知识行动论

Knowledge Actionism

本文将知识分为三种类型:思辨知识、技能知识和实践知识。道德知识则被理解为一种特殊的实践知识,即好的实践知识。在此基础上,本文提出知识行动论的主张,即以行动理解知识。根据知识行动论,技能知识是成功的行动,实践知识是如其所知的意向行动,而思辨知识则是成功的认知性心智行动。

The paper proposes knowledge actionism,according to which knowing is doing well.The paper elucidates and argues for the position by considering three different kinds of knowledge,namely speculative knowledge,skillful knowledge,and practical knowledge.The distinctive feature of speculative knowledge is that it is cognitive rather than practical.Speculative knowledge is concerned with the way the world is rather than the way the world is to be.In contrast,skillful knowledge is bodily practical ability,namely the ability or skill to perform a bodily action successfully.Practical knowledge,as Anscombe has it,is knowledge of one’s intentional bodily action.Unlike speculative knowledge which is derived from what it understands,practical knowledge is practical in that it causes what it understands.And unlike skillful knowledge,practical knowledge decides rather than accomplishes an action.Practical knowledge can be good or bad.Good practical knowledge is moral knowledge.The paper argues for knowledge actionism by starting with skillful knowledge.Skillful knowledge actionism maintains that skillful knowledge is successful bodily action.To possess skillful knowledge is to act successfully,not to possess something which enables one to act successfully.Thus understood,skillful knowledge is not a disposition,but an occurrent action.Skillful knowledge is itself a successful bodily action,not something behind it.Skill is knowledge in that it is successful bodily action assured by selfregulation rather than caused by a stroke of luck.This is the idea of skillful knowledge actionism.Practical knowledge is knowledge of one’s intentional action,which,according to Anscombe,is the conclusion of practical reasoning.With the understanding that practical knowledge is the conclusion of practical reasoning,it seems natural to say that practical knowledge is the intentional action it understands.This is the idea of practical knowledge actionism.To possess practical knowledge is to do what one reasonably and correctly judges one is doing.This which implies that practical knowledge is the formal rather than material cause of intentional action.There is then a plausible way to explain in what sense practical knowledge is non-observational.Speculative knowledge actionism maintains that speculative knowledge is successful cognitive action in that it is successful belief,that is,correctly justified true belief.Speculative knowledge actionism is thus based on belief actionism,according to which belief is cognitive action.More precisely,believing is an action of taking something to be something.Believing is acting in that it aims at truth and is voluntary in the sense of being subject to critical thinking.Accordingly,speculative knowing is successful action in that it is taking something to be something correctly and for good reasons.Speculative knowing as cognitive achievement is not the result of believing well but is itself the action of believing well.Skillful knowledge is successful bodily action,practical knowledge is the intentional action it understands,while speculative knowledge is successful cognitive action.In summary,knowledge is successful action.