It was by studying Spinoza's Ethics, Wittgenstein's Tractatus, and Aristotle’s Physics, that I first became seriously interested in philosophy. It soon became apparent that Spinoza's metaphysics suffered from confusion surrounding the concept of infinity, and so it was necessary to detour into mathematics and the history and philosophy of mathematics to remedy that defect. Clarifying the concept of infinity proved an endless task, but it left me with an enduring interest in metaphysics & epistemology, and the history of philosophy & philosophy of mathematics.
Deductive geometrical knowledge such as is found in Euclid's Elements has always…
It was by studying Spinoza's Ethics, Wittgenstein's Tractatus, and Aristotle’s Physics, that I first became seriously interested in philosophy. It soon became apparent that Spinoza's metaphysics suffered from confusion surrounding the concept of infinity, and so it was necessary to detour into mathematics and the history and philosophy of mathematics to remedy that defect. Clarifying the concept of infinity proved an endless task, but it left me with an enduring interest in metaphysics & epistemology, and the history of philosophy & philosophy of mathematics.
Deductive geometrical knowledge such as is found in Euclid's Elements has always been a paradigm of knowledge for philosophers such from Plato to Kant, and yet it is clear that there are many different types of knowledge that do not conform to this model. Self-awareness and self-knowledge, for example, are quite mysterious, being tied to but not entirely limited by our embodiment as material beings and agents. Self-awareness in some way extends not just to our thoughts, but our actions and intentions as well. GEM Anscombe famously claimed in "Intention" that non-observational knowledge of our intentional actions is possible, but how is that knowledge even possible? It is nearly impossible to understand within the framework of an efficient causal mechanistic Humean view, and rather requires a belief in a quasi-teleological view of human action. Such "practical knowledge", Anscombe insisted, is something that modern philosophy has difficulty understanding. Ancient philosophy, both Aristotelian and Platonic, understood that artisans knew how to do things and in practice possessed skill and a kind of knowledge, however inarticulate. When applied to artifacts of their own making, this form of practical knowledge is also called "maker's knowledge" or "agent's knowledge". Might Anscombe be right that practical knowledge is a good model of knowledge at least for some varieties of knowledge? Which varieties? Knowledge of geometry? Self-knowledge? How much of her model can we accept as denizens of the scientific modern world? Is it even compatible with naturalism? Should we focus on knowledge or rather on understanding? How can we cultivate understanding of particular domains of expertise and traditions?
I have started working on a book manuscript organised around the theme of "the varieties of practical knowledge", with special attention to forms of constructed knowledge. What interests me is not so much the particular content of a body of knowledge (e.g. geometrical knowledge, self-knowledge, knowledge of actions, ethical knowledge etc.), so much as the image of different kinds of knowledge and the way in which those images--of such knowledge as certain, a priori, propositional, infallible, and deductive-- have influenced (and distorted) our conception of knowledge and our understanding of ourselves.