Reza Hadisi is Assistant Professor of Practice at the University of Arizona. He is interested in questions about the relationship between theoretical and practical knowledge, the nature of practical reason, and moral epistemology. Often, he steals his ideas from dead philosophers (especially Kant and medieval Islamic philosophers).
A post by Reza Hadisi
[Most of the ideas here are presented in Hadisi (2021)]
Practical knowledge
Practical knowledge is a peculiar concept. On the one hand, I find philosophical attempts to articulate it to be almost always incomprehensible. On the other hand, when I think about the relevant ordinary cases, I’m convinced that it demarcates a special form of knowledge that is distinct from theoretical knowledge. Let me explain.
First, Anscombe famously complains that “modern philosophers” (a broad brush?) have “blankly misunderstood” what “ancient and medieval philosophers” (speaking of broad brushes!) meant by practical knowledge (Anscombe 1958, sec. 32). But it’s notoriously difficult to get a grip on her positive proposal:
Practical knowledge is 'the cause of what it understands', unlike 'speculative' knowledge, which 'is derived from the object known'. (Anscombe 1958, sec. 48)
On this influential account then, practical knowledge is a way of knowing where the known fact is somehow caused by the state of knowing that fact. But many have worried that this notion is “causally perverse” and “epistemically mysterious” (Velleman 2007, 103; c.f. Schwenkler 2015). I can know that there is ice-cream in the fridge only if that’s the case; but my knowledge of that fact does not miraculously bring about an ice-cream into the world. How can knowing p make it the case that p?
Now, I am among those who are convinced that Anscombe is on the right tracks here. And this is not (only) because of a nostalgia for medieval scholasticism. Although practical knowledge seems to resist philosophical clarification, I think it gestures towards an idea that is rather intuitive.
So, second, consider the following case:
Oatmeal: You see me pouring some ingredients in a bowl. You think “He is making bread.” But then you see me adding a little water and putting the bowl in the microwave. You think “Ah, he is making oatmeal.”
Let’s assume that this is a description of an intentional action. Contrast your knowledge of the action (i.e., the known fact) and my knowledge of it. Your knowledge is based on observation. Your knowledge is not causally efficacious with respect to what is known – you could be looking at me through a glass window. But my knowledge of what is happening is not observational (at least in the same way) – I do not observe my own hand movements, and infer that “Ah, I am making oatmeal!” Yet I seem to have knowledge: I know what means I am adopting for which end. If you were to ask me “Why are you pouring the ingredients in the bowl?”, I would know the answer: in order to make oatmeal (Anscombe 1958, sec. 46; Ford 2015). Thus, there seems to be a difference in kind between my knowledge of my action, and your knowledge of it. You know what I am doing theoretically in that your knowledge must be guided and determined by what happens in the world. Your knowledge reflects its immediate object, but does not change it. However, I have practical knowledge in that my knowing somehow causes and determines its immediate object. Though, notably, my knowledge reflects what is the case, too, but only because it makes it so that the world corresponds to what it represents.
How can we characterize the mental attitude that constitutes practical knowledge in such a way that we do justice to both its cognitive (i.e., knowledge-ish) character and its practical character (i.e., its causal efficacy with respect to what is known)?
To many, it has looked as if we can account for the cognitive character of practical knowledge only if we can show that it is constituted by some sort of belief (Setiya 2003; Velleman 2007; Marušić and Schwenkler 2018). But belief is not the only type of cognitive attitude at our disposal. Imagining and perceiving fit the bill as well. Arguably, we can make sense of perceptually knowing p and imaginatively knowing p as sui generis ways of knowing. To be sure, at least often, when I imagine or perceive p, and know p, I could also form the belief that p. But I think requiring that a belief needs to be added to these other ways of knowing is an “unnecessary shuffle.” I thus defend the view that practical knowing just is a kind of imagining.
Imagining as Practical Knowing
There are features of practical knowing (e.g., its object being a particular, having a voluntary character, etc.) that certain forms of imagining also have, but beliefs (or other plausible candidates) lack. Here, I want to focus on one of these features: namely how imagination can be practical and cognitive at the same time.
