The Writing Center • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

What this handout is about

This handout will define what an argument is and explain why you need one in most of your academic essays.

Arguments are everywhere

You may be surprised to hear that the word “argument” does not have to be written anywhere in your assignment for it to be an important part of your task. In fact, making an argument—expressing a point of view on a subject and supporting it with evidence—is often the aim of academic writing. Your instructors may assume that you know this and thus may not explain the importance of arguments in class.

Most material you learn in college is or has been debated by someone, somewhere, at some time. Even when the material you read or hear is presented as a simple fact, it may actually be one person’s interpretation of a set of information. Instructors may call on you to examine that interpretation and defend it, refute it, or offer some new view of your own. In writing assignments, you will almost always need to do more than just summarize information that you have gathered or regurgitate facts that have been discussed in class. You will need to develop a point of view on or interpretation of that material and provide evidence for your position.

Consider an example. For nearly 2000 years, educated people in many Western cultures believed that bloodletting—deliberately causing a sick person to lose blood—was the most effective treatment for a variety of illnesses. The claim that bloodletting is beneficial to human health was not widely questioned until the 1800s, and some physicians continued to recommend bloodletting as late as the 1920s. Medical practices have now changed because some people began to doubt the effectiveness of bloodletting; these people argued against it and provided convincing evidence. Human knowledge grows out of such differences of opinion, and scholars like your instructors spend their lives engaged in debate over what claims may be counted as accurate in their fields. In their courses, they want you to engage in similar kinds of critical thinking and debate.

Argumentation is not just what your instructors do. We all use argumentation on a daily basis, and you probably already have some skill at crafting an argument. The more you improve your skills in this area, the better you will be at thinking critically, reasoning, making choices, and weighing evidence.

Making a claim

What is an argument? In academic writing, an argument is usually a main idea, often called a “claim” or “thesis statement,” backed up with evidence that supports the idea. In the majority of college papers, you will need to make some sort of claim and use evidence to support it, and your ability to do this well will separate your papers from those of students who see assignments as mere accumulations of fact and detail. In other words, gone are the happy days of being given a “topic” about which you can write anything. It is time to stake out a position and prove why it is a good position for a thinking person to hold. See our handout on thesis statements .

Claims can be as simple as “Protons are positively charged and electrons are negatively charged,” with evidence such as, “In this experiment, protons and electrons acted in such and such a way.” Claims can also be as complex as “Genre is the most important element to the contract of expectations between filmmaker and audience,” using reasoning and evidence such as, “defying genre expectations can create a complete apocalypse of story form and content, leaving us stranded in a sort of genre-less abyss.” In either case, the rest of your paper will detail the reasoning and evidence that have led you to believe that your position is best.

When beginning to write a paper, ask yourself, “What is my point?” For example, the point of this handout is to help you become a better writer, and we are arguing that an important step in the process of writing effective arguments is understanding the concept of argumentation. If your papers do not have a main point, they cannot be arguing for anything. Asking yourself what your point is can help you avoid a mere “information dump.” Consider this: your instructors probably know a lot more than you do about your subject matter. Why, then, would you want to provide them with material they already know? Instructors are usually looking for two things:

  • Proof that you understand the material
  • A demonstration of your ability to use or apply the material in ways that go beyond what you have read or heard.

This second part can be done in many ways: you can critique the material, apply it to something else, or even just explain it in a different way. In order to succeed at this second step, though, you must have a particular point to argue.

Arguments in academic writing are usually complex and take time to develop. Your argument will need to be more than a simple or obvious statement such as “Frank Lloyd Wright was a great architect.” Such a statement might capture your initial impressions of Wright as you have studied him in class; however, you need to look deeper and express specifically what caused that “greatness.” Your instructor will probably expect something more complicated, such as “Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture combines elements of European modernism, Asian aesthetic form, and locally found materials to create a unique new style,” or “There are many strong similarities between Wright’s building designs and those of his mother, which suggests that he may have borrowed some of her ideas.” To develop your argument, you would then define your terms and prove your claim with evidence from Wright’s drawings and buildings and those of the other architects you mentioned.

Do not stop with having a point. You have to back up your point with evidence. The strength of your evidence, and your use of it, can make or break your argument. See our handout on evidence . You already have the natural inclination for this type of thinking, if not in an academic setting. Think about how you talked your parents into letting you borrow the family car. Did you present them with lots of instances of your past trustworthiness? Did you make them feel guilty because your friends’ parents all let them drive? Did you whine until they just wanted you to shut up? Did you look up statistics on teen driving and use them to show how you didn’t fit the dangerous-driver profile? These are all types of argumentation, and they exist in academia in similar forms.

Every field has slightly different requirements for acceptable evidence, so familiarize yourself with some arguments from within that field instead of just applying whatever evidence you like best. Pay attention to your textbooks and your instructor’s lectures. What types of argument and evidence are they using? The type of evidence that sways an English instructor may not work to convince a sociology instructor. Find out what counts as proof that something is true in that field. Is it statistics, a logical development of points, something from the object being discussed (art work, text, culture, or atom), the way something works, or some combination of more than one of these things?

Be consistent with your evidence. Unlike negotiating for the use of your parents’ car, a college paper is not the place for an all-out blitz of every type of argument. You can often use more than one type of evidence within a paper, but make sure that within each section you are providing the reader with evidence appropriate to each claim. So, if you start a paragraph or section with a statement like “Putting the student seating area closer to the basketball court will raise player performance,” do not follow with your evidence on how much more money the university could raise by letting more students go to games for free. Information about how fan support raises player morale, which then results in better play, would be a better follow-up. Your next section could offer clear reasons why undergraduates have as much or more right to attend an undergraduate event as wealthy alumni—but this information would not go in the same section as the fan support stuff. You cannot convince a confused person, so keep things tidy and ordered.

Counterargument

One way to strengthen your argument and show that you have a deep understanding of the issue you are discussing is to anticipate and address counterarguments or objections. By considering what someone who disagrees with your position might have to say about your argument, you show that you have thought things through, and you dispose of some of the reasons your audience might have for not accepting your argument. Recall our discussion of student seating in the Dean Dome. To make the most effective argument possible, you should consider not only what students would say about seating but also what alumni who have paid a lot to get good seats might say.

You can generate counterarguments by asking yourself how someone who disagrees with you might respond to each of the points you’ve made or your position as a whole. If you can’t immediately imagine another position, here are some strategies to try:

  • Do some research. It may seem to you that no one could possibly disagree with the position you are arguing, but someone probably has. For example, some people argue that a hotdog is a sandwich. If you are making an argument concerning, for example, the characteristics of an exceptional sandwich, you might want to see what some of these people have to say.
  • Talk with a friend or with your teacher. Another person may be able to imagine counterarguments that haven’t occurred to you.
  • Consider your conclusion or claim and the premises of your argument and imagine someone who denies each of them. For example, if you argued, “Cats make the best pets. This is because they are clean and independent,” you might imagine someone saying, “Cats do not make the best pets. They are dirty and needy.”

Once you have thought up some counterarguments, consider how you will respond to them—will you concede that your opponent has a point but explain why your audience should nonetheless accept your argument? Will you reject the counterargument and explain why it is mistaken? Either way, you will want to leave your reader with a sense that your argument is stronger than opposing arguments.

When you are summarizing opposing arguments, be charitable. Present each argument fairly and objectively, rather than trying to make it look foolish. You want to show that you have considered the many sides of the issue. If you simply attack or caricature your opponent (also referred to as presenting a “straw man”), you suggest that your argument is only capable of defeating an extremely weak adversary, which may undermine your argument rather than enhance it.

It is usually better to consider one or two serious counterarguments in some depth, rather than to give a long but superficial list of many different counterarguments and replies.

Be sure that your reply is consistent with your original argument. If considering a counterargument changes your position, you will need to go back and revise your original argument accordingly.

Audience is a very important consideration in argument. Take a look at our handout on audience . A lifetime of dealing with your family members has helped you figure out which arguments work best to persuade each of them. Maybe whining works with one parent, but the other will only accept cold, hard statistics. Your kid brother may listen only to the sound of money in his palm. It’s usually wise to think of your audience in an academic setting as someone who is perfectly smart but who doesn’t necessarily agree with you. You are not just expressing your opinion in an argument (“It’s true because I said so”), and in most cases your audience will know something about the subject at hand—so you will need sturdy proof. At the same time, do not think of your audience as capable of reading your mind. You have to come out and state both your claim and your evidence clearly. Do not assume that because the instructor knows the material, he or she understands what part of it you are using, what you think about it, and why you have taken the position you’ve chosen.

Critical reading

Critical reading is a big part of understanding argument. Although some of the material you read will be very persuasive, do not fall under the spell of the printed word as authority. Very few of your instructors think of the texts they assign as the last word on the subject. Remember that the author of every text has an agenda, something that he or she wants you to believe. This is OK—everything is written from someone’s perspective—but it’s a good thing to be aware of. For more information on objectivity and bias and on reading sources carefully, read our handouts on evaluating print sources and reading to write .

Take notes either in the margins of your source (if you are using a photocopy or your own book) or on a separate sheet as you read. Put away that highlighter! Simply highlighting a text is good for memorizing the main ideas in that text—it does not encourage critical reading. Part of your goal as a reader should be to put the author’s ideas in your own words. Then you can stop thinking of these ideas as facts and start thinking of them as arguments.

When you read, ask yourself questions like “What is the author trying to prove?” and “What is the author assuming I will agree with?” Do you agree with the author? Does the author adequately defend her argument? What kind of proof does she use? Is there something she leaves out that you would put in? Does putting it in hurt her argument? As you get used to reading critically, you will start to see the sometimes hidden agendas of other writers, and you can use this skill to improve your own ability to craft effective arguments.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Anson, Chris M., and Robert A. Schwegler. 2010. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers , 6th ed. New York: Longman.

Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams, Joseph Bizup, and William T. FitzGerald. 2016. The Craft of Research , 4th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ede, Lisa. 2004. Work in Progress: A Guide to Academic Writing and Revising , 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Gage, John T. 2005. The Shape of Reason: Argumentative Writing in College , 4th ed. New York: Longman.

Lunsford, Andrea A., and John J. Ruszkiewicz. 2016. Everything’s an Argument , 7th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Rosen, Leonard J., and Laurence Behrens. 2003. The Allyn & Bacon Handbook , 5th ed. New York: Longman.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Make a Gift

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

  • Knowledge Base
  • How to write an argumentative essay | Examples & tips

How to Write an Argumentative Essay | Examples & Tips

Published on July 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

An argumentative essay expresses an extended argument for a particular thesis statement . The author takes a clearly defined stance on their subject and builds up an evidence-based case for it.

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes

upload-your-document-ai-proofreader

Table of contents

When do you write an argumentative essay, approaches to argumentative essays, introducing your argument, the body: developing your argument, concluding your argument, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about argumentative essays.

You might be assigned an argumentative essay as a writing exercise in high school or in a composition class. The prompt will often ask you to argue for one of two positions, and may include terms like “argue” or “argument.” It will frequently take the form of a question.

The prompt may also be more open-ended in terms of the possible arguments you could make.

Argumentative writing at college level

At university, the vast majority of essays or papers you write will involve some form of argumentation. For example, both rhetorical analysis and literary analysis essays involve making arguments about texts.

In this context, you won’t necessarily be told to write an argumentative essay—but making an evidence-based argument is an essential goal of most academic writing, and this should be your default approach unless you’re told otherwise.

Examples of argumentative essay prompts

At a university level, all the prompts below imply an argumentative essay as the appropriate response.

Your research should lead you to develop a specific position on the topic. The essay then argues for that position and aims to convince the reader by presenting your evidence, evaluation and analysis.

  • Don’t just list all the effects you can think of.
  • Do develop a focused argument about the overall effect and why it matters, backed up by evidence from sources.
  • Don’t just provide a selection of data on the measures’ effectiveness.
  • Do build up your own argument about which kinds of measures have been most or least effective, and why.
  • Don’t just analyze a random selection of doppelgänger characters.
  • Do form an argument about specific texts, comparing and contrasting how they express their thematic concerns through doppelgänger characters.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

An argumentative essay should be objective in its approach; your arguments should rely on logic and evidence, not on exaggeration or appeals to emotion.

There are many possible approaches to argumentative essays, but there are two common models that can help you start outlining your arguments: The Toulmin model and the Rogerian model.

Toulmin arguments

The Toulmin model consists of four steps, which may be repeated as many times as necessary for the argument:

  • Make a claim
  • Provide the grounds (evidence) for the claim
  • Explain the warrant (how the grounds support the claim)
  • Discuss possible rebuttals to the claim, identifying the limits of the argument and showing that you have considered alternative perspectives

The Toulmin model is a common approach in academic essays. You don’t have to use these specific terms (grounds, warrants, rebuttals), but establishing a clear connection between your claims and the evidence supporting them is crucial in an argumentative essay.

Say you’re making an argument about the effectiveness of workplace anti-discrimination measures. You might:

  • Claim that unconscious bias training does not have the desired results, and resources would be better spent on other approaches
  • Cite data to support your claim
  • Explain how the data indicates that the method is ineffective
  • Anticipate objections to your claim based on other data, indicating whether these objections are valid, and if not, why not.

Rogerian arguments

The Rogerian model also consists of four steps you might repeat throughout your essay:

  • Discuss what the opposing position gets right and why people might hold this position
  • Highlight the problems with this position
  • Present your own position , showing how it addresses these problems
  • Suggest a possible compromise —what elements of your position would proponents of the opposing position benefit from adopting?

This model builds up a clear picture of both sides of an argument and seeks a compromise. It is particularly useful when people tend to disagree strongly on the issue discussed, allowing you to approach opposing arguments in good faith.

Say you want to argue that the internet has had a positive impact on education. You might:

  • Acknowledge that students rely too much on websites like Wikipedia
  • Argue that teachers view Wikipedia as more unreliable than it really is
  • Suggest that Wikipedia’s system of citations can actually teach students about referencing
  • Suggest critical engagement with Wikipedia as a possible assignment for teachers who are skeptical of its usefulness.

You don’t necessarily have to pick one of these models—you may even use elements of both in different parts of your essay—but it’s worth considering them if you struggle to structure your arguments.

Regardless of which approach you take, your essay should always be structured using an introduction , a body , and a conclusion .

Like other academic essays, an argumentative essay begins with an introduction . The introduction serves to capture the reader’s interest, provide background information, present your thesis statement , and (in longer essays) to summarize the structure of the body.

Hover over different parts of the example below to see how a typical introduction works.

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts is on the rise, and its role in learning is hotly debated. For many teachers who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its critical benefits for students and educators—as a uniquely comprehensive and accessible information source; a means of exposure to and engagement with different perspectives; and a highly flexible learning environment.

The body of an argumentative essay is where you develop your arguments in detail. Here you’ll present evidence, analysis, and reasoning to convince the reader that your thesis statement is true.

In the standard five-paragraph format for short essays, the body takes up three of your five paragraphs. In longer essays, it will be more paragraphs, and might be divided into sections with headings.

Each paragraph covers its own topic, introduced with a topic sentence . Each of these topics must contribute to your overall argument; don’t include irrelevant information.

This example paragraph takes a Rogerian approach: It first acknowledges the merits of the opposing position and then highlights problems with that position.

Hover over different parts of the example to see how a body paragraph is constructed.

A common frustration for teachers is students’ use of Wikipedia as a source in their writing. Its prevalence among students is not exaggerated; a survey found that the vast majority of the students surveyed used Wikipedia (Head & Eisenberg, 2010). An article in The Guardian stresses a common objection to its use: “a reliance on Wikipedia can discourage students from engaging with genuine academic writing” (Coomer, 2013). Teachers are clearly not mistaken in viewing Wikipedia usage as ubiquitous among their students; but the claim that it discourages engagement with academic sources requires further investigation. This point is treated as self-evident by many teachers, but Wikipedia itself explicitly encourages students to look into other sources. Its articles often provide references to academic publications and include warning notes where citations are missing; the site’s own guidelines for research make clear that it should be used as a starting point, emphasizing that users should always “read the references and check whether they really do support what the article says” (“Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia,” 2020). Indeed, for many students, Wikipedia is their first encounter with the concepts of citation and referencing. The use of Wikipedia therefore has a positive side that merits deeper consideration than it often receives.

Here's why students love Scribbr's proofreading services

Discover proofreading & editing

An argumentative essay ends with a conclusion that summarizes and reflects on the arguments made in the body.

No new arguments or evidence appear here, but in longer essays you may discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your argument and suggest topics for future research. In all conclusions, you should stress the relevance and importance of your argument.

Hover over the following example to see the typical elements of a conclusion.

The internet has had a major positive impact on the world of education; occasional pitfalls aside, its value is evident in numerous applications. The future of teaching lies in the possibilities the internet opens up for communication, research, and interactivity. As the popularity of distance learning shows, students value the flexibility and accessibility offered by digital education, and educators should fully embrace these advantages. The internet’s dangers, real and imaginary, have been documented exhaustively by skeptics, but the internet is here to stay; it is time to focus seriously on its potential for good.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

  • Ad hominem fallacy
  • Post hoc fallacy
  • Appeal to authority fallacy
  • False cause fallacy
  • Sunk cost fallacy

College essays

  • Choosing Essay Topic
  • Write a College Essay
  • Write a Diversity Essay
  • College Essay Format & Structure
  • Comparing and Contrasting in an Essay

 (AI) Tools

  • Grammar Checker
  • Paraphrasing Tool
  • Text Summarizer
  • AI Detector
  • Plagiarism Checker
  • Citation Generator

An argumentative essay tends to be a longer essay involving independent research, and aims to make an original argument about a topic. Its thesis statement makes a contentious claim that must be supported in an objective, evidence-based way.

An expository essay also aims to be objective, but it doesn’t have to make an original argument. Rather, it aims to explain something (e.g., a process or idea) in a clear, concise way. Expository essays are often shorter assignments and rely less on research.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

The majority of the essays written at university are some sort of argumentative essay . Unless otherwise specified, you can assume that the goal of any essay you’re asked to write is argumentative: To convince the reader of your position using evidence and reasoning.

In composition classes you might be given assignments that specifically test your ability to write an argumentative essay. Look out for prompts including instructions like “argue,” “assess,” or “discuss” to see if this is the goal.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Caulfield, J. (2023, July 23). How to Write an Argumentative Essay | Examples & Tips. Scribbr. Retrieved February 22, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/argumentative-essay/

Is this article helpful?

Jack Caulfield

Jack Caulfield

Other students also liked, how to write a thesis statement | 4 steps & examples, how to write topic sentences | 4 steps, examples & purpose, how to write an expository essay, what is your plagiarism score.

Library homepage

  • school Campus Bookshelves
  • menu_book Bookshelves
  • perm_media Learning Objects
  • login Login
  • how_to_reg Request Instructor Account
  • hub Instructor Commons
  • Download Page (PDF)
  • Download Full Book (PDF)
  • Periodic Table
  • Physics Constants
  • Scientific Calculator
  • Reference & Cite
  • Tools expand_more
  • Readability

selected template will load here

This action is not available.

Humanities LibreTexts

6.1: What is Argument?

  • Last updated
  • Save as PDF
  • Page ID 107778

All people, including you, make arguments on a regular basis. When you make a claim and then support the claim with reasons, you are making an argument. Consider the following:

The two main models of argument desired in college courses as part of the training for academic or professional life are rhetorical argument and academic argument . If rhetoric is the study of the craft of writing and speaking, particularly writing or speaking designed to convince and persuade, the student studying rhetorical argument focuses on how to create an argument that convinces and persuades effectively. To that end, the student must understand how to think broadly about argument, the particular vocabulary of argument, and the logic of argument. The close sibling of rhetorical argument is academic argument, argument used to discuss and evaluate ideas, usually within a professional field of study, and to convince others of those ideas. In academic argument , interpretation and research play the central roles.

However, it would be incorrect to say that academic argument and rhetorical argument do not overlap. Indeed, they do, and often. A psychologist not only wishes to prove an important idea with research, but she will also wish to do so in the most effective way possible. A politician will want to make the most persuasive case for his side, but he should also be mindful of data that may support his points. Thus, throughout this chapter, when you see the term argument , it refers to a broad category including both rhetorical and academic argument .

Before moving to the specific parts and vocabulary of argument, it will be helpful to consider some further ideas about what argument is and what it is not.

Argument vs. Controversy or Fight

Consumers of written texts are often tempted to divide writing into two categories: argumentative and non-argumentative. According to this view, to be argumentative, writing must have the following qualities: It has to defend a position in a debate between two or more opposing sides, it must be on a controversial topic, and the goal of such writing must be to prove the correctness of one point of view over another.

A related definition of argument implies a confrontation, a clash of opinions and personalities, or just a plain verbal fight. It implies a winner and a loser, a right side and a wrong one. Because of this understanding of the word “argument,” many students think the only type of argument writing is the debate-like position paper, in which the author defends his or her point of view against other, usually opposing, points of view.

These two characteristics of argument—as controversial and as a fight—limit the definition because arguments come in different disguises, from hidden to subtle to commanding. It is useful to look at the term “argument” in a new way. What if we think of argument as an opportunity for conversation, for sharing with others our point of view on an issue, for showing others our perspective of the world? What if we think of argument as an opportunity to connect with the points of view of others rather than defeating those points of view?

One community that values argument as a type of communication and exchange is the community of scholars. They advance their arguments to share research and new ways of thinking about topics. Biologists, for example, do not gather data and write up analyses of the results because they wish to fight with other biologists, even if they disagree with the ideas of other biologists. They wish to share their discoveries and get feedback on their ideas. When historians put forth an argument, they do so often while building on the arguments of other historians who came before them. Literature scholars publish their interpretations of different works of literature to enhance understanding and share new views, not necessarily to have one interpretation replace all others. There may be debates within any field of study, but those debates can be healthy and constructive if they mean even more scholars come together to explore the ideas involved in those debates. Thus, be prepared for your college professors to have a much broader view of argument than a mere fight over a controversial topic or two.

Argument vs. Opinion

Argument is often confused with opinion. Indeed, arguments and opinions sound alike. Someone with an opinion asserts a claim that he thinks is true. Someone with an argument asserts a claim that she thinks is true. Although arguments and opinions do sound the same, there are key distinctions between them.

  • Arguments have rules; opinions do not . In other words, to form an argument, you must consider whether the argument is reasonable. Is it worth making? Is it valid? Is it sound? Do all of its parts fit together logically? Opinions, on the other hand, have no rules, and anyone asserting an opinion need not think it through for it to count as one; however, it will not count as an argument.
  • Arguments have support; opinions do not . If you make a claim and then stop, as if the claim itself were enough to demonstrate its truthfulness, you have asserted an opinion only. An argument must be supported, and the support of an argument has its own rules. The support must also be reasonable, relevant, and sufficient.

