mary knows how to make pasta" can be true, even
if Mary only knows one recipe for pasta. This gives us the following
truth conditions:




**Intellectualism\*** "*S* knows how to
Ph" is true just in case *S* knows, for *some way w
of* Ph*-ing*, that *w* is a way he himself could
Ph.




As we have seen in
 section 2,
 in addition to knowing that a way to Ph is a way to Ph, one
needs to think of that way under a practical mode of presentation. Let
*Pr* be a practical way of thinking of a way and let *way
of* Ph*-ing* be a way of thinking of the property of
being a way of Ph-ing; finally let [?]  be a way of composing
ways of thinking into a proposition. Then <Pr [?]  *way
of* Ph*-ing*> is the practical proposition that one
comes to know when coming to know how to Ph. On how to implement
Fregean senses in the compositional semantics, see Yalcin (2015).


### 4.2 First Group of Objections



Several philosophers have objected that intellectualists are giving
undue weight to linguistic considerations and that other
considerations, coming from the cognitive sciences, should be taken
into account too, when thinking about the nature of knowledge-how
(Noe 2005, 2011; Devitt 2011; Brown 2013; Johnson 2006; Glick
2011; Roth & Cummins 2011). It does not follow from this worry
that the linguistic argument ought to be dismissed as lacking
*any* evidential value. Consider an analogy. Arguably, the best
theory of beliefs and desires is one on which these are propositional
attitudes. This theory is compatible with how we ascribe beliefs and
desires (i.e., ascriptions of beliefs are of the form "*S*
believes that *p*", where "*p*" is
standardly taken to stand for proposition). But it is also compatible
with folk psychology, according to which thinking of beliefs and
desires as propositional attitudes helps explain behavior. By parity
of reasoning, ideally, the best theory of knowledge-how should
presumably be compatible *both* with our best psychological
theory and our best linguistic theory of knowledge-how ascriptions
(cf. Stanley 2011a, 2011b, 2011c; Cath 2015a for a defense of the
linguistic methodology). 


### 4.3 Second Group of Objections



Among those engaging with the linguistic argument, many have objected
that it fails to adequately capture the truth conditions of
knowledge-how ascriptions (Roberts 2009; Brogaard 2009, 2011;
Michaelis 2011; Bengson & Moffett 2011a; Ginzburg 2011; Abbott
2013; Santorio 2016; Hornsby 2016). Some have argued against the claim
that knowledge-wh is a matter of knowing a proposition that answers a
question (**Semantics for knowledge-wh)**. For example,
Carr (1979, 1981) argues that when you know how to do something, you
have an attitude that essentially takes an act as its object. But when
you know that something is the case, you have an attitude that
essentially takes a proposition as its object. Yet, intellectualists
might reply that knowledge-how might be an attitude towards an act
*in virtue of* being an attitude towards a proposition about
that act. 



Others have questioned whether the complement "which team is
winning" in "*S* knows which team is winning"
is, semantically, just like an interrogative (Brogaard 2009, 2011;
Ginzburg 1995a, 1995b, 1996, 2011; Ginzburg & Sag 2000). One
argument against this assumption is that, if, e.g., "which team
is winning" denoted a question, we would expect it to co-refer
with "the question of which team is winning". Yet we
cannot substitute such expression-pairs *salva veritate*.
Suppose Jenny knows/discovered/revealed an interesting question and
suppose the interesting question discovered by Jenny is "who
left yesterday?". Even so, it does not follow that Jenny
knows/discovered/revealed who left yesterday. A response to this
objection might be that these examples exploit a subtle equivocation
(Stanley 2011b: ch. 2, following King 2002). Consider "Jamaal
discovered a new element". In it, "discovered"
denotes a relation between Jamaal and an object, a chemical element.
On the other hand, in the sentence "Jamaal discovered who left
yesterday", "discovered" denotes a different
relation, one that holds between Jamaal and something of a different
sort, namely, the proposition answering the question expressed by
"who left yesterday". It is this second relation which is
relevant for the intellectualist. This is supported by the fact that
the "[t]he former relation would be expressed in German by
'*kennen*', and the latter by
'*wissen*'" (Stanley 2011b: 66). (For more
relevant discussion, see Parent 2014.)



Others have questioned **Logical form**--the claim
that in knowledge-how ascriptions, the embedded complement is an
interrogative. *Objectualists* claim that the complement of
knowledge-how ascriptions ("how to Ph") is not an
interrogative but an "objectual" complement--one
denoting ways to Ph instead of propositions representing these ways
(Bengson & Moffett 2011a). Objectualism is motivated by the
consideration that "knowing how to Ph" seems to be
equivalent to "knowing a way to Ph" in pretty much
every context and by the apparent gradability of
"knows-how" ascriptions (cf.
 section 3).
 An objectual semantics is in a good place to explain the gradability
of knowledge-how ascriptions, since objectual knowledge ascriptions
also permit degree modifiers--one can have partial knowledge of
Paris, or know Paris better than someone else. Along similar lines,
Bach (2012) and Abbott (2013) argue that in knowledge-how ascriptions
"how to Ph" might work as a *free relative*. A
free relative is a wh-phrase that denotes an individual. So for
example, "what I was given for dinner" can be used as an
interrogative in "I asked what I was given for dinner" but
also as a free relative in "I ate what I was given for
dinner". In the latter ascription, it denotes some food that was
given to me for dinner. In that sense, "how to Ph"
according to this proposal, in "*S* knows how to
Ph" should be interpreted as a free relative denoting a way
to Ph, rather than an answer to the question "how to
Ph?" 



To this proposal, some respond that knowledge-how ascriptions do not
pass the standard tests for detecting free relative complements
(Schaffer 2009: 486-91; Habgood-Coote 2018a). Take the
coordinated use of knowledge-how and other knowledge-wh ascriptions in
"*S* has always known how to swim and never has wondered
how". This coordination suggests that both kinds of ascriptions
have an interrogative as a complement (Bresnan & Grimshaw 1978:
332; M. Baker 1996: 204-7). Further, knowledge-how ascriptions
can be extended to embed a multiple interrogative, as in "Mark
knows how to do what?" , whereas free relative complements do
not tolerate multiple wh-phrases (C. Baker 1968; Bresnan &
Grimshaw 1978: 335). Moreover, infinitival wh phrases, such as
"what to do", "how to do", "who to
ask" never allow for free relative reading (Huddleston &
Pullum 2002: 1070-3). Finally, a standard test for telling apart
free relatives and interrogatives is to see if they embed under
"believe", for "believe" does not take
interrogatives as complements but it does tolerate free relatives.
(For example, "Mark believed who was charged guilty"
cannot mean "Mark believed the answer to the question "Who
was charged guilty?"". Rather, it means that Mark believed
the person who was charged guilty.) However, interestingly,
"believe" can never embed infinitival constructions such
as "what to do", "how to do", or "who to
ask". 



