… This is “to regulate one’s actions and not merely to be well-regulated.”
This is from ‘Gilbert Ryle on Skill as Knowledge-How’ by Michael Kremer, found in The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Skill and Expertise edited by Ellen Fridland and Carlotta Pavese (2021):
… Almost all human beings can digest food, but this involves no knowledge-how. Ryle accepts that, in order for someone to count as knowing how, it is necessary that “they tend to perform … well,” satisfying the “standards” or “criteria” which implicitly govern their activity.
[line break added] This is to be “well-regulated,” but is compatible with a lack of intelligence — the “regulation” might have an external source, as in the performance of a machine or a trained animal. Therefore, Ryle adds that the intelligent knower-how must not only “satisfy criteria” but “apply them.” This is “to regulate one’s actions and not merely to be well-regulated.”
… philosophy, like other higher intellectual disciplines, differs from such mental capacities as calculating or translating simple prose. The latter are more like mere competences: we learn them primarily by rote, and they depend on “knacks, drills and techniques.” In philosophizing, as in composing poetry, “the place of drills, wrinkles and prescribable techniques is much smaller,” because “to be successful is to advance beyond all beaten tracks.”
[line break added] Consequently, “the notion of a well-trained philosopher or poet has something ludicrous in it”; and yet, one can only learn to philosophize through “practice, stimulation, hard work and flair.” Therefore, “To teach a student to philosophize, one cannot do much save philosophize with him” …
My previous post from this book is here.
-Julie
Coloring 