A Critical Introduction to Knowledge

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A Critical Introduction to
Knowledge-How
 BLOOMSBURY CRITICAL INTRODUCTIONS TO
CONTEMPORARY EPISTEMOLOGY

Series Editor:
Stephen Hetherington, Professor of Philosophy, The University of
New South Wales, Australia

Editorial Board:
Claudio de Almeida, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do
Sul, Brazil; Richard Fumerton, The University of Iowa, USA; John
Greco, Saint Louis University, USA; Jonathan Kvanvig, Baylor
University, USA; Ram Neta, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill,
USA; Duncan Pritchard, The University of Edinburgh, UK
Bloomsbury Critical Introductions to Contemporary Epistemology
introduces and advances the central topics within one of the most
dynamic areas of contemporary philosophy.
Each critical introduction provides a comprehensive survey to an
important epistemic subject, covering the historical, methodological,
and practical contexts and exploring the major approaches, theories,
and debates. By clearly illustrating the changes to the ways human
knowledge is being studied, each volume places an emphasis on the
historical background and makes important connections between
contemporary issues and the wider history of modern philosophy.
Designed for use on contemporary epistemology courses, the
introductions are defined by a clarity of argument and equipped with
easy-to-follow chapter summaries, annotated guides to reading, and
glossaries to facilitate and encourage further study. This series is
ideal for upper-level undergraduates and postgraduates wishing to
stay informed of the thinkers, issues, and arguments shaping
twenty-first century epistemology.

Titles in the Series Include:

A Critical Introduction to the Epistemology of Memory, Thomas D.
Senor
A Critical Introduction to Formal Epistemology, Darren Bradley
A Critical Introduction to Scientific Realism, Paul Dicken
A Critical Introduction to Skepticism, Allan Hazlett
A Critical Introduction to Testimony, Axel Gelfert
A Critical Introduction to
Knowledge-How

J. ADAM CARTER AND TED POSTON

Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
 Contents

Acknowledgements

1 A brief history of knowledge-how

2 The case for intellectualism
3 Knowledge-how and epistemic luck
4 Knowledge-how and cognitive achievement
5 Knowledge-how and testimony
6 Knowledge-how and knowledge of language
7 Knowledge-how: Normativity and epistemic value
8 Knowledge-how: Future directions

Notes
Bibliography
Index
 Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the feedback on this project at multiple stages

from Samuel Baker, Caleb Cohoe, Bolesław Czarnecki, Trent
Dougherty, Emma C. Gordon, John Greco, Josh Habgood-Coote,
Stephen Hetherington, Anne Jeffrey, Lorraine Keller, Kevin Meeker,
Andrew Moon, Jesús Navarro, Duncan Pritchard and Jason Stanley.
We owe a special debt of gratitude to Stephen Hetherington for his
wise guidance throughout this project.
 1
A brief history of knowledge-how

Our familiarity with the universal, a cognitive state, overflows of

itself into an activity which is practical. This is just what we call an
intelligent action. Perhaps, it is a pity that the theory of knowledge
and the theory of conduct have fallen into separate compartments.
It certainly was not so in Socrates’ time, as his interest in the
relation between eidos and techne bears witness. If we studied
them together, perhaps we might have a better understanding of
both.
(Price 1946, 36)

