No abstract

Orthodoxy has it that knowledge is absolute—that is, it cannot come in degrees (absolutism about propositional knowledge). On the other hand, there seems to be strong evidence for the gradability of know-how. Ascriptions of know-how are gradable, as when we say that one knows in part how to do something, or that one knows how to do something better than somebody else. When coupled with absolutism, the gradability of ascriptions of know-how can be used to mount a powerful argument against intellectualism about know-how—the view that know-how is a species of propositional knowledge. This essay defends intellectualism from the argument of gradability. It is argued that the gradability of ascriptions of know-how should be discounted as a rather superficial linguistic phenomenon, one that can be explained in a way compatible with the absoluteness of the state reported.

Since the publication of Gettier (1963), many accounts of knowledge have been proposed, but few have withstood the test of time. Of the various proposals, two have emerged from the fray in relatively good shape, although not entirely unscathed. One of these is a modal account. While there are different ways of developing a modal account, the most common proposal in the contemporary literature explains knowledge in terms of safety. More precisely: Safety: S's belief amounts to knowledge if and only if it could not have easily been false i.e., if and only if in all relevantly close worlds where S forms a sufficiently similar belief, S's belief is true. 2,3

No abstract