Finally, some have questioned whether **Semantics for
knowledge-wh** applies to ascriptions embedding infinitival
complements, like knowledge-how ascriptions. Roberts (2009) argues
that, as opposed to other wh complements, the meaning of
"how" denotes a property rather than a proposition when
embedded in infinitival clauses. Santorio (2016) defends a Gibbardian
semantics for knowledge ascriptions embedding infinitive
interrogatives, on which these ascriptions ascribe maximal performance
plans compatible with an agent's plans (for more objections to
**Semantics for knowledge-wh**, see also Sgaravatti &
Zardini 2008 and George 2013).


### 4.4 Third Group of Objections



The perhaps most serious objection to the linguistic argument is that
it ignores cross-linguistic evidence about how knowledge-how is
ascribed in languages other than English (Rumfitt 2003; Roberts 2009;
Glick 2012; Wiggins 2012; Abbott 2013; Douskos 2013; Ditter 2016).
Rumfitt (2003) argues that the linguistic facts on behalf of
intellectualism are overstated. Many languages--e.g., French,
Italian, Spanish, and Russian--ascribe knowledge-how not just
through ascriptions embedding interrogatives ("*S* knows
how to Ph") but also through ascriptions embedding bare
infinitivals ("*S* knows + (bare infinitive) to
Ph" (= "*S* knows to Ph")) as in
"*Marie sait nager*" and "*Maria sa
nuotare*". Stanley (2011b, 2011c) responds that these
ascriptions are to be analyzed as embedding an *implicit*
interrogative--one where the question word "how" is
not explicitly articulated. However, Abbott (2013), Hornsby (2016),
and Ditter (2016) have observed that this response does not help with
yet other languages, such as Russian, in which knowledge-how
ascriptions--of the form "*S* (attitude verb)
*V*s + (infinitive) to Ph"--feature an embedding
verb *V* ("*umetj*") that *never*
licenses an interrogative complement nor a declarative complement
(i.e., a *that*-clause). 



In order to assess what this cross-linguistic evidence really
establishes, consider a new version of the linguistic argument. Let
"*S* *V*s Ph" be an ascription of
knowledge-how in an arbitrary language *L* that is correctly
translated in English by "*S* knows + (interrogative) how
(*de se*) to Ph". Assuming that translation preserves
at least truth conditions, "*S* *V*s Ph" will
be true in *L* just in case "*S* knows +
(interrogative) how (*de se*) to Ph" is true in
English. Call this the **Interpretation Premise.** By the
Disquotational Schema, "*S* knows how to Ph" is
true in English just in case *S* knows how to Ph; so, we have
that "*S* *V*s Ph" is true in *L* just
in case *S* knows how to Ph. This conclusion, together with
the **Semantics for knowledge wh**, the **Logical
Form**, and the **Interpretation Premise**, yields
that "*S* *V*s Ph" is true in *L* just
in case *S* bears a knowledge relation towards an answer to the
question "How he himself could Ph". Through this
argument, the truth conditions of any knowledge-how ascription,
whether in English or in any other language, are reduced to
propositional knowledge, whether the relevant knowledge-how ascription
has or not the interrogative form. 



Proponents of the cross-linguistic argument might challenge
**Logical Form**: the different ways of ascribing
knowledge-how (through the infinitival form and through the
interrogative form) in these languages indicate that knowledge-how
ascriptions in English are *ambiguous* between two not
truth-conditionally equivalent logical forms: an interrogative form
and a bare infinitival form (*Ambiguity Hypothesis*) (Rumfitt
2003; Wiggins 2012; Setiya 2012; Glick 2012; Ditter 2016; Hornsby
2016). The main piece of evidence for the *Ambiguity
Hypothesis* is that in languages employing both the interrogative
form and the infinitival form, those different ascriptions
*can* come apart in their truth conditions. For example, it is
claimed that the Italian sentence "*Mario sa come
nuotare*" (interrogative form = "Mario knows how to
swim") may be usedly true, while the sentence "*Mario
sa nuotare*" (infinitival form = Mario knows to swim) is
false. This would be the case, for example, if Mario lacks (in some
sense) the ability to swim (so too for its French and Spanish
translations). Similarly, Ditter argues that in Russian, the
interrogative construction must ascribe a different state from the
"*umetj*" ascription (+ infinitival), on the ground
that one can coherently use in Russian sentences of the following
form:



(6)


*John znaet kak igrat' na pianino, no on ne umeyet
igrat.*



John knows + (interrogative) how to play the piano, but he does not
know ("*umetj*") + (infinitival) to play the
piano.



"John knows how to play the piano, but he doesn't know how
to do it".

 


According to these authors, this difference between interrogative
embedding constructions and infinitival embedding construction shows
up also in English locally for the verb *learn*:
"*S* learnt to swim" differs from "*S*
learnt how to swim" in that the former, but not the latter, is
ability-entailing (Rumfitt 2003; Glick 2012).



This argument for the *Ambiguity Hypothesis* might be in
certain ways too quick. The only way to make
 (6)
 intelligible in English is to translate it as (7), where the generic
interpretation of the first knowledge-how ascription and the *de
se* interpretation of the second ascription are made explicit:



(7)
 Mary knows how one could play the piano but does not know how to
play the piano herself.


However,
 (6)
 cannot be interpreted as (8) on pain of contradiction:



(8)
 Mary knows how she herself could play the piano but does not know
how to play the piano herself. 


If so, the fact that
 (6)
 is acceptable in Russian does not establish that the interrogative
form in Russian cannot *also* have an interpretation (the
*de se* interpretation) on which it is truth conditionally
equivalent to the Russian's infinitival form. Here is a
competitive explanation of the available cross-linguistic evidence
that does not commit us to the *Ambiguity Hypothesis*. Just
like English's ascriptions, the interrogative form in Russian is
ambiguous between a *de se* interpretation, on which it is
truth conditionally equivalent to the infinitival form, and a generic
interpretation of the subject of the infinitival embedded verb, on
which it comes apart from the infinitival form. This explains why
 (6)
 is felicitous and why it can be translated as (7) but not as (8). On
this explanation, this evidence might be compatible with English
knowledge-how ascriptions univocally having the same logical form (the
interrogative form), even though the embedded interrogative can
receive either the generic or the *de se* interpretation,
depending on the subject of the infinitival embedded verb.