Opinion vs Argument

Argument vs. Thesis

Another point of confusion is the difference between an argument and an essay’s thesis . For college essays, there is no essential difference between an argument and a thesis; most professors use these terms interchangeably. An argument is a claim that you must then support. The main claim of an essay is the point of the essay and provides the purpose for the essay. Thus, the main claim of an essay is also the thesis. 

Consider this as well: Most formal essays center upon one main claim (the thesis) but then support that main claim with supporting evidence and arguments. The topic sentence of a body paragraph can be another type of argument, though a supporting one, and, hence, a narrower one. Try not to be confused when professors call both the thesis and topic sentences arguments. They are not wrong because arguments come in different forms; some claims are broad enough to be broken down into a number of supporting arguments. Many longer essays are structured by the smaller arguments that are a part of and support the main argument. Sometimes professors, when they say supporting points or supporting arguments, mean the reasons ( premises ) for the main claim ( conclusion ) you make in an essay. If a claim has a number of reasons, those reasons will form the support structure for the essay, and each reason will be the basis for the topic sentence of its body paragraph.

Argument vs. Fact

Arguments are also commonly mistaken for statements of fact. This comes about because often people privilege facts over opinions, even as they defend the right to have opinions. In other words, facts are “good,” and opinions are “bad,” or if not exactly bad, then fuzzy and thus easy to reject. However, remember the important distinction between an argument and an opinion stated above: While argument may sound like an opinion, the two are not the same. An opinion is an assertion, but it is left to stand alone with little to no reasoning or support. An argument is much stronger because it includes and demonstrates reasons and support for its claim.

As for mistaking a fact for an argument, keep this important distinction in mind: An argument must be arguable . In everyday life, arguable is often a synonym for doubtful. For an argument, though, arguable means that it is worth arguing, that it has a range of possible answers, angles, or perspectives: It is an answer, angle, or perspective with which a reasonable person might disagree. Facts, by virtue of being facts, are not arguable. Facts are statements that can be definitely proven using objective data. The statement that is a fact is absolutely valid. In other words, the statement can be pronounced as definitively true or definitively false. For example, 2 + 2 = 4. This expression identifies a verifiably true statement, or a fact, because it can be proved with objective data. When a fact is established, there is no other side, and there should be no disagreement.

The misunderstanding about facts (being inherently good) and argument (being inherently problematic because it is not a fact) leads to the mistaken belief that facts have no place in an argument. This could not be farther from the truth. First of all, most arguments are formed by analyzing facts. Second, facts provide one type of support for an argument. Thus, do not think of facts and arguments as enemies; rather, they work closely together.

Explicit vs. Implicit Arguments

Arguments can be both explicit and implicit. Explicit arguments contain prominent and definable thesis statements and multiple specific proofs to support them. This is common in academic writing from scholars of all fields. Implicit arguments , on the other hand, work by weaving together facts and narratives, logic and emotion, personal experiences and statistics. Unlike explicit arguments, implicit ones do not have a one-sentence thesis statement. Implicit arguments involve evidence of many different kinds to build and convey their point of view to their audience. Both types use rhetoric, logic, and support to create effective arguments.

Exercise \(\PageIndex{1}\)

Go on a hunt for an implicit argument in the essay, “ 37 Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police ” ( https://tinyurl.com/yc35o25x ) by Martin Gansberg.

  • Read the article, and take notes on it–either using a notebook or by annotating a printed copy of the text itself. Mark or write down all the important details you find.
  • After you are finished reading, look over your notes or annotations. What do all the details add up to? Use the details you have read about to figure out what Gansberg’s implicit argument is in his essay. Write it in your own words.
  • Discuss your results with a partner or a group. Did you come up with the same argument? Have everyone explain the reasoning for his or her results.

Contributors and Attributions

Adapted from  Let's Get Writing (Browning, DeVries, Boylan, Kurtz and Burton) . Sourced from  LibreTexts , licensed under  CC BY-NC-SA

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Argumentative Essays

OWL logo

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

The Modes of Discourse—Exposition, Description, Narration, Argumentation (EDNA)—are common paper assignments you may encounter in your writing classes. Although these genres have been criticized by some composition scholars, the Purdue OWL recognizes the wide spread use of these approaches and students’ need to understand and produce them.

What is an argumentative essay?

The argumentative essay is a genre of writing that requires the student to investigate a topic; collect, generate, and evaluate evidence; and establish a position on the topic in a concise manner.

Please note : Some confusion may occur between the argumentative essay and the expository essay. These two genres are similar, but the argumentative essay differs from the expository essay in the amount of pre-writing (invention) and research involved. The argumentative essay is commonly assigned as a capstone or final project in first year writing or advanced composition courses and involves lengthy, detailed research. Expository essays involve less research and are shorter in length. Expository essays are often used for in-class writing exercises or tests, such as the GED or GRE.

Argumentative essay assignments generally call for extensive research of literature or previously published material. Argumentative assignments may also require empirical research where the student collects data through interviews, surveys, observations, or experiments. Detailed research allows the student to learn about the topic and to understand different points of view regarding the topic so that she/he may choose a position and support it with the evidence collected during research. Regardless of the amount or type of research involved, argumentative essays must establish a clear thesis and follow sound reasoning.

The structure of the argumentative essay is held together by the following.

  • A clear, concise, and defined thesis statement that occurs in the first paragraph of the essay.

In the first paragraph of an argument essay, students should set the context by reviewing the topic in a general way. Next the author should explain why the topic is important ( exigence ) or why readers should care about the issue. Lastly, students should present the thesis statement. It is essential that this thesis statement be appropriately narrowed to follow the guidelines set forth in the assignment. If the student does not master this portion of the essay, it will be quite difficult to compose an effective or persuasive essay.

  • Clear and logical transitions between the introduction, body, and conclusion.

Transitions are the mortar that holds the foundation of the essay together. Without logical progression of thought, the reader is unable to follow the essay’s argument, and the structure will collapse. Transitions should wrap up the idea from the previous section and introduce the idea that is to follow in the next section.

  • Body paragraphs that include evidential support.

Each paragraph should be limited to the discussion of one general idea. This will allow for clarity and direction throughout the essay. In addition, such conciseness creates an ease of readability for one’s audience. It is important to note that each paragraph in the body of the essay must have some logical connection to the thesis statement in the opening paragraph. Some paragraphs will directly support the thesis statement with evidence collected during research. It is also important to explain how and why the evidence supports the thesis ( warrant ).

However, argumentative essays should also consider and explain differing points of view regarding the topic. Depending on the length of the assignment, students should dedicate one or two paragraphs of an argumentative essay to discussing conflicting opinions on the topic. Rather than explaining how these differing opinions are wrong outright, students should note how opinions that do not align with their thesis might not be well informed or how they might be out of date.

  • Evidential support (whether factual, logical, statistical, or anecdotal).

The argumentative essay requires well-researched, accurate, detailed, and current information to support the thesis statement and consider other points of view. Some factual, logical, statistical, or anecdotal evidence should support the thesis. However, students must consider multiple points of view when collecting evidence. As noted in the paragraph above, a successful and well-rounded argumentative essay will also discuss opinions not aligning with the thesis. It is unethical to exclude evidence that may not support the thesis. It is not the student’s job to point out how other positions are wrong outright, but rather to explain how other positions may not be well informed or up to date on the topic.

  • A conclusion that does not simply restate the thesis, but readdresses it in light of the evidence provided.

It is at this point of the essay that students may begin to struggle. This is the portion of the essay that will leave the most immediate impression on the mind of the reader. Therefore, it must be effective and logical. Do not introduce any new information into the conclusion; rather, synthesize the information presented in the body of the essay. Restate why the topic is important, review the main points, and review your thesis. You may also want to include a short discussion of more research that should be completed in light of your work.

A complete argument

Perhaps it is helpful to think of an essay in terms of a conversation or debate with a classmate. If I were to discuss the cause of World War II and its current effect on those who lived through the tumultuous time, there would be a beginning, middle, and end to the conversation. In fact, if I were to end the argument in the middle of my second point, questions would arise concerning the current effects on those who lived through the conflict. Therefore, the argumentative essay must be complete, and logically so, leaving no doubt as to its intent or argument.

The five-paragraph essay

A common method for writing an argumentative essay is the five-paragraph approach. This is, however, by no means the only formula for writing such essays. If it sounds straightforward, that is because it is; in fact, the method consists of (a) an introductory paragraph (b) three evidentiary body paragraphs that may include discussion of opposing views and (c) a conclusion.

Longer argumentative essays

Complex issues and detailed research call for complex and detailed essays. Argumentative essays discussing a number of research sources or empirical research will most certainly be longer than five paragraphs. Authors may have to discuss the context surrounding the topic, sources of information and their credibility, as well as a number of different opinions on the issue before concluding the essay. Many of these factors will be determined by the assignment.

  • More from M-W
  • To save this word, you'll need to log in. Log In

argumentative

Definition of argumentative

  • contentious
  • controversial
  • disputatious
  • polemic
  • quarrelsome

Examples of argumentative in a Sentence

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'argumentative.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Articles Related to argumentative

argumentative

9 Words with Unnecessary Syllables

'Argumentative', 'interpretate', and more

Dictionary Entries Near argumentative

argumentation

argumentator

Cite this Entry

“Argumentative.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/argumentative. Accessed 22 Feb. 2024.

Kids Definition

Kids definition of argumentative, more from merriam-webster on argumentative.

Nglish: Translation of argumentative for Spanish Speakers

Britannica English: Translation of argumentative for Arabic Speakers

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries.  Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.

Can you solve 4 words at once?

Word of the day.

See Definitions and Examples »

Get Word of the Day daily email!

Popular in Grammar & Usage

8 grammar terms you used to know, but forgot, homophones, homographs, and homonyms, commonly misspelled words, a guide to em dashes, en dashes, and hyphens, absent letters that are heard anyway, popular in wordplay, 10 scrabble words without any vowels, 12 more bird names that sound like insults (and sometimes are), 9 superb owl words, 'gaslighting,' 'woke,' 'democracy,' and other top lookups, 10 words for lesser-known games and sports, games & quizzes.

Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.

Writing Hood

  • Freelancing
  • Trending Stories

Writing Hood

Argumentative writing is made easy with this easy guide to the fundamentals of a good piece – from the what to the how.

Writing is difficult to define and even harder to write about. It is both the journey and destination at once. It is never a singular act conceived in isolation. The acts of writing, reading, and contemplation are all inextricably linked. Do we have to think in order to write? Writing allows us to give form to our ideas.

On the other hand, reading is essential to writing because most texts rely on previously acquired knowledge. The more one reads, the more one learns about the structure of various texts, one’s vocabulary grows, and one’s command of idioms grows. Reading expands your vocabulary, which in turn improves your ability to express yourself in writing. Composing something on paper requires a combination of mental and physical abilities.

There is no need to explain the distinction between writing with a keyboard and writing with a pen and paper; everyone is aware of the differences. It is precisely this focus on the differences wherein the branch of writing known as argumentative writing sprouts. It is the explication of differences, often balanced upon a thesis or premise which supports one difference over the other, and reaching a destination through rhetoric where the reader is convinced.

Simply put, argumentative writing is a kind of essay written in support of one view against another in order to sway the opinion of the reader.

Table of Contents

What is Argumentative Writing?

What is argumentative writing is a question with no simple answer. To begin with, the basics, let us talk about what an argumentative essay is.

An argumentative essay is a piece of writing that requires you to investigate a topic; collect, generate, and evaluate evidence; and establish a position on the given topic in a manner that is clear and succinct. This particular type of essay is frequently found on a variety of different types of competitive exams. The purpose of writing an argumentative essay is to persuade the reader to take your point of view on the topic that you have been assigned.

An argumentative essay, as the name suggests, is made up of arguments that are supported by facts, statistics, expert opinions, and other forms of evidence in order to justify your stance on the topic. You can also draw support for your points of view from specific examples drawn from your own personal experiences.

Some keywords that are important while understanding the structure of argumentative writing are

  • Argumentation: the act or process of forming reasons, drawing conclusions, and applying them to a case in discussion.
  • Pro Argument (PRO): point or statement that supports one’s ideas.
  • Counter Argument (CON): point or statement in opposition to the argument being made in a written document or speech .
  • Refutation: the process of disproving an opposing argument.
  • Opponent: a person who disagrees with something and speaks against it.
  • Proponent: someone who argues in favor of something; advocate.

Features of argumentative writing

1.    dialectical nature.

What is argumentative writing without a solid argument at its heart? You must be mindful to mention the opposing viewpoints throughout your argument because they are different points of view on the subject that need to be evaluated as well. The reader gets the impression that you could be unsure, afraid, or unaware of opposing ideas if you avoid talking about beliefs that are in opposition to your own.

You should ideally address contrasting points of view earlier in your article rather than later. Theoretically, arranging your primary arguments later in the piece enables you to refute those viewpoints mentioned in the beginning. By doing this, you make sure that your reader considers your argument rather than someone else’s. You have the last say.

Gaining the audience’s trust by acknowledging viewpoints that are different from your own also helps you to sound more credible. They immediately recognize your awareness of competing viewpoints and your willingness to offer them your full attention.

2.    Balanced bias

Having a bias in any kind of writing is natural. The way you have categorized your experiences in your own mind as “good” and others as “bad,” cause this bias, and it is a great reason why you agree with some ideas and disagree with others. The ability to manage prejudice in writing and daily life however is what requires real effort.

Explicating your bias will enable you to express your own opinions while also defending them against contrasting ones. The goal of argumentative writing is to make your reader aware of the prejudice, but do not let this bias prevent you from recognizing the essential elements of a strong argument: solid, well-considered evidence and a fair discussion of opposing viewpoints. The prejudice should not be portrayed as an opinion, emptying the essay of its strong rational essence.

3.    The presence of the I

It is again imperative to keep in mind that your argument should still be reasonable and rationally charged. One way of doing that is not using first-person narrative or toning it down to the occasional presence. Remember, utilizing the first-person pronoun excessively gives your argument a reflective touch. You must realize that an argumentative piece is entirely different from a persuasive essay or an essay that expresses an opinion. This will be discussed in detail in the next section.

The objective is frequently to present arguments for the targeted readers to think about. You specifically make arguments based on information from news stories, well-respected research studies, books, and other credible academic sources.

Argumentative writing vs. persuasive writing

Although argumentative and persuasive writing are often confused with one another, and initially seem to be the same mode of writing, they differ in ways that drastically change the approach to writing.

The goal of an argumentative essay is more formal. To write effective and impactful argumentative essays, one needs to put in thorough research. We have already acknowledged that it is natural for writers to feel biased, but that bias in argumentative writing is substantiated with hard facts. The writer emphasizes using evidence to support their claims.

Therefore, whether or not the reader is persuaded to accept the author’s argument, the goal of an argumentative essay is to support a certain claim with evidence.

A persuasive essay, on the other hand, begins with an opinion; the writer of the essay in question holds a certain idea or belief and seeks to persuade the reader to share it. The goal is to influence the reader rather than necessarily provide indisputable facts. Because of this, persuasive writing is more likely to rely on emotive arguments and other informal forms of argumentation.

The goal of any argumentative essay should be to educate the reader on both the author’s position and the various opposing positions. An argumentative essay takes on a contentious topic head-on, laying out a variety of viewpoints and evidence to prove that the author’s stance is the most compelling.

In contrast, the final product of a persuasive essay isn’t quite as solid, as it presents the author’s stance as singularly the most important or even the only way of looking at the subject. The acknowledgment of an opposing claim is often absent. It can be thought of as more reflective than research-based. At the end of a well-written persuasive essay, the reader should have reached the same conclusion as the writer.

Types of argumentative writing

The classical model.

Because it follows a very straightforward train of thinking, this is the most popular technique for expressing your argument. Also known as Aristotelian, you offer the major argument, state your position, and try your utmost to persuade the reader that your perspective is correct. Because it concisely and clearly summarises all of the facts, this sort of argument works best when your audience lacks statistics and information or has a strong belief about the given topic.

The Toulmin model

This is the most popular technique because it is highly supported by facts that are tough to reject. You begin with an introduction, followed by a thesis/claim, grounds to support that claim, and finally data and evidence to justify and support that claim. This essay’s writing style also includes refutations or rebuttals of made arguments. However, this form of argument typically gives only one side of the problem, with the facts presented in such a way that the claim is difficult to refute.

The Rogerian Model

The third model examines both sides of an argument and concludes after assessing each side’s strengths and flaws. The writer introduces the problem, acknowledges the opposing side of the argument, expresses his/her point of view, and explains why his/her argument is the most advantageous to you, the reader. When writing on a polarising topic, use this method since it acknowledges the benefits and cons of both sides and presents a medium ground.

What is a thesis statement?

A thesis statement is the primary contention that will be argued in an argumentative piece. It clearly identifies the issue under consideration, covers the points made in the paper, and is designed for a specific audience. Your thesis should ideally be placed toward the end of your first paragraph. Use it to pique your audience’s interest in your topic and persuade them to keep reading. Your readers want to read work that grabs them by the shoulder. Naturally, then, you must make thesis statements that are debatable rather than factual.

The main reason why a thesis statement should not be factual is due to the objective of the writing, which is to make an argument. If something is a fact, it has already been established through sustained and irrefutable argumentation. These theses prohibit you from exhibiting critical thinking and analytical skills to your instructor. If you were to create a paper based on the next two claims, your writing would most likely be dull because you would be restating information that the general public is already aware of.

To make your work more fascinating, you should create an arguable thesis statement. Sometimes you’ll write to persuade others to view things your way, and other times you’ll just give your strong opinion and lay out your case for it. However, you can use a fact and try to deny it, which is a thesis that requires sufficient substantiation.

A good thesis statement will ideally have three claims, which will go on to become the topic sentence or sub-arguments for the main body.

Some examples of good theses are:

  • Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are the best types of sandwiches because they are versatile, easy to make, and taste good.
  • The rise in populism on the 2016 political stage was in reaction to increasing globalization, the decline of manufacturing jobs, and the Syrian refugee crisis.
  • A vegan diet, while a healthy and ethical way to consume food, indicates a position of privilege. It also limits you to other cultural food experiences if you travel around the world.

How to write a good argumentative essay: a step-by-step guide

There are many elements to a good argumentative piece. These can vary from linguistic to logical and technical. In order to write a great essay, it is important to follow the steps that ensure it. These include brainstorming, introduction-body-conclusion division, multiple types of evidence, proofreading, and editing.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a method for coming up with creative solutions to problems in a free-flowing, open-ended fashion. If you are unsure about what should go into your essay, you should write it down on paper without caring too much about its logic. It’s a method of organizing all of your thoughts and determining what you already know about the subject. You will frequently discover that you know more than you think.

Brainstorming is a skill that you will not only use as a student. When you first start working, it’s a good way for coworkers to come up with new ways to solve company problems. Most of the time at university, you must learn to brainstorm successfully on your own. You will also need to do this at work as part of a team. Brainstorming is typically of three types, or rather there are three strategies that each for some and not for others: brain dump, outline, and word web.

A “Brain Dump” is exactly what the name implies. Allow yourself a few minutes after reading your assignment to absorb it. Then, set a five-minute timer and grab a pencil and paper. Start your timer and continue to write until it goes off. Even if you have thoughts that are unrelated to your paper, write them down.

The goal of this exercise is to keep you from overthinking things. After your timer goes off, take stock of your resources. Examine what has been written and cross out anything that isn’t relevant to your topic, then look at what remains. Do you have any ideas for body paragraph topics? How about the beginning of a topic sentence or thesis? You can repeat this process as many times as you like until you feel you have enough information to begin developing and outlining.

Outlining is a way of structurally bulleting or writing down in points the basic argument that you want to make. You’ve probably seen an outline before, have been given one by a professor, or even completed one for another paper. Whatever those outlines looked like, keep in mind that each one is unique and there is no right or wrong way to do one. However, if your professor has requested a specific format for your outline, make sure you follow their instructions.

This strategy is a great resource if you find that seeing the connections between things helps you relate to them better. them. Begin by writing a word in the inner circle that is either your topic or related to it. From there, try to think of things that relate to what you want to focus on (words, images, current events, etc). If one of your pertinent points makes you think of new ideas, you can add new bubbles and continue to explore the concept. After you’ve felt that you have exhausted your topic, look for similarities or differences in the ideas that you have written down, and find something interesting. Connections you made or unexpected ideas you had that you could discuss in your paper. You can use this exercise to examine your paper’s sub-claims or counter-arguments as well as to narrow down your thesis.

Once you have brainstormed a basic idea and drawn a rough map of what your essay is going to look like, you should try to give it all a coherent structure. This is commonly called the first draft and the process is known as drafting. Draft your essay in rough form. Particularly with argumentative essays that frequently cite outside sources, it is preferable to provide any facts and direct quotes as early as possible.

Once the first draft is ready and the points are coherently woven into a single account or narrative, the refinement stage begins. Improve your word choice, polish your rough draft, and, if necessary, reorganize your arguments. Verify that your language is clear and acceptable for the reader, and make sure that you have covered all of your bases in terms of points and refutations. You are now ready to start working on the essay.

Structuring the essay

The structure of an argumentative essay is essential because the success of one’s argument hinges on how well one conveys it. What is more, argumentative essays have a somewhat more complex structure than the other kinds of essays because the writer must additionally address opposing viewpoints. This raises further questions, such as when to provide substantial evidence and whose argument to address first. The most fundamental argumentative essay format is the straightforward five-paragraph framework that works best for short essays.

Paragraph 1: Introduction

Everything begins here – you introduce the subject of your essay and provide a coherent summary of the arguments that you’ll make in the paragraphs that follow. You should also state your thesis at the end of this paragraph. Because it expresses the argument you’re trying to make, your thesis is the most crucial section of your essay. It must adopt a strong position and refrain from using qualifiers like “seems to” or “maybe could” that undercut that position.

Consider your thesis statement as a summary of your essay for a simple method to write one. Your thesis summarises and backs up the main idea of your essay. Make sure your argument is communicated concisely in your introduction paragraph when you are finished editing your essay. If it’s not clear, go back and write a definitive thesis statement.

Paragraphs 2-4: Main Body

The body paragraphs of your essay are where you support your thesis statement with facts and evidence. Each body paragraph should discuss one supporting argument for your thesis by bringing up relevant data, content, or events.

Refer back to your thesis statement if you’re unsure whether to include a specific point or detail in your body paragraphs. If the detail is relevant to your thesis, it should be included in your essay. If it doesn’t, remove it. Because your thesis statement is the foundation of your basic essay structure, everything else in the essay should be related to it in some way.

Each of the three paragraphs should have a topic statement to relate to the thesis, which will be the claim linking the evidence to your thetical premise. These topic sentences can be thought of as sub-theses or sub-claims, that support your bigger claim, the thesis.

