RECOVERING THE ROLE OF EXPLANATORY KNOWLEDGE IN EXPERTISE
Date
2018
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Haverford College. Department of Philosophy
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Thesis
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Award
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eng
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Open Access
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Abstract
While it is a view that philosophy has largely ignored since Gilbert Ryle's work in the 20th century, we ought to recognize that explanatory knowledge serves a valuable role in expert behavior. With developments that arise in the 20th century, we experience a radical shift in understanding expertise that would have us believe explanatory knowledge, and propositional knowledge generally, simply does not play a role in skilled performance. According to the contemporary literature, while having explanatory knowledge may be relevant to the novice person who is acquiring a skill, having such knowledge in no way manifests in behavior that we generally distinguish as being expert. Only until very recently, many philosophers have come to agree that explanatory knowledge is merely inoperative as it relates to skilled performance, and while considering such knowledge may be useful to a beginner who is learning a new skill, such knowledge is in no way operative once the person has become well-acquainted with the skill. However, simply because philosophers have concentrated on examples involving expertise in which explanatory knowledge does not occupy a central role, we ought to deny the premature conclusion being made that would have us believe explanatory knowledge is always a mere aside to a person's displaying expertise. Ultimately, in analyzing cases involving expertise where explanatory knowledge makes an essential contribution to a person’s displaying expert behavior, we ought to see why exactly the Rylean account of skilled behavior is inadequate, and in what ways explanatory knowledge is in fact valuable and is made manifest in a person’s displaying expertise.