## 5. The Action Theory Argument and the Question of Joint Action



Ryle is often interpreted as claiming that knowledge-how ascriptions
are nothing more than ascriptions of an ability or a complex of
dispositions to act in a skilled or intelligent manner (though see
Hornsby 2011: 82 and Waights Hickman 2019 for dissent). This
interpretation is based on passages in the *Concept of Mind*,
such as the following:



> 
> 
> When a person is described by one or other of the intelligence
> epithets such as "shrewd" or "silly",
> "prudent" or "imprudent", the description
> imputes to him not the knowledge or ignorance of this or that truth,
> but the ability, or inability, to do certain sorts of things. (Ryle
> 1949: 27)
> 
> 
> 



Early intellectualists argued that knowledge-how does not entail
ability (Ginet 1975; Stanley & Williamson 2001; Snowdon 2004). For
example, a pianist who lost their arms in a car accident may have lost
her ability to play but still preserve her knowledge-how to play the
piano (cf. Snowdon's 2004: 8 expert omelette maker); or a ski
instructor might know how to do a ski stunt and, according to Stanley
& Williamson (2001), still fail to have the ability to do it. By
contrast, anti-intellectualists argue that it is important to
distinguish between knowing how to perform a task, which corresponds
to a general ability, and being (actually and circumstantially) able
to perform it (Noe 2005; Glick 2012; Setiya 2012). So the pianist
might have both general ability as well as knowledge-how, though they
lack circumstantial ability. By contrast, the ski instructor does not
clearly have knowledge-how to perform the ski stunt themselves, while
they know how *one*, in general, can do it. Recent
intellectualist views also take knowledge-how to go together with
abilities (understood along Hawley's 2003 notion of
counterfactual success) and argue that rightly construed
intellectualism can vindicate this connection (Pavese 2015b; Cath
2020). 



Yet, everybody agrees that while knowledge-how might entail ability,
ability is not sufficient for knowledge-how, as demonstrated by an
example from Hawley (2003):




**Annoyance.** Susie is attempting to annoy Joe; she
thinks smoking will do the trick. Whenever she smokes, she
unconsciously and inadvertently taps on her cigarette pack.
Unbeknownst to Susie, Joe does not mind cigarette smoke, but finds her
tapping obnoxious.




Susie has the ability to annoy Joe, since she has the disposition to
annoy Joe whenever she attempts to do so. But, intuitively, she does
not know how to annoy him. A natural explanation of this is that she
cannot annoy him *intentionally* (for structurally similar
cases, see Carr 1979, 1981 and Bengson, Moffett, & Wright 2009).
Pretty much all sides of the dispute agree on the following claim
(Ryle 1949; Stanley & Williamson 2001; Hawley 2003; Hornsby 2004,
2011; Stanley 2011b; Setiya 2012):




(*Knowledge-how/Intentionality*): If *S* intentionally
Phs, *S* knows how to Ph.




Many also endorse the biconditional (*Knowledge-how/Ability
Intentional*) (Hawley 2003; Setiya 2012):




(*Knowledge-how/Ability Intentional*): *S* has the ability
to intentionally Ph if and only if *S* knows how to Ph.





Now, suppose that knowing how to Ph does require the ability to
intentionally perform Ph. If so, whether knowledge-how requires a
propositional attitude depends on whether or not one can intentionally
Ph without having a propositional attitude about how to Ph. But
according to many influential views of intentional action,
intentionally Ph-ing does require a propositional attitude, namely
a belief about how to Ph. In particular, intentionally Ph-ing
requires having an action plan, which is characterizable in terms of a
belief about how to perform Ph. For example, on Goldman's
(1970) view, one intentionally Phs when one has a plan to Ph,
where a plan to Ph is a belief that specifies the means to Ph
(see, also, e.g., Harman 1976; Audi 1986; Bratman 1987; Velleman 1989;
Ginet 1990; Mele & Moser 1994; Gibbons 2001). From this, we
get:




(*Intentionality/Belief*): If *S* intentionally Phs,
then there are some means \(m\_1\), ..., \(m\_n\) to Ph such
that *S* truly believes that \(m\_1\), ..., \(m\_n\) are means
for oneself to Ph.




Some intellectualists have argued on these bases that knowledge-how to
Ph requires at least a propositional attitude about the means to
Ph (Cath 2015b).



But is propositional *knowledge* of means to ends required for
intentional action, over and above true belief? Gibbons (2001)
provides several examples to buttress the necessity of knowledge for
intentional action. For example, one cannot plausibly intentionally
win a fair lottery , nor can one intentionally defuse a bomb if one
unintentionally and fortuitously chooses the correct wire; in both
cases, a plausible explanation for the lack of intentionality is that
the subjects does not have the relevant propositional knowledge about
how to accomplish those tasks. These cases buttress the claim that
intentional action requires knowledge of the means to execute it:




(*Intentionality/Knowledge*): If *S* intentionally Phs,
then there are some means \(m\_1\), ..., \(m\_n\) to Ph such
that s knows that \(m\_1\), ..., \(m\_n\) are means for oneself to
Ph.




With these assumptions in the background, here is a non-linguistic
argument for intellectualism. Start from
(*Knowledge-how/Intentionality*): if *S* intentionally
Phs, *S* knows how to Ph. Furthermore, suppose that
(*Intentionality/Knowledge*) is true so that the intentionality
of an action is to be explained at least in part in terms of
propositional knowledge. Then, by these two premises, we get that if
one intentionally Phs, one both knows how to Ph and one has
propositional knowledge of the means to Ph:




(*Knowledge-how, Intentionality, Knowledge*): If *S*
intentionally Phs, *S* both knows how to Ph and for some
means \(m\_1\), ..., \(m\_n\), *S* knows that means \(m\_1\) ,
..., \(m\_n\) are means for oneself to Ph.




Now, according to standard formulations of intellectualism, one knows
how to Ph only if, for some means *m* to Ph, one knows that
*m* is a means for one to Ph:




(*Intellectualism about Knowledge-How*): *S* knows how to
Ph is at least in part of a matter of knowing, for some means
*m* to Ph, *S* knows that *m* is a means for oneself
to Ph.




So, the argument from intentional action for intellectualism maintains
that the intellectualist picture provides the best explanation for why
(*Knowledge-How, Intentionality, Knowledge*) should hold.
According to this explanation, (*Knowledge-How, Intentionality,
Knowledge*) is true not just because of a coincidental alignment
of propositional knowledge and knowledge-how in intentional action.
Rather, its truth is grounded on the very nature of knowledge-how: one
knows how to Ph *in virtue* of knowing, for some means
*m* to Ph, that *m* is a means for oneself to Ph. 



