Philosophical Issue 5: Ryle’s Dichotomy and the Intellectualist Challenge

Abstract

In his 1949 book, The Concept of Mind, Gilbert Ryle describes two distinct species of knowledge: knowledge that and knowledge how. ‘Knowledge that’ is also referred to as ‘propositional knowledge’, presented in the form of sentences such as ‘S knows that G’. Thus, where G represents the fact, ‘London is the capital of England’, in knowing that G, S knows the fact ‘London is the capital of England’. On the other hand, ‘knowing how to G’ pertains to some action. Let us say that G equates to figure skating: specifically, performing a triple salchow (a jump). In saying ‘S knows how to G’, one is not referring to facts about the salchow; rather, one is saying that S knows how to perform the manoeuvre.