Papers by carlotta pavese
Philosophical Studies, 2024
The article discusses the relation between skills (or competences), creditability, and aptness . ... more The article discusses the relation between skills (or competences), creditability, and aptness . The positive suggestion is that we might make progress understanding the relation between creditability and aptness by inquiring more generally about how different kinds of competences and their exercise might underwrite allocation of credit. Whether or not a competence is acquired and whether or not a competence is actively exercised might matter for the credit that the agent deserves for the exercise of that competence. A fine-grained taxonomy of competences opens up the possibility of instinctual knowledge (knowledge by mere instincts) as well as the possibility of habitual knowledge (knowledge by mere habits), alongside knowledge by skills (or alongside knowledge by yet other sorts of competences). If instinctual knowledge were possible, it is suggested that it might not be of the sort that deserves credit at all. By piggybacking from the literature in evolutionary psychology, I suggest that, as inborn social learners, merely instinctual—and so not fully creditable—knowledge might be a reality for us.
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2024
Suppose I say, 'That is my dog' and manage to refer to my dog, Fido. According to intentionalism,... more Suppose I say, 'That is my dog' and manage to refer to my dog, Fido. According to intentionalism, my intention to refer to Fido is part of the explanation of the way that the demonstrative gets Fido as its referent. A natural corollary is that the speaker is, to some extent, in control of this semantic fact. In this paper, we argue that intentionalism must give up the claim that the speaker is always in control, and thus, that intentions are always the mental states that do the semantic work: we provide new examples where reference is successful but the speaker either lacks the intention to refer, or does not know how to refer; in all of these cases, the speaker is not in control of reference. We argue that these cases provide better objections against classical intentionalism than the ones offered by conventionalists (for example, Stojnić et al. 2013; Stojnić 2021) and also that our discussion has as notable consequence that referring is not an essentially intentional action. Finally, we put forward our own view, which gives up claims of control but retains from intentionalism the importance of the speaker's mental states.
Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Mind, 2024
From artistic performances in the visual arts and in music to motor control in gymnastics, from t... more From artistic performances in the visual arts and in music to motor control in gymnastics, from tool use to chess and language, humans excel in a variety of skills. On the plausible assumption that skillful behavior is a visible manifestation of intelligence, a theory of intelligence—whether human or not—should be informed by a theory of skills. More controversial is the question as to whether, in order to theorize about intelligence, we should study certain skills in particular. My target is the view that only a particular class/kind of skill (i.e., ‘theoretical’, or ‘intellectual’ skills, versus ‘practical’, or ‘embodied’ skills) manifests intelligence, or especially does so. I call this view ‘Intelligence Elitism’. Intelligence Elitism is pervasive in popular culture, in academic culture, as well as in psychometrics. It has, arguably, a long pedigree in philosophy (though explicit arguments for it are rare). But it is a substantive view which, if false, can promote unfairness. In this talk, I defend Intelligence Socialism—the claim that intelligent behavior is everywhere skillful behavior is. I go on to isolate the best case for the further Elitist claim that, even if all skillful behavior is intelligent in some modest sense of ‘intelligence’, there is a principled difference in intelligence between theoretical, or intellectual, skills, on one side, and practical, or embodied skills, on the other, and I show it wanting.
Semantics and Linguistic Theory, 2023
Arguments and conditionals are powerful means language provides us to reason about possibilities ... more Arguments and conditionals are powerful means language provides us to reason about possibilities and to reach conclusions from premises. These two kinds of constructions exhibit several affinities-e.g., they both come in different varieties depending on the mood; they share some of the same connectives (i.e., 'then'); they allow for similar patterns of modal subordination. In the light of these affinities, it is not surprising that prominent theories of conditionals-old and new suppositionalisms as well as dynamic theories of conditionals-as well as certain reductive theories of arguments tend to semantically assimilate conditionals and arguments. In this paper, I shall marshall some linguistic evidence as well as some theoretical considerations for thinking that, despite these similarities, arguments and conditionals should be given a different semantics and I shall lay out a framework that can capture at least some of their affinities while accounting for their outstanding differences.
Arturs Logins and Jacques-Henri Vollet (eds.) Putting Knowledge to Work: New Directions for Knowledge-First Epistemology, Oxford University Press, 2024
In the recent literature, several authors have argued that the capacity to track factive mental s... more In the recent literature, several authors have argued that the capacity to track factive mental states plays a role in explaining our ability to understand and predict people’s behavior (Nagel 2013; Nagel 2017; Phillips & Norby 2019; Phillips et al. 2020; Westra & Nagel 2021). The topic of this chapter is whether this capacity also enters into an explanation of our ability to track skilled and intentional actions.