What makes an action intelligent? Suppose that professional golfer

Phil Mickelson holes a ten-foot putt on a sloped green through great
skill, while an unskilled novice, Fil Nickelson, sinks the same putt by
amazing luck. Phil’s act is intelligent; Fil’s act is just lucky. What
accounts for the difference between these two acts? It is not
success, after all, because both putts go in the hole. It must thus be
something else, something about the way Phil but not Fil performed
– but at this point, things become controversial quickly. Granted, Phil
seems to know how to do what he just did, whereas Fil doesn’t. But
in virtue of what, exactly?
The contemporary debate over the nature of knowledge-how is an
attempt to provide a philosophical theory of the nature of intelligent
action. The contemporary landscape is populated, on the one hand,
by intellectualists who hold that knowledge-how is propositional
knowledge and, on the other hand, by anti-intellectualists who hold
that knowledge-how is distinct from propositional knowledge.
Intellectualists claim that knowing how to perform some action just
is knowing some fact. Anti-intellectualists claim that knowing how to
perform an action is a different kind of knowledge from knowing
some fact. Our goals in this book are to layout the issues that
motivate this debate and to offer a sustained argument in favour of
anti-intellectualism.
In this introductory chapter we set the stage for the contemporary
debate. The debate over the nature of intelligent action begins with
Gilbert Ryle’s book The Concept of Mind (1949). Ryle is concerned to
rebut a view of the nature of intelligent action that he finds in
Descartes’s views about the relation between the mind and the body.
Descartes argues that the mind – the seat of thoughts, desires and
experiences – is a different kind of substance from the body. The
mind is immaterial, existing independently of the body, but
nonetheless intimately joined to the body. By contrast, the body is a
substance that occupies space. In Descartes’s view a bodily action is
intelligent only if it is guided by the mind. The metaphor Descartes
uses of the mind directing the body is that of a captain piloting a
ship.
Descartes’s view about the nature of the mind and the body is
known as Cartesian Dualism. Ryle thinks that the Cartesian is
committed to an implausible view of what makes a bodily action
intelligent. On Ryle’s interpretation, the Cartesian holds that an
action is intelligent only if it is preceded by a prior mental act which
guides the bodily act. On this view, Phil’s putt is intelligent only if he
first formulates a set of instructions to move the body in such and
such a manner and then executes those moves. Ryle dismissively
refers to this view as ‘the ghost in the machine’. He presents a
famous regress argument against such a view while attempting to tie
a Cartesian view to an intellectualist conception of practical
knowledge. We discuss Ryle’s arguments in the second part of this
chapter.
 In the first part we look at some of the ways that Plato and
Aristotle thought of knowledge and its relation to action. Julia Annas
remarks, ‘It is a commonplace in study of ancient philosophy that
ancient accounts of knowledge and of virtue were influenced by the
notion of techne, translated “craft”, “skill” or “expertise”’.1 She
argues that the ancient notion of skill or expertise does not map
perfectly onto contemporary discussions of knowledge-how, but
nonetheless Plato’s and Aristotle’s works contain important insights
that can be brought to bear on the contemporary debate. While
neither of us are historians of philosophy, we do think it important to
understand the history of a philosophical problem. It can be difficult
to escape a particular perspective on a contemporary problem, but
by studying the history of philosophy, we can see different attempts
to grapple with, and even conceive of, philosophical problems. The
student of the contemporary debate over knowledge-how does well
to acquaint herself with Plato’s and Aristotle’s views of the nature of
knowledge states and their connection with action. To this end, we
explore some of Plato’s and Aristotle’s views about knowledge and
skill.