Each topic sentence should further be supported with multiple types of evidence, ideally two per topic sentence. This gives your main body structure and polishes your argument to seem coherent and effective.

Paragraph 5: Conclusion

In the concluding paragraph of your essay, you summarise the points you have made and bring your argument to a logical conclusion. Because your reader is now familiar with your thesis, your conclusion paragraph’s summary can be more direct and conclusive than the one in your introduction paragraph. It is important to remember that your conclusion should be wholly reiterative of your argument and should not make new claims or add new evidence not discussed in the main body or even the introduction.

A good way of thinking about your conclusion is in terms of rounding it up, by bringing it back to the very start.

Proofreading and editing

Once you have written your essay in its entirety, it is then time to proofread it for spelling, grammatical, or technical errors. At this point, it is advisable to take some distance from your essay as the writer and look at it from the neutral vantage point of a reader or evaluator. Edit your argument where it seems flawed or weak, iron out any contradictions, and make sure that the flow, upon final reading, is continuous.

Types of evidence

What makes a good piece of argumentative writing great is the type of evidence included. There are weak types of evidence like a personal anecdote or explanations of a fact or event, and strong types that include facts, studies, and statistics. These are some of them:

Facts are among the most effective tools for involving the reader in the argument. Because facts are unarguable, using them automatically wins the writer’s mutual agreement. The reader must accept the statement, “On January 28, 1986, the shuttle Challenger exploded upon lift-off,” because it is historical fact. Facts are primarily used to persuade the reader to agree with the writer’s point of view. For example, if a writer wanted to argue that smoking is bad for your health, he or she would start by citing statistics about the large number of people who die each year from smoking-related diseases. The reader would then be forced to agree with the writer on at least one point.

Facts, on the other hand, cannot carry the entire argument. It is also necessary for the writer to use Judgments. After carefully considering the facts, the writer makes these assumptions about his or her subject. For example, a writer could begin by presenting specific facts about scientists’ knowledge of the Challenger’s condition prior to takeoff. Based on these facts, the author concludes that the disaster could have been avoided if a few scientists had been willing to speak out about some troubling discoveries. This is a decision made by the author. There is nothing in history books or newspapers that supports this assumption. The overall success or failure of the argument is determined by whether or not the writer carries it over to the other side.

Testimony is the final type of evidence used in writing a convincing argument. There are two types of testimony: 1) an eyewitness account and 2) the opinion of an expert who has had the opportunity to examine and interpret the facts. Both of these add weight to an argument. The eyewitness can provide crucial facts for the writer to use, and the expert can provide valuable judgments to bolster the argument. In the case of the Space Shuttle Challenger, for example, the writer could rely on the testimony of one of the personnel who was present at NASA meetings prior to the launch. The author could also use an astrophysicist’s opinion on whether or not evidence of the crash existed prior to takeoff.

Statistics are used to back up claims with numbers. While statistics can be very useful in supporting broad claims, it is important to remember that no statistic is perfect. You could, for example, include statistics on how many children die each year because their parents failed to buckle them into a car seat. If you are writing an argumentative essay about the importance of car seats for children under the age of five, including a statistic about the number of deaths each year caused by children who are not buckled in.

Statistical evidence can also be used to dispel myths. If you’re writing an argumentative essay about the importance of getting enough sleep, you might want to include statistics about how many accidents are caused by drowsy drivers. You can also use statistics to demonstrate how frequently people make mistakes when they don’t get enough rest, which will help you make your point.

Anecdotes are stories or examples of personal experiences. They are frequently used to illustrate a general claim made in the essay in the form of a “lesson learned.” For example, if you were writing about the benefits of reading for pleasure on a regular basis, you could include an anecdote about how regular readers can pick up on literary devices used by the author, which will help them in high school English class.

Anecdotal evidence can also be used to refute a common misconception. If you are writing an essay on the benefits of exercise, you should include anecdotal evidence from people who have improved their health through regular exercise to counter the myth that exercise is bad for your health.

In conclusion, argumentative writing is a complex form of writing that requires the right balance between critical thinking and subjective values. There also needs to be the right amount of evidence to sway the reader or at least convince them to start thinking about your primary claim. A good piece of argumentative writing makes sufficient use of logic, emotional appeal, and ethical placement of the reader in the context of your argument.

' src=

You Might Also Like

what is informative writing

A Detailed Guide On What Is Informative Writing – Everything Important You Must Know

What is Grant Writing

A Complete Guide to What is Grant Writing?

argumentative knowledge definition

How To Write An Argumentative Essay?

No comments, leave a reply cancel reply.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

SEP home page

  • Table of Contents
  • Random Entry
  • Chronological
  • Editorial Information
  • About the SEP
  • Editorial Board
  • How to Cite the SEP
  • Special Characters
  • Advanced Tools
  • Support the SEP
  • PDFs for SEP Friends
  • Make a Donation
  • SEPIA for Libraries
  • Entry Contents

Bibliography

Academic tools.

  • Friends PDF Preview
  • Author and Citation Info
  • Back to Top

Knowledge How

In introductory classes to epistemology, we are taught to distinguish between three different kinds of knowledge. The first kind is acquaintance knowledge : we know our mothers, our friends, our pets, etc., by being acquainted with them. The second kind is knowledge of facts, propositional knowledge, or knowledge-that : this is the sort of knowledge we acquire when we learn that, say, Ithaca is in New York State or that Turin is located in Italy. It is customary to add to the list a third kind of knowledge that is supposed to be distinct both from acquaintance knowledge and from propositional knowledge. One possesses this knowledge when one can be truly described as knowing how to do something: play the piano, make a pie, walk, speak, create, build, and so on.

The distinction between knowledge-how and knowledge-that was brought to scrutiny in analytic philosophy by Ryle in his seminal The Concept of Mind (1949), where he raised some of the now classical objections to the so-called “intellectualist legend”: the view that knowledge-how amounts to knowledge-that. Ryle instead advocated an “anti-intellectualist” view of knowledge-how according to which knowledge-how and knowledge-that are distinct kinds of knowledge, and manifestations of knowledge-how are not necessarily manifestations of knowledge-that. This anti-intellectualism has been the received view among philosophers for a long time. Even psychologists and neuroscientists have explicitly appealed to Ryle’s classical distinction when discussing their empirical findings (e.g., Cohen & Squire 1980; Anderson 1983). Nevertheless, in the last twenty years, a renewed interest by epistemologists in the nature of knowledge-how has brought new life to the debate, where new versions of intellectualism and anti-intellectualism have been developed and argued for. The debate is partly epistemological: is knowledge-how an altogether distinct kind of knowledge, different from knowledge-that? But it is also about a psychological question: what kind of psychological state is knowledge-how? The goal of this entry is to overview the debate between intellectualists and anti-intellectualists, while highlighting the implications of this debate for related questions concerning intelligence, cognition, language, and skills.

This entry starts by looking at some classical arguments against intellectualism about knowledge-how: the regress argument (section 1), the insufficiency argument (section 2), and the gradability argument (section 3). Then two motivating arguments for intellectualism are considered: the linguistic argument (section 4) and the action theory argument (section 5). Section 6 overviews the recent epistemological debate on whether knowledge-how and propositional knowledge have the same epistemic profile. Section 7 discusses the cognitive science argument against intellectualism. Section 8 surveys what forms anti-intellectualism about knowledge-how has taken in the recent literature. Section 9 looks at the relation between knowledge-how and skills. Section 10 discusses knowledge-how and other related topics.

1.1 The Contemplation Argument

1.2 the employment regress, 1.3 a revival of the regress argument, 1.4 lewis carroll’s regress, 2. the sufficiency argument, 3. the gradability argument, 4.1 the details of the intellectualist proposal, 4.2 first group of objections, 4.3 second group of objections, 4.4 third group of objections, 5. the action theory argument and the question of joint action, 6.1 knowledge-how and belief, 6.2 knowledge-how and gettier, 6.3 knowledge how, defeasibility, and testimony, 7.1 the argument, 7.2 improving the argument, 7.3 articulability, 7.4 knowledge-how in preverbal children and nonhuman animals, 8.1 revisionary intellectualism, 8.2 ability based anti-intellectualism.

  • 8.3 Knowledge-How and Skill

9.1 Skill Across Cultures

9.2 intellectualism and anti-intellectualism about skill, 9.3 skills in epistemology, 9.4 the nature of skilled action, 10. knowledge-how and other related topics, other internet resources, related entries, 1. the regress argument.

Ryle’s most famous objection to intellectualist accounts of skills and knowledge-how is that they lead to a vicious regress:

The consideration of propositions is itself an operation the execution of which can be more or less intelligent, less or more stupid. But if, for any operation to be intelligently executed, a prior theoretical operation had first to be performed and performed intelligently, it would be a logical impossibility for anyone ever to break into the circle. (1949: 19)

Ryle concludes:

“Intelligent” cannot be defined in terms of “intellectual” or “knowing how” in terms of “knowing that”, (1949: 20)

on pain of a vicious regress (see also Ryle 1946: 22). Exactly how to reconstruct Ryle’s argument is a matter of controversy (Stanley & Williamson 2001; Stanley 2011b; Bengson & Moffett 2011a; Cath 2013; Fantl 2011; Kremer 2020). The next sections discuss different possible ways of understanding the regress challenge and possible responses on behalf of intellectualism.

The contemplation argument assumes for reductio that for any action to be intelligently executed, a prior theoretical operation of “contemplating” has to be performed first :

Contemplation premise (CP): In order to employ one’s knowledge that p , one must contemplate the proposition p .

Assume in addition the following definition of intellectualism:

Strong intellectualism (SI) : For an action Φ, knowing how to Φ consists in knowing some proposition p .

And assume further that in performing an action Φ, one employs one’s knowledge-how to Φ:

Action premise (AP) : For an action Φ, if one Φs, then one employs one’s knowledge-how to Φ.

With these premises the regress goes as follows. Suppose that one performs an action Φ:

  • By AP, one employs one’s knowledge-how to Φ.
  • By SI, one employs the knowledge that p , for some p .
  • So, by CP, one contemplates p .
  • But contemplating p is an action.
  • So by AP, if one contemplates p, one employs one’s knowledge-how to contemplate p .
  • By CP, one ought to contemplate another proposition q , for some q .

The contemplation argument aims at showing the falsity of SI, by showing that its truth, together with the truth of AP and CP, triggers an infinite regress. If SI were true, then performing any action would require contemplating an infinite number of propositions of ever-increasing complexity. On the assumption that this cannot be done in a finite amount of time, the argument goes, accepting SI would lead to the clearly absurd conclusion that no agent could ever perform an action within a finite time (see Fantl 2011: 122).

The question is whether AP and CP are plausible premises. Following Ginet (1975), Stanley & Williamson (2001) argue that AP is plausible only if the relevant Φ is an intentional action. To use one of Ryle’s (1949: 33) own examples, if a clumsy person inadvertently tumbles, it does not follow that in doing so, they employ their knowledge-how to tumble. By contrast, the clown employs their knowledge-how when they tumble on purpose. Nevertheless, if we restrict AP to intentional actions, then the regress can be stopped by observing that contemplating a proposition might happen non-intentionally. For example, when I employ my knowledge that there is a red light ahead by applying the brakes, I need not intentionally contemplate the proposition that there is a red light ahead. Correspondingly, if contemplating a proposition can be done non-intentionally, such contemplation is not the kind of action that requires us to know how to perform it—therefore, it does not trigger the restricted AP and the regress is blocked altogether. Some object that the contemplation in this example might be intentional but unconscious (as suggested by Noë 2005: 282). But it is unclear what reasons there are for thinking that every time one employs one’s knowledge, one intentionally contemplates the relevant proposition (Cath 2013: 365–366).

The Contemplation Argument also assumes CP—i.e., that in order to employ propositional knowledge when acting, one ought to contemplate the relevant proposition. Against CP, Ginet (1975: 7) observes that one might manifest one’s knowledge that one can get the door open by turning the knob and pushing it (as well as my knowledge that there is a door there) by performing that operation quite automatically as one leaves the room; and one may do this without formulating (in one’s mind or out loud) that proposition or any other relevant proposition. Ginet concludes that Ryle’s original argument does not teach us that intellectualism about knowledge-how is false but only that knowledge can be acted upon and manifested without requiring any contemplation on the part of the agent. Indeed, some scholars think that this last weaker claim was the only goal of Ryle’s original argument (Rosefeldt 2004; Sax 2010).

However, CP is not needed in order to trigger a regress. Perhaps the argument can be salvaged by replacing contemplation with a weaker relation. Consider replacing CP with EP:

The Employment Premise (EP): If one employs knowledge that p , one employs knowledge-how to employ one’s knowledge that p (and one’s state of knowledge that p is distinct from one’s state of knowing how to employ one’s knowledge that p ). (Cath 2013: 367–8)

The regress is triggered as before. Suppose one Φs:

  • By SI, that amounts to employing one’s knowledge that p , for some p .
  • By EP, one needs to employ one’s knowledge-how to employ one’s knowledge that p .
  • But employing one’s knowledge-how is an action.
  • By AP, one employs one’s knowledge-how about employing our knowledge-how to employ one’s knowledge that p .
  • By SI, that amounts to employing one’s knowledge of q , for some q .

Intellectualists might object to EP in ways similar to how CP was resisted—i.e., that not every action requires for its performance the employment of one’s knowledge-how: only intentional actions do, as the clown example suggests. According to this line of reply, employing one’s propositional knowledge might be more like a reflex in response to stimuli, rather than an action. Further, this version of the regress challenge may be accused of assuming that knowledge-that is “behaviorally inert” and needs to be intentionally selected or employed in order to be manifested. Yet, intellectualists have independent reasons to resist this picture (Stalnaker 2012). On the other hand, if Ryleans insist that employments of knowledge-that are actions of sort, it seems there is no principled reason why employments of knowledge-how would not be subject to the same requirement. Therefore, it looks like any regress generated for the intellectualist is generated for Ryle as well (Stanley 2011b: 14, 26; though see Fantl 2011 for a possible difference between the regress generated for Ryle and the regress generated for intellectualism).

A variety of actions—say, remembering to check the car’s blindspot when reversing—can be intelligent even though they are not intentional. Or one might manifest intelligence through processes —e.g., by coming to understand a difficult proposition, without them even being actions. If one accepts that intelligent performances, whether intentional or not, are necessarily guided by knowledge-how, one might try to recast the regress argument by replacing AP with IPP (Weatherson 2017):

Intelligent performance premise (IPP): For a performance Φ, if one Φs intelligently, one manifests one’s knowledge-how to Φ.

Now it seems plausible that one’s manifestation of propositional knowledge can be intelligent in some cases but not in others. For example, one might manifest one’s knowledge intelligently by bringing to bear one maxim that is appropriate instead of any other that is not to the particular situation which the agent faces. By IPP, if one’s manifestation of knowledge-that in a particular situation is intelligent, it requires one’s manifesting one’s knowledge-how. If intellectualism is true, that would in turn require manifesting one’s knowledge-that. If this manifesting of propositional knowledge is intelligent too, though unintentional, it requires knowledge-how. And so on. We get an infinite regress if one accepts that manifesting propositional knowledge can be an intelligent performance, also when it is not an intentional action. (For similar lines of argument, see also Fridland 2013, 2015; Löwenstein 2016: 276–80; Small 2017: 62–3).

Intellectualists might respond by distinguishing two senses in which a performance can be intelligent and two corresponding senses of manifestation, only one of which gives rise to the regress. First, an intelligent action might manifest one’s knowledge-how in the case that it is guided by this knowledge-how. On this reading, the regress is triggered. But there is also another—epistemic—sense in which an intelligent action manifests knowledge-how as long as it provides evidence for that knowledge-how. For example, the rings on a tree provide evidence for the tree’s age (hence manifest its age in the epistemic sense) but the rings on a tree are not guided by its age. Crucially, the regress does not arise on the epistemic sense of manifestation. Checking the blindspot might be intelligent in this epistemic sense of manifesting —providing evidence of—knowledge-how. Yet, this epistemic manifestation itself is not something that qualifies as intelligent or unintelligent.

A less discussed regress that can be found in Ryle (1946: 6–7) is an adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s (1895) regress. Suppose a student understands the premises of an argument and also its conclusion but fails to see that the conclusion follows. In order to help him, the teacher teaches him another proposition P —i.e., if the premises are true, then the conclusion is true. The student understands this and yet fails to see how from the premises and the additional premise P the conclusion follows. A second hypothetical proposition is added to his store, the proposition that if the premises is true, the conclusion is true too. The student still fails to see. And so on. Ryle concludes:

Knowing a rule of inference is not possessing a bit of extra information but being able to perform an intelligent operation. Knowing a rule is knowing how. It is realized in performances which conform to the rule, not in theoretical citations of it. (1946: 7)

One might respond (cf. Stanley 2011b) to this regress challenge that the student does not really understand the premises of an argument by modus ponens ( p , if p then q ), for that involves grasping the concept of a conditional, and on an inferentialist understanding (Boghossian 1996, 2003), that would dispose one to accept the conclusion of an inference by that rule. Inferentialism about meaning is, however, a controversial doctrine (for several criticisms, see Williamson 2011, 2012). Other replies might be available. Maybe the student does not represent the rule practically (see next section), or she is simply incapable of granting that the rule applies to this case, for that would explain her failure to be appropriately disposed to arrive at the conclusion, given the truth of the premises. (For yet other versions of the regress challenge, see Noë 2005: 285–6 and Hetherington 2006).

The claim that knowledge-how is a kind of knowledge-that encounters an immediate incredulous stare: how could propositional knowledge be sufficient for knowing how to do something? Ryle (1946: 5) himself poses this challenge as a starting point for his argument:

Obviously there is no truth or set of truths of which we could say “If only the stupid player had been informed of them, he would be a clever player”, or “When once he had been apprised of these truths he would play well”.

Certainly, one might know all the propositions that are relevant to how to perform a task, and yet fail to know how to perform it: knowledge-that does not seem sufficient for knowledge-how (see also Ryle 1940: 38–9).

In order to assess this objection, it is helpful to start with a toy intellectualist theory, on which knowledge-how is a matter of knowing, for some way or method to perform a task w , that w is in fact a way to perform it. In section 4 , we will see in more detail a linguistic argument for identifying knowledge-how with this sort of propositional knowledge (Stanley & Williamson 2001; Snowdon 2004). How could, the insufficiency objection goes, one know how to perform a task just in virtue of knowing a proposition about a way to perform it? Consider the following counterexample to intellectualism:

Swimming : Suppose I look at a swimmer’s swimming, and my swimming instructor pointing to the swimmer says to me, “That is a way in which you could swim too”. I believe my instructor and we may suppose that what she said is in fact true. I may thereby come to know a true answer to the question “How could I swim?” However, in the relevant sense, I may not have come to know how to swim. If I took a swimming test, I might still fail it. If thrown in the swimming pool, I might still drown. I do not know how to swim in the relevant sense and yet I do know a true proposition about how to swim.

In response to this sort of counterexample, intellectualists often appeal to “practical modes of presentation”: knowing a proposition observationally or demonstratively is not the same as knowing it practically. Knowledge-how is, at least in part, a matter of representing propositions about tasks and ways of executing tasks in a distinctively practical fashion. For one to know how to swim, in the relevant sense, one must know of a way to swim represented under a distinctive practical mode of presentation, which is essentially different from the observational or demonstrative mode of presentation in Swimming . This kind of practically represented propositional knowledge is what (some) intellectualists call knowledge-how and is what is absent in the example above.

The notion of practical modes of presentation has received several criticisms (Schiffer 2002; Koethe 2002; Noë 2005; Fantl 2011; Glick 2015), on the ground that it seems excessively obscure or even question begging. Koethe (2002: 327) worries that practical modes of presentation smuggle in an antecedent notion of knowledge-how (though see Fantl 2008: 461 for a response). This widespread skepticism about practical modes of presentation has led some intellectualists to explore ways of responding to the insufficiency objection that do not appeal to practical modes of presentation. For example, Stanley (2011b: 126) considers answering the sufficiency challenge in Swimming by appealing to the context-sensitivity of the ability modal “could”. According to Stanley, depending on how the context for the modal is restricted, “That is how you could swim” could mean either that that is how you can swim given your current physical state or that that is how you could swim after training . But coming to know that that is how I could swim after training is clearly not enough for me to come to know how to swim now. Instead, the argument goes, what one needs to know is the former proposition: that that is a way to swim given my current physical state .

Yet, it is unclear that even this response works. Consider a variant of the previous scenario, where Mary is a skilled swimmer who is one day affected by memory loss and so forgets how she is able to swim (Glick 2015). Nothing has changed in Mary’s physical state: she is still able to swim but she just has forgotten how she is able to swim. Suppose she is told, by looking at a recording of her swimming the day before, that that is how she can in fact swim given her current physical state. She might come to know how she is in fact able to swim (just like that!). Yet, she would still fail to know how to swim in the relevant sense and still drown if thrown into the pool.

So, practical modes of representation are hard to escape if intellectualism is to be defended against the sufficiency objection. To assuage concerns about the intelligibility of practical modes of presentation, Pavese (2015b) proposes we think of them along the lines of practical senses, which in turn can be modeled after computer programs. Programs determine an output, just like Fregean senses determine a referent; and they are practical in that they break down a task into the smallest parts that the system can execute (the primitive operations of the system as well as into primitive ways of combining those parts) so they ground the ability to perform a complex task in terms of the ability to perform all of its parts. On this view, if one represents a task practically, one represents all of its parts, and the combination of those parts, through instructions that one has the ability to execute. So representing practically a task entails that one has the ability to perform the corresponding task. (For a critical discussion of practical ways of thinking, see Mosdell 2019. Habgood-Coote 2018c argues that the classical generality problem for reliabilism (Feldman 1985; Conee & Feldman 1998) arises for intellectualism.)

The notion of distinctively practical concepts is motivated by work outside the debate on intellectualism about knowledge-how. Other scholars have discussed concepts that are practical in that they dissociate from semantic and observational concepts and play a central role in explaining behavior. Peacocke (1986: 49–50) talks of “action-based ways of thinking”, Israel, Perry,and Tutiya (1993: 534) of “executable ideas”, and Pacherie (2000, 2006) of “action concepts”. Mylopoulous and Pacherie (2017) suggest that executable action concepts might be needed to overcome the interface problem—the problem of how cognitive representations (intentions) interact with motor representations (Butterfill & Sinigaglia 2014). Pavese (forthcoming-b) advances an empirical-functional case for practical concepts, arguing that they are needed to explain a distinctive sort of productive reasoning. Yet, other intellectualists argue we can dispense with practical modes of presentation altogether and instead appeal to ways of knowing that are distinctively practical or executive (Waights Hickman 2019; Cath 2020).