Cognition, 2023
In certain cases, people judge that agents bring about ends intentionally but also that they do n... more In certain cases, people judge that agents bring about ends intentionally but also that they do not bring about the means that brought about those ends intentionally—even though bringing about the ends and means is just as likely. We call this difference in judgments the Kraemer effect. We offer a novel explanation for this effect: a perceived difference in the extent to which agents know how to bring about the means and the ends explains the Kraemer effect. In several experiments, we replicate the Kraemer effect in a variety of non-moral and moral scenarios, and we find support for our new account. This work accords with a burgeoning area of action theory that identifies an important connection between know-how and intentionality.
Analysis, 2023
Gricean theories analyse meaning in terms of certain complex intentions on the part of the speake... more Gricean theories analyse meaning in terms of certain complex intentions on the part of the speaker-the intention to produce an effect on the addressee, and the intention to have that intention recognized by the addressee. By drawing an analogy with cases widely discussed in action theory, we propose a novel counterexample where the speaker lacks these intentions, but nonetheless means something, and successfully performs a speech act.
Ergo, 2023
Epistemologists have long believed that epistemic luck undermines propositional knowledge. Action... more Epistemologists have long believed that epistemic luck undermines propositional knowledge. Action theorists have long believed that agentive luck undermines intentional action. But is there a relationship between agentive luck and epistemic luck? While agentive luck and epistemic luck have been widely thought to be independent phenomena, we argue that agentive luck has an epistemic dimension. We present several thought experiments where epistemic luck seems to undermine both knowledge-how and intentional action and we report experimental results that corroborate these judgments. These findings have implications for the role of knowledge in a theory of intentional action and for debates about the nature of knowledge-how and the significance of knowledge representation in folk psychology. 1 We would like to thank Cornell College of Arts and Sciences for funding this work through Carlotta Pavese's research account. Many have helped with this project. Particular thanks go to Joshua Knobe for providing essential advice at several stages. We also would like to thank Jennifer Nagel, Shaun Nichols, and Joshua Alexander for generous and illuminating comments on initial drafts.
Blackwell Companion to Epistemology, 2024
I demarcate skills from other sorts of abilities and discuss some old and novel epistemological i... more I demarcate skills from other sorts of abilities and discuss some old and novel epistemological issues that arise for skills.
Philosophy Compass, 2016
The prequel to this paper has discussed the relation between knowledge and skill and introduced t... more The prequel to this paper has discussed the relation between knowledge and skill and introduced the topic of the relationship between skill and know how. This sequel continues the discussion. First, I survey the recent debate on intellectualism about knowing how (§1-3). Then, I tackle the question as to whether intellectualism (and antiintellectualism) about skill and intellectualism (and anti-intellectualism) about know how fall or stand together (§4-5). 1. Intellectualism about know how: The linguistic controversy According to intellectualism about know how, a subject S's knowing how to Φ, for some task Φ, is a matter of S's knowing a true answer to the question "How could he himself Φ?" An answer to such a question is of the form "w is a way he himself could Φ," for some way w for S to Φ. Accordingly, S's knowing how to Φ is a matter of S's knowing, for some way w to Φ, that w is a way he himself could Φ. Intellectualists add that such knowledge must be held "under a practical mode of presentation." To illustrate the need for such a qualification, suppose I look at a swimmer's swimming and my swimming instructor, pointing to the swimmer, says to me "That is a way in which you could swim too." I believe my instructor and what she said is in fact true. I may thereby come to know an answer to the question "How could I swim?" However, in the relevant sense, I may not have come to know how to swim. For one to come to know how to Φ, in the relevant sense, it is for one to know an answer to the question "How could one oneself Φ?" under a practical mode of presentation (Stanley & Williamson, 2001; Pavese, 2015b). Intellectualism was motivated initially (Stanley & Williamson, 2001; Stanley, 2011) on the basis of linguistic arguments having to do with how know how is ascribed in English: superficially English know how ascriptions such as "Marie knows how to play the piano" seem to ascribe knowledge of an answer to the question How can she herself play the piano? for they appear to be of the form "S knows + (interrogative) how (de se)
The Philosophical Review, 2017
Orthodoxy has it that knowledge is absolute—that is, it cannot come in degrees (absolutism about ... more Orthodoxy has it that knowledge is absolute—that is, it cannot come in degrees (absolutism about propositional knowledge). On the other hand, there seems to be strong evidence for the gradability of know-how. Ascriptions of know-how are gradable, as when we say that one knows in part how to do something, or that one knows how to do something better than somebody else. When coupled with absolutism, the gradability of ascriptions of know-how can be used to mount a powerful argument against intellectualism about know-how—the view that know-how is a species of propositional knowledge. This essay defends intellectualism from the argument of gradability. It is argued that the gradability of ascriptions of know-how should be discounted as a rather superficial linguistic phenomenon, one that can be explained in a way compatible with the absoluteness of the state reported.
