Uniform Knowledge Attributions Essay -- Philosophy

There is a philosophical tradition going back at least to gilbert Ryles 1948The Concept of Mind of distinguishing fellowship howfrom noesis that,in which the last mentioned is taken to be a kind of hyp nonismal attitude, while theformer is taken to be a kind of ability or capacity. Paradigm examples ar, singlySally knows how to ride a bike. (1)Sally knows that she owns a bike. (2)More recently, this tone has come under renewed scrutiny, notably withStanley and Williamson, 2001 arguing that there rightfully is no such distinction,and that knowledge howis really a species of propositional knowledge, thoughthe proposition is known under a different mode of presentation than thetypes of knowledge typically expressed by knowledge thatattributions. Theirsuggestion is that all knowledge claims are syntactically and semantically uniform,so that philosophical lineation would be needed to support Rylesdistinction. In addition, they show that Ryles argument was flawed, and providean a ccount that deals with many other philosophical worries, while boastfulprima facie inference that, contrary to what one might expect, (1) is not trulytalking about an ability.They argue first that Ryles argument in favor of a distinction was incorrect.Then they suggest that lingual evidence recommends a uniform analysis forall uses of the word know. Finally, they divvy up various philosophical argumentsthat might motivate a departure from the linguistic structure, and findthem wanting. Thus, they suggest that we should stick with the uniformity ofknowledge ascriptions that is suggested by the linguistic data.I will argue that the linguistic data are not as clear-cut as they suggest. ... ...y and Williamson allege for (1). (Interestingly, I haventbeen able to come up with any such counterexamples with how, whether,or wherefore, just with who, when, and possibly where.) This differentstructure can then overturn rise to a different sort of meaning. Thus, althoughsome attributio ns of knowledge wh- toare similar in kind to attributions ofknowledge that, I suggest that the linguistic evidence does not immediatelyimply that all of them are.ReferencesLahiri, 1991 Lahiri, U. (1991). implantded Interrogatives and the Predicatesthat Embed Them. PhD thesis, MIT.Noe, 2005 Noe, A. (2005). Against intellectualism. Analysis, 65278290.Schaffer, Schaffer, J. Knowing the answer. Unpublished manuscript.Stanley and Williamson, 2001 Stanley, J. and Williamson, T. (2001). Knowinghow. Journal of Philosophy, 98(8)411444.