Levy (2017) argues that a form of intellectualism that only invokes practical ways of thinking and practical concepts might not be able to explain skillful motor behavior, for motor representations of the sort required for skilled action and posited by cognitive psychologists are non-conceptual. Along similar lines, Fridland (2014, 2017) argues motor control and motor representation cannot be countenanced by Stanley & Williamson’s (2001) and Stanley’s (2011b) forms of intellectualism. So, more promising forms of intellectualism might have to invoke, in addition to practical ways of thinking, non-conceptual practical representations (Pavese 2019; Krakauer 2020). Just like perceptual concepts are distinguished from non-conceptual perceptual representations, we might distinguish between practical conceptual representations and practical non-conceptual representations. Motor representations would fall under the latter heading. Nonconceptual motor representations also represent practically, as they break down a task in terms of the most basic operations that a system can perform.

Ryle (1949: 46) formulates the argument from gradability thus:

we never speak of a person having partial knowledge of a fact or truth … it is proper and normal to speak of a person knowing in part how to do something. Learning how or improving in ability is not like learning that or acquiring information. Truths can be imparted, procedures can only be inculcated, and while inculcation is a gradual process, imparting is relatively sudden.

As Kremer (2020: 102) points out, here Ryle is making two distinguishable points: (i) ascriptions of knowledge-how are gradable, whereas ascriptions of know-that are not; (ii) the gradability of these ascriptions is explained by the fact that knowledge-how must come in degrees, because learning-how brings improvement in knowledge-how. There is no parallel phenomenon in learning-that, and so no need for degrees of knowledge-that. Others have followed Ryle in thinking that the gradability argument shows intellectualism wrong. For example, Bengson and Moffett (2011b) argue that because knowledge-how is gradable, knowledge-how is more similar to acquaintance knowledge, which also comes in degrees (see also Ryle 1949: 46; Wiggins 2012; Santorio 2016; Kremer 2020: 102).

Pavese (2017) distinguishes between two kinds of gradability of knowledge-how ascriptions: one might know how to do something in part or entirely (quantitative gradability) or one might know how to do something better than somebody else (qualitative gradability). Crucially, these two kinds of gradability are also present more generally in other knowledge-wh (knowledge-when, who, why, where) ascriptions, which do seem to reduce to propositional knowledge. For instance, one might know in part who came to the party (Lahiri 1991, 2000; Roberts 2009) or know a better answer to that question than somebody else (see also Stanley 2011b: 31–5). If parts of an answer are propositions, then knowing an answer might still amount to knowledge of all of its parts. Knowing in part an answer would then amount to knowing at least one of the propositions that is part of that answer. Similarly, knowing a better answer amounts to knowing a proposition that better answers the relevant question. If this is true of other knowledge-wh ascriptions, it is certainly plausible that it is true for knowledge-how. One might know how to Φ in part by knowing only certain (propositional) parts of the answer to “how does one Φ?” and one might know a better answer to that question than someone else.

This response to the first part of the gradability objection inspires a further response to the second part concerning learning-how. Suppose that knowledge-how is a matter of knowing a practical answer, where a practical answer encompasses a practical representation for a task or a way to Φ ( section 2 ). As we have seen, practically representing requires possessing certain practical capacities and entails certain sorts of abilities. On this picture, one might gradually learn how to perform a task by gradually learning a practical answer to that question, for one requires time and practice to master a practical representation of how to perform the task. Thus, gradual learning may be compatible with the intellectualist picture, if it amounts to gradually coming to learn more parts of a practical answer.

4. The Linguistic Argument

Intellectualism has been motivated on the basis of a linguistic argument concerning knowledge-how ascriptions in English (Vendler 1972; Stanley & Williamson 2001; Snowdon 2004; Stanley 2011b, 2011c). Begin by noticing that (1) is remarkably similar to (2)–(3) (“finite knowledge wh ascriptions” as they embed a complement with a finitival verb) and to (4)–(5) (“infinitive knowledge-wh ascriptions” as they embed a complement with an infinitival verb):

According to the standard syntactic analysis, (2)–(5) have an interrogative as complement—“where is her piano located in the house?”, “who can play the piano?”, “what to do in case of an emergency?” are all interrogatives. Having said this, in broad outline, the linguistic argument for intellectualism has three steps. The first step is to follow the syntactic cues from (1)–(5) and identify the logical form of “ S knows how to Φ” with that of “ S knows + interrogative Q (= “how to Φ”). Call this premise Logical Form . The second step is to accept the orthodox semantics of knowledge-wh ascriptions, according to which in “ S knows + interrogative Q ”, Q denotes a question (C. Baker 1968) and according to which “ S knows + Q ” is true just in case S knows a proposition answering to the question expressed by Q . Call this premise Semantics for Knowledge-Wh (cf., among many others, Hamblin 1958, 1973; Hintikka 1976; Karttunen 1977; Heim 1994; Groenendijk & Stokhof 1982, 1997; and Higginbotham 1996). Finally, the third step is to extend this semantics to knowledge-how ascriptions, such that knowing how to Φ requires knowing a proposition that answers the question “how can one Φ?”

Next section (4.1) looks in some more detail to the intellectualist analysis of the truth conditions for knowledge-how ascriptions. The section after next ( 4.2 ) discusses several objections to the linguistic argument.

The linguistic argument concludes that Intellectualism is true:

Intellectualism about knowing how S knows how to Φ just in case S knows a proposition answering the question “how to Φ”.

But what is the proposition that one knows by knowing how to Φ?

First, note that the subject of the infinitival construction (“How to Φ”), or PRO, can either be interpreted de se ( de se PRO) or generically (generic PRO). According to the first interpretation, that an agent knows how to perform a ski stunt requires their knowing how to perform a ski stunt themselves . According to the latter interpretation, it requires knowing how one (as a generic agent or any other agent) would perform a ski stunt. When it comes to ascriptions of knowledge-how, we care about de se , and not generic, readings of knowing how. If an agent knows how to Φ in the relevant sense, they know how to Φ themselves.

Secondly, infinitival interrogatives such as “how to Φ” and “what to Φ” are ambiguous between a deontic reading ( how to Φ = how one should Φ; what to Φ = what one should do ) and an ability reading ( how to Φ = how one could Φ; what to Φ = what one could do ). The deontic reading does not seem relevant when we ascribe knowledge-how. Hence the relevant reading must be an ability reading. Joining these two disambiguations, the truth conditions of knowledge-how ascriptions are (cf. Schroeder 2012):

( Truth conditions ) “ S knows how to Φ” is true just in case S knows a proposition answering the question “How could they themselves Φ?”

Now, what counts as an answer to the question? Linguists distinguish between different kinds of answers that one might give to a question. An exhaustive answer to “How could S Φ?” would specify all the ways in which S could Φ; a mention-some answer , instead, would specify only one way in which S could Φ. For example, an exhaustive answer to the question “How could S make pasta?” would specify all different recipes for making pasta. A mention-some answer to the same question, instead, would specify (at least) only one recipe. When we ascribe knowledge-how, we don’t expect people to know all the possible ways of performing the relevant task. For example, “Mary knows how to make pasta” can be true, even if Mary only knows one recipe for pasta. This gives us the following truth conditions:

Intellectualism* “ S knows how to Φ” is true just in case S knows, for some way w of Φ -ing , that w is a way he himself could Φ.

As we have seen in section 2 , in addition to knowing that a way to Φ is a way to Φ, one needs to think of that way under a practical mode of presentation. Let Pr be a practical way of thinking of a way and let way of Φ -ing be a way of thinking of the property of being a way of Φ-ing; finally let ⦼ be a way of composing ways of thinking into a proposition. Then <Pr ⦼ way of Φ -ing > is the practical proposition that one comes to know when coming to know how to Φ. On how to implement Fregean senses in the compositional semantics, see Yalcin (2015).

Several philosophers have objected that intellectualists are giving undue weight to linguistic considerations and that other considerations, coming from the cognitive sciences, should be taken into account too, when thinking about the nature of knowledge-how (Noë 2005, 2011; Devitt 2011; Brown 2013; Johnson 2006; Glick 2011; Roth & Cummins 2011). It does not follow from this worry that the linguistic argument ought to be dismissed as lacking any evidential value. Consider an analogy. Arguably, the best theory of beliefs and desires is one on which these are propositional attitudes. This theory is compatible with how we ascribe beliefs and desires (i.e., ascriptions of beliefs are of the form “ S believes that p ”, where “ p ” is standardly taken to stand for proposition). But it is also compatible with folk psychology, according to which thinking of beliefs and desires as propositional attitudes helps explain behavior. By parity of reasoning, ideally, the best theory of knowledge-how should presumably be compatible both with our best psychological theory and our best linguistic theory of knowledge-how ascriptions (cf. Stanley 2011a, 2011b, 2011c; Cath 2015a for a defense of the linguistic methodology).

Among those engaging with the linguistic argument, many have objected that it fails to adequately capture the truth conditions of knowledge-how ascriptions (Roberts 2009; Brogaard 2009, 2011; Michaelis 2011; Bengson & Moffett 2011a; Ginzburg 2011; Abbott 2013; Santorio 2016; Hornsby 2016). Some have argued against the claim that knowledge-wh is a matter of knowing a proposition that answers a question ( Semantics for knowledge-wh) . For example, Carr (1979, 1981) argues that when you know how to do something, you have an attitude that essentially takes an act as its object. But when you know that something is the case, you have an attitude that essentially takes a proposition as its object. Yet, intellectualists might reply that knowledge-how might be an attitude towards an act in virtue of being an attitude towards a proposition about that act.

Others have questioned whether the complement “which team is winning” in “ S knows which team is winning” is, semantically, just like an interrogative (Brogaard 2009, 2011; Ginzburg 1995a, 1995b, 1996, 2011; Ginzburg & Sag 2000). One argument against this assumption is that, if, e.g., “which team is winning” denoted a question, we would expect it to co-refer with “the question of which team is winning”. Yet we cannot substitute such expression-pairs salva veritate . Suppose Jenny knows/discovered/revealed an interesting question and suppose the interesting question discovered by Jenny is “who left yesterday?”. Even so, it does not follow that Jenny knows/discovered/revealed who left yesterday. A response to this objection might be that these examples exploit a subtle equivocation (Stanley 2011b: ch. 2, following King 2002). Consider “Jamaal discovered a new element”. In it, “discovered” denotes a relation between Jamaal and an object, a chemical element. On the other hand, in the sentence “Jamaal discovered who left yesterday”, “discovered” denotes a different relation, one that holds between Jamaal and something of a different sort, namely, the proposition answering the question expressed by “who left yesterday”. It is this second relation which is relevant for the intellectualist. This is supported by the fact that the “[t]he former relation would be expressed in German by ‘ kennen ’, and the latter by ‘ wissen ’” (Stanley 2011b: 66). (For more relevant discussion, see Parent 2014.)

Others have questioned Logical form —the claim that in knowledge-how ascriptions, the embedded complement is an interrogative. Objectualists claim that the complement of knowledge-how ascriptions (“how to Φ”) is not an interrogative but an “objectual” complement—one denoting ways to Φ instead of propositions representing these ways (Bengson & Moffett 2011a). Objectualism is motivated by the consideration that “knowing how to Φ” seems to be equivalent to “knowing a way to Φ” in pretty much every context and by the apparent gradability of “knows-how” ascriptions (cf. section 3 ). An objectual semantics is in a good place to explain the gradability of knowledge-how ascriptions, since objectual knowledge ascriptions also permit degree modifiers—one can have partial knowledge of Paris, or know Paris better than someone else. Along similar lines, Bach (2012) and Abbott (2013) argue that in knowledge-how ascriptions “how to Φ” might work as a free relative . A free relative is a wh-phrase that denotes an individual. So for example, “what I was given for dinner” can be used as an interrogative in “I asked what I was given for dinner” but also as a free relative in “I ate what I was given for dinner”. In the latter ascription, it denotes some food that was given to me for dinner. In that sense, “how to Φ” according to this proposal, in “ S knows how to Φ” should be interpreted as a free relative denoting a way to Φ, rather than an answer to the question “how to Φ?”

To this proposal, some respond that knowledge-how ascriptions do not pass the standard tests for detecting free relative complements (Schaffer 2009: 486–91; Habgood-Coote 2018a). Take the coordinated use of knowledge-how and other knowledge-wh ascriptions in “ S has always known how to swim and never has wondered how”. This coordination suggests that both kinds of ascriptions have an interrogative as a complement (Bresnan & Grimshaw 1978: 332; M. Baker 1996: 204–7). Further, knowledge-how ascriptions can be extended to embed a multiple interrogative, as in “Mark knows how to do what?” , whereas free relative complements do not tolerate multiple wh-phrases (C. Baker 1968; Bresnan & Grimshaw 1978: 335). Moreover, infinitival wh phrases, such as “what to do”, “how to do”, “who to ask” never allow for free relative reading (Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 1070–3). Finally, a standard test for telling apart free relatives and interrogatives is to see if they embed under “believe”, for “believe” does not take interrogatives as complements but it does tolerate free relatives. (For example, “Mark believed who was charged guilty” cannot mean “Mark believed the answer to the question “Who was charged guilty?””. Rather, it means that Mark believed the person who was charged guilty.) However, interestingly, “believe” can never embed infinitival constructions such as “what to do”, “how to do”, or “who to ask”.

Finally, some have questioned whether Semantics for knowledge-wh applies to ascriptions embedding infinitival complements, like knowledge-how ascriptions. Roberts (2009) argues that, as opposed to other wh complements, the meaning of “how” denotes a property rather than a proposition when embedded in infinitival clauses. Santorio (2016) defends a Gibbardian semantics for knowledge ascriptions embedding infinitive interrogatives, on which these ascriptions ascribe maximal performance plans compatible with an agent’s plans (for more objections to Semantics for knowledge-wh , see also Sgaravatti & Zardini 2008 and George 2013).

The perhaps most serious objection to the linguistic argument is that it ignores cross-linguistic evidence about how knowledge-how is ascribed in languages other than English (Rumfitt 2003; Roberts 2009; Glick 2012; Wiggins 2012; Abbott 2013; Douskos 2013; Ditter 2016). Rumfitt (2003) argues that the linguistic facts on behalf of intellectualism are overstated. Many languages—e.g., French, Italian, Spanish, and Russian—ascribe knowledge-how not just through ascriptions embedding interrogatives (“ S knows how to Φ”) but also through ascriptions embedding bare infinitivals (“ S knows + (bare infinitive) to Φ” (= “ S knows to Φ”)) as in “ Marie sait nager ” and “ Maria sa nuotare ”. Stanley (2011b, 2011c) responds that these ascriptions are to be analyzed as embedding an implicit interrogative—one where the question word “how” is not explicitly articulated. However, Abbott (2013), Hornsby (2016), and Ditter (2016) have observed that this response does not help with yet other languages, such as Russian, in which knowledge-how ascriptions—of the form “ S (attitude verb) V s + (infinitive) to Φ”—feature an embedding verb V (“ umetj ”) that never licenses an interrogative complement nor a declarative complement (i.e., a that -clause).

In order to assess what this cross-linguistic evidence really establishes, consider a new version of the linguistic argument. Let “ S V s Φ” be an ascription of knowledge-how in an arbitrary language L that is correctly translated in English by “ S knows + (interrogative) how ( de se ) to Φ”. Assuming that translation preserves at least truth conditions, “ S V s Φ” will be true in L just in case “ S knows + (interrogative) how ( de se ) to Φ” is true in English. Call this the Interpretation Premise. By the Disquotational Schema, “ S knows how to Φ” is true in English just in case S knows how to Φ; so, we have that “ S V s Φ” is true in L just in case S knows how to Φ. This conclusion, together with the Semantics for knowledge wh , the Logical Form , and the Interpretation Premise , yields that “ S V s Φ” is true in L just in case S bears a knowledge relation towards an answer to the question “How he himself could Φ”. Through this argument, the truth conditions of any knowledge-how ascription, whether in English or in any other language, are reduced to propositional knowledge, whether the relevant knowledge-how ascription has or not the interrogative form.

Proponents of the cross-linguistic argument might challenge Logical Form : the different ways of ascribing knowledge-how (through the infinitival form and through the interrogative form) in these languages indicate that knowledge-how ascriptions in English are ambiguous between two not truth-conditionally equivalent logical forms: an interrogative form and a bare infinitival form ( Ambiguity Hypothesis ) (Rumfitt 2003; Wiggins 2012; Setiya 2012; Glick 2012; Ditter 2016; Hornsby 2016). The main piece of evidence for the Ambiguity Hypothesis is that in languages employing both the interrogative form and the infinitival form, those different ascriptions can come apart in their truth conditions. For example, it is claimed that the Italian sentence “ Mario sa come nuotare ” (interrogative form = “Mario knows how to swim”) may be usedly true, while the sentence “ Mario sa nuotare ” (infinitival form = Mario knows to swim) is false. This would be the case, for example, if Mario lacks (in some sense) the ability to swim (so too for its French and Spanish translations). Similarly, Ditter argues that in Russian, the interrogative construction must ascribe a different state from the “ umetj ” ascription (+ infinitival), on the ground that one can coherently use in Russian sentences of the following form:

John znaet kak igrat’ na pianino, no on ne umeyet igrat.

John knows + (interrogative) how to play the piano, but he does not know (“ umetj ”) + (infinitival) to play the piano.

“John knows how to play the piano, but he doesn’t know how to do it”.

According to these authors, this difference between interrogative embedding constructions and infinitival embedding construction shows up also in English locally for the verb learn : “ S learnt to swim” differs from “ S learnt how to swim” in that the former, but not the latter, is ability-entailing (Rumfitt 2003; Glick 2012).

This argument for the Ambiguity Hypothesis might be in certain ways too quick. The only way to make (6) intelligible in English is to translate it as (7), where the generic interpretation of the first knowledge-how ascription and the de se interpretation of the second ascription are made explicit:

However, (6) cannot be interpreted as (8) on pain of contradiction:

If so, the fact that (6) is acceptable in Russian does not establish that the interrogative form in Russian cannot also have an interpretation (the de se interpretation) on which it is truth conditionally equivalent to the Russian’s infinitival form. Here is a competitive explanation of the available cross-linguistic evidence that does not commit us to the Ambiguity Hypothesis . Just like English’s ascriptions, the interrogative form in Russian is ambiguous between a de se interpretation, on which it is truth conditionally equivalent to the infinitival form, and a generic interpretation of the subject of the infinitival embedded verb, on which it comes apart from the infinitival form. This explains why (6) is felicitous and why it can be translated as (7) but not as (8). On this explanation, this evidence might be compatible with English knowledge-how ascriptions univocally having the same logical form (the interrogative form), even though the embedded interrogative can receive either the generic or the de se interpretation, depending on the subject of the infinitival embedded verb.

Ryle is often interpreted as claiming that knowledge-how ascriptions are nothing more than ascriptions of an ability or a complex of dispositions to act in a skilled or intelligent manner (though see Hornsby 2011: 82 and Waights Hickman 2019 for dissent). This interpretation is based on passages in the Concept of Mind , such as the following:

When a person is described by one or other of the intelligence epithets such as “shrewd” or “silly”, “prudent” or “imprudent”, the description imputes to him not the knowledge or ignorance of this or that truth, but the ability, or inability, to do certain sorts of things. (Ryle 1949: 27)

Early intellectualists argued that knowledge-how does not entail ability (Ginet 1975; Stanley & Williamson 2001; Snowdon 2004). For example, a pianist who lost their arms in a car accident may have lost her ability to play but still preserve her knowledge-how to play the piano (cf. Snowdon’s 2004: 8 expert omelette maker); or a ski instructor might know how to do a ski stunt and, according to Stanley & Williamson (2001), still fail to have the ability to do it. By contrast, anti-intellectualists argue that it is important to distinguish between knowing how to perform a task, which corresponds to a general ability, and being (actually and circumstantially) able to perform it (Noë 2005; Glick 2012; Setiya 2012). So the pianist might have both general ability as well as knowledge-how, though they lack circumstantial ability. By contrast, the ski instructor does not clearly have knowledge-how to perform the ski stunt themselves, while they know how one , in general, can do it. Recent intellectualist views also take knowledge-how to go together with abilities (understood along Hawley’s 2003 notion of counterfactual success) and argue that rightly construed intellectualism can vindicate this connection (Pavese 2015b; Cath 2020).

Yet, everybody agrees that while knowledge-how might entail ability, ability is not sufficient for knowledge-how, as demonstrated by an example from Hawley (2003):

Annoyance. Susie is attempting to annoy Joe; she thinks smoking will do the trick. Whenever she smokes, she unconsciously and inadvertently taps on her cigarette pack. Unbeknownst to Susie, Joe does not mind cigarette smoke, but finds her tapping obnoxious.

Susie has the ability to annoy Joe, since she has the disposition to annoy Joe whenever she attempts to do so. But, intuitively, she does not know how to annoy him. A natural explanation of this is that she cannot annoy him intentionally (for structurally similar cases, see Carr 1979, 1981 and Bengson, Moffett, & Wright 2009). Pretty much all sides of the dispute agree on the following claim (Ryle 1949; Stanley & Williamson 2001; Hawley 2003; Hornsby 2004, 2011; Stanley 2011b; Setiya 2012):

( Knowledge-how/Intentionality ): If S intentionally Φs, S knows how to Φ.

Many also endorse the biconditional ( Knowledge-how/Ability Intentional ) (Hawley 2003; Setiya 2012):

( Knowledge-how/Ability Intentional ): S has the ability to intentionally Φ if and only if S knows how to Φ.

Now, suppose that knowing how to Φ does require the ability to intentionally perform Φ. If so, whether knowledge-how requires a propositional attitude depends on whether or not one can intentionally Φ without having a propositional attitude about how to Φ. But according to many influential views of intentional action, intentionally Φ-ing does require a propositional attitude, namely a belief about how to Φ. In particular, intentionally Φ-ing requires having an action plan, which is characterizable in terms of a belief about how to perform Φ. For example, on Goldman’s (1970) view, one intentionally Φs when one has a plan to Φ, where a plan to Φ is a belief that specifies the means to Φ (see, also, e.g., Harman 1976; Audi 1986; Bratman 1987; Velleman 1989; Ginet 1990; Mele & Moser 1994; Gibbons 2001). From this, we get:

( Intentionality/Belief ): If S intentionally Φs, then there are some means \(m_1\), …, \(m_n\) to Φ such that S truly believes that \(m_1\), …, \(m_n\) are means for oneself to Φ.

Some intellectualists have argued on these bases that knowledge-how to Φ requires at least a propositional attitude about the means to Φ (Cath 2015b).

But is propositional knowledge of means to ends required for intentional action, over and above true belief? Gibbons (2001) provides several examples to buttress the necessity of knowledge for intentional action. For example, one cannot plausibly intentionally win a fair lottery , nor can one intentionally defuse a bomb if one unintentionally and fortuitously chooses the correct wire; in both cases, a plausible explanation for the lack of intentionality is that the subjects does not have the relevant propositional knowledge about how to accomplish those tasks. These cases buttress the claim that intentional action requires knowledge of the means to execute it:

( Intentionality/Knowledge ): If S intentionally Φs, then there are some means \(m_1\), …, \(m_n\) to Φ such that s knows that \(m_1\), …, \(m_n\) are means for oneself to Φ.