Orthodoxy has it that knowledge is bifurcated between different kinds of states and in particular... more Orthodoxy has it that knowledge is bifurcated between different kinds of states and in particular that there are species of knowledge that cannot be reduced to knowledge of truths. Moreover, it is commonly alleged that knowledge of truths alone falls short of explaining a distinctive kind of human capacity: the human capacity for skillful actions. This dissertation challenges both these orthodoxies. I of this dissertation benefited a lot from his comments. More generally, his classes, vi philosophical judgment and advice have been of great value to me. Discussions and email exchanges on skills with Jonathan Krakauer were also helpful. I want to also thank Brian McLaughlin, Frankie Egan, Jeff McMahan who have provided helpful suggestions during my practice interview and job talk. I should also thank Holly
Synthese, 2022
This idea that what is distinctive of intentional performances is one’s practical knowledge in it... more This idea that what is distinctive of intentional performances is one’s practical knowledge in it —i.e., knowledge of what one is doing while doing it— famously traces back to Anscombe ([]1963] 2000). While many philosophers have theorized about Anscombe’s notion of practical knowledge (e.g., Setiya (2008), Thompson et al. (2011), Schwenkler (2019), O’Brien (2007)), there is a wide disagreement about how to understand it. This paper investigates how best to understand practical knowledge for it to play the desired explanatory role in a reductive theory of intentional action, of intention-in-action, and of control-in-action. I argue that practical knowledge ought to be construed as a dynamic knowledge state and that structured practical senses are needed to model it.
Biological Theory, 2021
It is 1980 when Karen Neander delivers a talk titled "Teleology in Biology." She is a 26-year-old... more It is 1980 when Karen Neander delivers a talk titled "Teleology in Biology." She is a 26-year-old La Trobe graduate student speaking at the New Zealand division of the Australasian Association of Philosophy. The article, that would later become chapter three of her PhD dissertation (1984), advances and defends a novel, and soon extremely influential, theory of biological functions-the "selected effects" view-and with it lays out the foundations for Karen's life long research project: marrying psychology with biology for the purpose of the naturalization of the mind. The first part of "Teleology in Biology" argues for the centrality of the concept of function in biology, both in concept formation and in functional analysis. The second part develops a novel etiological account of functions. At the time of Karen's writing, the most prominent theory of biological functions was the goal account (e.g., Ruse 1971, Wimsatt 1972, Baublys 1975, Boorse 1977). On this account, functions are contributions to goals, which, in physiology, are those biologically driven of survival and reproduction. According to the goal account, the function of the heart, for example, is to pump blood because that is how it typically contributes to survival and production. Karen argues that the goal account cannot properly deliver some crucial distinctions in biology-such as the distinction between proper functioning and fortuitous effects of biological items that are species-typical. To illustrate, the bridge of the nose is adaptive, for it helps keep up our spectacles. But its function is clearly not that of keeping up our spectacles. Rather, this is a fortuitous and species-typical effect that the bridge of the nose has. An alternative to the goal account of functions was countenanced by Wright (1976, Teleological Explanations). Wright's theory of functions was 'etiological' because it identified a function of something with its effects. In particular, according to Wright, the function of x is z if and only if a) z is the consequence of x being there and b) x is there because it does z. But Wright's theory faced several problems. Perhaps the most glaring one is that, as Boorse (1976) had pointed out, this definition overgenerates, for it predicts that, for example, 'obesity' would have the function of promoting a sedentary lifestyle because that explains its continued existence. Already in this early dissertation chapter (p. 103), Karen shows how to revise Wright's account in order to overcome this and other objections. Karen observes that if we explicitly restrict
Philosophical Topics, 2021
It is a platitude that when we reason, we often take things for granted, sometimes even justifiab... more It is a platitude that when we reason, we often take things for granted, sometimes even justifiably so. The chemist might reason from the fact that a substance turns litmus paper red to that substance being an acid. In so doing, they take for granted, reasonably enough, that this test for acidity is valid. Although it is a platitude that we often take things for granted when we reason—whether justifiably or not—one might think that we do not have to. In fact, it is a natural expectation that were we not pressed by time, lack of energy or focus, we could always in principle make explicit in the form of premises every single presupposition we make in the course of our reasoning. In other words, it is natural to expect it to be true that presuppositionless reasoning is possible. In this essay, I argue that it is false: presuppositionless reasoning is impossible. Indeed, I think this is one of the lessons of a long-standing paradox about inference and reasoning known as Lewis Carroll’s (1985) regress of the premises. Many philosophers agree that Carroll’s regress teaches us something foundational about reasoning. I part ways about what it is that it teaches us. What it teaches us is that the structure of reasoning is constitutively presuppositional.
