Technological knowledge-that as knowledge-how

a comment

Stephen Hetherington

pp. 567-572

in: Philosophy & Technology 28 (4), 2015.

Abstract

Norström has argued that contemporary epistemological debates about the conceptual relations between knowledge-that and knowledge-how need to be supplemented by a concept of technological knowledge—with this being a further kind of knowledge. But this paper argues that Norström has not shown why technological knowledge-that is so distinctive because Norström has not shown that such knowledge cannot be reduced conceptually to a form of knowledge-how. The paper thus applies practicalism (the conceptual reduction of knowledge-that in general to knowledge-how) to the case of technological knowledge-that. Indeed, the paper shows why Norström's conception of technological knowledge unintentionally strengthens this proposed form of reduction.