With these assumptions in the background, here is a non-linguistic argument for intellectualism. Start from ( Knowledge-how/Intentionality ): if S intentionally Φs, S knows how to Φ. Furthermore, suppose that ( Intentionality/Knowledge ) is true so that the intentionality of an action is to be explained at least in part in terms of propositional knowledge. Then, by these two premises, we get that if one intentionally Φs, one both knows how to Φ and one has propositional knowledge of the means to Φ:

( Knowledge-how, Intentionality, Knowledge ): If S intentionally Φs, S both knows how to Φ and for some means \(m_1\), …, \(m_n\), S knows that means \(m_1\) , …, \(m_n\) are means for oneself to Φ.

Now, according to standard formulations of intellectualism, one knows how to Φ only if, for some means m to Φ, one knows that m is a means for one to Φ:

( Intellectualism about Knowledge-How ): S knows how to Φ is at least in part of a matter of knowing, for some means m to Φ, S knows that m is a means for oneself to Φ.

So, the argument from intentional action for intellectualism maintains that the intellectualist picture provides the best explanation for why ( Knowledge-How, Intentionality, Knowledge ) should hold. According to this explanation, ( Knowledge-How, Intentionality, Knowledge ) is true not just because of a coincidental alignment of propositional knowledge and knowledge-how in intentional action. Rather, its truth is grounded on the very nature of knowledge-how: one knows how to Φ in virtue of knowing, for some means m to Φ, that m is a means for oneself to Φ.

The view that intentional action requires belief has been challenged for the particular case of basic actions . Setiya (2012) observes that one can perform a basic action of clenching one’s fist without even having the belief that one can succeed at doing it. For example, someone might have had a paralyzing injury, fail to believe they have healed, and still form the intention to clench their fist. Intellectualists might reply that, although that subject does not believe that one will succeed, they might have a sufficiently high credence and that credence can amount to knowledge too (Pavese 2020). (For other possible responses to the idea that intentional action requires knowledge or belief, see Elzinga forthcoming).

A further related question is how to think of knowledge-how in the case of joint actions. When two agents act jointly towards a goal, as when they row a boat together, they responsively coordinate and monitor each other’s movements in ways that produce a joint action. What kind of knowledge-how is manifested by successful joint action? It must be possible for the agents to coordinate without each having to know the different ways in which each must act to achieve their common goals: you and I can jointly make risotto even if I do not know how to season it and you do. Correspondingly, Birch (2019) suggests that joint knowledge-how must be accounted for distributively . If this is correct, then the agents can jointly know how to do something without each having a belief about how they jointly do it, but only in virtue of having a collective, or group, belief about how to do it. (For more discussion on group knowledge-how, see Palermos & Tollefsen 2018 and Strachan, Knoblich & Sebanz 2020)

6. The Epistemology of Knowledge-How

Some have observed that knowledge-how may differ from propositional knowledge in that, whereas the latter plausibly entails belief, knowledge-how does not (Dreyfus 1991, 2005; Wallis 2008; Brownstein & Michaelson 2016). For example, consider Brownstein & Michaelson (2016)’s example. When catching a ball, ball players make anticipatory saccades to shift their gaze ahead of the ball one or more times during the course of its flight towards them. These players know how to catch a ball, and their way of catching a ball requires making anticipatory saccades when watching the ball as it falls. Yet, the players do not believe that making anticipatory saccades is part of how they catch the ball. Rather they believe that they are tracking the ball the whole time. However, from the fact that the subject has false beliefs about how she catches the ball, it does not follow that the subject does not also have correct beliefs about it. So, a natural response is that there is some sense in which the player correctly believes that his manner of tracking the ball has a chance of resulting in success.

Whether this response is compelling might depend on what one takes beliefs to be. On this topic, philosophers widely disagree. On an “intellectualist” account of belief, on which believing that p requires the subject to acknowledge that p , it is implausible that the athletes have the relevant belief. But intellectualists about knowledge-how might advocate replacing this intellectual notion of belief with a less demanding one. According to a prominent functional characterization of belief, to believe that p entails being disposed to act in ways that would tend to satisfy one’s desires, whatever they are, in a world in which p (together with one’s other beliefs) are true” (cf. Stalnaker 1984: 15; Stalnaker 2012). Now, suppose that in game after game, Athena catches the ball using a certain method m , and that whenever she does so, her behavior is intentional. From this it seems to follow that Athena is disposed to perform the actions specified by m . Since, ex hypothesi , m is a way of catching the ball, it follows that in all the worlds where she performs these actions, she satisfies her desire of catching the ball (or at least is sufficiently likely to do so). By the previous functional characterization of belief, it follows that Athena believes that m is a way for her to catch the ball. The lesson of this debate might be, following Stalnaker (2012), that intellectualism about knowledge-how is best construed as a form of anti-intellectualism about knowledge, belief, and the mental.

Another way of challenging the intellectualist claim that knowledge-how is a species of knowledge-that is to question whether knowledge-how can be Gettiered. If knowledge-how survives Gettierization, that would be evidence that knowledge-how is not a species of knowledge-that, on the assumption that Gettiered justified true belief cannot constitute propositional knowledge (Gettier 1963). Stanley & Williamson (2001) argue that knowledge-how cannot be Gettiered. However, Cath (2011) responds by proposing the Lucky Light Bulb case, where Charlie wants to learn how to change a lightbulb, but he knows almost nothing about light fixtures or bulbs. Charlie consults The Idiot’s Guide to Everyday Jobs . Inside, he finds an accurate set of instructions describing the shape of a light fixture and bulb, and the way to change a bulb. Charlie grasps these instructions perfectly. And so there is a way such that Charlie now believes truly that that way is a way for him to change a light bulb, namely, the way described in the book. However, unbeknownst to Charlie, he is extremely lucky to have read these instructions, for the disgruntled author of The Idiot’s Guide filled her book with otherwise misleading instructions. Cath (2011) argues that intuitively Charlie still knows how to fix the light bulb, despite his belief being Gettiered (cf. also Poston 2009: 744).

Stanley replies that knowledge-wh in general seems to be Gettierable and that might be explained in terms of features having to do with knowing the answer . For example, consider Hawthorne’s (2000) example of a teacher giving each child in their class a note with the name of a city. “Vienna” is written only on one of the notes. In this context, it seems true that one child knows the correct answer to the question “what is the capital of Austria”, even though the child’s belief is true by luck. (Though see Carter & Pritchard 2015c for a reply that while knowledge-how is similar to knowledge-that and knowledge-wh in that it is incompatible with intervening luck, it differs with these kinds of knowledge in being compatible with environmental luck.) Others still have responded that intuitions are subtle and not all of them favor anti-intellectualism (Marley-Payne 2016; Pavese forthcoming-a). For a recent experimental study with mixed results, see Carter, Pritchard, and Shepherd (2019). Hawley (2003: 28) argues that knowledge-how, like propositional knowledge, requires “warrant” on the ground that success on the basis of a lucky guess does not seem to manifest one’s knowledge-how. A similar theoretical argument for thinking that lucky belief cannot suffice for knowledge-how starts from the thesis that knowledge-how enters in explanations of success and that satisfactory explanations must be “modally robust”. From this, the argument concludes that the sort of belief that robustly explains intentional success must be knowledge, for knowledge has the relevant modal profile (Sosa 1999; Williamson 2000; D. Greco 2016). Another line of argument starts from the observations that knowledge-how to Φ explains the ability to intentionally Φ (see section 4 ) and that only knowledge can explain intentional action (Gibbons 2001: 589–590). On these bases, some argue that knowledge-how cannot fall short of non-getteriable knowledge (Cath 2015b for objections to this line of argument).

Some object that while knowledge-that can be defeated by misleading evidence, not so knowledge-how (see Carter & Navarro 2017 for this line of argument and Pavese 2021 for a reply). Finally, some object that knowledge-how cannot be knowledge-that because the latter is acquirable by testimony and the former is not. While the following argument (A–C) is valid, the following (i–iii) is not (Poston 2016):

  • Mark knows that Turin is in Northern Italy.
  • Mark tells that to John, who believes him.
  • John comes to know that Turin is in Northern Italy.
  • Mark knows how John could swim.
  • Mark tells John.
  • John comes to know how to swim.

Following Stanley’s (2011b: 126) modal restriction proposal (cf. section 3 ), Cath (2017, 2019) responds that depending on how the context for the modal is restricted, (i) could mean either that Mark knows how John could swim given his current physical state or how John could swim after training . If only the latter, that is not the sort of proposition that John needs to know in order for (iii) to be true: for that, John ought to know that that is how he could swim under his current physical state. (Though see section 2 for qualms about this intellectualist strategy.) Another avenue for reply to the challenge from testimony may be to insist that not every propositional knowledge is transferable through testimony. A comparison: visual knowledge that Mark murdered Tina differs in content and mode of presentation from the knowledge that of the murder obtained by being told by his prosecutor. The former observational knowledge is not transferable through mere testimony but (exactly because of that!) it is more helpful for the purpose of convicting Mark than second-hand knowledge. That does not mean that observational knowledge is not propositional. Like in the case of perceptual knowledge, the proposition that one knows by knowing how to do something involves distinct modes of presentation of ways of doing things ( section 2 , section 3 ). We should not expect propositions under this mode of presentation to be transferable through testimony. (For a response to Poston 2016, see also Peet 2019).

7. The Argument from Cognitive Science

The argument from cognitive science against intellectualism starts by pointing out that cognitive scientists distinguish between different kinds of cognitive systems: It is often held that the declarative system is responsible for encoding propositional knowledge, whereas knowledge-how is encoded in the procedural system . Given empirical evidence that the declarative and procedural systems are separate (about which more below), it would seem to follow that knowledge-how is not reducible to propositional knowledge (Wallis 2008; Devitt 2011; Roth & Cummins 2011):

The Cognitive Science Argument

The usual evidence marshaled in favor of C1 relies on amnesiac case studies (Milner 1962; see Cohen & Squire 1980 for discussion). A typical example is HM. After bilateral removal of the hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, entorhinal cortex, and most of the amygdala to relieve debilitating symptoms of epilepsy, HM was unable to form new memories of facts or events and he could no longer access memories he acquired in the few years leading up to his surgery. Nevertheless, it was found that over 10 trials, HM tuned his motor skill to trace the outline of a five-pointed star based only on looking at reflection in a mirror. Since he could not store new memories, HM’s declarative knowledge of the means of performing the task did not change from one trial to the next. But his performance improved. So, the reasoning goes, the improvement of motor skills is governed by a distinct cognitive system from that which governs the retention of declarative facts.

Many embrace C2 (e.g., Lewicki, Czyzewska, & Hoffman 1987: 523; Devitt 2011; Wallis 2008). But some object that a closer look at the details of HM’s case (as reported in Milner 1962) supports a different diagnosis, on which knowledge-how is realized by a combination of the procedural and the declarative system (Pavese 2013; Stanley & Krakauer 2013). At the beginning of each trial, prior to being given verbal instructions on how to perform the motor task, HM lacked the ability to intentionally perform it: HM was able to perform the motor task only after being reminded of what the task consisted in . This suggests, against C2, that there was an important declarative component to HM’s ability to perform the motor task (for the role of declarative knowledge in skillful action, see also Christensen, Sutton, & Bicknell 2019).

Here is a possible way to patch up the Argument from Cognitive Science (Fridland 2014, 2017; Levy 2017). Replace C2 with:

With C2*, the argument goes on as before. Stanley & Krakauer (2013) seems to accept this conclusion (for more discussion and critiques, see Krakauer 2019; Springle 2019; De Brigard 2019; Schwartz & Drayson 2019). Other intellectualists reply that this argument misses the intellectualist target. Cath (2020) argues that procedural representation might be a prerequisite for knowledge-how rather than a constituent. Pavese (2019) develops an account on which procedural representations, of the sort studied by motor scientists when giving an account of the procedural aspect of skill (Wolpert 1997; Jeannerod 1997), can be understood as practical, albeit nonconceptual, representations—the sort of representations that intellectualism independently requires for knowledge-how ( section 2 ).

According to C3, propositional knowledge corresponds to “declarative” knowledge—to a sort of knowledge that is, at least in principle, verbalizable. Opponents of intellectualism often uses C3 in a novel argument against intellectualism: if propositional knowledge has to be verbalizable, then knowledge-how cannot be propositional knowledge, for often subjects know how to perform tasks even though they cannot explain how they do it (Schiffer 2002; Devitt 2011; Adams 2009; Wallis 2008). On behalf of intellectualism, there do seem to be cases in which you come to know how to do something precisely by consulting a manual and learning some propositions (see, e.g., Snowdon 2004: 12; Bengson and Moffett 2011a: 8; and Katzoff 1984: 65ff). Moreover, it is not clear that the anti-intellectualist demand that propositional knowledge be always verbalizable is motivated. In fact, it seems to conflate knowing how to perform a task with knowing how to explain how the task is performed (cf. Fodor 1968: 634; Stalnaker 2012). Stanley (2011b: 161) points out that there is a sense in which knowledge-how is always verbalizable. A punch-drunk boxer who can at best demonstratively refer to his re-enactment of the way of boxing against southpaws, and says, “This is the way I fight against a southpaw” intuitively knows that this is the way he fights against southpaws. This knowledge has an essential demonstrative or indexical component. But the same goes for much other propositional knowledge like, for example, the knowledge we express by saying, “This is the tool for the job”, or “That is going to be trouble”. This reply assumes that ways to execute tasks are ostensible and as such can be picked up by a demonstrative. This does not need to be so: on any single occasion, one may only act on parts of a way. So, one will not thereby be able to pick up the general way one’s knowledge-how is about. Another reply on behalf of intellectualism is to point out that practical concepts for tasks differ from “semantic” concepts for the same tasks precisely in that, even if propositional, they are not necessarily verbalizable.

A final objection is that intellectualism overintellectualizes knowledge-how in a way that is incompatible with what we know about animals’ cognition (Noë 2005; Hornsby 2007; Dreyfus 2007; Elzinga forthcoming). According to this objection, unsophisticated and non- (or pre-) linguistic agents such as babies and non-human animals can know how to perform certain tasks, while lacking the concepts that are required for propositional knowledge. Some intellectualists respond that ordinary speakers routinely also ascribe propositional knowledge to animals and babies, as we say that Fido knows that its owner is arriving or that a baby knows that their mother is present (Stanley & Williamson 2001). Thus, while propositional knowledge may require concept possession, our ordinary knowledge ascriptions suggest that we regard relatively unsophisticated agents as possessing the relevant concepts. Comparative psychologists do routinely credit many non-human and non-linguistic animals with the possession of concepts. (See Allen & Bekoff 1999 for a comprehensive overview).

This response might be less plausible, though, when it comes to lower animals, or insects. Here too, we might describe ants as knowing how to carry food back to their nest. And yet, there is less evidence from cognitive science that insects are capable of concepts too (though see Gallistel & King 2009). In response, a different line of argument might be more promising (cf. McDowell 2007): it does not follow from the fact that we are disposed to ascribe knowledge-how to lower animals that what explains their goal-directed behavior is the same sort of psychological state that underlies human knowledge-how and human action. For from the fact that their behavior resembles humans’ in some respects (for example, in its goal-directedness) does not entail that it resembles humans’ skilled behavior in all respects that matter (for example, in the susceptibility of the relevant behavior to rational revision).

8. Varieties of Anti-Intellectualism

According to orthodox intellectualism, knowledge-how is a species of propositional knowledge. Revisionary intellectualism, instead, contends that although knowledge-how is a kind of knowledge-that, the relevant knowledge is sui generis and differs from standard propositional knowledge in some important ways. For example, Brogaard (2009, 2011) argues that, in general, knowledge can have cognitive abilities or practical abilities as its justificatory grounds. In the latter case, agents know in virtue of ability states that are not subject to the usual epistemic constraints that characterize belief states generated by cognitive abilities. Correspondingly, knowledge-how fits the bill for this practically grounded knowledge. Cath (2015b) argues that we should distinguish between theoretical knowledge-that and practical knowledge-that. The former is subject to the usual epistemic constraints, like being sensitive to Gettierization (cf. also Zardini 2013). The latter, instead, is not sensitive to the usual epistemic constraints of theoretical knowledge-that—and can therefore constitute knowledge-that even if Gettierized. Waights Hickman (2019) suggests that knowledge-how is a distinct kind of knowledge-that relation, characterized by knowing something in “the executive way”, which requires

possession of (a) dispositions to attend to features of an action-context on which one’s knowledge (how) bears; and (b) dispositions to adjust one’s use of that knowledge accordingly. (2019: 333).

As we have seen ( section 4 ), Bengson & Moffett (2007, 2011b) defend Non-propositional (or Objectualist) Intellectualism . On this view, knowing how to Φ necessarily involves having objectual knowledge of a way of Φ-ing but having objectual knowledge of a way of Φ-ing is not sufficient to know how to Φ. For example, a tropical swimmer may be acquainted with a way of escaping an avalanche, namely making swimming motions. Yet, if this swimmer had no conception whatsoever of an avalanche or of snow, he would not know how to escape an avalanche. This suggests that there must be some propositional/representational aspect of knowing how to Φ. Hence, according to this view for one to know how to Φ, (i) one must have objectual knowledge of a way of Φ-ing and (ii) one must grasp a correct and complete conception of this way.

As we have seen, Ryle is often interpreted as claiming that knowledge-how ascriptions are nothing more than ascriptions of an ability or a complex of dispositions to act in a skilled or intelligent manner (Hornsby 2011). (For a recent defense of knowledge-how as an ability, see Markie 2015.) Anti-intellectualism of this sort has been voiced by Lewis (1990) and has been thought to undercut the so-called “knowledge-argument” in the philosophy of mind (see Jackson 1986 for a classic formulation. For further discussion, see Nemirow 1990 and Alter 2001). However, Cath (2009) argues that similar worries about the argument survive even on some prominent intellectualist views. For a survey of other consequences thought to follow from the various positions in the knowledge-how debate, see Bengson and Moffett (2011b: 44–54).

However, few theorists nowadays identify knowledge-how with bare abilities. Setiya (2012) holds that to have knowledge-how is to have the disposition to act guided by one’s intention; Constantin (2018) argues that knowing how to Φ is to have the disposition to have the ability to Φ. Neo-Rylean views are also developed by Craig (1990), Wiggins (2012), and Löwenstein (2016). Craig suggests that knowledge-how to Φ amounts to the ability to teach others how to Φ. Wiggins argues that genuine knowledge-how stems from a bundle of practical abilities that constitute the ethos of a practice and, while interrelated with propositional knowledge, cannot be reduced to it. In turn, Löwenstein argues that knowledge-how to Φ is the ability to Φ intelligently guided by the understanding of the activity of Φ-ing.

Carter and Pritchard (2015a,b,c) develop an alternative view which does not equate knowledge-how with an ability, but it still gives ability a central theoretical role. In their view, knowing how to Φ is a cognitive achievement, given our abilities to Φ: if one successfully Φs because of one’s ability, then one knows how to Φ. And if one knows how to Φ, then one is positioned to successfully Φ because of one’s ability. Therefore, for them, knowledge-how does not reduce to the mere possession of abilities but it essentially involves the successful enactment of these abilities. Habgood-Coote (2019) defends the view that knowing how to Φ just is the ability to generate the right answers to the question of how to Φ. Although on this view, knowledge-how is a relation an agent bears to a proposition—one that answers the relevant practical question—this relation to a proposition is not understood in epistemic terms but in terms of dispositions (see also Audi 2017 and Farkas 2017).

8.3 Radical Anti-Intellectualism: Practicalism

While the intellectualist holds that knowledge-how must be understood in terms of knowledge-that, radical anti-intellectualism holds that knowledge-that must be understood in terms of knowledge-how or skill. As Hetherington puts it:

Your knowing that p is your having the ability to manifest various accurate representations of p . The knowledge as such is the ability as such. (2011: 42, original emphasis)

An agent knows that, for instance, she is in France whenever she is able to produce the corresponding true belief, to assert that she is indeed in France, provide justification, answer related questions, etc. (see Hartland-Swann 1956; Roland 1958 for classic formulation and Hetherington’s 2006, 2011, 2020 “practicalism” for a more recent form of radical anti-intellectualism).

9. Knowledge-How and Skill

The most recent debate on knowledge-how has intertwined with a debate on the nature of skills. While there is no consensus on what counts as a skill, by and large people take skills to manifest in purposeful and goal-directed activities and to be learnable and improvable through practice (Fitts & Posner 1967; Stanley & Krakauer 2013; Willingham 1998; Yarrow, Brown, & Krakauer 2009). Skills are usually contrasted with knacks (or mere talents). Some contrast them with habits (Pear 1926; Ryle 1949) in that these are performed automatically, whereas the exercise of intelligent capacities involves self-control, attention to the conditions, and awareness of the task. Others, instead, argue that understanding skill requires a better understanding of what habits amount to (Gallagher 2017; Hutto & Robertson 2020).

The topic of skill and expertise is central since ancient philosophy through the notion of technē . Although both Plato and Aristotle took technē to be a kind of knowledge, there is significant controversy about their conceptions regarding the nature of this kind of knowledge and its relation to experience ( empeiria ) on one hand, and scientific knowledge ( epistēmē ) on the other (Johansen 2017; Lorenz & Morison 2019; Coope 2020). Annas (1995, 2001, 2011) develops an interpretation on which skill and virtue (or phronēsis ) are closer in Aristotle’s action theory than usually thought and they are both conceived along a broadly intellectualist model.

In contemporary times, the notion of skill is central to the philosophy of the twentieth-century French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Merleau-Ponty (1945 [1962]) distinguishes between motor intentionality —the sort of intentionality relevant for motor skills—and cognitive intentionality . While the latter is conceptual and representational, Merleau-Ponty thought that motor intentionality is non-representational and non-conceptual. Central to Merleau-Ponty is the role of motor skills in shaping perceptual experience: in paradigmatic cases of perception, the flow of information taken in by perceivers is inseparable from the way they move through a scene. On this view, even superficially static perceptions engage motor skills, such as seeing the color of a table as uniform when different parts of it are differently illuminated (see Siegel 2020 for an helpful introduction).

This phenomenological tradition inspires Dreyfus’ (1991, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007) critique of standard action theory. According to Dreyfus, theories on which an action is intentional only if the agent is in a mental state that represents the goal of her action (cf. Searle 1980, 2001) or on which actions are permeated by conceptual rationality (cf. McDowell 2007) are not supported by the phenomenology of purposive activity. Paradigmatic examples of these purposive activities are, for Dreyfus, skillful activities like playing tennis or habitual activity like rolling over in bed or making gestures while speaking. In this sort of skillful coping, Dreyfus thought that the mind does not represent the world as detached from it. Rather, it is fundamentally embedded, absorbed, and embodied (see Gehrman & Schwenkler 2020 for an helpful introduction to Dreyfus on skills).