1.1 Plato and Aristotle on knowledge-how

Ancient Greek has several different words for states of knowledge:
episteme, gnosis, noûs, phronesis, sophia and techne. In this section
we survey some of Plato’s and Aristotle’s views about states of
knowledge, in particular their views relating to episteme and techne.
Episteme is normally translated as knowledge, expertise or
understanding, while techne is translated as skill or expertise. Both
episteme and techne are closely connected to conceptual mastery, to
the mastery of a subject that an expert possesses. We must use
care, however, to avoid reading too much of our current views into a
translation of episteme and techne. David Roochnik, for instance,
maintains that in Plato’s Socratic dialogues the words episteme and
techne are used interchangeably to express a general conception of
expertise.2
 Our overall goal in this section is to examine some of the
arguments Plato and Aristotle present regarding the relationship
between knowledge and skilful action. These issues are interesting
even apart from their overall contribution to understanding the
contemporary debate over intellectualism. We hope to show that
there are some crucial insights we can glean from Plato’s and
Aristotle’s conception of knowledge and action. This is not the place
for a thorough exegetical analysis of Plato’s and Aristotle’s use of
episteme and techne. Rather we focus on crucial arguments in their
texts – Plato’s use of the craft analogy in the early dialogues and
Aristotle’s discussion of the different cognitive virtues – to extract
arguments that bear on the relationship between knowledge-that
and knowledge-how.
1.1.1 Plato on knowledge and skill
There is a common structure to the Socratic dialogues.3 Socrates
presents an interlocutor with a question about the nature of some
virtue. What is courage, moderation, piety, wisdom or justice? In
Plato’s dialogue Laches the subject is the nature of courage.
Socrates wants an account, a logos, of the nature of courage. The
nature of courage is not given by a list of courageous and cowardly
acts. Socrates assumes that one possesses the virtue only if one
knows the nature of the virtue. Consequently, a virtuous person
must be able to give an account of the virtues. Socrates then
proceeds to demolish various proposals about the nature of the
virtue made by his interlocutors. The result of these dialogues is
puzzlement (aporia). The participants have not adequately
articulated the nature of the virtue in question.
Why ought we go along with Socrates in granting that a necessary
condition for possessing a virtue is knowing its nature? What
argument, if any, does Plato give for this claim? Plato’s central
argument is the craft analogy. He reasons that possessing virtue
requires knowledge because virtuous acts are similar to products
made through the expertise of craftsmen. The analogy begins with
the observation that the individual crafts (e.g. horsemanship,
architecture, carpentry) are kinds of knowledge. Craftsmen possess
a skill to bring about a valuable product, and they can do this in a
wide variety of contexts and conditions. In this connection, their
ability is robust; craftsmen are not flummoxed by a change in
conditions. Moreover, they can train others in their area of expertise.
Because they possess a teachable skill, the craftsmen must possess
some account or principle (logos) by which they reliably bring about
a specific end.
The knowledge craftsmen possess is the only valuable knowledge
that Socrates uncovers in the city. Plato’s Apology tells the story of
Socrates upsetting the ‘wisdom’ of the elite. Socrates is puzzled by
the oracle’s proclamation that he is the wisest person in Athens.
Socrates knows that he isn’t wise and seeks to show that the oracle
must be wrong because there are other wise people in the city. He
interviews the culturally elite – the poets, the priests and the
politicians – and finds that they all lack knowledge. He, at least, is
wiser than the professional ‘knowledge’ workers because he knows
that he lacks knowledge. After being disappointed by the one-
percenters, Socrates turns his attention to the craftsmen. These
individuals produce valuable items for the city: well-bred horses, fine
houses, works of art and so on. Socrates is not disappointed in his
search for knowledge among the craftsmen. He finds that they
indeed possess ‘valuable knowledge’ (22d). And yet Socrates finds
that the knowledge they possess leads them to be overly confident
in their estimation of the highest good. In their pronouncements
about the highest good, neither the elite nor the craftsmen know.
The craftsmen’s knowledge provides the beginning of the craft
analogy. The expert carpenter and the expert metallurgist possess a
valuable and teachable craft, the ends of which are produced by
knowledge. So, Socrates reasons, similar skilful activities that
achieve some end also proceed from knowledge. The courageous
man, for instance, produces courageous acts out of many possible
cowardly and foolhardy actions. The ability to reliably bring about
courageous acts resembles the ability to reliably build a fine home.
The just person aptly chooses the appropriate action out of a sea of
unfitting acts. This ability manifests a competence that suggests that
