Practical knowledge

The 2014-2015 lecture focused on practical knowledge, that modality of knowledge that we spontaneously tend to distinguish from (or even, oppose to) theoretical knowledge, and which, we think, resorts to different forms of intelligence or cognitive capacities. To read a book, we need to know the alphabet, the meaning of sentences, how to analyze, and how to think - the hallmarks of our reason and the power of our intellect. To swim or tie our shoes, to be guided in our actions, we need above all a practical sense, "gumption", or "gingin", a "manual spirit", a form of intelligence that is often devalued and to which, moreover, menial tasks and professions are reserved. The question was whether we were right to distinguish and oppose these two forms of knowledge, or even to reduce one to the other. Should we consider that different cognitive capacities govern our actions on the one hand, and our thinking on the other? That practical knowledge obeys rules that are not of the same order as those governing theoretical knowledge? Thatknowing how to do something is not the same as knowing that, in other words, that we don't know in the same way when we know how to put a chain on a tire and there's ahigh risk of avalanche today?