Practical knowledge (3)

The third lecture clarified the reasons for the difficulties encountered by the intellectualist, according to Ryle, and his inability, in particular, to escape the circle of regression to infinity; it also showed how, while maintaining the relevance of the distinction between theoretical and practical knowledge, Ryle asserts the priority of the latter over the former, and proposes a definition of practical knowledge. Knowing a rule is not theoretical knowledge; it's not knowing an additional fact or truth, having more information, it's knowing how to do it, i.e. being able to perform an intelligent operation. An idiot student may know a number of logical formulas by heart, but be incapable of arguing. A brilliant student can argue very well without ever having heard of formal logic. Stupidity is not the mark of an absence of theoretical intelligence. Nor is practical knowledge simply a form of implicit knowledge. Knowing what to do does not mean knowing this or that recipe, maxim or prescription. So what is practical knowledge? Knowledge actualized in actions. Of course, the presence of rules (and thus the possibility of stating the reasons for action) and their execution are not mutually exclusive (Ryle is not a reductionist); they are one and the same. Such knowledge does not exclude judgments, but judgments are products, not causes, of this knowledge. To follow a rule is not to perform a mental operation on propositions, to examine reasons. To be able to argue is not to be ready to quote Aristotle, but to have the ability to argue validly. A chef's excellence lies not in his quotations but in his cooking. Knowing a rule is a skill that manifests itself in the exercise of the rule and in action. Recognizing the maxims of a practice presupposes knowing how to carry it out. The observance of rules - whose natural mode is theimperative, not theindicative - and the prescriptive use of criteria are therefore similar to what we do with our glasses. We look through them; we don't look at them. And just as someone who looks at his glasses a lot betrays the fact that he has trouble looking through them, so people who appeal a lot to principles, says Ryle, "show that they don't know how to act". There's a form of pragmatism here, very close, once again, to authors like Peirce or Wittgenstein: "The rules are the rails of one's thought, not the terminals to be added to it. The good chess player observes the rules and tactical principles, but he doesn't think about them; he just plays according to them." In a word, don't look for meaning: look for use. Practical knowledge therefore involves habits, but these require training and practice. Taking his cue from Aristotle, Ryle introduces a crucial distinction between "drill"(which goes hand in hand withhabituation and the production of blind automatisms, without the exercise of intelligence) and "training" (which presupposes education and intelligentpowers). When I teach askill, I'm not training the pupil to do something blindly, but to do it intelligently. Training dispenses with intelligence; learning expands it. The decisive difference here is that, in the case of education, each person can look back on his or her own practice, reflect on it and, if necessary, correct it. But the essence of Rylé's argument remains that "propositional knowledge presupposes knowing-how", or is simply a question of knowing how to do something.