the acts proceed from knowledge.
 The craft analogy aims to show that virtue requires knowledge. But
what is the nature of this knowledge? Is the knowledge akin to
knowing the definition of a prime number, or is it similar to a natural
competence which is not explicitly guided by a definition? The key
question for Plato is the nature of the logos, which is the object of
knowledge. Is the logos a rational principle or a natural principle?
That is, is the logos a definition that one has in one’s mind that
needs to be made explicit by dialectic, or is the logos a genetic
principle similar to DNA that organizes a complex biological
structure? What is lurking in the background for Plato is the question
of whether virtue is teachable. If it is teachable, then the knowledge
the virtuous person possesses is different from an innate ability; it is,
as Plato conceives it, knowledge that can be communicated. If it
turns out that knowledge of virtue cannot be communicated, then
this is evidence that it’s a very different kind of knowledge than
knowledge that is normally transferred by speech.4
We can develop Plato’s views on the nature of knowledge of virtue
by looking at the Meno. This dialogue is focused on the nature of
virtue and what it is to know virtue. Plato wields the craft analogy to
conclude that knowledge of human virtue (Greek: arête) is techne.
Just as the craftsmen possess knowledge pertaining to their craft
which enables them to train others, so the morally excellent person
possesses some knowledge that would enable her to teach others.
The technai (the crafts) are teachable, skill-based instances of
knowledge. A person with techne is able to charge a student for
training, in part, because the expert possesses a logos he can impart
by teaching. Plato, of course, is not committed to the claim that each
craft can be summarized in a pithy remark; life is short and the art is
long. Nevertheless, Plato does seem committed to the claim that this
knowledge is transmittable by words. In the Meno, then, the craft
analogy implies that knowledge of moral excellence ought to be
transmittable by words. There ought to be teachers of virtue and
generations of virtuous students. But Socrates observes that unlike
craft knowledge, moral knowledge is not reliably transmitted from
teacher to pupil. The Meno ends with the conclusion that virtue may
not be knowledge but ‘a gift from the gods which is not
accompanied by understanding’ (100a). But Socrates holds out some
hope that there may be ‘another statesmen who can make another
into a statesman’. Plato then remarks that ‘such a man would … be
the only true reality compared, as it were, with shadows’ (100a).
This suggests that true virtue is based on knowledge that can be
communicated but that such virtue is incredibly rare.
Socrates seems to think that virtue requires knowledge. But it is
not to be modelled as craft knowledge. David Roochnick devel ops
an argument that moral knowledge is different from craft knowledge
on the basis of the value neutrality of the crafts. Each craft – for
example, medicine – is value neutral. The medical expert knows how
to make a person sick or well. Medical expertise itself does not
indicate whether a person ought to be healed. While the crafts are
value neutral, the moral virtues are not value neutral. So, the moral
virtues are not technai. The value neutrality of the crafts implies a
gap between knowledge of a techne and its being put to good use.5
A person skilled in carpentry is able to make good or bad homes.
The person with moral knowledge does not have a gap between
knowledge and application. To reliably choose wrongly is to manifest
that one lacks moral knowledge.
There is an aspect to this argument worth bringing out: only those
already possessing moral excellence would be persuaded to take up
study of it.6 The fact that virtue is value-laden suggests that only the
good can be persuaded to study it. If this is the case, then human
excellence cannot be taught from the ground up. Only those already
possessing the virtue can receive instruction in it. This contrasts
sharply with the crafts. One need not have any aptitude for
carpentry to study carpentry and eventually become a carpenter.
The skills a carpenter requires are transferable. Yet the morally
excellent individual was not at one point beyond the reach of
excellence. Excellence, as it were, is either present or not. If it is not
present, it is hopeless to teach it, and if it is present, then it need
not be completely taught. This is one way of understanding the
Meno Paradox. One can’t acquire moral knowledge without already
possessing some moral knowledge.
If moral knowledge is not techne, how should we understand it?
What is this nontechnical knowledge? Roochnik suggests that moral
knowledge is distinct from the crafts in that the latter are
decomposable in parts that can be gradually learnt.7 There is
Carpentry 101 but not Moral Excellence 101. Roochnik hypothesizes
that this fits with the thesis of the unity of the virtues. Moral
excellence is a whole that cannot be acquired by the gradual
accumulation of parts. Knowledge of moral excellence requires a
grasp of an entire structure that may not be grasped piecemeal. This
