Descartes held that he knew his mind better than he knew anything in the external world, including his own body. Thanks largely in part to Sigmund Freud, this belief has come under devastating criticism. Not only are we not privy to the minds of other people, but we are not fully or even largely privy to the contents of our own minds. This post will be dedicated to a rather undisciplined (like that’s unusual!) exploration of what implications this might have upon epistemology in general.
Know-How vs. Know-That
The difference between these two is intuitively obvious to me. There is simply no amount of arm chair instruction which I would sufficient by itself to train me to walk a tight-rope without a safety net. This example, however, is only meant to establish that know-how cannot be reduced to know-that. What remains unclear to me, however, is whether all know-that might actually be reducible to know-how, which would seem at first glance to be consistent with the idea of learning as the training of a neural network. If such is the case (as I suspect it is) then this would be a serious blow to the Cartesian view of the mind, for most know-how is un-, sub- or pre-conscious.
Knowing That You Know
Some would argue that in order to know something, you must know that you know it. The question which naturally follows such a claim is how you can know that you know? Do you have to know that you know that you know? And thus we are stuck in an infinite regress. The unconscious mind may provide an escape from such an infinite regress, for we can unconsciously know that we know, and since such meta-knowledge is unconscious we do not and indeed cannot know that we know that we know. Of course this is simply asserting that we do not have to know that we know something to know it.
Knowledge as a Sub-Set of Belief
Closely related to knowing that you know is the question of what qualifies as a belief, at least a belief which could ideally qualify as knowledge? Is it possible to come to realize that we have “always known something”, or do you start to know something only as we become conscious of such a belief? What if we simply take something for granted, is this belief and can such belief possibly qualify as knowledge? Must we be conscious of the assumptions which necessarily underlie what we claim to know? Must we be conscious (or even unconscious) of the ways in which we could possibly be wrong? I view these questions as being the primary weaknesses of my modal model of knowledge.
Holism vs. Atomism
Quine paints our belief system as a web of belief which is holistically modified as the beliefs evolve over time and experience. My modal model, on the other hand, seems to be incredibly atomistic in that each and every claim stands or falls on its own without any investigation into the premises or assumptions which underlie such knowledge. While Quine’s model certainly seems to allow for non-cognitive factors to play a greater role in knowledge claims, I am not convinced that such non-cognitive factors should play such a role. Then again, if the un-,sub-, or pre-consciousness does play a significant role in knowledge claims, then I don’t see how the modal model could adequately deal with such.
Certainty vs. Quantity
If my modal model simply cannot be defended in any significant way, then as an internalist I am left with a choice between the idea that knowledge can be wrong and the idea that we have very little, if any knowledge. The unconscious mind plays an interesting role in the case that our knowledge can be wrong. In such a model (the Sophistic model as I call it) we know something when we are simply unwilling or unable to question some belief or some belief which would fall with it. Unconscious intuition should play a large role, in such a model, in determining what we do or do not “know.” In the case of knowledge as certainty, it seems unlikely that we would be willing to call much of what is unconscious to us “certain.”
Conclusions
Inasmuch as we hold knowledge to be certain, it seems that the unconscious must be either ignored or excluded altogether. The central problem is to what degree such a mental feat is possible. For instance, it seems unlikely that we could ever be certain about something without “knowing that we know” in some strong sense. If know-that does in fact fully reduce to know-how, I do not see how we could ever be certain that our know-how, or any other non-cognitive tasks are sufficiently reliable. On a slightly different point, I doubt that any less than conscious belief could ever be certain. It may be possible, however, that we can bring such beliefs to our conscious attention, and upon examination declare them certain.
Perhaps the most straight forward move in this case would be to abandon the equation of knowledge with absolute certainty. This, however, is to let knowledge possibly be false unless some appeal is made to externalism. Such a move would parallel that of John Dewey when he declared the quest for absolute truth mere religion by a different name.
My Confucianism professor Dr. Ni says that there is a third thing beyond knowing how and knowing that. Here’s an excerpt from his unpublished paper on Gongfu (Kung Fu) Philosophy:
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Epistemology has only recently been paying more attention to practical knowledge (recent in comparison to the long history it had in philosophy). 13 Gilbert Ryle’s famous distinction between “knowing that” and “knowing how” is a strong reminder of something that should be quite obvious: Our knowledge is not merely a matter of knowing “that,” i.e. of knowing the truths about matters of fact that can be put propositionally. Most practical knowledge can not be stated by propositions, as in the case of knowing how to ride a bicycle, how to speak a language, etc. But gongfu cannot be reduced to the state of “knowing how,” and the study of gongfu cannot be covered by the study of “knowing how.” I may know the skills to play erhu (a Chinese musical instrument), but because I lost a few fingers in an accident I am unable to do it. On the other hand the ability to do something does not entail the knowledge of how to do it. The fact that I am able to go out of an unfamiliar building does not mean I already know how to get out of the building (see Snowdon 2003 for more examples). To reduce gongfu to “knowing how” is itself an intellectualist bias that we need to overcome. Saying this does not mean that I deny the fact that in many cases the only thing that prevents us from being able to do a certain thing is the lack of knowledge about how to do it. But to acquire the true ability to do them cannot be equated to knowing how. Neither do I mean that I see no connection of the two. In fact one misunderstanding of gongfu is to conceive it merely as having motor skills or physical abilities. Just like “knowing how” cannot be reduced to having motor abilities, neither can gongfu be attributed to physical abilities only, without any intellectual awareness. My point is rather that the intricate relationship between knowing how to do X and being able to do X cannot be sorted out without making a distinction between them first. Actually, by introducing the notion of gongfu, we may enhance our epistemology, since it opens up other neglected elements of our knowledge. There might be another element of knowledge, knowing in the sense of “making real.”14 It is also quite reasonable to think about the possibility that some knowledge may simply be not available for those who are not cultivated! In this sense “how to know” becomes a condition for “knowing” itself!
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I’m not sure if I buy the distinction or not, but it’s interesting.
On the knowing that we know front, I can say that I know that this sun will rise tomorrow, since it’s a true, justified belief of mine, but not that I know that I know, since I don’t know for true that my justified belief is true. On the other hand, I could be said to know-2 that 2 + 2 = 4, because I can prove that this is true by the definitions of 2, +, =, and 4 with only a handful of axioms that I’m taking as givens (the existence of 1, that every number has a successor, and transitive identity in addition).
Of course, showing that math is more certain than science is nothing new, but it’s interesting to show that the reason why is because we have meta-knowledge instead of just single knowledge.
Posted by Carl
Comment by Carl Johnson — October 27, 2006 @ 2:16 am
I disagree with his conception of what know-that and know-how are.
1) “I may know the skills to play erhu (a Chinese musical instrument), but because I lost a few fingers in an accident I am unable to do it.”
Well, yes, but know-how is an entirely different matter than be physically capable at any given moment to do something. If fact, it can be argued that if he had never had the fingers which he lost then he never would have knew-how to play in the first place.
2) “The fact that I am able to go out of an unfamiliar building does not mean I already know how to get out of the building.”
This know-how which he speaks of is actually know-that, namely one did not know-that they had to turn left at the end of the hall, etc. Then the knowing-how to walk, wander, remember and search took care of the rest.
Posted by Jeff G
Comment by jeff g — October 27, 2006 @ 8:50 am