The view that intentional action requires belief has been challenged
for the particular case of *basic actions*. Setiya (2012)
observes that one can perform a basic action of clenching one's
fist without even having the belief that one can succeed at doing it.
For example, someone might have had a paralyzing injury, fail to
believe they have healed, and still form the intention to clench their
fist. Intellectualists might reply that, although that subject does
not believe that one will succeed, they might have a sufficiently high
credence and that credence can amount to knowledge too (Pavese 2020).
(For other possible responses to the idea that intentional action
requires knowledge or belief, see Elzinga forthcoming).



A further related question is how to think of knowledge-how in the
case of joint actions. When two agents act jointly towards a goal, as
when they row a boat together, they responsively coordinate and
monitor each other's movements in ways that produce a joint
action. What kind of knowledge-how is manifested by successful joint
action? It must be possible for the agents to coordinate without each
having to know the different ways in which each must act to achieve
their common goals: you and I can jointly make risotto even if I do
not know how to season it and you do. Correspondingly, Birch (2019)
suggests that joint knowledge-how must be accounted for
*distributively*. If this is correct, then the agents can
jointly know how to do something without *each* having a belief
about how they jointly do it, but only in virtue of having a
collective, or group, belief about how to do it. (For more discussion
on group knowledge-how, see Palermos & Tollefsen 2018 and
Strachan, Knoblich & Sebanz 2020)


## 6. The Epistemology of Knowledge-How


### 6.1 Knowledge-how and Belief



Some have observed that knowledge-how may differ from propositional
knowledge in that, whereas the latter plausibly entails belief,
knowledge-how does not (Dreyfus 1991, 2005; Wallis 2008; Brownstein
& Michaelson 2016). For example, consider Brownstein &
Michaelson (2016)'s example. When catching a ball, ball players
make anticipatory saccades to shift their gaze ahead of the ball one
or more times during the course of its flight towards them. These
players know how to catch a ball, and their way of catching a ball
requires making anticipatory saccades when watching the ball as it
falls. Yet, the players do not believe that making anticipatory
saccades is part of how they catch the ball. Rather they believe that
they are tracking the ball the whole time. However, from the fact that
the subject has false beliefs about how she catches the ball, it does
not follow that the subject does not *also* have correct
beliefs about it. So, a natural response is that there is
*some* sense in which the player correctly believes that his
manner of tracking the ball has a chance of resulting in success. 



Whether this response is compelling might depend on what one takes
beliefs to be. On this topic, philosophers widely disagree. On an
"intellectualist" account of belief, on which believing
that *p* requires the subject to acknowledge that *p*, it is
implausible that the athletes have the relevant belief. But
intellectualists about knowledge-how might advocate replacing this
intellectual notion of belief with a less demanding one. According to
a prominent functional characterization of belief, to believe that
*p* entails being disposed to act in ways that would tend to
satisfy one's desires, whatever they are, in a world in which
*p* (together with one's other beliefs) are true"
(cf. Stalnaker 1984: 15; Stalnaker 2012). Now, suppose that in game
after game, Athena catches the ball using a certain method *m*,
and that whenever she does so, her behavior is intentional. From this
it seems to follow that Athena is disposed to perform the actions
specified by *m*. Since, *ex hypothesi*, *m* is a way
of catching the ball, it follows that in all the worlds where she
performs these actions, she satisfies her desire of catching the ball
(or at least is sufficiently likely to do so). By the previous
functional characterization of belief, it follows that Athena believes
that *m* is a way for her to catch the ball. The lesson of this
debate might be, following Stalnaker (2012), that intellectualism
about knowledge-how is best construed as a form of
anti-intellectualism about knowledge, belief, and the mental.


### 6.2 Knowledge-How and Gettier



Another way of challenging the intellectualist claim that
knowledge-how is a species of knowledge-that is to question whether
knowledge-how can be Gettiered. If knowledge-how survives
Gettierization, that would be evidence that knowledge-how is not a
species of knowledge-that, on the assumption that Gettiered justified
true belief cannot constitute propositional knowledge (Gettier 1963).
Stanley & Williamson (2001) argue that knowledge-how cannot be
Gettiered. However, Cath (2011) responds by proposing the
**Lucky Light Bulb** case, where Charlie wants to learn
how to change a lightbulb, but he knows almost nothing about light
fixtures or bulbs. Charlie consults *The Idiot's Guide to
Everyday Jobs*. Inside, he finds an accurate set of instructions
describing the shape of a light fixture and bulb, and the way to
change a bulb. Charlie grasps these instructions perfectly. And so
there is a way such that Charlie now believes truly that that way is a
way for him to change a light bulb, namely, the way described in the
book. However, unbeknownst to Charlie, he is extremely lucky to have
read these instructions, for the disgruntled author of *The
Idiot's Guide* filled her book with otherwise misleading
instructions. Cath (2011) argues that intuitively Charlie still knows
how to fix the light bulb, despite his belief being Gettiered (cf.
also Poston 2009: 744).



Stanley replies that knowledge-wh *in general* seems to be
Gettierable and that might be explained in terms of features having to
do with *knowing the answer*. For example, consider
Hawthorne's (2000) example of a teacher giving each child in
their class a note with the name of a city. "Vienna" is
written only on one of the notes. In this context, it seems true that
one child knows the correct answer to the question "what is the
capital of Austria", even though the child's belief is
true by luck. (Though see Carter & Pritchard 2015c for a reply
that while knowledge-how is similar to knowledge-that and knowledge-wh
in that it is incompatible with intervening luck, it differs with
these kinds of knowledge in being compatible with environmental luck.)
Others still have responded that intuitions are subtle and not all of
them favor anti-intellectualism (Marley-Payne 2016; Pavese
forthcoming-a). For a recent experimental study with mixed results,
see Carter, Pritchard, and Shepherd (2019). Hawley (2003: 28) argues
that knowledge-how, like propositional knowledge, requires
"warrant" on the ground that success on the basis of a
lucky guess does not seem to manifest one's knowledge-how. A
similar theoretical argument for thinking that lucky belief cannot
suffice for knowledge-how starts from the thesis that knowledge-how
enters in explanations of success and that satisfactory explanations
must be "modally robust". From this, the argument
concludes that the sort of belief that robustly explains intentional
success must be knowledge, for knowledge has the relevant modal
profile (Sosa 1999; Williamson 2000; D. Greco 2016). Another line of
argument starts from the observations that knowledge-how to Ph
explains the ability to intentionally Ph (see
 section 4)
 and that only knowledge can explain intentional action (Gibbons 2001:
589-590). On these bases, some argue that knowledge-how cannot
fall short of non-getteriable knowledge (Cath 2015b for objections to
this line of argument).


