Abstract

The last decade or so has seen a resurgence of interest in Ryle's knowing‐how / knowing‐that (KH/KT) distinction, prompted by Stanley and Williamson's provocative intellectualist reading of the distinction. This chapter argues that even by Ryle's own account the distinction cannot properly be regarded as an epistemological distinction, that is, as demarcating two different kinds of knowledge. It talks about being clear about where our use of the KH/KT distinction does make sense and where it doesn't. More specifically, it leaves us incapable of explaining how we are able to distinguish cases perhaps identical in terms of overt behaviour yet seemingly very different in terms of what is known. Although the KH/KT distinction has some limited viability in the context of knowledge attribution it is simply not viable as an epistemological distinction.