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theses

Orthodoxy has it that knowledge is bifurcated between di erent kinds of states and in particular that there are species of knowledge that cannot be reduced to knowledge of truths. Moreover, it is commonly alleged that knowledge of truths alone falls short of explaining a distinctive kind of human capacity: the human capacity for skillful actions. This dissertation challenges both these orthodoxies. In the fi rst chapter, "Know how and Gradability," I defend the unity of knowledge against the single most powerful and thus far unanswered argument against it, what I call "The argument from gradability." According to this argument from gradability, due to Gilbert Ryle (1949) in The Concept of Mind, know how and propositional knowledge cannot be the same state, because the first comes in degrees, whereas the latter is absolute. In this chapter, I argue that the Rylean argument from gradability to dualism fails, as it moves too quickly from the surface form of ascriptions of know how to conclusions about the state that is ascribed by means of those ascriptions. According to Intellectualism about know how, knowing how to do something is a matter of possessing a piece of propositional knowledge. Intellectualists about know how routinely appeal to practical modes of presentation in characterizing the relevant kind of propositional knowledge. But we are never told much about the nature of these modes of presentation. In Chapter II, I propose a positive view of practical modes of presentation. In the fi nal chapter "Skills as knowledge," I argue that propositional knowledge explains the human capacity for skillful and intelligent actions. In the fi rst part of the chapter, by elaborating on the picture of content developed in Chapter II, I argue that having a skill to for a task is a matter of knowing a particular kind of answer to the question "How to F" . In the second part of the chapter, I propose a direct argument for thinking of skills as propositional knowledge states.

ETD_5073

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

Includes vita

by Carlotta Pavese

doi:10.7282/T3R49NTB

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.