would explain why human virtue cannot be taught.
So where does Plato’s argument concerning techne leave us? First,
we learn that conceiving of episteme and techne as two distinct
kinds of knowledge, that is, propositional knowledge and practical
knowledge, is misleading. Both express a knowledge state, but it is
not the difference between purely theoretical knowledge and purely
practical knowledge.8 Both episteme and techne are expert
knowledge, and, in the ideal case, they are based on a logos that is
teachable.
Second, Plato clearly supports the idea that crafts are knowledge
disciplines. Carpentry proceeds on the basis of a logos. This logos
can be transferred to those that lack it. Because the crafts have a
teachable logos, we may conclude that a person knows how to ply a
craft in virtue of grasping the nature of the craft. On this basis the
craftsman is able to offer explanations of his craft. This involves
knowing some facts about the nature of the craft but it also involves
a skilful ability to know what to do in appropriate circumstances. Via
the connection to logos, there is a limited intellectualism in Plato
about the crafts. Techne is distinct from a mere ability. It is an ability
guided by knowledge. A crucial question, though, is what is the
nature of this knowledge. In Section 2.3.1, we discuss a non-
standard form of intellectualism that is compatible with Plato’s views
on the nature of techne and also compatible with our anti-
intellectualist position.
 Yet, third, in the Socratic dialogues, we are presented with the
claim that not every activity that involves knowledge is modelled as
a standard craft. Moral excellence involves knowledge but it cannot
be built up from the ground floor. Moral excellence is a kind of
knowledge that cannot be decomposed; it has a unity. This feature
of moral knowledge – the unity of ethical knowledge – is significant.
The parallel with contemporary debates on knowledge-how suggests
that knowledge-how has a kind of unity to it. As we’ll see in a
moment with the second Rylean regress, knowledge-how isn’t
decomposable in parts where one can add knowledge of one fact
and thereby acquire knowledge-how.
1.1.2 Aristotle on knowledge and skill
Aristotle disagrees with Plato’s view that ethical knowledge is the
application of knowledge of a general ethical principle to a specific
case. Rather ethical knowledge is uniquely practical. Aristotle
distinguishes between several different knowledge states in the
Nicomachean Ethics. In this work Aristotle provides a general
account of the nature of human virtue. As we’ve seen in Plato’s early
dialogues, the craft analogy provides the key insight to
understanding the nature of living well as a human being. As Plato
sees it the excellent person knows the logos pertaining to a well-
lived life. On Aristotle’s view, the cognitive states are just one of
several components to human excellence. Human excellence is a
multifaceted state involving the proper alignment of habits of the
body and mind together with external goods.
Aristotle’s explicit remarks on thinking-related virtue occur in Book
6 of the Nicomachean Ethics. He distinguishes between five cognitive
states: episteme, techne, phronesis, noûs and sophia. Earlier in
books 4 and 5 Aristotle identified virtues of character; these are the
virtues of those parts of a human that are responsive to reason but
not themselves part of the reasoning faculty. The virtues of character
are part of what makes a person good. In the same way the virtues
of the reasoning faculty are elements of a good person.
Aristotle has particular conceptions of each of these states. The
theoretical cognitive states are episteme, noûs and sophia. Episteme
is akin to understanding why some necessary truth holds; one has
episteme in virtue of being able to demonstrate the fact (see
1139b). It is knowledge of theorems by way of being able to derive
their truth from the axioms. A geometer has episteme regarding the
fact that the interior angles of a triangle sum to 180 degrees in
virtue of being able to prove that this is so. The geometer not only
knows that this is true but also understands why it is so and can
demonstrate this understanding by doing the proofs.
Noûs is the cognitive state of grasping the first principles of a field
in such a way that one grasps the explanatory structure of the entire
field. One has noûs of the axioms when one knows both that the
axioms hold and that they are adequate for proving the theorems of
which one has episteme. Aristotle thinks that each science has a
structure of first principles and theorems. The biological sciences, for
instance, will have an explanatory structure such that a person may
be said to have episteme of the nature of a horse when he has noûs
of the relevant first principles and can deduce the relevant theorems
from those principles.9
Sophia is a combination of noûs and episteme of the finest things.
A person with sophia has a firm grasp on the first principles and
theorems – the explanatory structure – of the most excellent things.
Sophia is the pinnacle of human achievement. Aristotle writes,
‘Wisdom (sophia) must be the most finished of the forms of
knowledge …. Wisdom must be comprehension combined with
knowledge – knowledge of the highest objects which has received as
