An epistemology for practical knowledge

Journal article

Anscombe thought that practical knowledge – a person’s knowledge of what she is intentionally doing – displays formal differences to ordinary empirical, or ‘speculative’, knowledge. I suggest these differences rest on the fact that practical knowledge involves intention analogously to how speculative knowledge involves belief. But this claim conflicts with the standard conception of knowledge, according to which knowledge is an inherently belief-involving phenomenon. Building on John Hyman’s account of knowledge as the ability to use a fact as a reason, I develop an alternative, two-tier, epistemology which allows that knowledge might really come in a belief-involving and an intention-involving form.

Authors: Campbell, L

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• Journal: Canadian Journal of Philosophy
• Volume: 48
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 159-177
• Publication date: 2017-06-21
• Acceptance date: 2017-06-06
• DOI: 10.1080/00455091.2017.1341073
• EISSN: 1911-0820
• ISSN: 0045-5091
• Keywords: practical knowledge; intention; self-knowledge; knowledge as an ability; speculative knowledge; two-tier epistemology; Anscombe