The notion of skill is central also in Eastern philosophy. Garfield and Priest (2020) examine the various roles that the notion of skill plays in the Indian school of Mahayana Buddhism, in Daoism, and in Chan/Zen thought. In Daoism as well as in Chan/Zen Buddhism, the emphasis on skill is also connected, fundamentally, to concerns about living a good and ethical life. Sarkissan (2020) argues that two prominent types of expertise often encountered in ancient Chinese thought from the sixth to third centuries BCE: The first is expertise at a particular craft, occupation, or dao , as is most famously presented in the Daoist anthology Zhuangzi . The second is ethical expertise in the Ruist (Confucian) and Mohist schools (cf. for more on skill in Buddhism, see also MacKenzie 2020).

What is the relation between knowledge-how and skill? For many tasks at least, it is intuitive that one cannot be skilled at it without knowing how to perform it. At first, it also seems as if knowledge-how entails skill: one does not really know how to swim if one does not have the skill to swim; and one cannot know how to tell apart birds without the skills of a bird watcher. One might object to the sufficiency of knowledge-how for skill on the grounds that it is natural to say things such as “John may know how to make risotto, but I would not say he is skilled at it”. However, knowing how to make risotto sufficiently well (relative to contextually determined standards) might entail being skilled at it (relative to the same standards) (Cath 2020).

Ryle (1946, 1949) used “skill” and “knowledge-how” interchangeably in his criticism of the “Intellectualist legend” (for discussion, see Kremer 2020). In fact, Ryle’s view of knowledge-how is stated, literally, as the view that “skill” is a complex of dispositions (Ryle 1949: 33; see also Ryle 1967, 1974, 1976 for his views on how skill as a form of knowledge is distinguished by the forms on how it is taught and learned through training). This discussion brings us to whether intellectualism about knowledge-how and intellectualism about skill stand or fall together. Should intellectualists about knowledge-how identify skill too with propositional knowledge? While Stanley and Williamson (2001) embrace the view that knowledge-how is propositional knowledge, in a recent paper (Stanley & Williamson 2017), they refuse to think of skill as a standing propositional knowledge state. Rather, they argue that skills are dispositions to know. One motivation for this view is that this addresses the novelty challenge raised by Dreyfus (1991, 2005). According to this challenge, propositional knowledge cannot explain the ability to respond intelligently to situations that have not been encountered by the agent before. If skills are dispositions to know, it is no mystery how novel situations can be handled by skillful agents. Stanley & Williamson (2017) claim that the resulting view is still broadly intellectualist in a sense, because on it, skillful action manifests propositional knowledge (for a criticism of this response to the novelty objection, see Pavese 2016 in Other Internet Resources ).

Some authors argue that while skills may be related to propositional knowledge, they do not reduce to it. Dickie (2012) suggests that an agent is skilled at Φ whenever her intentions to Φ are non-lucky selectors of non-lucky means to Φ; while, in turn, these means might manifest propositional knowledge. Some argue that control is necessary for skills, and control cannot fully be understood in terms of propositional knowledge (Fridland 2014, 2017a, 2017b). In order to provide a theory of skill that makes room for control, Fridland (2020) develops a “functional” account of skills. In this view, a skill is a function from intentions to action, implemented through certain “control structures”, which include attention and strategic control. Among these control structures, there is also propositional knowledge, which is required for strategic control. In contrast, intellectualists about skills argue that being in control is not intelligible unless it is understood in terms of knowing what one is doing in virtue of knowing how to perform that action. Therefore, they argue that agentive control itself is best understood in terms of the capacity for propositional knowledge.

Understanding the nature of skill and its relation with knowledge is of crucial importance for virtue epistemology—the view that knowledge is to be defined in terms of the success of our cognitive skills (Zagzebski 2003, 2008; Sosa 2007, 2009; J. Greco 2003, 2010; Pritchard 2012; Turri 2013, 2016; Beddor & Pavese 2020; Pritchard 2020). Nevertheless, if it turns out that skill must be explained in terms of knowledge, virtue epistemology would be trying to account for knowledge in terms of knowledge and so would be viciously circular (see Millar 2009; Stanley & Williamson 2017 for an argument in this spirit). Some virtue epistemologists have responded by offering an anti-intellectualist account of knowledge-yielding cognitive skills. Sosa and Callahan (2020) describe the relevant skills as dispositions to succeed when one tries—such that knowledge is obtained when agents in the right shape and in the right situation enact these skills appropriately.

Recent discussions on skill include a renewed debate on the nature of skilled action—i.e., on the sort of processes that are involved in the manifestation of skills. The most recent discussion on skilled action concerns the extent to which they are automatic or under conscious control. A long tradition has taken skilled action to be paradigmatically a matter of “absorbed coping” (Heidegger 1927; Merleau-Ponty 1945 [1962]; Dreyfus 1991)—characterized as immersion in the situation and intuitive response to its demands, with little awareness of the body, tools or even possibly the activity itself. Following Dreyfus and the phenomenological tradition, some enactivists (e.g., Noë 2004) highlight the analogies between skillful behavior and perception; other enactivists (e.g., Gallagher 2017; Hutto & Robertson 2020) argue that in order to understand the automaticity and unreflectiveness of skilled action, we ought to better understand habitual behavior. Even outside the phenomenological tradition, people have emphasized the unreflective aspect of skilled action. For example, Papineau (2013) argues that skilled actions are typically too fast for conscious control. One important argument for the unreflectiveness of skilled action starts from the phenomenon of choking under pressure, where an individual performs significantly worse than would be expected in a high-pressure situation. This phenomenon has been taken to be evidence that skillful action proceeds without conscious attention, because choking episodes are thought to arise from the fact that anxiety leads one to focus and direct one’s mind on the performance, which would proceed smoothly if mindless (Baumeister 1984; Masters 1992; Beilock & Carr 2001; Ford, Hodges, & Williams 2005; Jackson, Ashford, & Norsworthy 2006; Gucciardi & Dimmock 2008). Some argue that unreflectiveness also characterizes skillful joint action (Høffding 2014; Gallagher and Ilundáin-Agurruza 2020).

In recent years, however, some have emphasized the role of attention and consciousness in skillful performance (Montero 2016, 2020; Wu 2016, 2020). Montero argues against the Dreyfusian idea of skillful and mindless coping, by noting that online conscious thought about what one is doing is compatible with expertise and by surveying empirical evidence that suggests revisiting the choking argument. Christensen, Sutton and McIlwain (2016) and Christensen, Sutton, and Bicknell’s (2019) argue for the centrality of cognition in explaining the flexibility of skilled action in complex situations and advance a “mesh theory” of skilled action, according to which skilled action results for a mesh of both automatic and cognitively controlled processes (for a survey of some of these issues, Christensen 2019. See also Sutton 2007 and Fridland 2017b).

Knowledge-how is related to but distinct from practical knowledge (Anscombe 1957). Practical knowledge is occurrent during intentional action: when one intentionally acts, one knows what one is doing while knowing it. While being capable of practical knowledge might require knowledge-how, knowing how to perform an action does not entail performing that action, and so does not entail practical knowledge (Setiya 2008; Schwenkler 2019; Small 2020). Some have argued knowledge-how is the norm of intention (Habgood-Coote 2018b), so that one can properly intend to perform an act only if one knows how to perform it.

An important question is whether knowledge-how is connected to distinctive kinds of epistemic injustice (Fricker 2007; Dotson 2011; Collins 1990, 1998; Medina 2011). Hawley (2011) discusses the phenomena whereby people ascribe less knowledge-how and ability to female musicians (Goldin & Rouse 2000) and whereby standards for judgments of success due to ability rather than luck or “instinct” tend to be higher for women and non-white men (Biernat & Kobrynowicz 1997). In these cases, agents may be transmitting knowledge by being direct sources of information, rather than by testifying to the truth of a proposition. If so, the harms that they suffer might call for a different account than standard cases of epistemic injustices like Fricker’s (2007), which focus on testimonial transmission of knowledge-that.

A final topic of interest is the relation between knowledge-how and faith. While most views on faith focus on its doxastic aspect, Sliwa (2018) argues that faith essentially involves agents acting in the right way with respect to the object of their faith. Having faith in a person, for instance, requires knowing how to interact with them so as to trust them, help them, and ensure their autonomy in general. Religious faith, similarly, requires faithful agents to know how to enact the relevant practices like going to mass, declaring one’s faith, and praying.

