The Fingerless Piano Player

Epistemology 

‘Knowing That, Knowing How’

Robert McCann. 

The concern that we might not actually have knowledge, was demonstrated by Bertrand Russell with his example of a usually reliable watch. The watch had stopped at the exact time he looked at it. In this case, a justified true belief that the time on a stopped watch was correct, while being correct, did not amount to knowledge, rather it was a coincidence. Edmund Gettier (1963, p. 166) follows this with his famous Smith and Jones example, in that Jones had a justified true belief, that the man with ten coins in his pocket Smith, would get the job, however it turns out that Jones, unknowingly also had ten coins in his pocket and it was he Jones who in actual fact got the job. While Jones may have had a justified true belief that Smith would get the job by virtue of the ten-coins = job-relationship, he did not have knowledge. Linda Zagebski follows with her ‘case of the mistaken brother-husband in the room’, arguing that ‘Gettier cases are ‘inescapable so long as there is some independence between truth and justification’. (Zagebski 1994, p. 65) Zagebski offers that the wife who mistook her husband for someone else may have had a ‘warranted true belief’, but again this does not amount to knowledge. Katherine Hawley adds to this with an enquiry into other forms of knowledge and the relationship between belief and action and that ‘knowledge-how can be understood in terms of successful warrant plus action’ (Hawley 2003, pp. 19-31)   

   Hawley is concerned with the ‘relationship between knowledge-how and propositional knowledge’ and in her account of knowledge-how, she refers to Gilbert Ryle’s influential work The Concept of Mind published 1949. Ryle for his part sought to trounce Cartesian dualism and the notion that the mind-and body acted separately. For Ryle, thinking that the mind was a ‘ghost in the machine’, did not amount to putting propositional knowledge into practice, and that intelligent thinking and doing is one thing and not two. He argued that knowing-that should be distinguished from knowing-how; the thought here is that knowing-how was knowing how to do something like read a book or cook a meal, but that this did not always equate to ‘knowing-that’. Hawley expands on the notion that the belief when One is doing ‘a thing’ that having knowledge-how this thing is being done and therefore is a justified true belief in some cases may not amount knowledge-how: And, the key terms in explaining Hawley’s account of knowledge-how is that propositional knowledge can be understood as follows: 

‘Just as propositional knowledge can be understood in terms of true belief plus warrant, knowledge-how can be understood in terms of successful action plus warrant’ (Hawley, 2003, p. 19)

   Critically for Hawley, ‘success under certain counterfactual circumstances is a necessary condition for knowledge-how’ and she offers some thoughts on the relationship between knowledge how and successful action. She observes that there is a practical element, such as knowing how to do stuff, or how to ‘perform without being able to perform’. (Hawley 2003, p. 21.) The thought is that we know how to do things which we have never actually attempted. If we take her example, that of having observed the demonstrations how to put on a life vest but having never actually put on a life-vest, prima facia it would seem that observing the demonstration would mean gaining knowledge-how to put on a life-vest. However, this only succeeds under special circumstances, in this case that of an able-bodied person with no special or circumstantial needs different from those who may be blind for example. Even if the circumstances are modified to ensure success with voice-over instructions for the blind, this will not equate to knowledge-how. Hawley offers the example of Sarah driving a car under ‘some but not all counterfactual circumstances’ demonstrating that know-how does not quite equate to knowledge or ‘knowing-that’. Counterfactually however, she could have, through maybe self-learning, learnt all there is to know about car driving but that unbeknownst, her driving instructor was in fact operating the pedals. Even though it seems that she ‘knows-how’ to drive a car the worry is that in order to prove knowledge of, we need to demonstrate knowledge how.

   Assessing Hawley; s account of knowledge-how, it is useful to think in terms of tasks. Specifically, she looks at families of tasks, tasks that can be performed in different circumstances. In terms knowing-how; consider claims of the form ‘S knows-how to X under circumstances C’, then if S tried to X under circumstances C, S would successfully X. A counter example of S knowing-how to X under-circumstances C might be the case of the pianist who has accidentally lost his fingers and is unable now to play a melody. He still knows-how to play a melody if only he had all his fingers to do so. He can close his eyes and picture his fingers playing the key’s hearing the melody ring out in his mind. However, does this equate to success? Success taking the above form depends on circumstance plus performance, and on condition that C represents a piano player with ten fingers playing a melody that requires ten fingers. In this case can the now fingerless pianist justifiably believe he knows-how and therefore has ‘knowledge’, how to play a melody.  Returning to Ryle and JTB a problem arises if the pianist is presented with the proposition to play a melody that he has knowledge off, knows-how to play, but unfortunately has no fingers. The challenge here is the notion that having knowledge of something depends on C above while distinguishing knowing-how from knowing-that and at which point might a justified true belief plus warrant plus success equate to knowledge?  In the fingerless pianists’ case can we prove knowledge is had. 

   In conclusion, following Hawley, both an internalist and an externalist relationship can exist given an understanding that knowledge-how shares structural features with propositional knowledge. Imagine our now famous fingerless pianist who as it happens had been playing for many years in a remote castle when he had ten fingers. He had composed a melody and invited a selected audience of musical aficionados to attend an intimate concert to listen. They each could read perfectly, the sheet music that accompanied the melody and were invited to do so as our ten fingered pianist dazzled them with his virtuosity. At the end of the melody as they decided to get up, they discovered they were chained to their seats, because unbeknownst to them our pianist was also mad! The audience disappeared in mysterious circumstances and therefore would never recount that a melody had been played to perfection.  The pianist by coincidence lost his fingers at the same time the audience disappeared and was no longer able to play the melody. It would seem fitting then in this case that while the fingerless pianist has knowledge-how, and knowledge that, no-one will ever know.