it were its proper completion’ (1141a).
Aristotle distinguishes the theoretical cognitive states from the
practical states of techne and phronesis. In Posterior Analytics II.19,
Aristotle explains, ‘And from experience, or from the whole universal
that comes to rest in the soul, there comes a principle of skill and of
understanding – of skill if it deals with how things come about, of
understanding if it deals with what is the case’. Aristotle is saying
that repeated experience is necessary to grasp the universal, a
general principle that applies to many cases. A medical student, for
instance, needs experience to come to grasp the universal relating to
health. Once the medical student has sufficient experience, he
begins to acquire techne relating to health.
In this passage Aristotle also distinguishes techne, which is
considered with how things come to be, from noûs, which deals with
what is. On Aristotle’s view, techne is craft knowledge whose object
is the production of goods. In the medical case, this would be the
production of health in the body. Aristotle says, ‘Every skill (techne)
is to do with coming into being, and the exercise of the skill lies in
considering how something that is capable of either being or not
being, … may come into being’ (1140b). In his view, the productive
nature of skill marks it off from the nature of understanding that
grasps a fact. The medical expert’s knowledge of how to produce
health in the body is suitably different from the geometer’s
knowledge that all right triangles have diagonals equal to the sum of
the squares of their sides.
A curious feature of Aristotle’s view is that he restricts techne to
the production of things. Skilled action that is concerned with human
performance or human good is not techne. Aristotle refers to this
knowledge as phronesis, which is action regarding what is beneficial
for a person or state, concerning ethics and political science.
Aristotle says, ‘It is a true and practical state involving reason,
concerned with what is good and bad for a human being’ (1140a).
Phronesis does not concern producing particular objects that may
benefit a person such as the construction of a good steam bath.
Rather it concerns the general acts that contribute to living well, and
this may include acts that involve acquiring such products.
Aristotle’s conception of techne and phronesis are knowledge
states directed to practical ends. If one possesses techne, then one
knows how to produce certain goods. If one possesses phronesis,
then one knows how to act well. Both involve instrumental
reasoning, but whereas techne is a matter of applying a certain
means to the end of production, phronesis is a matter of applying a
certain means to the good of a human. In Nicomachean Ethics VI 4
Aristotle offers a teleological argument to distinguish techne from
phronesis. Aristotle reasons that because the goals to be achieved
are different the cognitive states involved in producing the good are
different. It is plausible that this teleological reasoning can be
extended to demarcate techne and phronesis, on the one hand, from
episteme, noûs and sophia on the other hand. The former have as
ends the production of things or actions; whereas the latter have as
ends truths.10 Thus we may draw a teleological distinction between
knowledge-that and knowledge-how on the basis of a difference in
ends. Propositional knowledge is teleologically ordered to grasping
facts. Knowledge-how is teleologically ordered to action.
Another difference in Aristotle’s thoughts about knowledge states
concerned with action is that he denies that one acts with
knowledge in producing bad ends. Because it is not a good trait of a
human being to be thoroughly deceptive, one cannot act with
phronesis to break promises, treaties and contracts. This differs from
the contemporary notion of skilful action. A person can cheat
skilfully. On Aristotle’s view, however, the action that such a person
performs is not in accord with virtue and hence not done with a
thinking-relating virtue. At best the action involves a kind of
cleverness which is a simulacrum of a cognitive virtue. Aristotle thus
conceives of phronesis as a kind of knowledge that involves ethical
normativity. The parallel with respect to knowledge-how would be
that certain kinds of intentional activities only count as knowledge to
the extent that they constitutively involve a good. Thus someone
who is a skilful liar does not know how to lie because there is no
such thing as knowing how to lie. Rather there is just the complex
behaviour that has a wrong end. In this respect, Aristotle’s view is
different from contemporary views on the nature of knowledge-how
but it is worth pursuing further.
1.1.3 Taking stock
We can see in both Plato and Aristotle an awareness that
knowledge-involving states are not all the same. Plato’s craft analogy
suggests that moral knowledge is modelled as craft knowledge, but,
through Socratic dialectic, that suggestion is not vindicated. Aristotle
distinguishes states of knowledge on the basis of their goals. Some
knowledge states aims for truth; others aim for action. As we shall
see shortly, this difference in states of knowledge is explicitly argued
for by Gilbert Ryle.

