Knowing what to do

Abstract

Much has been written on whether practical knowledge (knowledge‐how) reduces to propositional knowledge (knowledge‐that). Less attention has been paid to what we call deliberative knowledge (knowledge‐to), i.e., knowledge ascriptions embedding other infinitival questions, like where to meet, when to leave, and what to bring. We offer an analysis of knowledge‐to and argue on its basis that, regardless of whether knowledge‐how reduces to knowledge‐that, no such reduction of knowledge‐to is forthcoming. Knowledge‐to, unlike knowledge‐that and knowledge‐how, requires the agent to have formed certain conditional intentions. We discuss the philosophical implications for knowledge‐how, deliberative questions, and virtue.