Knowing What to Do

Noûs (2024)
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Abstract

Much has been written on whether practical knowledge (knowledge-how) reduces to propositional knowledge (knowledge-that). Less attention has been paid to what we call deliberative knowledge (knowledge-to), i.e., knowledge ascriptions embedding other infinitival questions, like _where to meet_, _when to leave_, and _what to bring_. We offer an analysis of knowledge-to and argue on its basis that, regardless of whether knowledge-how reduces to knowledge-that, no such reduction of knowledge-to is forthcoming. Knowledge-to, unlike knowledge-that and knowledge-how, requires the agent to have formed certain conditional intentions. We discuss the philosophical implications for knowledge-how, deliberative questions, and virtue.

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reprint Jerzak, Ethan; Kocurek, Alexander W. (2025) "Knowing what to do". Noûs 59(1):160-190

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Author Profiles

Ethan Jerzak
National University of Singapore
Alexander W. Kocurek
University of California, San Diego

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References found in this work

Intention, plans, and practical reason.Michael Bratman - 1987 - Cambridge: Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
The Language of Morals.Richard Mervyn Hare - 1952 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Knowledge and Its Limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - Philosophy 76 (297):460-464.
The Concept of Mind.Gilbert Ryle - 1949 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 1 (4):328-332.

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