The unity of knowledge

Abstract

1 INTRODUCTION

Intellectualists, in one sense of the term, hold that knowing how to do something (knowing how) is reducible to knowing that something is the case (knowing that), while their opponents deny this. Intellectualists therefore believe in the unity of knowledge—at least where these two forms of knowledge are concerned—whereas anti-intellectualists generally believe that there are at least two irreducibly different kinds of knowledge. But it is quite possible to deny the intellectualist claim about reduction while insisting on the unity of knowledge, either on the grounds that knowing that is reducible to knowing how or on the grounds that the unity of knowledge can be defended without relying on either kind of reduction. I shall defend a position of the latter kind, but since my argument depends on the theory that knowledge is an ability, and since knowing how is commonly regarded by anti-intellectualists as an ability, it has an affinity with the former position as well.

I shall approach my topic by discussing an unorthodox defence of intellectualism by Natalia Waights Hickman (2019), unorthodox because Ryle is usually the intellectualists’ whipping-boy, but Waights Hickman's intellectualism is inspired by Ryle, especially by his claim that ‘when a person knows how to do things of a certain sort […] his performance is in some way governed by principles, rules, canons, standards or criteria.’ (1946a, p. 8). This may not be true without exception, but it is true in a large variety of cases, and these are the cases I shall focus on, particularly performances that are governed—or better, guided—by rules. So, like Waights Hickman, I shall argue for the unity of knowing that and knowing how, at least to the extent that knowing how is exercised in performances that are guided by rules; but unlike Waights Hickman, I shall not defend an intellectualist position. The principal claim I shall defend is that knowledge of facts and knowledge of rules are one thing and not two things, not because rules are facts—which they are not—but because knowledge in general is an ability, which we exercise when we are guided by or respond rationally to the things we know.