Skilled Action Guidance: A Problem for Intellectualism about Skill

Myrto Mylopoulos (Carleton University)

Abstract: Intellectualism about skill is the view that to be skilled at the action of φ-ing is to be in (or disposed to be in) knowledge states appropriate for guiding actions of φ-ing (Stanley & Williamson 2017; Pavese & Beddor 2022).  Such views leave the notion of action guidance they invoke unanalyzed but take on the core assumption that the types of knowledge states involved in such guidance are propositional in nature. In this talk, I argue that this is a fatal commitment, since an empirically informed analysis of skilled action guidance and the representational states that implement it reveals that propositionally formatted knowledge states are neither necessary nor sufficient, and thus intellectualism about skill is false.