1.2 Ryle’s anti-intellectualism

As we saw in the introduction, it can be very difficult to specify the
difference between intelligent and non-intelligent action. Recall Phil
Mickelson’s smart putt on the sloped green and Fil Nickelson’s lucky
putt on the same green. According to one line of thinking, the
difference between Phil’s act and Fil’s act is that Phil’s stroke is
guided by the mental act of considering certain regulative
propositions (e.g. where to line up the putter, how far to take it
back, etc.).11 Gilbert Ryle thought this view, which he
unsympathetically calls the ‘Intellectualist Legend’, has got it all
wrong as a philosophical theory of intelligence. He attempts to bring
out the core difficulty by several regress arguments.
The target of Ryle’s regress arguments is something of a ‘monster’
to pin down.12 In order to extract the main contours of Ryle’s anti-
intellectualist project, we’ll start by articulating more carefully the
position Ryle took himself to be challenging and how this position
connects to the matter of whether knowledge-how is just a kind of
knowledge-that. Once these issues are clarified, we’ll examine in
some detail Ryle’s most famous regress, which he advanced in
Chapter 2 of The Concept of Mind (1949). Finally, we will turn to a
further regress argument offered in his short paper ‘Knowing How
and Knowing That’ (1945). Our goal will be not only to present Ryle’s
anti-intellectualist arguments, but also to see if they actually hold
water.
1.2.1 Ryle’s target
To put things into perspective, Ryle (1949) attacked the
Intellectualist Legend in the service of what he took to be a more
important point at the time – namely, to reject the Cartesian dualist’s
account of mental states and correspondingly to defend his own
behaviourist conception of such states.13 Behaviourism was the view
that thoughts, desires and experiences – characteristic mental states
– are identical to dispositions to behave in certain ways. For
example, the mental state of being in pain is, according to the
behaviourism, a complex disposition involving accelerated
heartbeats, flushed skin tone, crying, etc. Ryle’s goal was to replace
the Cartesian’s emphasis on the internal nature of mental states with
the behaviourist stress on the relevance of behaviour to
characterizing the nature of the mental. As Jennifer Hornsby
succinctly puts it, ‘The Cartesian thinks that the mental is separate
from the physical. Ryle wanted it to be clear that the states of mind
implicated in intelligent bodily action are inseparable from the bodily
action itself.’14 This larger point won’t much concern us here because
hardly anyone is a behaviourist these days.
As things stand, Ryle’s main argument against the Intellectualist
Legend has had a comparatively more enduring effect, and
especially so in mainstream epistemology. The effect is that – at
least up until Stanley and Williamson (2001) – mainstream
epistemology has operated under a by and large unchallenged
presumption that there is ‘a fundamental distinction’ between
knowing that something is the case and knowing how to do
something.15 Moreover, this way of thinking became the orthodox
line thanks to Ryle’s attacks of the Intellectualist Legend around the
middle of the twentieth century, though this is a somewhat
mysterious matter. As Yuri Cath comments:
Ryle clearly thought that [his primary argument against the
Intellectualist Legend] somehow also supported the conclusion that
one cannot define knowing how in terms of knowing that. But the
irony is that … he never explicitly stated such an argument
himself.16
It will be instructive for our purposes, then, to work out just how the
intellectualist’s line on knowledge-how can be understood as a kind
of ‘special case’ of the wider ‘Intellectualist Legend’ that Ryle
explicitly attacked in his primary argument. To do that, we’ll need to
make more precise what the Intellectualist Legend involves, as a
philosophical theory of intelligence.
 The Intellectualist Legend is best thought of as breaking down into
two components – namely, into a claim about mind and a claim
about action, respectively.17 The ‘mind’ claim is a claim about what
makes any state (e.g. the state of knowing how to do something or
the state of knowing some fact) count as a state of intelligence. The
thesis here is straightforward:

Intellectualist Legend (IL) Mind : A state is an intelligent state

just in case it is, or involves, an internal state of considering a
proposition.18
One kind of state of intelligence is the state of knowing how to do
something. Even when Phil Mickelson is not actually hitting a drive,
for example, we will say that he knows how to hit a drive – and in
saying this about Phil, we are attributing to him a state of
intelligence. Notice, then, that a substitution of the state of ‘knowing
how to do something’ into (IL) M ind reveals a special case of (IL) M
ind : S’s knowledge how to do something is, or involves, an internal
state of considering a proposition (e.g. knowledge-that p).
Accordingly, then, we have the following thesis which is entailed by
the mind component of Ryle’s Intellectualist Legend, about the
relationship between knowledge-how and knowledge-that.