Philosophical Perspectives, 2021
This paper reexamines the case for mentality --- the thesis that knowledge is a mental state in i... more This paper reexamines the case for mentality --- the thesis that knowledge is a mental state in its own right, and not only derivatively, simply by virtue of being composed out of mental states or by virtue of being a property of mental states --- and explores a novel argument for it. I argue that a certain property singled out by psychologists and philosophers of cognitive science as distinctive of skillful behavior (agentive control) is best understood in terms of knowledge. While psychological theories of agentive control that appeal to monitoring mechanisms, such as attention, have been proposed, these theories cannot account for the full scope of controlled action. By contrast, I argue that an epistemic theory of agentive control that invokes knowledge is extensionally adequate. It is when it comes to understanding the hallmarks of skillful performance that the theoretical benefits of thinking of knowledge as mental can be fully appreciated.
Journal of Philosophical Logic, 2022
Arguments have always played a central role within logic and philosophy. But little attention has... more Arguments have always played a central role within logic and philosophy. But little attention has been paid to arguments as a distinctive kind of discourse, with its own semantics and pragmatics. The goal of this essay is to study the mechanisms by means of which we make arguments in discourse, starting from the semantics of argument connectives such as 'therefore'. While some proposals have been made in the literature, they fail to account for the distinctive anaphoric behavior of 'therefore', as well as uses of argument connectives in complex arguments, suppositional arguments, arguments with non-declarative conclusions, as well as arguments with parenthetical remarks. A comprehensive account of arguments requires imposing a distinctive tree-like structure on contexts. We show how to extend our account to accommodate modal subordination and and different flavors of 'therefore'.
Mind, 2021
According to a rich tradition in philosophy of action, intentional action requires practical know... more According to a rich tradition in philosophy of action, intentional action requires practical knowledge: someone who acts intentionally knows what they are doing while they are doing it. Piñeros Glasscock (2020) argues that an anti-luminosity argument, of the sort developed in Williamson (2000), can be readily adapted to provide a reductio of an epistemic condition on intentional action. This paper undertakes a rescue mission on behalf of an epistemic condition on intentional action. We formulate and defend a version of an epistemic condition that is free from any luminosity commitments. While this version of an epistemic condition escapes reductio, it comes with substantive commitments of its own. In particular, we will see that it forces us to deny the existence of any essentially intentional actions. We go on to argue that this consequence should be embraced. On the resulting picture, intentional action is not luminous but it might still entail practical knowledge.
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2022
This paper advances a unified theory of skillful and intentional action. According to our theory,... more This paper advances a unified theory of skillful and intentional action. According to our theory, the distinguishing feature of both skillful and intentional actions is that they are guided by the agent's knowledge of the means of performing the task at hand. This theory leads naturally to an intellectualist view of skills, according to which skills are propositional knowledge states. We show that this view enjoys a number of explanatory advantages over more familiar dispositional accounts of skills.
Uploads
Papers by carlotta pavese
It is the aim of this Handbook to collect and systematize the most relevant positions in these burgeoning areas of philosophy and cognitive science. Contained within are 39 chapters written by leaders in their fields, addressing the role of skill in the history of philosophy both east and west, epistemology, political philosophy, ethics, and various areas of the cognitive sciences, including perception, imagination, emotion, motor control, language, and social cognition. The chapters offer both accessible overviews of the most relevant, current debates in their respective areas and, in many cases, also develop novel, substantive positions.
It should be noted that questions of skill and expertise are important not only for our particular, theoretical understanding of these specific notions but, more broadly, for our understanding of intelligence, cognition, and practical knowledge, full stop. That is, in thinking seriously about skill and expertise, we develop a fuller, richer picture of the nature of human cognition: moral, social, political and embodied. This understanding, rooted in both theoretical and empirical views, provides us with the opportunity to properly and substantively conceptualize the nature of practical intelligence. This, in turn, allows and sometimes forces us to reformulate our current understanding of more familiar notions, such as knowledge, action, intention, virtue, perception, imagination, emotion, and even mental representation and intelligence. In all, then, questions concerning skill are significant in and of themselves, but also highly relevant for our overall understanding of the human mind.
Below, we introduce and contextualize the sections and chapters covered by this Handbook.
In the Introduction to the Routledge Handbook of Skill and Expertise, we introduce and contextualize the various chapters that compose the Handbook. Before providing substantive overviews of each chapter, we also discuss the topic of skill in general and its importance for various areas of philosophy. Chapters are organized into six sections: 1. Skill in the history of philosophy (East & West), 2. Skill in Epistemology, 3. Skill, Intelligence, and Agency, 4. Skill in Perception, Imagination, and Emotion, 5. Skill, Language, and Social Cognition, and 6. Skill and Expertise in Normative Philosophy.