Causal deviancy, randomness, accidental and lucky success, these are factors that have for long been considered to undermine intentional action. According to many philosophers, this is because they generate a significant loss of control in the performance of action (Gibbons 2001; Mele & Moser 1994; Piñeros-Glasscock 2020; Shepherd 2021; Valaris 2021; Wu 2016). In this paper, I compare two theories of control that seek to explain this loss in epistemic terms.

I begin by examining a recent account due to Beddor and Pavese (2021), on which control loss is explained by appeal to a lack of practical knowledge (i.e., knowledge that one is ϕ-ing while one is ϕ-ing). I identify three main issues in this proposal. First, that alternative, non-epistemic hypotheses appear to provide more parsimonious explanations in some relevant circumstances. Second, that when no such alternatives are applicable, this account affords only contingent explanations (Carter & Shepherd 2023ab; Kelley 2024). And, third, that this contingency follows an interesting pattern‒‒namely, that lack of practical knowledge appears to explain control loss only when it coincides with a lack of intellectualistic know-how (i.e., knowledge that one can ϕ by taking certain means) (Stanley 2011; Stanley & Williamson 2001).

In view of this, I turn to test whether a theory of control grounded in intellectualistic know-how has independent explanatory power. I argue that it does, while at the same time providing better predictions across the board. Moreover, I also observe that intellectualistic know-how offers a better understanding of the dynamic interplay between self-monitoring and practical standards as involved in the exercise of control. Without it, subjects would not be able to engage in the goal-comparison and error-correction processes that characterise the kind of control constitutive of intentional action (Adams & Mele 1989).

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References

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Beddor, Bob, and Pavese, Carlotta. 2022. “Practical Knowledge Without Luminosity'. Mind 131 (523): 919–936. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzab041

Carter, A. and J. Shepherd. 2023a. Intentional action and knowledge-centered theories of control. Philosophical Studies 180: 957–997.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-02201904-4

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