Date: 8 May, 2017
Time: 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Location: Danson Room, Trinity College, Oxford
Time: 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Location: Danson Room, Trinity College, Oxford
An Epistemology for Practical Knowledge (Lucy Campbell)
Anscombe thought that practical knowledge - one's knowledge of one's own intentional action - displays formal differences to ordinary, or 'speculative' knowledge. I suggest these differences rest on thinking of practical knowledge as involving 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 (1999) account of knowledge as the ability to use a fact as a reason, I develop an alternative epistemology which allows that knowledge might really come in a belief-involving and intention-involving form.
Knowledge of and in Action (Joshua Shepherd)
While engaged in intentional action, an agent generally knows what she is doing and why she is doing it. In this paper I ask what is so interesting about this knowledge, how an agent comes by this knowledge, why we should consider it knowledge, and what role this knowledge plays in the execution of action. I follow Anscombe in finding knowledge of action interesting in part because this knowledge is uniquely practical, or closely connected to the agent’s direction of action, and because the agent has a special authority with respect to this knowledge. Regarding the latter three questions, I offer an account of an agent’s knowledge of action that is based in that agent’s practical reasoning. I argue, in short, that an agent comes by her knowledge via the judgments she makes while engaged in practical reasoning, that these judgments often qualify as knowledge because the agent is entitled to make them, where this entitlement is grounded in and explained by the rationality of the process of control into which these judgments fit, and the agent’s skill at carrying the process out, and that this knowledge is often functionally critical for the smooth execution of action.
Anscombe thought that practical knowledge - one's knowledge of one's own intentional action - displays formal differences to ordinary, or 'speculative' knowledge. I suggest these differences rest on thinking of practical knowledge as involving 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 (1999) account of knowledge as the ability to use a fact as a reason, I develop an alternative epistemology which allows that knowledge might really come in a belief-involving and intention-involving form.
Knowledge of and in Action (Joshua Shepherd)
While engaged in intentional action, an agent generally knows what she is doing and why she is doing it. In this paper I ask what is so interesting about this knowledge, how an agent comes by this knowledge, why we should consider it knowledge, and what role this knowledge plays in the execution of action. I follow Anscombe in finding knowledge of action interesting in part because this knowledge is uniquely practical, or closely connected to the agent’s direction of action, and because the agent has a special authority with respect to this knowledge. Regarding the latter three questions, I offer an account of an agent’s knowledge of action that is based in that agent’s practical reasoning. I argue, in short, that an agent comes by her knowledge via the judgments she makes while engaged in practical reasoning, that these judgments often qualify as knowledge because the agent is entitled to make them, where this entitlement is grounded in and explained by the rationality of the process of control into which these judgments fit, and the agent’s skill at carrying the process out, and that this knowledge is often functionally critical for the smooth execution of action.