The Knowledge-How Norm of Teaching

Before we start, some clarificatory comments about how to understand KNT.151 _To

reiterate, KNT is the following claim:

150 _{Another analogy: Lackey’s selfless assertor cases do double duty: acting both as}

counterexamples against KNA, and to the view that successful testimony is the transmission of knowledge from speaker from hearer. The cases of Generative Teaching I consider below also function as counterexamples to the view of teaching as the transmission of knowledge-how (Small, 2014).

KNT: One must: teach how to V, only if one knows how to V.

In order to understand this claim, we need to get clear on: i) the notion of teaching, ii) how KNT relates to the claim that knowledge-how is necessary for teaching, iii) the kind of knowledge which is supposed to figure on the right hand side of this norm, and iv) which cases this norm negatively evaluates.

First, how should we understand teaching? For starters, we should be clear that the relevant sense of ‘teach’ is the imperfective activity-denoting sense, rather than the

perfective achievement sense. KNT kicks in as soon as an agent begins to teach; it does not say that a successful instance of teaching is permissible only when the teacher knows how to teach. The notion of teaching here is also presumably intentional teaching. In a case in which A secretly watches B make a tomato rose without B’s knowledge there is a sense we can say that B shows or teaches A how to make a tomato rose (Hawley, 2010, p. 402), but I take it that this is not the sense of ‘teaching’ that figures in KNT. Moreover, KNT only concerns teaching-how, and not teaching that.

Another complication in thinking about teaching comes from the fact that the teach+wh construction appears to be factive. The verb ‘teach’ is not in general factive – consider: ‘my secondary school chemistry teacher taught us that electrons were tiny particles, but that’s false’ – but it does seem to behave in a factive manner when combined with a wh-complement. Consider the following sentence:

(1) Raimo taught me how to move the bishop in chess

This sentence seems to either entail or presuppose that the method for moving the bishop that Raimo passed on to me is in fact the correct way to move the bishop. This is borne out by the wait a minute test: if I’ve been moving the bishop like a knight, you could reply to 1) by saying ‘hey - wait a minute, you’ve been moving the bishop wrong all

match’. ‘Teach’ seems to fall into a class of verbs which are (or at least appear) factive with a wh-complement, although they are not factive with a that-complement (for parallel discussion of tell+wh see (Karttenen, 1977, p. 11; Vendler, 1980, pp. 283–4; Holton, 1997)). To avoid talk of apparent teaching in cases in which a teacher provides her student

with a method that is not a way to perform the relevant activity, I will treat the ‘teach+wh’ construction as non-factive.

Second, how does KNT relate to the idea that knowledge-how is necessary for teaching? KNT is a claim about the necessary conditions for appropriate teaching, and not a claim about the necessary conditions on teaching itself. The relevant necessity claim about teaching is NEC-T:

NEC-T: If S teaches how to V, then S knows how to V.

NEC-T is not especially plausible (especially if we remember that we are interested in the activity, not the achievement sense of ‘teach’). In fact, the truth of KNT requires that NEC-T be false. If engaging in the activity of teaching entails having knowledge-how, then it is not possible to teach without knowing, meaning that it is not possible to flout the norm posited by KNT. Epistemic norms on an activity and the corresponding necessity claims about that activity crowd one another out.

Third, what is the kind of knowledge involved in KNT? In this chapter I will use ‘knows-how’ and ‘knows-that’ to refer to the kinds of knowledge with practical and theoretical bundles of properties. As noted above, this category of practical knowledge may considerably diverge from the class of knowledge which ordinary language picks out using the locutions ‘knows how’ or ‘knows how to’. If Jared reads an instruction booklet about skiing there is some sense in which he counts as ‘knowing how to ski’. However, I take it that there is a kind of practical knowledge which he lacks until he straps on some skis and gets out on the slopes. This restriction means that KNT claims that it is not just any knowledge that is the norm on intention, but specifically the species of knowledge with the distinctive set of practical properties. In this chapter I will remain neutral on how we should understand the practical bundle of properties associated with knowledge-how, importantly leaving open whether knowledge-how entails ability. I will also remain neutral on the question of whether knowledge-how is a species of propositional knowledge, on the grounds that the question of the normative role of knowledge-how is orthogonal to the question of whether knowledge-how is a species of propositional knowledge.

