Abstract
Philosophers and cognitive scientists have been debating about the nature of practical knowledge in skilled action. A big challenge is that of establishing whether and how practical knowledge (knowledge-how) is influenced by, or related to propositional knowledge (knowledge-that). This becomes even more challenging when trying to understand how propositional and motor representations may cooperate in making action performance flexible, while also remaining rational. In this paper, we offer an account that explains how practical knowledge leads to the execution of our actions in a way that accounts for its relation to propositional knowledge, and with respect to the possibility of granting flexibility and rationality.
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Notes
It should be taken into account that, according to a common stipulation, in order for something to be a proposition, it must be suitable to bear a truth-value. Accordingly, one would expect that a proposition figures in the semantics of truth or falsity ascriptions, and that, if something is not suitable to be true or false, then, it is not a proposition. In this respect, having a satisfaction condition that is not a truth-value is not enough to be a proposition. Interestingly, one might also be tempted to assume that, in order to understand a certain prescription a, say “get me a glass of water!”, one has to understand the corresponding description b, say “you will go to get me a glass of water”, and that, therefore, the prescription a has the same truth-value of the related description b. However, it is very important to note two things that invalidate this argument. First, it should be recognized that the prescription a and the description b have two different constructions. Although both of them admit conditions of satisfaction, it makes sense to say that b can be true or false, whilst it makes no sense to say that a is true or false. A construction such as a can be attended or unattended (obeyed or refused), but there is no way to understand how a can be true or false. Furthermore, although in some cases understanding the prescription a may be associated with understanding the description b, this is not a binding condition. Indeed, from a cognitive point of view, there is no evidence that computing a involves some cognitive process in which the representation of b is involved. In other words, it seems possible that processing a is factually independent from processing b.
Both intentions and motor representations can display a prescriptive character, though in a different manner, related to their format. The way an intention, being a propositional, sentence-like structure, can prescribe an action comes with a level of grain that is weaker compared to that of a motor representation, which indeed can capture the relevant motor parameters of a given action. That is, the prescription of an intention to “grasp a glass” is not detailed as the motor representation of all the aspects of the motor command responsible for the grasping action of the glass. This difference is accepted in the literature (Jeannerod, 2006; Jacob and Jeannerod 2003; Butterfill & Sinigaglia, 2014), but nobody has ever focused on this point in the way we do here. This has to be taken into account when talking about the relation between motor representations and propositional representations in explaining skillful performance. This justifies our focus on the prescriptive dimension of motor representations in skillful performance.
What we are claiming here concerns the rationality of the actions we are performing, or of the actions we have performed. It does not, instead, concern the actions that we have yet to perform, and the execution of which we are only committed to, without having started to perform them yet. In particular, it makes sense to say that I intend to meet a friend tomorrow at the Feria of San Firmin in Pamplona, even if I don’t have, yet, a plan to fulfill that intention. This plan could be specified later, given the current circumstances, when I will be in the middle of the Feria. Otherwise, it makes no sense to say that I had intentionally met a friend at the Feria, although I had no plan for that to happen, but just a desire for it to happen. In other words, one can be committed to meeting a friend tomorrow without having an action plan. But meeting a friend is an action motivated by practical rationality only if an action plan determined its happening (not necessarily a plan aimed at meeting the friend). Our interest in this paper is solely for a post-hoc description about the rationality of actions already performed, and not about the rationality of actions not yet performed. We thank an anonymous reviewer for bringing this distinction to our attention through a similar example.
It is worth noting that we are not arguing that the distinction between flexible and rigid performances is tantamount with the distinction between successful and unsuccessful performances. The main difference between a flexible and a rigid execution of the same intentional action is that, while the former is sensitive to the sensory feedback related to changes of the environment in which it is executed, the latter is not (or is less so). This, of course, does not guarantee that flexible actions are successful actions, but only that their underlying plan of execution integrates information, online, concerning relevant changes of the environment. This is possible because the plan of execution is not only part of a general intention to act, but also of the motor representation, which prescriptively guides the execution of the action. So, skilled actions are skilled with the proviso that they are flexible. But their flexibility does not always lead to successful performances.
According to this view, if a subject knows that w is a way to execute the action Φ, while not possessing the relevant motor representation that prescribes how to Φ, she cannot form the general intention to Φ in the way w, and therefore she cannot form the related plan of skillfully executing Φ (Butterfill & Sinigaglia, 2014; Jacob and Jeannerod 2003; Ferretti, 2016, Noë 2004, 2005; Young, 2009, 2019; Jung & Newen 2010; Wallis, 2008; Carter and Pritchard 2014; Levy, 2015; Carter and Czarnecki 2016; Shepherd, 2018; Dickie, 2012; Levy, 2015, Ferretti & Zipoli Caiani, 2021).
We agree that motor representations and intentions differ in format, and we agree that they can share a content. For example, for Butterfill and Sinigaglia this shared content is the goal of the action. Having said this, the format of these representations constrains the fineness of grain of the content. A propositional representation will never be so fine grained as to prescribe the movements that are adequate to the achievement of the goal with the details that only a motor representation can offer. This is perfectly related to their performance profile. Thus, there is need for a motor representation whose content is prescriptive, but whose format allows to represent all the relevant parameters of the motor performance.
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Acknowledgements
This article was initially conceived, deeply discussed and finally written by means of a shared work of both authors, so much so that it is impossible to attribute a particular merit to one or the other author, given the deep interplay at the basis of such a shared effort. However, having to recognize responsibilities in case of administrative reasons, we can say that Gabriele Ferretti wrote the first part, which was meticulously reviewed, amended and finally approved by Silvano Zipoli Caiani, while Silvano Zipoli Caiani is responsible for the second part, which was meticulously reviewed, amended and finally approved by Gabriele Ferretti. Authors are listed in alphabetical order. Gabriele Ferretti would like to acknowledge support from a Humboldt Fellowship, hosted by Professor Albert Newen at the Institute for Philosophy II, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany. The authors also thank three anonymous reviewers for the comments.
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Ferretti, G., Zipoli Caiani, S. The Rationality and Flexibility of Motor Representations in Skilled Performance. Philosophia 51, 2517–2542 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-023-00693-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-023-00693-2