### 6.3 Knowledge How, Defeasibility, and Testimony



Some object that while knowledge-that can be defeated by misleading
evidence, not so knowledge-how (see Carter & Navarro 2017 for this
line of argument and Pavese 2021 for a reply). Finally, some object
that knowledge-how cannot be knowledge-that because the latter is
acquirable by testimony and the former is not. While the following
argument (A-C) is valid, the following (i-iii) is not
(Poston 2016):


1. Mark knows that Turin is in Northern Italy.
2. Mark tells that to John, who believes him.
3. John comes to know that Turin is in Northern Italy.


1. Mark knows how John could swim.
2. Mark tells John.
3. John comes to know how to swim.



Following Stanley's (2011b: 126) modal restriction proposal (cf.
 section 3),
 Cath (2017, 2019) responds that depending on how the context for the
modal is restricted, (i) could mean *either* that Mark knows
how John could swim *given his current physical state or* how
John could swim *after training*. If only the latter, that is
not the sort of proposition that John needs to know in order for (iii)
to be true: for that, John ought to know that that is how he could
swim under his current physical state. (Though see
 section 2
 for qualms about this intellectualist strategy.) Another avenue for
reply to the challenge from testimony may be to insist that not every
propositional knowledge is transferable through testimony. A
comparison: visual knowledge that Mark murdered Tina differs in
content and mode of presentation from the knowledge that of the murder
obtained by being told by his prosecutor. The former observational
knowledge is not transferable through mere testimony but (exactly
because of that!) it is more helpful for the purpose of convicting
Mark than second-hand knowledge. That does not mean that observational
knowledge is not propositional. Like in the case of perceptual
knowledge, the proposition that one knows by knowing how to do
something involves distinct modes of presentation of ways of doing
things
 (section 2,
 section 3). We should not expect propositions under this mode of
presentation to be transferable through testimony. (For a response to
Poston 2016, see also Peet 2019).


## 7. The Argument from Cognitive Science


### 7.1 The Argument



The argument from cognitive science against intellectualism starts by
pointing out that cognitive scientists distinguish between different
kinds of cognitive systems: It is often held that the *declarative
system* is responsible for encoding propositional knowledge,
whereas knowledge-how is encoded in the *procedural system*.
Given empirical evidence that the declarative and procedural systems
are separate (about which more below), it would seem to follow that
knowledge-how is not reducible to propositional knowledge (Wallis
2008; Devitt 2011; Roth & Cummins 2011):




*The Cognitive Science Argument*



C1
 The procedural system is distinct from the declarative
system.
C2 
 Motor knowledge-how is encoded entirely by the procedural
system.
C3 
 All propositional knowledge is encoded entirely in the
declarative system.
C4 
 Some knowledge-how does not require propositional knowledge.
(from C1, C2, C3)



The usual evidence marshaled in favor of C1 relies on amnesiac case
studies (Milner 1962; see Cohen & Squire 1980 for discussion). A
typical example is HM. After bilateral removal of the hippocampus,
parahippocampal gyrus, entorhinal cortex, and most of the amygdala to
relieve debilitating symptoms of epilepsy, HM was unable to form new
memories of facts or events and he could no longer access memories he
acquired in the few years leading up to his surgery. Nevertheless, it
was found that over 10 trials, HM tuned his motor skill to trace the
outline of a five-pointed star based only on looking at reflection in
a mirror. Since he could not store new memories, HM's
declarative knowledge of the means of performing the task did not
change from one trial to the next. But his performance improved. So,
the reasoning goes, the improvement of motor skills is governed by a
distinct cognitive system from that which governs the retention of
declarative facts.



Many embrace C2 (e.g., Lewicki, Czyzewska, & Hoffman 1987: 523;
Devitt 2011; Wallis 2008). But some object that a closer look at the
details of HM's case (as reported in Milner 1962) supports a
different diagnosis, on which knowledge-how is realized by a
combination of the procedural and the declarative system (Pavese 2013;
Stanley & Krakauer 2013). At the beginning of each trial, prior to
being given verbal instructions on how to perform the motor task, HM
lacked the ability to intentionally perform it: HM was able to perform
the motor task *only after being reminded of what the task
consisted in*. This suggests, against C2, that there was an
important declarative component to HM's ability to perform the
motor task (for the role of declarative knowledge in skillful action,
see also Christensen, Sutton, & Bicknell 2019).


### 7.2 Improving the Argument



Here is a possible way to patch up the Argument from Cognitive Science
(Fridland 2014, 2017; Levy 2017). Replace C2 with:



C2\*
 Knowledge-how is not exhausted by declarative knowledge.


With C2\*, the argument goes on as before. Stanley & Krakauer
(2013) seems to accept this conclusion (for more discussion and
critiques, see Krakauer 2019; Springle 2019; De Brigard 2019; Schwartz
& Drayson 2019). Other intellectualists reply that this argument
misses the intellectualist target. Cath (2020) argues that procedural
representation might be a prerequisite for knowledge-how rather than a
constituent. Pavese (2019) develops an account on which procedural
representations, of the sort studied by motor scientists when giving
an account of the procedural aspect of skill (Wolpert 1997; Jeannerod
1997), can be understood as practical, albeit nonconceptual,
representations--the sort of representations that intellectualism
independently requires for knowledge-how
 (section 2).


### 7.3 Articulability



According to C3, propositional knowledge corresponds to
"declarative" knowledge--to a sort of knowledge that
is, at least in principle, verbalizable. Opponents of intellectualism
often uses C3 in a novel argument against intellectualism: if
propositional knowledge has to be verbalizable, then knowledge-how
cannot be propositional knowledge, for often subjects know how to
perform tasks even though they cannot explain how they do it (Schiffer
2002; Devitt 2011; Adams 2009; Wallis 2008). On behalf of
intellectualism, there do seem to be cases in which you come to know
how to do something precisely by consulting a manual and learning some
propositions (see, e.g., Snowdon 2004: 12; Bengson and Moffett 2011a:
8; and Katzoff 1984: 65ff). Moreover, it is not clear that the
anti-intellectualist demand that propositional knowledge be always
verbalizable is motivated. In fact, it seems to conflate knowing how
to perform a task with *knowing how to explain how the task is
performed* (cf. Fodor 1968: 634; Stalnaker 2012). Stanley (2011b:
161) points out that there is a sense in which knowledge-how
*is* always verbalizable. A punch-drunk boxer who can at best
demonstratively refer to his re-enactment of the way of boxing against
southpaws, and says, "This is the way I fight against a
southpaw" intuitively knows that this is the way he fights
against southpaws. This knowledge has an essential demonstrative or
indexical component. But the same goes for much other propositional
knowledge like, for example, the knowledge we express by saying,
"This is the tool for the job", or "That is going to
be trouble". This reply assumes that ways to execute tasks are
*ostensible* and as such can be picked up by a demonstrative.
This does not need to be so: on any single occasion, one may only act
on *parts* of a way. So, one will not thereby be able to pick
up the *general* way one's knowledge-how is about.
Another reply on behalf of intellectualism is to point out that
practical concepts for tasks differ from "semantic"
concepts for the same tasks precisely in that, even if propositional,
they are not necessarily verbalizable. 