Suppose I draw a tree on a paper. To simplify, say that I do this by first imagining the tree that I want to draw, and then getting to the drawing. Suppose that the drawing corresponds to the image I had in mind. Of course, this could be a lucky accident – I randomly move my hand, and luckily get a tree that corresponds to what I had imagined. But if the drawing was the result of my skillful activity, then we can say that the drawing on the paper is caused by my imagined representation. Here then, we have a representation that corresponds to something in the world, it does so non-accidentally and because of what I imagined. Arguably, in this case, my imagination amounts to knowledge in that it gives me a non-accidentally accurate representation of the world. Furthermore, my imagination is practical in that it causes what happens in the world. Already then, we have an example of imagination as a cognitive attitude that is also practical.
But as I suggest in Hadisi (2021), the account of production here is too simplistic: it is not as if a painter starts with an image in her head, and then her arms move on their own. Relatedly, imagining does not exclusively take place “in the head.” To be sure, a painter may have a mental image in her head before she puts anything on the canvas. But it is odd to treat the actual activity of painting as a mere byproduct of the painter’s imagination. One may imagine via mental images. But in producing an actual painting, a painter imagines also via her hands, the paint on the canvas, etc. Although many episodes of imagining are purely mental, the medium for some kinds of imagining essentially involves extramental activities of the imaginer. I call these extramental imagining.
Now, notably, extramental imagining is an action and a representation at the same time. When I pantomime making oatmeal, I both create a representation of making oatmeal and engage in an action in the world. As a result, I think, extramental imagining is uniquely suited to make sense of practical knowledge. Below, I offer what I think is the closest thing I have to an argument for this claim.
Extramental imagining is itself an action in the world. When I pantomime or draw, I imagine something by doing something in the world. But how can I veridically and extramentally imagine that I am pouring the ingredients in the bowl to make some oatmeal? I cannot do it by pantomiming. Because when I am pantomiming, it is not the case that I am making oatmeal – rather, I am pantomiming! I can veridically and extramentally imagine that I am pouring the ingredients in the bowl to make some oatmeal only by pouring the ingredients in the bowl to make some oatmeal. That sounds trivial, but it has some interesting results.
First, every case of veridically and extramentally imagining of what I am doing is a case where what I represent causes what I do. That is because what I represent is an action, and what I do is so representing. Second, in all these cases, my representation (i.e., the extramental activity) corresponds to what is being represented (the action), and it does so non-accidentally. In that sense then, veridical extramental imaginations of what I am doing are always both practical, and amount to knowledge.
***
That outlines another account of practical knowledge that needs much more clarification (sigh!). I came to this view after reading Ibn ‘Arabi’s (1165–1240) account of God’s knowledge of creation. Roughly, he holds that God knows and causes the created world, because God extramentally imagines it. But both Ibn ‘Arabi’s original case, and my examples, seem to be cases of action as production or creation. So, one may worry that even if we could make sense of my view, it will not extend to action in general, but will only be an account of productive action (i.e., where something other than the activity itself is the end of the action).
I’m not sure if the account can extend to a theory of action in general. But even if not, it would still be valuable if it could be developed to give us a clearer account of practical knowledge in cases of action as production/creation.
References:
Anscombe, G. E. M. 1958. Intention. 2nd ed. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Ford, Anton. 2015. “The Arithmetic of Intention.” American Philosophical Quarterly 52 (2): 129–43.
Hadisi, Reza. 2021. “Creative Imagining as Practical Knowing: An Akbariyya Account.” Res Philosophica 98 (s): 181–204.
Marušić, Berislav, and John Schwenkler. 2018. “Intending Is Believing: A Defense of Strong Cognitivism.” Analytic Philosophy 59 (3): 309–40.
Schwenkler, John. 2015. “Understanding ‘Practical Knowledge.’” Philosopher’s Imprint 15 (15).
Setiya, Kieran. 2003. “Explaining Action.” Philosophical Review 112 (3): 339–93.
Velleman, J. David. 2007. Practical Reflection. Stanford, Calif.: Center for the Study of Language and Information.