Uniform Knowledge Attributions Essay -- Philosophy

There is a philosophical tradition going indorse at least to Gilbert Ryles 1948The Concept of Mind of distinguishing fellowship howfrom fellowship that,in which the latter is taken to be a salmagundi of propositional attitude, while theformer is taken to be a kind of mightiness or capacity. Paradigm examples are,respectively epigram knows how to ride a bike. (1)S aloney knows that she owns a bike. (2)More recently, this distinction has come under renewed scrutiny, notably withStanley and Williamson, 2001 arguing that there in truth is no such distinction,and that noesis howis really a species of propositional knowledge, thoughthe proposition is known under a variant 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 argumentation would be needed to support Rylesdistinction. In addition, they show that Ryles argument was flawed, and providean account that deals with m some(prenominal) some other philosophical worries, while givingprima facie evidence that, contrary to what mavin might expect, (1) is not actuallytalking about an ability.They argue jump that Ryles argument in favor of a distinction was incorrect. whence they suggest that linguistic evidence recommends a uniform analysis forall uses of the word know. Finally, they consider various philosophical argumentsthat might make 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 swear for (1). (Interestingly, I haventbeen able to come up with any such counterexamples with how, whether,or why, just with who, when, and possibly where.) This differentstructure can then give rise to a different frame of me aning. Thus, althoughsome attributions of knowledge wh- toare similar in kind to attributions ofknowledge that, I suggest that the linguistic evidence does not immediately advert that all of them are.ReferencesLahiri, 1991 Lahiri, U. (1991). Embedded 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 unpublished manuscript.Stanley and Williamson, 2001 Stanley, J. and Williamson, T. (2001).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.