**2. Stanley's Intellectualism**

We will follow Stanley [3] in focusing on procedural knowledge how and propositional knowledge that, although both phenomena can be, and have been, conceptualized along, for example, the following lines concerning knowledge and memory: tacit/implicit versus explicit; non-declarative/procedural versus declarative; practical versus theoretical. These various pairs involve subtle differences in connotation. However, it is often hard to pinpoint the exact usage in debates where the various concepts tend to be used interchangeably. However, given our naturalistic approach, this is somewhat less problematic since it, in our view, is ultimately the natural world that governs how the natural phenomenon knowledge should be understood.

Stanley claims that a reluctance to accept the intellectualist view often depends on an incorrect understanding of what knowledge of facts amounts to, i.e., not properly accounting for the connection between knowledge of facts and action. It is, according to Stanley, special kinds of facts—propositions answering the relevant "how-questions"—that enables knowledge how. Stanley points out that:

Humans are thinkers and humans are agents. There is a natural temptation to view these as distinct capacities, governed by distinct cognitive states. When we engage in reflection, we

<sup>2</sup> While most naturalists acknowledge the natural world as being "all-encompassing," and science as providing our best method of understanding it, there are a number of different interpretations of where this leaves philosophy [8]. An *ontological* naturalism that rejects anything supernatural is commonly accepted although there is still debate whether, for example, the mental can be reduced to the physical [9]. However, the proper form of *methodological* naturalism is a much debated issue, involving positions which argue for *replacing* epistemology with cognitive psychology [10], *substantially* reformulating philosophical problems into scientific terminology [11], or for *cooperatively* taking scientific input into account whenever such information is available [12]. Moreover, *evolutionary* naturalism has highlighted how cognitive agents are shaped by natural selection—information which might *replace*, *succeed* or *complement* epistemology [13,14].

are guided by our knowledge of propositions. By contrast, when we engage in intelligent action, we are guided by our knowledge of how to perform various actions. If these are distinct cognitive capacities, then knowing how to perform an action is not a species of propositional knowledge. [3] (p. 1, italics in original).

As we will show below, it is actually the case that engaging in reflection and intelligent action does involve distinctly di fferent cognitive capacities, which means that intellectualism will be hard to defend.

Stanley positions himself against Ryle [1,2], but what he formulates is first and foremost an empirical question. Therefore, we will look to cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience as the most relevant sources of input and answers. Stanley does discuss how cognitive scientific evidence ought to inform philosophy, but his interpretation is problematic for reasons we will discuss below. In short, we claim that a general problem with Stanley's approach is that it conflates the possibility of describing an agen<sup>t</sup> performing an action with an agen<sup>t</sup> actually being *able* to perform that action (see, e.g., [17], Section 4).

Stanley does qualify his position and wants to separate knowledge how from involving ability, and argues that "knowing how to do something does not entail being able to do it" [3] (p. 127). This is, however, not a satisfactory position. Indeed, it is correct that, for example, a pianist, in a sense, might know how to play the piano even after losing their arms. However, contrary to Stanley, this would be due to neural pathways that have been entrained by numerous hours spent behind the keys, not due to propositional facts that the pianist "thinks of practically". They might be able to describe how someone else ought to go about it to play a certain tune, but unless that person, in turn, actually put in the work to ge<sup>t</sup> similar relevant neural pathways that person would be unable to actually play, and therefore not know how to play (see, e.g., [18]). In addition, since Stanley [3] (p. 131) explicitly claims that his "view of the nature of knowing how to do something is a view about the metaphysical nature of these states, and not a view in semantics" we believe that it involves several problematic features.

Stanley's focus on language and questioning of the relevance of scientific input is problematic from a naturalistic perspective like the one we defend. He discusses the matter thus:

Why would one expect it to be a virtue of an account of knowing how that it is plausibly taken to be what is expressed by ascriptions of knowing how in natural language? Shouldn't we be open to the possibility that science could show us that states of knowing how are very di fferent in kind from what ordinary speakers use sentences like "Ana knows how to swim" to express? If so, then although it might be a virtue of an account of the meaning of ascriptions of knowing how that it is plausibly correct for natural language, it is not a virtue of an account of the nature of states of knowing how. And it is the latter that concerns the philosopher, and not the former. In various forms and versions, this is the foundational objection to the methodology I have employed. [3] (pp. 143–144).

Stanley [3] (p. 144, italics in original) concludes that "[i]t could hardly be that science could discover that knowing how to swim was a distinct state than is expressed by 'knowing how to swim'. After all, quite minimal principles governing the nature of the truth-predicate render this incoherent."

