What Does Knowledge Explain?Commentary on Jennifer Nagel, `Knowledge as a Mental State'

Nagel contrasts two views. On the view she opposes, adult humans’ ‘understanding of action is fundamentally dependent on belief attribution’ in such a way that attributing knowledge somehow depends on being able to attribute belief (p. 3). On the view Nagel defends, ‘the capacity to recognize belief depends on some prior mastery of the concept of knowledge’ (p. 14).1 Put roughly, the contrast concerns whether being able to recognize knowledge depends on being able to recognize belief or whether the converse dependence holds. In part of what follows I shall argue, contra Nagel, that currently available evidence fails on balance to support either view. The evidence points to a less straightforward but more interesting picture of mindreading. Seeing this will require considering a broader range of evidence than Nagel discusses. Nagel’s primary aim, of course, is to defend the claim that knowledge is a mental state in its own right (rather than being reducible to belief, truth and other ingredients). As she sees things, defending a view about mindreading is useful, and perhaps necessary, for defending the claim about what knowledge is. I shall object to this way of seeing things. And, in the final section, I shall sketch an alternative view, one which involves holding on to the claim that knowledge is a mental state while remaining neutral on Nagel’s views about dependence and priority. On this alternative, some reasons for regarding knowledge as a mental state are closely related to reasons for regarding intention as a mental state. Knowledge and intention play complementary and interlocking roles in planning and practical reasoning. It is these roles (rather than claims about dependence or priority) which block attempts to identify either knowledge or intention with special kinds of belief and desire.