### 7.4 Knowledge-How in Preverbal Children and Nonhuman Animals



A final objection is that intellectualism overintellectualizes
knowledge-how in a way that is incompatible with what we know about
animals' cognition (Noe 2005; Hornsby 2007; Dreyfus 2007;
Elzinga forthcoming). According to this objection, unsophisticated and
non- (or pre-) linguistic agents such as babies and non-human animals
can know how to perform certain tasks, while lacking the concepts that
are required for propositional knowledge. Some intellectualists
respond that ordinary speakers routinely also ascribe propositional
knowledge to animals and babies, as we say that Fido knows that its
owner is arriving or that a baby knows that their mother is present
(Stanley & Williamson 2001). Thus, while propositional knowledge
may require concept possession, our ordinary knowledge ascriptions
suggest that we regard relatively unsophisticated agents as possessing
the relevant concepts. Comparative psychologists do routinely credit
many non-human and non-linguistic animals with the possession of
concepts. (See Allen & Bekoff 1999 for a comprehensive overview).




This response might be less plausible, though, when it comes to lower
animals, or insects. Here too, we might describe ants as knowing how
to carry food back to their nest. And yet, there is less evidence from
cognitive science that insects are capable of concepts too (though see
Gallistel & King 2009). In response, a different line of argument
might be more promising (cf. McDowell 2007): it does not follow from
the fact that we are disposed to ascribe knowledge-how to lower
animals that what explains their goal-directed behavior is the same
sort of psychological state that underlies human knowledge-how and
human action. For from the fact that their behavior resembles
humans' in some respects (for example, in its goal-directedness)
does not entail that it resembles humans' skilled behavior in
*all respects that matter* (for example, in the susceptibility
of the relevant behavior to rational revision).


## 8. Varieties of Anti-Intellectualism


### 8.1 Revisionary Intellectualism



According to orthodox intellectualism, knowledge-how is a species of
propositional knowledge. Revisionary intellectualism, instead,
contends that although knowledge-how is a kind of knowledge-that, the
relevant knowledge is *sui generis* and differs from standard
propositional knowledge in some important ways. For example, Brogaard
(2009, 2011) argues that, in general, knowledge can have cognitive
abilities or practical abilities as its justificatory grounds. In the
latter case, agents know in virtue of ability states that are not
subject to the usual epistemic constraints that characterize belief
states generated by cognitive abilities. Correspondingly,
knowledge-how fits the bill for this practically grounded knowledge.
Cath (2015b) argues that we should distinguish between
*theoretical* knowledge-that and *practical*
knowledge-that. The former is subject to the usual epistemic
constraints, like being sensitive to Gettierization (cf. also Zardini
2013). The latter, instead, is not sensitive to the usual epistemic
constraints of theoretical knowledge-that--and can therefore
constitute knowledge-that even if Gettierized. Waights Hickman (2019)
suggests that knowledge-how is a distinct kind of knowledge-that
relation, characterized by knowing something in "the executive
way", which requires 



> 
> 
> possession of (a) dispositions to attend to features of an
> action-context on which one's knowledge (how) bears; and (b)
> dispositions to adjust one's use of that knowledge accordingly.
> (2019: 333).
> 
> 
> 



As we have seen
 (section 4),
 Bengson & Moffett (2007, 2011b) defend *Non-propositional (or
Objectualist) Intellectualism*. On this view, knowing how to Ph
necessarily involves having *objectual knowledge* of a way of
Ph-ing but having objectual knowledge of a way of Ph-ing is not
sufficient to know how to Ph. For example, a tropical swimmer may
be acquainted with a way of escaping an avalanche, namely making
swimming motions. Yet, if this swimmer had no conception whatsoever of
an avalanche or of snow, he would not know how to escape an avalanche.
This suggests that there must be some propositional/representational
aspect of knowing how to Ph. Hence, according to this view for one
to know how to Ph, (i) one must have objectual knowledge of a way
of Ph-ing and (ii) one must grasp a correct and complete conception
of this way.


### 8.2 Ability Based Anti-Intellectualism



As we have seen, Ryle is often interpreted as claiming that
knowledge-how ascriptions are nothing more than ascriptions of an
ability or a complex of dispositions to act in a skilled or
intelligent manner (Hornsby 2011). (For a recent defense of
knowledge-how as an ability, see Markie 2015.) Anti-intellectualism of
this sort has been voiced by Lewis (1990) and has been thought to
undercut the so-called "knowledge-argument" in the
philosophy of mind (see Jackson 1986 for a classic formulation. For
further discussion, see Nemirow 1990 and Alter 2001). However, Cath
(2009) argues that similar worries about the argument survive even on
some prominent intellectualist views. For a survey of other
consequences thought to follow from the various positions in the
knowledge-how debate, see Bengson and Moffett (2011b:
44-54).



However, few theorists nowadays identify knowledge-how with bare
abilities. Setiya (2012) holds that to have knowledge-how is to have
the disposition to act guided by one's intention; Constantin
(2018) argues that knowing how to Ph is to have the disposition to
have the ability to Ph. Neo-Rylean views are also developed by
Craig (1990), Wiggins (2012), and Lowenstein (2016). Craig
suggests that knowledge-how to Ph amounts to the ability to teach
others how to Ph. Wiggins argues that genuine knowledge-how stems
from a bundle of practical abilities that constitute the ethos of a
practice and, while interrelated with propositional knowledge, cannot
be reduced to it. In turn, Lowenstein argues that knowledge-how
to Ph is the ability to Ph intelligently guided by the
understanding of the activity of Ph-ing. 



Carter and Pritchard (2015a,b,c) develop an alternative view which
does not equate knowledge-how with an ability, but it still gives
ability a central theoretical role. In their view, knowing how to
Ph is a cognitive achievement, *given* our abilities to
Ph: if one successfully Phs because of one's ability, then
one knows how to Ph. And if one knows how to Ph, then one is
positioned to successfully Ph because of one's ability.
Therefore, for them, knowledge-how does not reduce to the mere
possession of abilities but it essentially involves the successful
enactment of these abilities. Habgood-Coote (2019) defends the view
that knowing how to Ph just is the ability to generate the right
answers to the question of how to Ph. Although on this view,
knowledge-how is a relation an agent bears to a proposition--one
that answers the relevant practical question--this relation to a
proposition is not understood in epistemic terms but in terms of
dispositions (see also Audi 2017 and Farkas 2017).


