Claudine Tiercelin

Collège de France / Institut Jean Nicod

Are Skills Dispositions to Know?

12 May 2017, 16:00

Sala Van Gogh (Sana Executive)

Av. Conde de Valbom 56, 10º andar

Abstract: In a common attempt to lend proper significance to the concept of skill in philosophy and, possibly, to confort their own intellectualist analysis of know how in terms of propositional knowledge heavily relying on the concept of practical modes of presentation, Stanley and Williamson have recently argued that skills should be taken more into account and should be viewed, basically, as dispositions to know. Although I agree with many aspects of their analyses, think they offer rather convincing replies to some anti-intellectualist objections, and provide a better view of skills than other suggestions that have been made, e.g. in terms of competences or in viewing ‘practical modes of presentation’ as Fregean ‘practical senses’, I shall underline some difficulties in their position and suggest some ways of solving them, as far as three major issues are concerned: by paying more attention to some important logical and metaphysical difficulties related to the concept of disposition itself; by drawing - especially if one favors an intellectualist standpoint - a more careful distinction between skills and intellectual virtues (something we learnt from both Aristotle and Ryle); by introducing some changes not so much to our concept of know how as to our concept of propositional knowledge itself.