Finally, let’s get clear on which cases KNT negatively evaluates. As formulated KNT gives a negative evaluation only to teaching which is accompanied by ignorance, but does not require any connection between the teacher’s knowledge, and what it is that she teaches to her students. This means that as stated KNT evaluates negatively someone who gives correct instructions about how to V, despite not knowing how to V, but does not negatively evaluate someone who knows how to V, but gives false instructions about how to V (either due to an innocent mistake, or an intention to mislead). There does seem something inappropriate about a case in which I know how to get to Edinburgh castle, but give you false instructions, and it seems plausible that this is a negative evaluation that ought to stem from our epistemic norm on teaching (much as the evaluation of false assertions stems from the norm of assertion). We can modify KNT to cover such cases by adding that an episode of teaching must express knowledge-how (Turri, 2011), since mistaken instructions concerning how to V will not express knowledge how to V. I leave this complication implicit below.

1.1.Conversational Evidence for KNT

Buckwalter and Turri appeal to four pieces of conversational evidence in support of KNT, which closely parallel arguments for KNA (Williamson, 2000, Chapter 11; Turri, 2010, 2011, 2014):

i. The fact that we can request someone to teach us by asking them about their knowledge-how;

ii. The fact that claiming that one doesn’t have knowledge-how can function as an excuse from a request to teach;

iii. The fact that offering to teach opens one up to questions about whether one has knowledge-how;

First, they point out the possibility of requesting someone to teach152 _{you by asking}

about whether they have knowledge-how.153 _{For example, it is possible to request someone}

to teach you how to make a campfire by asking ‘do you know how to make a campfire?’. They argue that this conversational move is possible because in general one can request someone do something by asking about whether she is in a good enough position to do so permissibly.154

Secondly, they observe that one can excuse oneself from a request for instruction by claiming that one lacks the requisite know-how. If you ask me to show you how to tie a Sheepshank knot, I can excuse myself by saying that I don’t know how to tie one. They explain this by pointing out that the knowledge-norm predicts that ignorant instruction is inappropriate, meaning that claiming ignorance functions to excuse.

Thirdly, they point out that someone offering to teach how to do something opens up the possibility of challenging whether they have know-how. If I offer to teach you how to make soufflé you can challenge me by saying ‘I didn’t realise you knew how to make soufflé!’ or ‘are you sure you know how to make soufflé?’. KNT predicts this, since if showing were governed by a knowledge norm, someone who offered to teach would

represent themselves as having know-how, which might be challenged by a hearer who has doubts.

Finally, Buckwalter and Turri claim that there are sentences involving knowledge- how analogous to Moorean sentences for assertion (‘p, and I don’t believe/know that p’). Their example of such a sentence is:

(2) I don’t know how to do this, but [watch me now:] this is how it’s done (2014, p. 18).

152 _{Buckwalter and Turri generally frame the conversational phenomena as concerning}

demonstration or showing, but in order to avoid confusion, I will present these phenomena as concerning teaching (see footnote 149).

153 _{This relates closely to the idea that a standard pragmatic function of know-how ascriptions is to}

implicate that the target is a good teacher. See chapter 4, §3

They claim that the oddness of this sentence stems from the fact that the speaker’s offer to demonstrate represents her as having some know-how that she denies that she possesses.

I don’t think that we need to take these arguments as definitive, but it is true that they provide a good preliminary case for KNT, especially when put alongside Pooling Skills, which provides a more general reason for thinking act knowledge-how is the norm of showing,

The fact that the conversational arguments parallel the conversational case for KNA raises the question of whether a supporter of KNT needs to endorse the package of both norms. Strictly speaking, it is possible to endorse one norm, but not the other. However, the fact that the arguments for KNA and KNT work in parallel provides a further reason for thinking that the two norms ought to come in a package, in addition to the reasons considered in the last chapter, which concerned the function of KNOWS, whether KNA and KNT might be instances of the more general norm KNP, and whether teaching is a special kind of assertion (see chapter 4 §3 especially note 132).