What a theory of knowledge-how should explain : a framework for practical knowledge beyond intellectualism and anti-intellectualism

Abstract

We argue against both intellectualist and anti-intellectualist approaches to knowledge-how. Whereas intellectualist approaches are right in denying that knowledge-how can be convincingly demarcated from knowledge-that by its supposed non-propositional nature (as is assumed by the anti-intellectualists), they fail to provide positive accounts of the obvious phenomenological and empirical peculiarities that make knowledge-how distinct from knowledge-that. In contrast to the intellectualist position, we provide a minimal notion of conceptuality as an alternative demarcation criterion. We suggest that conceptuality gives a sound basis for a theory of knowledge-how which is empirically fruitful and suitable for further empirical research. We give support to this suggestion by showing that, by means of an adequate notion of conceptuality, five central peculiarities of knowledge-how as compared to knowledge-that can be accounted for. These peculiarities are its context-bound, impenetrable and implicit nature, as well as the automatic and continuous forms of processing that are connected to it.