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One More Twist ~ Knowledge How and Ability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2019

Masaharu Mizumoto Open the ORCID record for Masaharu Mizumoto [Opens in a new window]
Masaharu Mizumoto*
Affiliation:
School of Knowledge Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Ishikawa, Japan
*
*Corresponding author. Email: mizumoto@jaist.ac.jp
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Abstract

According to Bengson et al.’s (2009) Salchow case, Irina is a novice skater who (1) has a mistaken belief about what amounts to a Salchow, but also (2) has a neurological abnormality which, unknowingly to her, affects both her movement and her sense of it. As a result of this twist, she (3) always ends up succeeding in jumping the Salchow whenever she tries. This story was presented as a counterexample to a variant of anti-intellectualism, and as Bengson and colleagues expected, the vast majority of participants in their survey judged both that Irina is able to do the Salchow and that she does not know how to do it. But the three conditions above leave some ambiguity about the story. That is whether Irina is aware of her own ability, or whether she is aware of what she is doing when she performs it, and therefore the fact that she can reliably perform the Salchow. However, as we report here, disambiguating this point will radically change the responses of people, which rather poses a serious challenge to intellectualism.

Keywords

knowledge howabilityanti-intellectualismintelligent actionBengsonexperimental philosophy
Type
Article
Information
Episteme , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , December 2021 , pp. 514 - 522
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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