### 8.3 Radical Anti-Intellectualism: Practicalism



While the intellectualist holds that knowledge-how must be understood
in terms of knowledge-that, *radical anti-intellectualism*
holds that knowledge-that must be understood in terms of knowledge-how
or skill. As Hetherington puts it: 



> 
> 
> Your knowing that *p* *is* your having the ability to
> manifest various accurate representations of *p*. The knowledge
> as such is the ability as such. (2011: 42, original emphasis) 
> 
> 
> 



An agent knows that, for instance, she is in France whenever she is
able to produce the corresponding true belief, to assert that she is
indeed in France, provide justification, answer related questions,
etc. (see Hartland-Swann 1956; Roland 1958 for classic formulation and
Hetherington's 2006, 2011, 2020 "practicalism" for a
more recent form of radical anti-intellectualism).


## 9. Knowledge-How and Skill


### 9.1 Skill Across Cultures



The most recent debate on knowledge-how has intertwined with a debate
on the nature of skills. While there is no consensus on what counts as
a skill, by and large people take skills to manifest in purposeful and
goal-directed activities and to be learnable and improvable through
practice (Fitts & Posner 1967; Stanley & Krakauer 2013;
Willingham 1998; Yarrow, Brown, & Krakauer 2009). Skills are
usually contrasted with *knacks* (or mere talents). Some
contrast them with habits (Pear 1926; Ryle 1949) in that these are
performed automatically, whereas the exercise of intelligent
capacities involves self-control, attention to the conditions, and
awareness of the task. Others, instead, argue that understanding skill
requires a better understanding of what habits amount to (Gallagher
2017; Hutto & Robertson 2020).



The topic of skill and expertise is central since ancient philosophy
through the notion of *techne*. Although both Plato and
Aristotle took *techne* to be a kind of knowledge, there
is significant controversy about their conceptions regarding the
nature of this kind of knowledge and its relation to experience
(*empeiria*) on one hand, and scientific knowledge
(*episteme*) on the other (Johansen 2017; Lorenz
& Morison 2019; Coope 2020). Annas (1995, 2001, 2011) develops an
interpretation on which skill and virtue (or *phronesis*)
are closer in Aristotle's action theory than usually thought and
they are both conceived along a broadly intellectualist model. 



In contemporary times, the notion of skill is central to the
philosophy of the twentieth-century French phenomenologist Maurice
Merleau-Ponty. Merleau-Ponty (1945 [1962]) distinguishes between
*motor intentionality*--the sort of intentionality
relevant for motor skills--and *cognitive intentionality*.
While the latter is conceptual and representational, Merleau-Ponty
thought that motor intentionality is non-representational and
non-conceptual. Central to Merleau-Ponty is the role of motor skills
in shaping perceptual experience: in paradigmatic cases of perception,
the flow of information taken in by perceivers is inseparable from the
way they move through a scene. On this view, even superficially static
perceptions engage motor skills, such as seeing the color of a table
as uniform when different parts of it are differently illuminated (see
Siegel 2020 for an helpful introduction).



This phenomenological tradition inspires Dreyfus' (1991, 2000,
2002, 2005, 2007) critique of standard action theory. According to
Dreyfus, theories on which an action is intentional only if the agent
is in a mental state that represents the goal of her action (cf.
Searle 1980, 2001) or on which actions are permeated by conceptual
rationality (cf. McDowell 2007) are not supported by the phenomenology
of purposive activity. Paradigmatic examples of these purposive
activities are, for Dreyfus, skillful activities like playing tennis
or habitual activity like rolling over in bed or making gestures while
speaking. In this sort of skillful coping, Dreyfus thought that the
mind does not represent the world as detached from it. Rather, it is
fundamentally embedded, absorbed, and embodied (see Gehrman &
Schwenkler 2020 for an helpful introduction to Dreyfus on skills).




The notion of skill is central also in Eastern philosophy. Garfield
and Priest (2020) examine the various roles that the notion of skill
plays in the Indian school of Mahayana Buddhism, in Daoism, and in
Chan/Zen thought. In Daoism as well as in Chan/Zen Buddhism, the
emphasis on skill is also connected, fundamentally, to concerns about
living a good and ethical life. Sarkissan (2020) argues that two
prominent types of expertise often encountered in ancient Chinese
thought from the sixth to third centuries BCE: The first is expertise
at a particular craft, occupation, or *dao*, as is most
famously presented in the Daoist anthology *Zhuangzi*. The
second is ethical expertise in the Ruist (Confucian) and Mohist
schools (cf. for more on skill in Buddhism, see also MacKenzie
2020).


### 9.2 Intellectualism and Anti-Intellectualism About Skill



What is the relation between knowledge-how and skill? For many tasks
at least, it is intuitive that one cannot be skilled at it without
knowing how to perform it. At first, it also seems as if knowledge-how
entails skill: one does not really know how to swim if one does not
have the skill to swim; and one cannot know how to tell apart birds
without the skills of a bird watcher. One might object to the
sufficiency of knowledge-how for skill on the grounds that it is
natural to say things such as "John may know how to make
risotto, but I would not say he is skilled at it". However,
knowing how to make risotto *sufficiently well* (relative to
contextually determined standards) might entail being skilled at it
(relative to the same standards) (Cath 2020).



Ryle (1946, 1949) used "skill" and
"knowledge-how" interchangeably in his criticism of the
"Intellectualist legend" (for discussion, see Kremer
2020). In fact, Ryle's view of knowledge-how is stated,
literally, as the view that "skill" is a complex of
dispositions (Ryle 1949: 33; see also Ryle 1967, 1974, 1976 for his
views on how skill as a form of knowledge is distinguished by the
forms on how it is taught and learned through training). This
discussion brings us to whether intellectualism about knowledge-how
and *intellectualism about skill* stand or fall together.
Should intellectualists about knowledge-how identify skill too with
propositional knowledge? While Stanley and Williamson (2001) embrace
the view that knowledge-how is propositional knowledge, in a recent
paper (Stanley & Williamson 2017), they refuse to think of
*skill* as a standing propositional knowledge state. Rather,
they argue that skills are dispositions to know. One motivation for
this view is that this addresses the novelty challenge raised by
Dreyfus (1991, 2005). According to this challenge, propositional
knowledge cannot explain the ability to respond intelligently to
situations that have not been encountered by the agent before. If
skills are dispositions to know, it is no mystery how novel situations
can be handled by skillful agents. Stanley & Williamson (2017)
claim that the resulting view is still broadly intellectualist in a
sense, because on it, skillful action manifests propositional
knowledge (for a criticism of this response to the novelty objection,
see Pavese 2016 in
 Other Internet Resources).



