Know-How, Philosophical Perspectives

Knowledge-How versus Knowledge-That—Ryle's Distinction

To a first approximation, the distinction we inherit from Ryle is between what might be termed intellectual knowledge-that, which is propositional in nature, and practical knowledge-how, which may be understood in terms of having abilities to do certain things. Consider a project to learn all about bicycles. There is a lot of knowledge-that to be gained about bicycles: One can learn that bicycles have two wheels, that they balance along their longest axis, that one must pedal while remaining balanced to keep the bicycle upright, and so on. (The phrases after each that in the previous sentence express facts or propositions—hence, knowledge-that is propositional knowledge, knowledge of propositions.) But still, it is fairly obvious to most that even someone who has learned all the propositions there are to know about bicycles will not thereby be gifted with the ability to ride a bicycle. We might expect such a cycling know-it-all to fall flat on his face when attempting his first unaided ride. What the know-it-all lacks, the story goes, is know-how: He does not know how to ride a bicycle. Alternatively, we might say that having learned academically all about bicycles, this learner has yet to acquire the practical ability to ride bicycles. Further, whereas time in the classroom arguably suffices for acquiring all the knowledge-that about bicycles that our student has come to possess, we know that acquiring, in addition, the knowledge how to ride a bicycle will require some first-hand experience—some practice in bike riding on the student's part.

Ryle's Critique of Descartes

Ryle introduced the previously described distinction in his important book The Concept of Mind, as part of his campaign against the then (Ryle is writing at the start of the 1950s) orthodoxy of a Cartesian conception of mind and mentality. René Descartes had proposed his dualism: the idea that the mind is a nonphysical object separate from, though connected to, the physical body and, consequently, not observable or measurable using conventional scientific methods. Ryle strongly objected to the notion that mental processes go on in secret: hidden and unobservable as a matter of principle. He posed the following dilemma for what he labeled Descartes’ “intellectualist legend,” the doctrine that all intelligent bodily action (as opposed to mere reflex) is preceded by rational thought—the consideration of a relevant proposition—that effectively plans the next move for the body. Ryle observes that planning a [Page 448]bodily movement, considering propositions, is itself an operation, an action of sorts. Now if the act of proposition-consideration itself were unintelligent, it would be hard to see how it could confer intelligence on the bodily movement that it preceded. So clearly, the act of considering the relevant proposition prior to originating an intelligent bodily action had itself better be intelligent. But what is it to be an intelligent act according to Ryle's Cartesian intellectualist legend? It is to be preceded by a mental operation of considering a relevant proposition. In which case the mental planning procedure that originated the bodily action in this case itself needs to be preceded by a mental act of planning, an act which, in turn, must be intelligent and thus preceded by a further contemplative act, and so on. The dilemma that arises for the Cartesian, then, is this: Either an intelligent action can never get started, for it must always be preceded by a further mental act of planning, or some actions are intelligent without being preceded by mental operations, operations Ryle considers appallingly occult on Descartes’ conception of mind and its processes. This reasoning led Ryle to posit a distinct, nonintellectual, practical genre of knowledge, that is, knowledge-how, knowledge, in some sense, of the body.

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