Know-How e Ação Básica

uma crítica ao Intelectualismo

Abstract

In this paper I discuss the Intellectualist theory of know-how with topics from the Philosophy of Action. The intellectualist's central thesis is that some sort of propositional knowledge is necessary and sufficient for instantiations of know-how. In the first section, I present the argument in favor of this thesis based on syntactic and semantic characteristics of know-how attributions (“S know how to ?”). Fundamentally, this argumentation is relevant to identify the type of proposition known by individuals who possess know-how. This type of proposition will have the general form: “M is a way for S to ?”. In the second section, I show that this proposition is identical to the instrumental propositions employed in Philosophy of Action. Given this approximation, in the third section I introduce the difficulty that the Intellectualist's proposal will have to explain know-how instantiations of basic actions, since this type of action cannot figure in the type of proposition highlighted by the Intellectualist. Finally, in the fourth section, I argue for the thesis that know-how is an ambiguous term, there is a theoretical dimension of know-how that is captured by the Intellectualist proposal, but there is a practical dimension of know-how, closely related to the execution of actions, which is not contemplated by this proposal.