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In this experiment, we will manipulate the agent's knowledge of the means to perform the action. We will use the vignette from Experiment 3 for the no-knowledge condition, and we will use a slightly modified vignette for the knowledge condition. For know-how and intentionality, we expect to replicate the know-how effect and the Kraemer effect in the no-knowledge condition, and we expect a reduction or elimination of the Kraemer effect and know-how effect in the knowledge condition. This is the same experiment as Supplemental Experiment 3—only we ran a simulation-based power analysis to determine the appropriate sample size.

In this experiment, we will manipulate the agent's knowledge of the means to perform the action. We will use the vignette from Experiment 3 for the no-knowledge condition, and we will use a slightly modified vignette for the knowledge condition. For know-how and intentionality, we expect to replicate the know-how effect and the Kraemer effect in the no-knowledge condition, and we expect a reduction or elimination of the Kraemer effect and know-how effect in the knowledge condition.

Orthodoxy has it that knowledge is bifurcated between di erent kinds of states and in particular that there are species of knowledge that cannot be reduced to knowledge of truths. Moreover, it is commonly alleged that knowledge of truths alone falls short of explaining a distinctive kind of human capacity: the human capacity for skillful actions. This dissertation challenges both these orthodoxies. In the fi rst chapter, "Know how and Gradability," I defend the unity of knowledge against the single most powerful and thus far unanswered argument against it, what I call "The argument from gradability." According to this argument from gradability, due to Gilbert Ryle (1949) in The Concept of Mind, know how and propositional knowledge cannot be the same state, because the first comes in degrees, whereas the latter is absolute. In this chapter, I argue that the Rylean argument from gradability to dualism fails, as it moves too quickly from the surface form of ascriptions of know how to conclusions about the state that is ascribed by means of those ascriptions. According to Intellectualism about know how, knowing how to do something is a matter of possessing a piece of propositional knowledge. Intellectualists about know how routinely appeal to practical modes of presentation in characterizing the relevant kind of propositional knowledge. But we are never told much about the nature of these modes of presentation. In Chapter II, I propose a positive view of practical modes of presentation. In the fi nal chapter "Skills as knowledge," I argue that propositional knowledge explains the human capacity for skillful and intelligent actions. In the fi rst part of the chapter, by elaborating on the picture of content developed in Chapter II, I argue that having a skill to for a task is a matter of knowing a particular kind of answer to the question "How to F" . In the second part of the chapter, I propose a direct argument for thinking of skills as propositional knowledge states.

According to virtue epistemology, one should primarily understand knowledge in terms of the relationship between cognitive success and cognitive agency. There are various ways of understanding this thesis. Along one axis, there is the debate about whether we should focus on the agent’s reliable cognitive skills in general, or whether we should instead treat knowledge as primarily concerned with the manifestation of more elevated epistemic standings, such as intellectual virtues. Along another axis, there is the debate about whether we should understand knowledge as being exclusively defined in terms of the subject’s cognitive skills (where this category includes the intellectual virtues), or whether there need to be supplementary conditions in one’s theory of knowledge to deal with the problem posed by knowledge-undermining epistemic luck. This chapter will explore these topics, and in the process offer an overview of the contemporary debate regarding issues at the nexus of knowledge, skill and virtue epistemology.

Humans are uncontroversially better than other species at learning from their peers. A key example of this is imitation, the ability to reproduce both the means and ends of others’ behaviours. Imitation is critical to the acquisition of a number of uniquely human cultural and cognitive traits. However, while authors largely agree on the importance of imitation, they disagree about the origins of imitation in humans. Some argue that imitation is an adaptation, connected to the ‘Mirror Neuron System’ that evolved to facilitate action understanding and the learning of social behaviours. Others argue that imitation is a cultural practice learned in childhood, and that there is no evidence that it evolved genetically. We offer a third alternative that is consistent with both data that the human brain is optimised for imitation, and consistent with its being substantially learned. We hypothesise that at some point in human history humans underwent natural selection for two imitation-relevant abilities – specifically, (i) the tendency to be more attentive to our peers, and (ii) fine motor skill in the manual and oro-facial domains. These changes enabled us to excel at both learning to imitate, and learning by imitating.