Modeling practical thinking

Abstract

Intellectualists about knowledge‐how argue that knowing how to do something is knowing the content of a proposition (i.e., a fact). An important component of this view is the idea that propositional knowledge is translated into behavior when it is presented to the mind in a peculiarly practical way. Until recently, however, intellectualists have not said much about what it means for propositional knowledge to be entertained under thought's practical guise. Carlotta Pavese fills this gap in the intellectualist view by modeling practical modes of thought after Fregean senses. In this paper, I take up her model and the presuppositions it is built upon, arguing that her view of practical thought is not positioned to account for much of what human agents are able to do.

Wellbeing Competence

“…To account for wellbeing competence in terms of it being a form of knowing how is meant to emphasize that wellbeing competence often comes in the form of "simpler" kinds of sensitivity and awareness. Even intellectualists about knowing how that consider knowing how to necessarily involve, or be a sub-species of, knowing that would typically recognize specific practical modes of representation [34,35], and the main point here is that wellbeing competence often comes in the form of such inexplicit and practical forms of knowing. The nurse taking care of a patient can be tacitly aware of cues that she spontaneously interprets as signs of something being wrong with the patient.…”