  • Abbott, Barbara, 2013, “Linguistic Solutions to Philosophical Problems: The Case of Knowing How”, Philosophical Perspectives , 27(1): 1–21. doi:10.1111/phpe.12019
  • Adams, Marcus P., 2009, “Empirical Evidence and the Knowledge-That/Knowledge-How Distinction”, Synthese , 170(1): 97–114. doi:10.1007/s11229-008-9349-z
  • Allen, Collin and Marc Bekoff, 1999, Species of Mind: The Philosophy and Biology of Cognitive Ethology , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. doi:10.7551/mitpress/6395.001.0001
  • Alter, Torin, 2001, “Know-How, Ability, and the Ability Hypothesis”, Theoria , 67(3): 229–239. doi:10.1111/j.1755-2567.2001.tb00205.x
  • Anderson, John R., 1983, The Architecture of Cognition , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Annas, Julia, 1995, “Virtue as a Skill”, International Journal of Philosophical Studies , 3(2): 227–243. doi:10.1080/09672559508570812
  • –––, 2001, “Moral Knowledge as Practical Knowledge”, Social Philosophy and Policy , 18(2): 236–256. doi:10.1017/S0265052500002971
  • –––, 2011, “Practical Expertise”, in Bengson and Moffett 2011c: 101–112.
  • Anscombe, G. E. M., 1957, Intention , Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
  • Audi, Robert, 1986, “Intending, Intentional Action, and Desire”, in The Ways of Desire: New Essays in Philosophical Psychology on the Concept of Wanting , Joel Marks (ed.), Chicago, IL: Precedent, pp. 17–38.
  • –––, 2017, “On intellectualism in the theory of action”, Journal of the American philosophical association 3(3): 284. doi:10.1017/apa.2017.29
  • Bach, Kent, 2012, “Review of Know How , by Jason Stanley”, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews , March. [ Bach 2012 available online ]
  • Baker, Carl Leroy, 1968, Indirect Questions in English , Ph.D Thesis, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois.
  • Baker, Mark, 1996, “On the Structural Positions of Themes and Goals”, in Phrase Structure and the Lexicon , Johan Rooryck and Laurie Zaring (eds.), (Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 33), Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 7–34. doi:10.1007/978-94-015-8617-7_2
  • Baumeister, Roy F., 1984, “Choking under Pressure: Self-Consciousness and Paradoxical Effects of Incentives on Skillful Performance”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 46(3): 610–620. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.46.3.610
  • Beddor, Bob and Carlotta Pavese, 2020, “Modal Virtue Epistemology”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 101(1): 61–79. doi:10.1111/phpr.12562
  • Beilock, Sian L. and Thomas H. Carr, 2001, “On the Fragility of Skilled Performance: What Governs Choking under Pressure?”, Journal of Experimental Psychology. General , 130(4): 701–725. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.130.4.701
  • Bengson, John and Marc A. Moffett, 2007, “Know-How and Concept Possession”, Philosophical Studies , 136(1): 31–57. doi:10.1007/s11098-007-9146-4
  • –––, 2011a, “Nonpropositional Intellectualism”, in Bengson and Moffett 2011c: 161–195.
  • –––, 2011b, “Two Conceptions of Mind and Action: Knowledge How and the Philosophical Theory of Intelligence”, in Bengson and Moffett 2011c: 3–55.
  • ––– (eds.), 2011c, Knowing How: Essays on Knowledge, Mind, and Action , Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195389364.001.0001
  • Bengson, John, Marc A. Moffett, and Jennifer C. Wright, 2009, “The Folk on Knowing How”, Philosophical Studies , 142(3): 387–401. doi:10.1007/s11098-007-9193-x
  • Biernat, Monica and Diane Kobrynowicz, 1997, “Gender- and Race-Based Standards of Competence: Lower Minimum Standards but Higher Ability Standards for Devalued Groups”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 72(3): 544–557. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.72.3.544
  • Birch, Jonathan, 2019, “Joint Know-How”, Philosophical Studies , 176(12): 3329–3352. doi:10.1007/s11098-018-1176-6
  • Boghossian, Paul Artin, 1996, “Analyticity Reconsidered”, Noûs , 30(3): 360–391. doi:10.2307/2216275
  • –––, 2003, “Blind Reasoning I”, Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume , 77: 225–248. doi:10.1111/1467-8349.00110
  • Bratman, Michael, 1987, Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Bresnan, Joan and Jane Grimshaw, 1978, “The Syntax of Free Relatives in English”, Linguistic Inquiry , 9(3): 331–391.
  • De Brigard, Felipe, 2019, “Know-How, Intellectualism, and Memory Systems”, Philosophical Psychology , 32(5): 719–758. doi:10.1080/09515089.2019.1607280
  • Brogaard, Berit, 2009, “What Mary Did Yesterday: Reflections on Knowledge- Wh ”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 78(2): 439–467. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2009.00250.x
  • –––, 2011, “Knowledge-How: A Unified Account”, in Bengson and Moffett 2011c: 136–160.
  • Brown, Jessica A., 2013, “Knowing-How: Linguistics and Cognitive Science”, Analysis , 73(2): 220–227. doi:10.1093/analys/ant003
  • Brownstein, Michael and Eliot Michaelson, 2016, “Doing without Believing: Intellectualism, Knowledge-How, and Belief-Attribution”, Synthese , 193(9): 2815–2836. doi:10.1007/s11229-015-0888-9
  • Butterfill, Stephen A. and Corrado Sinigaglia, 2014, “Intention and Motor Representation in Purposive Action”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 88(1): 119–145. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2012.00604.x
  • Carr, David, 1979, “The Logic of Knowing How and Ability”, Mind , 88(1): 394–409. doi:10.1093/mind/LXXXVIII.1.394
  • –––, 1981, “Knowledge in Practice”, American Philosophical Quarterly , 18(1): 53–61.
  • Carroll, Lewis, 1895, “What the Tortoise Said to Achilles”, Mind , 4(14): 278–280. doi:10.1093/mind/IV.14.278
  • Carter, J. Adam and Jesús Navarro, 2017, “The Defeasibility of Knowledge-How”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 95(3): 662–685. doi:10.1111/phpr.12441
  • Carter, J. Adam and Duncan Pritchard, 2015a, “Knowledge-How and Epistemic Value”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy , 93(4): 799–816. doi:10.1080/00048402.2014.997767
  • –––, 2015b, “Knowledge-How and Cognitive Achievement”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 91(1): 181–199. doi:10.1111/phpr.12094
  • –––, 2015c, “Knowledge-How and Epistemic Luck: Knowledge-How and Epistemic Luck”, Noûs , 49(3): 440–453. doi:10.1111/nous.12054
  • Carter, J. Adam, Duncan Pritchard, and Joshua Shepherd, 2019, “Knowledge-How, Understanding-Why and Epistemic Luck: An Experimental Study”, Review of Philosophy and Psychology , 10(4): 701–734. doi:10.1007/s13164-018-0429-9
  • Cath, Yuri, 2009, “The Ability Hypothesis and the New Knowledge-How”, Noûs , 43(1): 137–156. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0068.2008.01699.x
  • –––, 2011, “Knowing How Without Knowing That”, in Bengson and Moffett 2011c: 113–135.
  • –––, 2013, “Regarding a Regress”, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly , 94(3): 358–388. doi:10.1111/papq.12004
  • –––, 2015a, “Knowing How and ‘Knowing How’”, in The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophical Methods , Christopher Daly (ed.), Basingstroke, Hampshire: Palgrave-Macmillan, 527–552.
  • –––, 2015b, “Revisionary Intellectualism and Gettier”, Philosophical Studies , 172(1): 7–27. doi:10.1007/s11098-013-0263-y
  • –––, 2017, “Intellectualism and testimony”, Analysis , 77(2): 259–266. doi:10.1093/analys/anx066
  • –––, 2019, “Knowing How”, Analysis , 79(3): 487–503. doi:10.1093/analys/anz027
  • –––, 2020, “Know How and Skill: The Puzzles of Priority and Equivalence”, in Fridland and Pavese 2020: 157–167.
  • Christensen, Wayne, 2019, “Skilled Action”, Philosophy Compass , 14(11): e12631. doi:10.1111/phc3.12631
  • Christensen, Wayne, John Sutton, and Doris McIlwain, 2016, “Cognition in skilled action: Meshed control and the varieties of skill experience”, Mind & Language , 31(1): 37–66. doi:10.1111/mila.12094
  • Christensen, Wayne, John Sutton, and Kath Bicknell, 2019, “Memory Systems and the Control of Skilled Action”, Philosophical Psychology , 32(5): 692–718. doi:10.1080/09515089.2019.1607279
  • Cohen, N. J. and L. R. Squire, 1980, “Preserved Learning and Retention of Pattern-Analyzing Skill in Amnesia: Dissociation of Knowing How and Knowing That”, Science , 210(4466): 207–210. doi:10.1126/science.7414331
  • Collins, Patricia Hill, 1990 [2007] ***2007* , “Black Feminist Epistemology”, in Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment , Bostin: Unwin Hyman; second edition, New York: Routledge, 2000, 251–271. Reprinted as “Black Feminist Epistemology [1990]”, in Contemporary Sociological Theory , second edition, Craig J. Calhoun (ed.), Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007, 327–336.
  • –––, 1998, “Some Group Matters: Intersectionality, Situated Standpoints, and Black Feminist Thought”, in Fighting Words: Black Women and The Search for Justice , Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Reprinted in 2003 A Companion to African-American Philosophy , Tommy L. Lott and John P. Pittman (eds.), Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 205–229. doi:10.1002/9780470751640.ch12
  • Conee, Earl and Richard Feldman, 1998, “The Generality Problem for Reliabilism”, Philosophical Studies , 89(1): 1–29. doi:10.1023/A:1004243308503
  • Constantin, Jan, 2018, “A dispositional account of practical knowledge”, Philosophical Studies , 175(9): 2309–2329. doi:10.1007/s11098-017-0960-z
  • Coope, Ursula, 2020, “Aristotle on Productive Understanding and Completeness”, in Productive Knowledge in Ancient Philosophy , edited by Thomas Kjeller Johansen, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 109–130.
  • Craig, Edward, 1990, Knowledge and the State of Nature: An Essay in Conceptual Synthesis , Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  • Devitt, Michael, 2011, “Methodology and the Nature of Knowing How”, Journal of Philosophy , 108(4): 205–218. doi:10.5840/jphil2011108412
  • Dickie, Imogen, 2012, “Skill Before Knowledge”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 85(3): 737–745. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2012.00638.x
  • Ditter, Andreas, 2016, “Why Intellectualism Still Fails”, The Philosophical Quarterly , 66(264): 500–515. doi:10.1093/pq/pqv115
  • Dotson, Kristie, 2011, “Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing”, Hypatia , 26(2): 236–257. doi:10.1111/j.1527-2001.2011.01177.x
  • Douskos, Christos, 2013, “The Linguistic Argument for Intellectualism”, Synthese , 190(12): 2325–2340. doi:10.1007/s11229-011-9972-y
  • Dreyfus, Hubert L., 1991, Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time, División I , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • –––, 1999, “The Primacy of Phenomenology over Logical Analysis”:, Philosophical Topics , 27(2): 3–24. doi:10.5840/philtopics19992722
  • –––, 2000, “A Merleau-Pontyian Critique of Husserl’s and Searle’s Representationalist Accounts of Action”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society , 100(1): 287–302. doi:10.1111/j.0066-7372.2003.00017.x
  • –––, 2002, “Intelligence without Representation—Merleau-Ponty’s Critique of Mental Representation: The Relevance of Phenomenology to Scientific Explanation”, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences , 1(4): 367–383. doi:10.1023/A:1021351606209
  • –––, 2005, “Overcoming the Myth of the Mental: How Philosophers Can Profit from the Phenomenology of Everyday Expertise”, Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association , 79(2): 47–65.
  • –––, 2007, “The Return of the Myth of the Mental”, Inquiry , 50(4): 352–365.
  • –––, 2014, Skillful Coping: Essays on the Phenomenology of Everyday Perception and Action , Mark A. Wrathall (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199654703.001.0001
  • Elzinga, Benjamin, forthcoming, “Intellectualizing Know How”, Synthese , first online: 4 March 2019. doi:10.1007/s11229-019-02160-6
  • Fantl, Jeremy, 2008, “Knowing-How and Knowing-That”, Philosophy Compass , 3(3): 451–470. doi:10.1111/j.1747-9991.2008.00137.x
  • Farkas, Kati, 2017. “Practical Know–Wh”, Noûs , 51(4): 855–870. doi:10.1111/nous.12152
  • –––, 2011, “Ryle’s Regress Defended”, Philosophical Studies , 156(1): 121–130. doi:10.1007/s11098-011-9800-8
  • Feldman, Richard, 1985, “Reliability and Justification”:, The Monist , 68(2): 159–174. doi:10.5840/monist198568226
  • Fitts, Paul M. and Michael I., Posner, 1967, Human Performance , Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.
  • Fodor, Jerry A., 1968, “The Appeal to Tacit Knowledge in Psychological Explanation”, The Journal of Philosophy , 65(20): 627. doi:10.2307/2024316
  • Ford, Paul, Nicola J. Hodges, and A. Mark Williams, 2005, “Online Attentional-Focus Manipulations in a Soccer-Dribbling Task: Implications for the Proceduralization of Motor Skills”, Journal of Motor Behavior , 37(5): 386–394. doi:10.3200/JMBR.37.5.386-394
  • Fricker, Miranda, 2007, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing , New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198237907.001.0001
  • Fridland, Ellen, 2013, “Problems with Intellectualism”, Philosophical Studies , 165(3): 879–891. doi:10.1007/s11098-012-9994-4
  • –––, 2014, “They’ve Lost Control: Reflections on Skill”, Synthese , 191(12): 2729–2750. doi:10.1007/s11229-014-0411-8
  • –––, 2015, “Knowing-How: Problems and Considerations”, European Journal of Philosophy , 23(3): 703–727. doi:10.1111/ejop.12000
  • –––, 2017a, “Skill and Motor Control: Intelligence All the Way Down”, Philosophical Studies , 174(6): 1539–1560. doi:10.1007/s11098-016-0771-7
  • –––, 2017b, “Automatically minded”, Synthese , 194(11): 4337–4363. doi:10.1007/s11229-014-0617-9
  • –––, 2020, “The Nature of Skill: Functions and Control Structures”, in Fridland and Pavese 2020: 245–257.
  • Fridland, Ellen and Carlotta Pavese (eds.), 2020, The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Skill And Expertise , New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315180809
  • Gallagher, Shaun, 2017, Enactivist Interventions: Rethinking the Mind , Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780198794325.001.0001
  • Gallagher, Shaun and Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza, 2020, “Self-and Other- Awareness in Joint Expert Performance”, in Fridland and Pavese 2020: 378–393.
  • Gallistel, C. R. and Adam Philip King, 2009, Memory and the Computational Brain: Why Cognitive Science Will Transform Neuroscience , Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9781444310498
  • Garfield, Jay L. and Graham Priest, 2020, “Skill and Virtuosity in Buddhist and Daoist Philosophy”, in Fridland and Pavese 2020: 29–39.
  • George, B. R., 2013, “Knowing-‘Wh’, Mention-Some Readings, and Non-Reducibility: Knowing-‘Wh’”, Thought: A Journal of Philosophy , 2(2): 166–177. doi:10.1002/tht3.88
  • Gehrman, Kristina and John Schwenkler, 2020, “Hubert Dreyfus on Practical and Embodied Intelligence”, in Fridland and Pavese 2020: 123–32.
  • Gettier, Edmund L., 1963, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?”, Analysis , 23(6): 121–123. doi:10.1093/analys/23.6.121
  • Gibbons, John, 2001, “Knowledge in Action”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 62(3): 579–600. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2001.tb00075.x
  • Ginet, Carl, 1975, Knowledge, Perception and Memory , Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. doi:10.1007/978-94-010-9451-1
  • –––, 1990, On Action , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139173780
  • Ginzburg, Jonathan, 1995a, “Resolving Questions, I”, Linguistics and Philosophy , 18(5): 459–527. doi:10.1007/BF00985365
  • –––, 1995b, “Resolving Questions, II”, Linguistics and Philosophy , 18(6): 567–609. doi:10.1007/BF00983299
  • –––, 1996, “Interrogatives: Questions, Facts and Dialogue”, in Lappin 1996: ch. 15.
  • –––, 2011, “How to Resolve How To ”, in Bengson and Moffett 2011c: 215–243.
  • Ginzburg, Jonathan and Ivan A. Sag, 2000, Interrogative Investigations: The Form, Meaning, and Use of English Interrogatives , (CSLI Lecture Notes, 123), Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
  • Glick, Ephraim, 2011, “Two Methodologies for Evaluating Intellectualism”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 83(2): 398–434. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2010.00438.x
  • –––, 2012, “Abilities and Know-How Attributions”, in Knowledge Ascriptions , Jessica Brown and Mikkel Gerken (eds.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 120–139. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199693702.003.0006
  • –––, 2015, “Practical Modes of Presentation”, Noûs , 49(3): 538–559. doi:10.1111/nous.12052
  • Goldin, Claudia and Cecilia Rouse, 2000, “Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of ‘Blind’ Auditions on Female Musicians”, American Economic Review , 90(4): 715–741. doi:10.1257/aer.90.4.715
  • Goldman, Alvin I., 1970, A Theory of Human Action , Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  • –––, 1976, “Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge”, The Journal of Philosophy , 73(20): 771–791. doi:10.2307/2025679
  • Greco, Daniel, 2016, “Safety, Explanation, Iteration”, Philosophical Issues , 26(1): 187–208. doi:10.1111/phis.12067
  • Greco, John, 2003, “Knowledge as Credit for True Belief”, in Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives From Ethics and Epistemology , Michael DePaul and Linda Zagzebski (eds), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 111–134.
  • –––, 2010, Achieving Knowledge: A Virtue-Theoretic Account of Epistemic Normativity , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511844645
  • Groenendijk, Joroen and Martin Stokhof, 1982, “Semantic Analysis of Wh -Complements”, Linguistics and Philosophy , 5(2): 175–233. doi:10.1007/BF00351052
  • –––, 1997, “Questions”, in Handbook of Logic and Language , Johan Van Benthem and Alice ter Meulen (eds.), Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1055–1124. doi:10.1016/B978-044481714-3/50024-2
  • Gucciardi, Daniel F. and James A. Dimmock, 2008, “Choking under Pressure in Sensorimotor Skills: Conscious Processing or Depleted Attentional Resources?”, Psychology of Sport and Exercise , 9(1): 45–59. doi:10.1016/j.psychsport.2006.10.007
  • Habgood-Coote, Joshua, 2018a, “Knowledge-How: Interrogatives and Free Relatives”, Episteme , 15(2): 183–201. doi:10.1017/epi.2016.54
  • –––, 2018b, “Knowledge-How Is the Norm of Intention”, Philosophical Studies , 175(7): 1703–1727. doi:10.1007/s11098-017-0931-4
  • –––, 2018c, “The Generality Problem for Intellectualism”, Mind & Language , 33(3): 242–262. doi:10.1111/mila.12177
  • –––, 2019, “Knowledge-How, Abilities, and Questions”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy , 97(1): 86–104. doi:10.1080/00048402.2018.1434550
  • Hamblin, C.L., 1958, “Questions”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy , 36(3): 159–168. doi:10.1080/00048405885200211
  • –––, 1973, “Questions in Montague English”, Foundations of Language , 10(1): 41–53.
  • Harman, Gilbert, 1976, “Practical Reasoning”, The Review of Metaphysics , 29(3): 431–463.
  • Hartland-Swann, John, 1956, “The Logical Status of ‘Knowing That’”, Analysis , 16(5): 111–115. doi:10.1093/analys/16.5.111
  • Hawley, Katherine, 2003, “Success and Knowledge-How”, American Philosophical Quarterly , 40(1): 19–31.
  • –––, 2010, “Testimony and Knowing How”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A , 41(4): 397–404. doi:10.1016/j.shpsa.2010.10.005
  • –––, 2011, “Knowing How and Epistemic Injustice”, in Bengson and Moffett 2011c: 283–299.
  • Hawthorne, John, 2000, “Implicit Belief and A Priori Knowledge”, The Southern Journal of Philosophy , 38(S1): 191–210. doi:10.1111/j.2041-6962.2000.tb00937.x
  • Heidegger, Martin, 1927, Sein Und Zeit , Halle: Max Niemeyer; translated as Being and Time , by J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962.
  • Heim, Irene, 1994, “Interrogative Semantics and Karttunen’s Semantics for Know ”, in Proceedings of the Israeli Association for Theoretical Linguistics (IATL 1) , Rhonna Buchalla and Anita Mittwoch (eds), Jerusalem.
  • Hetherington, Stephen C., 2006, “How to Know (That Knowledge-That Is Knowledge-How)”, in S. Hetherington (ed.), Epistemology Futures , pp. 71–94, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  • –––, 2011, How to Know: A Practicalist Conception of Knowledge , Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.
  • –––, 2020, “Knowledge as Skill”, in Fridland and Pavese 2020: 168–178.
  • Higginbotham, James, 1996, “The Semantics of Questions”, in Lappin 1996: ch. 14.
  • Hintikka, Jaakko, 1976, The Semantics of Questions and the Questions of Semantics: Case Studies in the Interrelations of Logic, Semantics, and Syntax , Amsterdam: North-Holland.
  • Høffding, Simon, 2014, “What Is Skilled Coping? Experts on Expertise”, Journal of Consciousness Studies , 21(9–10): 49–73.
  • –––, 2015, A Phenomenology of Expert Musicianship , Ph.D. thesis, Det Humanistiske Fakultet, Københavns Universitet.
  • Hookway, Christopher, 2008, “Questions, Epistemology, and Inquiries”, Grazer Philosophische Studien , 77(1): 1–21. doi:10.1163/18756735-90000841
  • Hornsby, Jennifer, 2004, “Agency and Actions”, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement , 55: 1–23. doi:10.1017/S1358246100008614
  • –––, 2011, “Ryle’s Knowing-How and Knowing How to Act”, in Bengson and Moffett 2011c: 80–98.
  • –––, 2016, “Intending, Knowing How, Infinitives”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy , 46(1): 1–17. doi:10.1080/00455091.2015.1132544
  • Huddleston, Rodney and Geoffrey K. Pullum, 2002, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781316423530
  • Hutto, Daniel D. and Ian Robertson, 2020, “Clarifying the Character of Habits: Understanding What and How They Explain”, in Habits: Pragmatist Approaches from Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Social Theory , Fausto Caruana and Italo Testa (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 204–222. doi:10.1017/9781108682312.010
  • Israel, David, John Perry, and Syun Tutiya, 1993, “Executions, Motivations, and Accomplishments”, Philosophical Review , 102(4): 515–540. doi:10.2307/2185682
  • Jackson, Robin C., Kelly J. Ashford, and Glen Norsworthy, 2006, “Attentional Focus, Dispositional Reinvestment, and Skilled Motor Performance under Pressure”, Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology , 28(1): 49–68.
  • Jackson, Frank, 1986, “What Mary didn’t know”, The Journal of Philosophy , 83(5): 291–295. doi:10.2307/2026143
  • Jeannerod, Marc, 1997, The Cognitive Neuroscience of Action , Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
  • Johansen, Thomas Kjeller, 2017, “Aristotle on the Logos of the Craftsman”, Phronesis , 62(2): 97–135. doi:10.1163/15685284-12341321
  • Johnson, Kent, 2006, “Externalist Thoughts and the Scope of Linguistics”:, ProtoSociology , 22: 23–39. doi:10.5840/protosociology20062219
  • Karttunen, Lauri, 1977, “Syntax and Semantics of Questions”, Linguistics and Philosophy , 1(1): 3–44. doi:10.1007/BF00351935
  • Katzoff, Charlotte, 1984, “Knowing How”, The Southern Journal of Philosophy , 22(1): 61–69. doi:10.1111/j.2041-6962.1984.tb00324.x
  • King, Jeffrey C., 2002, “Designating Propositions”, Philosophical Review , 111(3): 341–371. doi:10.2307/3182547
  • Koethe, John, 2002, “Stanley and Williamson on Knowing How”, The Journal of Philosophy , 99(6): 325–328. doi:10.2307/3655587
  • Krakauer, John W., 2019, “The Intelligent Reflex”, Philosophical Psychology , 32(5): 822–830. doi:10.1080/09515089.2019.1607281
  • –––, 2020, “Automatizing Knowledge: Confusion Over What Cognitive Neuroscience Tells Us about Intellectualism”, in Fridland and Pavese 2020: 219–225.
  • Kremer, Michael, 2020, “Gilbert Ryle on Skill as Knowledge-How”, in Fridland and Pavese 2020: 100–112.
  • Lahiri, Utpai, 1991, Questions, Answers and Selection , Ph.D. Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  • –––, 2000, “Lexical Selection and Quantificational Variability in Embedded Interrogatives”, Linguistics and Philosophy , 23(4): 325–389. doi:10.1023/A:1005522702169
  • Lappin, Shalom (ed.), 1996, The Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory , Oxford: Blackwell Reference.
  • Levy, Neil, 2017, “Embodied Savoir-Faire: Knowledge-How Requires Motor Representations”, Synthese , 194(2): 511–530. doi:10.1007/s11229-015-0956-1
  • Lewicki, Pawel, Maria Czyzewska, and Hunter Hoffman, 1987, “Unconscious Acquisition of Complex Procedural Knowledge”, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition , 13(4): 523–530. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.13.4.523
  • Lewis, David, 1990, “What Experience Teaches”, in Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology , volume 2, (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 262–290.
  • Lorenz, Hendrik and Benjamin Morison, 2019, “Aristotle’s Empiricist Theory of Doxastic Knowledge”, Phronesis , 64(4): 431–464. doi:10.1163/15685284-12341975
  • Löwenstein, David, 2016, Know-How as Competence: A Rylean Responsibilist Account , Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Vittorio Klostermann.
  • MacKenzie, Matthew, 2020, “Volition, Action, and Skill in Indian Buddhist Philosophy”, in Fridland and Pavese 2020: 53–64.
  • Markie, Peter J., 2015, “The Special Ability View of Knowledge-How”, Philosophical Studies , 172(12): 3191–3209. doi:10.1007/s11098-015-0464-7
  • Marley-Payne, Jack, 2016, Action-First Attitudes , Ph.D. Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [ Marley-Payne 2016 available online ]
  • Masters, Richard S. W., 1992, “Knowledge, Knerves and Know-How: The Role of Explicit versus Implicit Knowledge in the Breakdown of a Complex Motor Skill under Pressure”, British Journal of Psychology , 83(3): 343–358. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8295.1992.tb02446.x
  • McDowell, John, 2007, “What Myth?”, Inquiry , 50(4): 338–351. doi:10.1080/00201740701489211
  • Medina, José, 2011, “The Relevance of Credibility Excess in a Proportional View of Epistemic Injustice: Differential Epistemic Authority and the Social Imaginary”, Social Epistemology , 25(1): 15–35. doi:10.1080/02691728.2010.534568
  • Mele, Alfred R. and Paul K. Moser, 1994, “Intentional Action”, Noûs , 28(1): 39–68. doi:10.2307/2215919
  • Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 1945 [1962], Phénoménologie de la perception , Paris: Gallimard. Translated as Phenomenology of Perception , Colin Smith (trans.), London: Routledge & K. Paul.
  • Michaelis, Laura A., 2011, “Knowledge Ascription by Grammatical Construction”, in Bengson and Moffett 2011c: 261–279.
  • Millar, Alan, 2009, “What Is It That Cognitive Abilities Are Abilities to Do?”, Acta Analytica , 24(4): 223–236. doi:10.1007/s12136-009-0062-4
  • Milner, B., 1962, “ Les troubles de la mémoire accompagnant des lésions hippocampiques bilaterales”, in Physiologie de l’hippocampe , Colloque International No. 107, Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 257–272.
  • Montero, Barbara, 2016, Thought in Action: Expertise and the conscious mind , Oxford University Press.
  • –––, 2020, “Consciousness and Skill Attention in Skill”, in Fridland and Pavese 2020: 181–193.
  • Mosdell, Matthew, 2019, “Modeling Practical Thinking”, Mind & Language , 34(4): 445–464. doi:10.1111/mila.12218
  • Mylopoulos, Myrto and Elisabeth Pacherie, 2017, “Intentions and Motor Representations: The Interface Challenge”, Review of Philosophy and Psychology , 8(2): 317–336. doi:10.1007/s13164-016-0311-6
  • Nemirow, Laurence, 1990, “Physicalism and the Cognitive Role of Acquaintance”, in Mind and Cognition: A Reader , William G. Lycan (ed.), Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Newen, Albert, Andreas Bartels, and Eva-Maria Jung (eds), 2011, Knowledge and Representation , Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
  • Noë, Alva, 2004, Action in Perception , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • –––, 2005, “Against Intellectualism”, Analysis , 65(4): 278–290. doi:10.1093/analys/65.4.278
  • –––, 2011, “Ideology and the Third Realm (Or, a Short Essay on Knowing How to Philosophize)”, in Bengson and Moffett 2011c: 196–211.
  • Pacherie, Elisabeth, 2000, “The Content of Intentions”, Mind & Language , 15(4): 400–432. doi:10.1111/1468-0017.00142
  • –––, 2006, “Toward a Dynamic Theory of Intentions”, in Does Consciousness Cause Behavior? , Susan Pockett, William P. Banks, and Shaun Gallagher (eds.), Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 145–167. doi:10.7551/mitpress/9780262162371.003.0009
  • Palermos, S. Orestis and Deborah P. Tollefsen, 2018, “Group Know-How”, in Socially Extended Epistemology , J. Adam Carter, Jesper Kallestrup, S. Orestis Palermos, and Duncan Pritchard (eds), Oxford: Oxford University Press, ch. 6.
  • Papineau, David, 2013, “In the Zone”, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement , 73: 175–196. doi:10.1017/S1358246113000325
  • Parent, T., 2014, “Knowing- Wh and Embedded Questions”, Philosophy Compass , 9(2): 81–95. doi:10.1111/phc3.12104
  • Pavese, Carlotta, 2013, The Unity and Scope of Knowledge , Ph.D. Thesis, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University. doi:10.7282/T3R49NTB
  • –––, 2015a, “Knowing a Rule”, Philosophical Issues , 25(1): 165–188. doi:10.1111/phis.12045
  • –––, 2015b, “Practical Senses”, Philosophers’ Imprint , 15: art. 29. [ Pavese 2015b available online ]
  • –––, 2017, “Know-How and Gradability”, Philosophical Review , 126(3): 345–383. doi:10.1215/00318108-3878493
  • –––, 2019, “The Psychological Reality of Practical Representation”, Philosophical Psychology , 32(5): 784–821. doi:10.1080/09515089.2019.1612214
  • –––, 2020, “Probabilistic Knowledge in Action”, Analysis , 80(2): 342–356. doi:10.1093/analys/anz094
  • –––, 2021, “Knowledge, Action, and Defeasibility”, in Reasons, Justification, and Defeaters , edited by Jessica Brown and Mona Simion, chapter 8: 177–200, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
  • –––, forthcoming-a, “Know-How, Action, and Luck”, in Knowledge and Justification, New Perspectives , special issue of Synthese , first online: 31 May 2018. doi:10.1007/s11229-018-1823-7
  • –––, forthcoming-b, “Practical Concepts and Productive Reasoning”, in Mind in Skillful Performance , special issue of Synthese , first online: 7 April 2021. doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03132-5
  • Peacocke, Christopher, 1986, Thoughts: An Essay on Content , Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Pear, Tom Hatherley, 1926, “Skill”, Journal of Personnel Research , 5: 478–489.
  • Peet, Andrew, 2019, “Testimonial Knowledge-How”, Erkenntnis , 84(4): 895–912. doi:10.1007/s10670-018-9986-7
  • Poston, Ted, 2009, “Know How to Be Gettiered?”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 79(3): 743–747. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2009.00301.x
  • –––, 2016, “Know how to transmit knowledge?” Noûs , 50(4): 865–878. doi:10.1111/nous.12125
  • Pritchard, Duncan, 2012, “Anti-Luck Virtue Epistemology”:, Journal of Philosophy , 109(3): 247–279. doi:10.5840/jphil201210939
  • –––, 2020, “Knowledge, Skill and Virtue Epistemology”, in Fridland and Pavese 2020: 135–145.
  • Roberts, Craige, 2009, “Know-How: A Compositional Approach”, in Theory and Evidence in Semantics , Erhard W. Hinrichs and John Nerbonne (eds), Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
  • Roland, Jane, 1958, “On ‘Knowing How’ and ‘Knowing That’”, Philosophical Review , 67(3): 379–388. doi:10.2307/2182398
  • Rosefeldt, Tobias, 2004, “Is Knowing-How Simply a Case of Knowing-That?”, Philosophical Investigations , 27(4): 370–379. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9205.2004.00232.x
  • Roth, Martin and Robert Cummins, 2011, “Intellectualism as Cognitive Science”, in Newen, Bartels, and Jung 2011: ch. 2.
  • Rumfitt, Ian, 2003, “Savoir Faire”, Journal of Philosophy , 100(3): 158–166. doi:10.5840/jphil2003100319
  • Ryle, Gilbert, 1940, “Conscience and Moral Convictions”, Analysis , 7(2): 31–39. doi:10.2307/3326509
  • –––, 1946, “Knowing How and Knowing That: The Presidential Address”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society , 46(1): 1–16. Address given 5 November 1945. doi:10.1093/aristotelian/46.1.1
  • –––, 1949, The Concept of Mind , Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • –––, 1967 [2009], “Teaching and Training”, in The Concept of Education , R. S. Peters (ed.), London: Routledge, ch. 7. Reprinted in his Collected Essays 1929–1968: Collected Papers, Volume 2 , Abingdon: Routledge, 2009, pp. 464–478.
  • –––, 1974 [2000], “Courses of Action or the Uncatchableness of Mental Acts”, presented at the annual conference of the Experimental Analysis of Behaviour Group at Bangor in April 1974. Printed in 2000 in Philosophy , 75(3): 331–344. doi:10.1017/S0031819100000437
  • –––, 1976, “Improvisation”, Mind , 85(337): 69–83. Reprinted in his On Thinking , Konstantin Kolenda (ed.), Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1979, 121–130 .
  • Santorio, Paolo, 2016, “Nonfactual Know-How and the Boundaries of Semantics”, Philosophical Review , 125(1): 35–82. doi:10.1215/00318108-3321721
  • Sarkissan, Hagop, 2020, “Skill and Expertise in Three Schools of Classical Chinese”, in Fridland and Pavese 2020: 40–52.
  • Sax, Greg, 2010, “Having Know-How: Intellect, Action, and Recent Work on Ryle’s Distinction between Knowledge-How and Knowledge-That”, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly , 91(4): 507–530. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0114.2010.01376.x
  • Schaffer, Jonathan, 2009, “Knowing the Answer Redux: Replies to Brogaard and Kallestrup”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 78(2): 477–500. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2009.00252.x
  • Schiffer, Stephen, 2002, “Amazing Knowledge”, Journal of Philosophy , 99(4): 200–202. doi:10.2307/3655616
  • Schroeder, Mark, 2012, “Showing How to Derive Knowing How”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 85(3): 746–753. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2012.00639.x
  • Schwartz, Arieh and Zoe Drayson, 2019, “Intellectualism and the Argument from Cognitive Science”, Philosophical Psychology , 32(5): 661–691. doi:10.1080/09515089.2019.1607278
  • Schwenkler, John, 2019, Anscombe’s Intention: A Guide , Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780190052027.001.0001
  • Searle, John R., 1980, “The Intentionality of Intention and Action”, Cognitive Science , 4(1): 47–70. doi:10.1207/s15516709cog0401_3
  • –––, 2001, Rationality in Action , The Jean Nicod Lectures 2000, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Setiya, Kieran, 2008, “Practical Knowledge”, Ethics , 118(3): 388–409.
  • –––, 2012, “Knowing How”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society , 112(3): 285–307. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9264.2012.00336.x
  • Sgaravatti, Daniele and Elia Zardini, 2008, “Knowing How to Establish Intellectualism”, Grazer Philosophische Studien , 77(1): 217–261. doi:10.1163/18756735-90000849
  • Siegel, Susanna, 2020, “Skill and expertise in perception”, in Fridland and Pavese 2020: 303–16.
  • Sliwa, Paulina, 2018, “Know-How and Acts of Faith”, in Knowledge, Belief, and God: New Insights in Religious Epistemology , Matthew A. Benton, John Hawthorne, and Dani Rabinowitz (eds), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 246–263.
  • Small, Will, 2017, “Ryle on the Explanatory Role of Knowledge How”, Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy , 5(5): art. 4. doi:10.15173/jhap.v5i5.3206
  • –––, 2020, “Anscombe on Action and Practical Knowledge”, in Fridland and Pavese 2020: 113–122.
  • Snowdon, Paul F., 2004, “Knowing How and Knowing That: A Distinction Reconsidered”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society , 104(1): 1–29. doi:10.1111/j.0066-7373.2004.00079.x
  • –––, 2011, “Rylean Arguments: Ancient and Modern”, in Bengson and Moffett 2011c: 59–79.
  • Sosa, Ernest, 1999, “How to Defeat Opposition to Moore”, Philosophical Perspectives , 13: 141–153. doi:10.1111/0029-4624.33.s13.7
  • –––, 2007, A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge (Volume I), Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199297023.001.0001
  • –––, 2009, Reflective Knowledge: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume II , Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199217250.001.0001
  • Sosa, Ernest and Laura Frances Callahan, 2020, “Skill and Knowledge”, in Fridland and Pavese 2020: 146–156.
  • Springle, Alison, 2019, “Methods, Minds, Memory, and Kinds”, Philosophical Psychology , 32(5): 634–660. doi:10.1080/09515089.2019.1607277
  • Stalnaker, Robert C., 1984, Inquiry , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • –––, 1999, Context and Content: Essays on Intentionality in Speech and Thought , Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/0198237073.001.0001
  • –––, 2012, “Intellectualism and the Objects of Knowledge”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 85(3): 754–761. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2012.00640.x
  • Stanley, Jason, 2011a, “Intellectualism and the Language of Thought: A Reply to Roth and Cummins”, Newen, Bartels, and Jung 2011: 41–50.
  • –––, 2011b, Know How , Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199695362.001.0001
  • –––, 2011c, “Knowing (How)”, Noûs , 45(2): 207–238. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0068.2010.00758.x
  • Stanley, Jason and John W. Krakauer, 2013, “Motor Skill Depends on Knowledge of Facts”, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience , 7: 503. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.00503
  • Stanley, Jason and Timothy Williamson, 2001, “Knowing How”, Journal of Philosophy , 98(8): 411–444. doi:10.2307/2678403
  • –––, 2017, “Skill”, Noûs , 51(4): 713–726. doi:10.1111/nous.12144
  • Strachan, James, Günther Knoblich, and Natalie Sebanz, 2020, “Skill and Expertise in Joint Action”, in Fridland and Pavese 2020: 365–377.
  • Sutton, John, 2007, “Batting, Habit and Memory: The Embodied Mind and the Nature of Skill”, Sport in Society , 10(5): 763–786. doi:10.1080/17430430701442462
  • Turri, John, 2013, “Bi-Level Virtue Epistemology”, in Virtuous Thoughts: The Philosophy of Ernest Sosa , John Turri (ed.), Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 147–164. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-5934-3_8
  • –––, 2016, “A New Paradigm for Epistemology From Reliabilism to Abilism”, Ergo, an Open Access Journal of Philosophy , 3: art. 8. doi:10.3998/ergo.12405314.0003.008
  • Velleman, J. David, 1989, Practical Reflection , Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  • Vendler, Zeno, 1972, Res Cogitans: An Essay in Rational Psychology , Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press.
  • Waights Hickman, N., 2019, “Knowing in the ‘Executive Way’: Knowing How, Rules, Methods, Principles and Criteria”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 99(2): 311–335. doi:10.1111/phpr.12488
  • Wallis, Charles, 2008, “Consciousness, Context, and Know-How”, Synthese , 160(1): 123–153. doi:10.1007/s11229-006-9103-3
  • Weatherson, Brian, 2017, “Intellectual Skill and the Rylean Regress”, The Philosophical Quarterly , 67(267): 370–386. doi:10.1093/pq/pqw051
  • Wiggins, David, 2012, “Practical Knowledge: Knowing How To and Knowing That”, Mind , 121(481): 97–130. doi:10.1093/mind/fzs026
  • Williamson, Timothy, 2000, Knowledge and Its Limits , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • –––, 2011, “Reply to Boghossian”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 82(2): 498–506. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2010.00400.x
  • –––, 2012, “Boghossian and Casalegno on Understanding and Inference”, Dialectica , 66(2): 237–247. doi:10.1111/j.1746-8361.2012.01295.x
  • Willingham, Daniel B., 1998, “A Neuropsychological Theory of Motor Skill Learning”, Psychological Review , 105(3): 558–584. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.105.3.558
  • Wolpert, Daniel M., 1997, “Computational Approaches to Motor Control”, Trends in Cognitive Sciences , 1(6): 209–216. doi:10.1016/S1364-6613(97)01070-X
  • Wu, Wayne, 2016, “Experts and Deviants: The Story of Agentive Control”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 93(1): 101–126. doi:10.1111/phpr.12170
  • –––, 2020, “Automaticity, Control, and Attention in Skill”, in Fridland and Pavese 2020: 207–218.
  • Yalcin, Seth, 2015, “Quantifying In from a Fregean Perspective”, Philosophical Review , 124(2): 207–253. doi:10.1215/00318108-2842186
  • Yarrow, Kielan, Peter Brown, and John W. Krakauer, 2009, “Inside the Brain of an Elite Athlete: The Neural Processes That Support High Achievement in Sports”, Nature Reviews Neuroscience , 10(8): 585–596. doi:10.1038/nrn2672
  • Zagzebski, Linda, 2003, “The Search for the Source of Epistemic Good”, Metaphilosophy , 34(1–2): 12–28. doi:10.1111/1467-9973.00257
  • –––, 2008, On Epistemology , Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
  • Zardini, Elia, 2013, “Knowledge-How, True Indexical Belief, and Action”, Philosophical Studies , 164(2): 341–355. doi:10.1007/s11098-012-9852-4
How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.
  • Weatherson, Brian, 2006, “Ryle on Knowing How ’, blog post at Thoughts Arguments and Rants.
  • Links in Phil Papers to recent work on knowledge-how , edited by John Bengson.
  • “ Know-how ,’ by Charles Wallis in Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind .
  • “ Knowledge ,” by Stephen Hetherington in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
  • Pavese, Carlotta, 2016, “Comments on “ Knowledge-How, Abilities, and Questions ” by Joshua Habgood-Coote”, Minds Online (blog), 5 September 2016.
  • Fantl, Jeremy, “Knowledge How”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2021 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = < https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2021/entries/knowledge-how/ >. [This was the previous entry on this topic in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — see the version history .]