However, this is non-naturalistic argumentation that seems to rely completely on a certain set of intuitions as a foundation. To let the intuitive usage of language dictate—and overrule— in advance, what science conceives of as a natural phenomenon is a radical position that Stanley does not present convincing support for. Importantly, he at other places wants to use cognitive scientific input in defense of his position, which we will ge<sup>t</sup> back to below (see, e.g., [3] (ch. 7), [7]). His initial commitment to view facts as propositions seems to have led him astray. It is possibly this position that renders Stanley unaccommodating towards Noë's [16] critique of his (and Williamson's) focus on language, ascriptions of knowledge, and a semantic understanding of propositionality (see also, e.g., [19]), rather than the nature of the mind and knowledge seen as a natural phenomenon [3] (p. 146). It seems to be this

interpretation, where cognitive science only can amount to di fferent understandings of "relations between propositions" [3] (p. 148), that makes Stanley evade the conclusion from the scientific theories he himself quotes ([20] (p. 209), [21] (pp. 562–563), see also [6,16,17]); knowing how and knowing that are actually di fferent phenomena that involve di fferent cognitive processes, and the two forms of knowledge are explicitly held apart by science (see, e.g., [20,22–25], see also [16,26]).

Stanley [3] (p. 150) claims that "knowing how to do something is a kind of propositional knowledge, a kind of propositional knowledge that guides skilled actions." He argues that this is the case by claiming that declarative knowledge is but one form of propositional knowledge; procedural (non-declarative) knowledge can also be propositional, or so Stanley argues. In order to make this account fit better with scientific evidence, he goes on to highlight that not all propositional knowledge needs to be capable of being verbalized 3 and that knowing how to do something is conceptual. It is *prima facie* reasonable to assume that an intellectualist of Stanley's disposition would defend the view that knowledge how includes an ability to verbalize the knowledge in question (see also footnote 3). However, it is su fficient on Stanley's account that the agen<sup>t</sup> in question can make use of demonstrative expressions like "this", exemplified by Stanley thorough the imagined case of the young Mozart who, when asked how he is composing his music merely points to one of his masterpieces and says "*this* is how I can do it" (emphasise is ours). In another paper ("A Naturalistic Perspective on Knowledge How: Grasping Truths in a Practical Way" [28]), we argue that one would expect from an intellectualist account like Stanley's, that the agen<sup>t</sup> can express their knowledge how in a more illuminating sense than by the mere use of demonstrative expressions. Stanley, however, simply states that if one accepts that all words count, then demonstrative expressions should be accepted as ways of expressing one's knowledge how [4] (p. 214). In fact, Stanley argues that words are not needed *at all* to demonstrate knowledge how. He tries to show this through the example of an expert boxer who fights a southpaw. By boxing the exact way he does, the expert proves through his agency that he knows how to fight a southpaw. He does not need to say how he knows or what he does when fighting, because he is, as a matter of fact doing it, due to skill, not mere luck. As we write in our paper, we find this approach unsatisfactory given the overall intellectualist framework Stanley defends.

With some caution, we can concede that not all propositional knowledge needs to be capable of being verbalized. Importantly, though, this hinges on exactly how one interprets a number of factors, such as, for example, how knowledge is connected to various forms of long-term memory, and their correlating neurological substrate, among other issues. For example, depending on how one draws the line concerning propositional knowledge and its connection to episodic and/or semantic long-term memory, di fferent interpretations come out as being most plausible.

Stanley introduces an interesting point when he writes that the distinction between procedural and propositional knowledge does not involve two forms of states but rather two ways of generating or implementing a particular state of knowledge [3] (p. 151). This is a possible interpretation, but should ultimately be evaluated with a focus on the actual underlying cognitive phenomena (processes). By merely focusing on very high-level aspects of knowledge Stanley seems to be drawn to biologically implausible conclusions. This is, for example, salient when he in a footnote writes that "[b]eing merely procedurally implemented cannot be su fficient for knowing how" [3] (p. 153, fn. 2, italics in original). Simple mechanical processes, on this account, are then not enough for knowledge how. However, this point is debatable. Many organisms, for example, have simple reflexive mechanisms that enable them to interact with their environment in a way that, arguably, ought to be viewed as involving knowing how to do something—a point we will ge<sup>t</sup> back to below (see, e.g., [29,30]).

<sup>3</sup> Stanley [4] (p. 213) quotes Fodor [27] (p. 634): "There is a real and important distinction between knowing how to do a thing and knowing how to explain to do that thing. But *that* distinction is one that the intellectualist is perfectly able to honor ... The ability to give explanation is itself a skill—a special kind of knowing how which presupposes general verbal facility at the very least. But what has this to do with the relation between knowing how and knowing *that*? And what is there here to distress an intellectualist?".

The view we defend can be developed further to include animal cognition, for example along the lines developed by Jan Faye's evolutionary naturalist approach [30]. However, we will not discuss the topic in detail in this paper. It is a project for another paper. Some details regarding Stanley's account should be mentioned though. In a brief passage in his book *Know How* [3] (p. 133), Stanley discusses Alva Noë's critique that Stanley and Williamson [5], given their intellectualism, are forced to say that animals can grasp propositions because animals obviously knows how to do many things, a dog, for example, knows how to catch a frisbee. The point is not that animals cannot grasp propositions, but rather that this is a highly controversial issue. Stanley's reply seems to dodge the critique. His reply is, in short, that automaticity of action and animal cognition fits all varieties of knowing-wh (where, when, whether etc.). Stanley remarks that a philosophical account of knowledge how that says that it is not a kind of propositional knowledge will have the unlucky result that many cases of knowing-wh too do not ascribe propositional knowledge [3] (p 134). Does Stanley bite the bullet, or not? Given what he says, it is hard to tell.