Some authors argue that while skills may be related to propositional
knowledge, they do not reduce to it. Dickie (2012) suggests that an
agent is skilled at Ph whenever her intentions to Ph are
non-lucky selectors of non-lucky means to Ph; while, in turn, these
means might manifest propositional knowledge. Some argue that control
is necessary for skills, and control cannot fully be understood in
terms of propositional knowledge (Fridland 2014, 2017a, 2017b). In
order to provide a theory of skill that makes room for control,
Fridland (2020) develops a "functional" account of skills.
In this view, a skill is a function from intentions to action,
implemented through certain "control structures", which
include attention and strategic control. Among these control
structures, there is also propositional knowledge, which is required
for strategic control. In contrast, intellectualists about skills
argue that being in control is not intelligible unless it is
understood in terms of knowing what one is doing in virtue of knowing
how to perform that action. Therefore, they argue that agentive
control itself is best understood in terms of the capacity for
propositional knowledge.


### 9.3 Skills in Epistemology



Understanding the nature of skill and its relation with knowledge is
of crucial importance for virtue epistemology--the view that
knowledge is to be defined in terms of the success of our cognitive
skills (Zagzebski 2003, 2008; Sosa 2007, 2009; J. Greco 2003, 2010;
Pritchard 2012; Turri 2013, 2016; Beddor & Pavese 2020; Pritchard
2020). Nevertheless, if it turns out that skill must be explained in
terms of knowledge, virtue epistemology would be trying to account for
knowledge in terms of knowledge and so would be viciously circular
(see Millar 2009; Stanley & Williamson 2017 for an argument in
this spirit). Some virtue epistemologists have responded by offering
an anti-intellectualist account of knowledge-yielding cognitive
skills. Sosa and Callahan (2020) describe the relevant skills as
dispositions to succeed when one tries--such that knowledge is
obtained when agents in the right shape and in the right situation
enact these skills appropriately.


### 9.4 The Nature of Skilled Action



Recent discussions on skill include a renewed debate on the nature of
skilled action--i.e., on the sort of processes that are involved
in the manifestation of skills. The most recent discussion on skilled
action concerns the extent to which they are automatic or under
conscious control. A long tradition has taken skilled action to be
paradigmatically a matter of "absorbed coping" (Heidegger
1927; Merleau-Ponty 1945 [1962]; Dreyfus 1991)--characterized as
immersion in the situation and intuitive response to its demands, with
little awareness of the body, tools or even possibly the activity
itself. Following Dreyfus and the phenomenological tradition, some
enactivists (e.g., Noe 2004) highlight the analogies between
skillful behavior and perception; other enactivists (e.g., Gallagher
2017; Hutto & Robertson 2020) argue that in order to understand
the automaticity and unreflectiveness of skilled action, we ought to
better understand habitual behavior. Even outside the phenomenological
tradition, people have emphasized the unreflective aspect of skilled
action. For example, Papineau (2013) argues that skilled actions are
typically too fast for conscious control. One important argument for
the unreflectiveness of skilled action starts from the phenomenon of
choking under pressure, where an individual performs significantly
worse than would be expected in a high-pressure situation. This
phenomenon has been taken to be evidence that skillful action proceeds
without conscious attention, because choking episodes are thought to
arise from the fact that anxiety leads one to focus and direct
one's mind on the performance, which would proceed smoothly if
mindless (Baumeister 1984; Masters 1992; Beilock & Carr 2001;
Ford, Hodges, & Williams 2005; Jackson, Ashford, & Norsworthy
2006; Gucciardi & Dimmock 2008). Some argue that unreflectiveness
also characterizes skillful joint action (Hoffding 2014;
Gallagher and Ilundain-Agurruza 2020).



In recent years, however, some have emphasized the role of attention
and consciousness in skillful performance (Montero 2016, 2020; Wu
2016, 2020). Montero argues against the Dreyfusian idea of skillful
and mindless coping, by noting that online conscious thought about
what one is doing is compatible with expertise and by surveying
empirical evidence that suggests revisiting the choking argument.
Christensen, Sutton and McIlwain (2016) and Christensen, Sutton, and
Bicknell's (2019) argue for the centrality of cognition in
explaining the flexibility of skilled action in complex situations and
advance a "mesh theory" of skilled action, according to
which skilled action results for a mesh of both automatic and
cognitively controlled processes (for a survey of some of these
issues, Christensen 2019. See also Sutton 2007 and Fridland
2017b).


## 10. Knowledge-How and Other Related Topics



Knowledge-how is related to but distinct from *practical
knowledge* (Anscombe 1957). Practical knowledge is occurrent
during intentional action: when one intentionally acts, one knows what
one is doing while knowing it. While being capable of practical
knowledge might require knowledge-how, knowing how to perform an
action does not entail performing that action, and so does not entail
practical knowledge (Setiya 2008; Schwenkler 2019; Small 2020). Some
have argued knowledge-how is the norm of intention (Habgood-Coote
2018b), so that one can properly intend to perform an act only if one
knows how to perform it. 



An important question is whether knowledge-how is connected to
distinctive kinds of epistemic injustice (Fricker 2007; Dotson 2011;
Collins 1990, 1998; Medina 2011). Hawley (2011) discusses the
phenomena whereby people ascribe less knowledge-how and ability to
female musicians (Goldin & Rouse 2000) and whereby standards for
judgments of success due to ability rather than luck or
"instinct" tend to be higher for women and non-white men
(Biernat & Kobrynowicz 1997). In these cases, agents may be
transmitting knowledge by being direct sources of information, rather
than by testifying to the truth of a proposition. If so, the harms
that they suffer might call for a different account than standard
cases of epistemic injustices like Fricker's (2007), which focus
on testimonial transmission of knowledge-that.



A final topic of interest is the relation between knowledge-how and
faith. While most views on faith focus on its doxastic aspect, Sliwa
(2018) argues that faith essentially involves agents acting in the
right way with respect to the object of their faith. Having faith in a
person, for instance, requires knowing how to interact with them so as
to trust them, help them, and ensure their autonomy in general.
Religious faith, similarly, requires faithful agents to know how to
enact the relevant practices like going to mass, declaring one's
faith, and praying.