action | epistemology: virtue | intention | knowledge: analysis of | knowledge: by acquaintance vs. description | propositional attitude reports | Ryle, Gilbert

Acknowledgments

The author would like to acknowledge the contributions of Alejandro Vesga to this entry. He brought to my attention recently published papers on knowledge-how; brainstormed with me about the structure of the entry and the order of the topics to be discussed; provided substantial criticisms of, and suggestions for, drafts of the content; contributed the idea of adding a final section that related knowledge-how to other related topics; and compiled the bibliography once the bulk of the entry was finished.

Copyright © 2021 by Carlotta Pavese < cp645 @ cornell . edu >

  • Accessibility

Support SEP

Mirror sites.

View this site from another server:

  • Info about mirror sites

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is copyright © 2023 by The Metaphysics Research Lab , Department of Philosophy, Stanford University

Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054

Argumentative Essay

Definition of argumentative essay.

An argumentative essay is a type of essay that presents arguments about both sides of an issue. It could be that both sides are presented equally balanced, or it could be that one side is presented more forcefully than the other. It all depends on the writer, and what side he supports the most. The general structure of an argumentative essay follows this format:

  • Introduction : Attention Grabber/ hook , Background Information , Thesis Statement
  • Body : Three body paragraphs (three major arguments)
  • Counterargument : An argument to refute earlier arguments and give weight to the actual position
  • Conclusion : Rephrasing the thesis statement , major points, call to attention, or concluding remarks .

Models for Argumentative Essays

There are two major models besides this structure given above, which is called a classical model. Two other models are the Toulmin and Rogerian models.

Toulmin model is comprised of an introduction with a claim or thesis, followed by the presentation of data to support the claim. Warrants are then listed for the reasons to support the claim with backing and rebuttals. However, the Rogerian model asks to weigh two options, lists the strengths and weaknesses of both options, and gives a recommendation after an analysis.

Five Types of Argument Claims in Essay Writing  

There are five major types of argument claims as given below.

  • A claim of definition
  • A claim about values
  • A claim about the reason
  • A claim about comparison
  • A claim about policy or position

A writer makes a claim about these issues and answers the relevant questions about it with relevant data and evidence to support the claim.

Three Major Types of Argument and How to Apply Them

Classical argument.

This model of applying argument is also called the Aristotelian model developed by Aristotle. This type of essay introduces the claim, with the opinion of the writer about the claim, its both perspectives, supported by evidence, and provides a conclusion about the better perspective . This essay includes an introduction, a body having the argument and support, a counter-argument with support, and a conclusion.

Toulmin Argument

This model developed by Stephen Toulmin is based on the claim followed by grounds, warrant, backing, qualifier, and rebuttal . Its structure comprises, an introduction having the main claim, a body with facts and evidence, while its rebuttal comprises counter-arguments and a conclusion.

Rogerian Argument

The third model by Carl Rogers has different perspectives having proof to support and a conclusion based on all the available perspectives. Its structure comprises an introduction with a thesis, the opposite point of view and claim, a middle-ground for both or more perspectives, and a conclusion.

Four Steps to Outline and Argumentative Essay

There are four major steps to outlining an argumentative essay.

  • Introduction with background, claim, and thesis.
  • Body with facts, definition, claim, cause and effect, or policy.
  • The opposing point of view with pieces of evidence.

Examples of Argumentative Essay in Literature

Example #1: put a little science in your life by brian greene.

“When we consider the ubiquity of cellphones, iPods, personal computers and the Internet, it’s easy to see how science (and the technology to which it leads) is woven into the fabric of our day-to-day activities . When we benefit from CT scanners, M.R.I. devices, pacemakers and arterial stents, we can immediately appreciate how science affects the quality of our lives. When we assess the state of the world, and identify looming challenges like climate change, global pandemics, security threats and diminishing resources, we don’t hesitate in turning to science to gauge the problems and find solutions. And when we look at the wealth of opportunities hovering on the horizon—stem cells, genomic sequencing, personalized medicine, longevity research, nanoscience, brain-machine interface, quantum computers, space technology—we realize how crucial it is to cultivate a general public that can engage with scientific issues; there’s simply no other way that as a society we will be prepared to make informed decisions on a range of issues that will shape the future.”

These two paragraphs present an argument about two scientific fields — digital products and biotechnology. It has also given full supporting details with names.

Example #2: Boys Here, Girls There: Sure, If Equality’s the Goal by Karen Stabiner

“The first objections last week came from the National Organization for Women and the New York Civil Liberties Union, both of which opposed the opening of TYWLS in the fall of 1996. The two groups continue to insist—as though it were 1896 and they were arguing Plessy v. Ferguson—that separate can never be equal. I appreciate NOW ’s wariness of the Bush administration’s endorsement of single-sex public schools, since I am of the generation that still considers the label “feminist” to be a compliment—and many feminists still fear that any public acknowledgment of differences between the sexes will hinder their fight for equality .”

This paragraph by Karen Stabiner presents an objection to the argument of separation between public schools. It has been fully supported with evidence of the court case.

Example #3: The Flight from Conversation by Sherry Turkle

“We’ve become accustomed to a new way of being “ alone together.” Technology-enabled, we are able to be with one another, and also elsewhere, connected to wherever we want to be. We want to customize our lives. We want to move in and out of where we are because the thing we value most is control over where we focus our attention. We have gotten used to the idea of being in a tribe of one, loyal to our own party.”

This is an argument by Sherry Turkle, who beautifully presented it in the first person plural dialogues . However, it is clear that this is part of a greater argument instead of the essay.

Function of Argumentative Essay

An argumentative essay presents both sides of an issue. However, it presents one side more positively or meticulously than the other one, so that readers could be swayed to the one the author intends. The major function of this type of essay is to present a case before the readers in a convincing manner, showing them the complete picture.

Synonyms of Argumentative Essay

Argumentative Essay synonyms are as follows: persuasive essays, research essays, analytical essays, or even some personal essays.

Related posts:

  • Elements of an Essay
  • Narrative Essay
  • Definition Essay
  • Descriptive Essay
  • Types of Essay
  • Analytical Essay
  • Cause and Effect Essay
  • Critical Essay
  • Expository Essay
  • Persuasive Essay
  • Process Essay
  • Explicatory Essay
  • An Essay on Man: Epistle I
  • Comparison and Contrast Essay

Post navigation

Cambridge Dictionary

  • Cambridge Dictionary +Plus

Meaning of argumentative in English

Your browser doesn't support HTML5 audio

  • bad-tempered
  • be hell on wheels idiom
  • be like a bear with a sore head idiom
  • be spoiling for a fight idiom
  • have a short fuse idiom

Related word

Argumentative | intermediate english, examples of argumentative, translations of argumentative.

Get a quick, free translation!

{{randomImageQuizHook.quizId}}

Word of the Day

a game in which two, three, or four players use mallets (= long wooden hammers) to hit wooden balls through small metal hoops (= curves) fixed into the grass

Infinitive or -ing verb? Avoiding common mistakes with verb patterns (1)

Infinitive or -ing verb? Avoiding common mistakes with verb patterns (1)

argumentative knowledge definition

Learn more with +Plus

  • Recent and Recommended {{#preferredDictionaries}} {{name}} {{/preferredDictionaries}}
  • Definitions Clear explanations of natural written and spoken English English Learner’s Dictionary Essential British English Essential American English
  • Grammar and thesaurus Usage explanations of natural written and spoken English Grammar Thesaurus
  • Pronunciation British and American pronunciations with audio English Pronunciation
  • English–Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Simplified)–English
  • English–Chinese (Traditional) Chinese (Traditional)–English
  • English–Dutch Dutch–English
  • English–French French–English
  • English–German German–English
  • English–Indonesian Indonesian–English
  • English–Italian Italian–English
  • English–Japanese Japanese–English
  • English–Norwegian Norwegian–English
  • English–Polish Polish–English
  • English–Portuguese Portuguese–English
  • English–Spanish Spanish–English
  • English–Swedish Swedish–English
  • Dictionary +Plus Word Lists
  • English    Adjective
  • Intermediate    Adjective
  • Translations
  • All translations

Add argumentative to one of your lists below, or create a new one.

{{message}}

Something went wrong.

There was a problem sending your report.

  • Dictionaries home
  • American English
  • Collocations
  • German-English
  • Grammar home
  • Practical English Usage
  • Learn & Practise Grammar (Beta)
  • Word Lists home
  • My Word Lists
  • Recent additions
  • Resources home
  • Text Checker

Definition of argumentative adjective from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

argumentative

  • Everyone in the family was argumentative.

Take your English to the next level

The Oxford Learner’s Thesaurus explains the difference between groups of similar words. Try it for free as part of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary app

argumentative knowledge definition

Bibliographic and Citation Tools

Code, data and media associated with this article, recommenders and search tools.

  • Institution

arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators

arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.

Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.

Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs .

IMAGES

  1. What Is an Argumentative Essay? Simple Examples To Guide You

    argumentative knowledge definition

  2. What is Argumentative Essay Writing? Methods

    argumentative knowledge definition

  3. 5 Tips for Teaching Argumentative Text

    argumentative knowledge definition

  4. Argumentative Essay: Definition, Outline & Examples of Argumentative

    argumentative knowledge definition

  5. 💣 5 parts of an argumentative essay. 5 Parts Of An Argumentative Essay

    argumentative knowledge definition

  6. Persuasive essay: Argumentative person definition

    argumentative knowledge definition

VIDEO

  1. Argumentative Meaning

  2. Thesis Statement +Refutation Paragraph(Argumentative Essay)

  3. ARGUMENTATIVE PRACTICE VIDEO NABIL B082010105

  4. What is Literature??

  5. Discursive Vs Argumentative, now you know! #EduEdge #Essay #Discursive #Argumentative #Singapore

  6. Argument Analysis Digital Game

COMMENTS

  1. Argument and Argumentation

    Argument is a central concept for philosophy. Philosophers rely heavily on arguments to justify claims, and these practices have been motivating reflections on what arguments and argumentation are for millennia. Moreover, argumentative practices are also pervasive elsewhere; they permeate scientific inquiry, legal procedures, education, and ...

  2. Qualia: The Knowledge Argument

    The knowledge argument aims to establish that conscious experience involves non-physical properties. It rests on the idea that someone who has complete physical knowledge about another conscious being might yet lack knowledge about how it feels to have the experiences of that being. ... But note that this definition of 'physical facts' begs ...

  3. 1.1: Introduction to Philosophy and Arguments

    An argument is not a proof. A proof is a logical and cognitive concept; an argument is a praxeologic concept. A proof changes our knowledge; an argument compels us to act. [] Logical status. Argument does not belong to logic, because it is connected to a real person, a real event, and a real effort to be made.

  4. The Analysis of Knowledge

    Knowledge seems to be more like a way of getting at the truth. The analysis of knowledge concerns the attempt to articulate in what exactly this kind of "getting at the truth" consists. ... The argument generalizes against all "non-redundant" JTB+X analyses. One potential response to Zagzebski's argument, and the failure of the ...

  5. Argument

    In fact, making an argument—expressing a point of view on a subject and supporting it with evidence—is often the aim of academic writing. Your instructors may assume that you know this and thus may not explain the importance of arguments in class. Most material you learn in college is or has been debated by someone, somewhere, at some time.

  6. How to Write an Argumentative Essay

    Make a claim. Provide the grounds (evidence) for the claim. Explain the warrant (how the grounds support the claim) Discuss possible rebuttals to the claim, identifying the limits of the argument and showing that you have considered alternative perspectives. The Toulmin model is a common approach in academic essays.

  7. Argumentation Competence: Students' Argumentation Knowledge, Behavior

    Rapanta et al. (Citation 2013, p. 488)'s definition of argumentation competence comprises "the different types of skills related to argumentation that are manifested in a person's performance in ... students demonstrated knowledge regarding the construction of single arguments, but failed to apply such knowledge in argumentative tasks, ...

  8. Argument

    Argument. An argument is a series of sentences, statements, or propositions some of which are called premises and one is the conclusion. [1] The purpose of an argument is to give reasons for one's conclusion via justification, explanation, and/or persuasion. Arguments are intended to determine or show the degree of truth or acceptability of ...

  9. 6.1: What is Argument?

    A related definition of argument implies a confrontation, a clash of opinions and personalities, or just a plain verbal fight. It implies a winner and a loser, a right side and a wrong one. Because of this understanding of the word "argument," many students think the only type of argument writing is the debate-like position paper, in which ...

  10. Argumentative Essays

    Argumentative assignments may also require empirical research where the student collects data through interviews, surveys, observations, or experiments. Detailed research allows the student to learn about the topic and to understand different points of view regarding the topic so that she/he may choose a position and support it with the ...

  11. What Is an Argumentative Essay? Definition and Examples

    An argumentative essay is a piece of writing that takes a stance on an issue. The main purpose of an argumentative essay is to persuade the reader to agree with the writer's point of view. This is done by presenting a strong argument, which is supported by evidence. An argumentative text requires thorough research and analysis of all relevant ...

  12. Argumentative Definition & Meaning

    argumentative: [adjective] given to argument : tending to argue : having or showing a tendency to disagree or argue with other people in an angry way : disputatious.

  13. Argumentation theory

    Example of an argument diagram. Argumentation theory (AT) is the interdisciplinary study of how conclusions can be supported or undermined by premises through logical reasoning.With historical origins in logic, dialectic, and rhetoric, argumentation theory includes the arts and sciences of civil debate, dialogue, conversation, and persuasion.It studies rules of inference, logic, and procedural ...

  14. What Is Argumentative Writing? Types, Techniques, And Tips For A Solid

    What is Argumentative Writing? What is argumentative writing is a question with no simple answer. To begin with, the basics, let us talk about what an argumentative essay is. An argumentative essay is a piece of writing that requires you to investigate a topic; collect, generate, and evaluate evidence; and establish a position on the given topic in a manner that is clear and succinct.

  15. ARGUMENTATIVE

    ARGUMENTATIVE definition: 1. often arguing or wanting to argue: 2. often arguing or wanting to argue: 3. quick to disagree…. Learn more.

  16. Knowledge How

    With these premises the regress goes as follows. Suppose that one performs an action Φ: By AP, one employs one's knowledge-how to Φ. By SI, one employs the knowledge that p, for some p.; So, by CP, one contemplates p.; But contemplating p is an action.; So by AP, if one contemplates p, one employs one's knowledge-how to contemplate p.; By CP, one ought to contemplate another proposition ...

  17. Argumentative Writing

    The argument you are making should be clearly stated within your thesis statement. You should have several reasons or points of discussion that help you to support your argument. You will explain and support these reasons and points of discussion within the body paragraphs of your paper. As with all academic writing, you'll need to cite any ...

  18. A framework to analyze argumentative knowledge ...

    This definition of argumentative knowledge construction includes that discourse activities on multiple process dimensions may facilitate knowledge acquisition. Analyzing and facilitating argumentative knowledge construction on multiple process dimensions may extend and refine our understanding of what kind of student discourse contributes to ...

  19. Examples and Definition of Argumentative Essay

    Definition of Argumentative Essay. An argumentative essay is a type of essay that presents arguments about both sides of an issue. It could be that both sides are presented equally balanced, or it could be that one side is presented more forcefully than the other. It all depends on the writer, and what side he supports the most.

  20. ARGUMENTATIVE definition

    ARGUMENTATIVE meaning: 1. often arguing or wanting to argue: 2. often arguing or wanting to argue: 3. quick to disagree…. Learn more.

  21. Argumentative Definition & Meaning

    Britannica Dictionary definition of ARGUMENTATIVE. [more argumentative; most argumentative] : tending to argue : having or showing a tendency to disagree or argue with other people in an angry way : quarrelsome. an argumentative person. He became more argumentative during the debate. an argumentative essay.

  22. argumentative adjective

    Definition of argumentative adjective in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more.

  23. ARGUMENTATIVE Definition & Usage Examples

    Argumentative definition: fond of or given to argument and dispute; disputatious; contentious. See examples of ARGUMENTATIVE used in a sentence.

  24. PDF Strategies for Essay Writing

    your argument is still convincing, even in light of this other position. You may point to a flaw in the counterargument. You may concede that the counterargument gets something right but then explain why it does not undermine your argument. You may explain why the counterargument is not relevant. You may refine your own argument in response to the

  25. When Do LLMs Need Retrieval Augmentation? Mitigating LLMs

    Large Language Models (LLMs) have been found to have difficulty knowing they do not possess certain knowledge and tend to provide specious answers in such cases. Retrieval Augmentation (RA) has been extensively studied to mitigate LLMs' hallucinations. However, due to the extra overhead and unassured quality of retrieval, it may not be optimal to conduct RA all the time. A straightforward idea ...