Knowledge-howI.L.: S’s knowledge how to do something is, or

involves, an internal state of considering a proposition.19

Knowledge-how I . L . is stronger in its commitments than the

version of this thesis typically endorsed by contemporary
philosophers who claim to be intellectualists about know-how. We’ll
return to this issue in due course. For now, though, it should suffice
to see how, by challenging (IL) M ind , Ryle is implicitly challenging a
version of the intellectualist thesis that knowing how to do
something is a matter of possessing propositional knowledge.
At any rate, the Intellectualist Legend Ryle set out to challenge was
a philosophical theory of intelligence not limited to a claim about the
nature of states of intelligence, but also a thesis about when actions
count as exercising states of intelligence. According to Ryle’s
intellectualist opponent, actions are intelligent only in virtue of their
connection to internal intelligence states (e.g. propositional
knowledge). The idea is that:

Intellectualist Legend (IL) Action : S exercises a state of

intelligence when φ-ing if and only if S’s φ-ing is steered or guided
by an internal state of considering a proposition.20

Notice that (IL) Action is the component of the Intellectualist Legend

that submits a direct answer to the question of what makes Phil’s
action of hitting a drive intelligently performed. This property is
lacked by an amateur who happens to go through the very same
motions.
Now, just as we saw knowledge-how I . L . can be understood as a
special case of (IL) M ind , similarly, a special case of (IL) Action will
be:

Exercising know-how I . L . : S exercises S’s knowledge how to

φ if and only if S’s φ-ing is steered or guided by an internal state of
considering a proposition.
As Ryle sees it, the Intellectualist Legend runs into insurmountable
problems, and this is a point he argues for through a series of
‘regress arguments’. We will now consider two such regresses,
beginning with the most famous one.
1.2.2 First regress
Ryle’s primary regress argument from The Concept of Mind
highlights a purported commitment of the Intellectualist Legend and
insists that this commitment leads to absurdity. The key idea Ryle
attempts to exploit, in motivating the regress is this: if the
Intellectualist Legend were a correct philosophical theory of
intelligence – that is, if (IL) M ind and (IL) Action are true – then
intelligent action must always involve two things, a doing and a
contemplation of a way to do that precedes or accompanies the
doing.21 Ryle refers to this commitment as a ‘dual operation of
considering and executing’.22 But this idea, taken to its natural
conclusion, is a disaster. Ryle explains,
The crucial objection to the intellectualist legend is this. The
consideration of a proposition is itself an operation the execution of
which can be more or less intelligent, less or more stupid. But if, for
any operation to be intelligently executed, a prior theoretical
operation had first to be performed and performed intelligently, it
would be a logical impossibility for anyone ever to break into the
cycle.23
Most anyone can sense a regress lurking here. What has been a
matter of some dispute is just how to formulate it. For instance, Yuri
Cath observes, ‘Despite its fame, Ryle’s regress objection has proven
to be the most elusive of existing objections to intellectualism. For
one thing, there is little agreement over not only the status but also
the very structure of the best version of a regress argument against
intellectualism.’24
One especially clear way to do so owes to Jason Stanley in his
important book Know How (2011). Stanley captures the thr ust of
the regress argument in two premises:25
Premise 1: The intellectualist view entails that for any operation
to be intelligently executed, there must be a prior consideration of
a proposition.
Premise 2: The consideration of propositions is itself an operation
the execution of which can be more or less intelligent, more or less
stupid.
Premises (1) and (2) jointly entail that for any intelligent action,
there must be an infinite number of prior actions. The regress is
vicious. Stanley remarks:
So, acting intelligently requires a prior action of considering a
proposition, and considering a proposition intelligently requires a
prior action of considering a proposition. Presumably, if any of
 these prior actions is performed stupidly, then the original action
will not be performed intelligently. But then acting intelligently
requires the performance of an infinite number of prior actions.26
In short then, as Ryle sees it, the Intellectualist Legend is committed
to the position that we can do something – namely, entertain an
infinite number of propositions – which (given our cognitive and
temporal limitations) we can’t do. So the Intellectualist Legend is
false. What to make of this argument? Unsurprisingly, the devil is in
the details. Let’s tackle these two premises of the regress argument
one at a time.
Problems with premise (1)
Ryle thinks Premise (1) is true by virtue of the nature of the
intellectualist view. A few paragraphs before presenting his regress,
Ryle claims that the view that ‘action exhibits intelligence’ is usually
expressed in ways that make clear reference to the ‘observance of
rules, or the application of criteria’ with respect to which the agent
must ‘first go through the internal process of avowing to himself. He
must preach to himself before he can practice.’27 Ryle also suggests
that (1) may be true because it explains why intelligent action is
guided by a relevant principle rather than many other irrelevant
principles. For example, why, in tying one’s shoelaces, does one not
recall some cooking recipe?28 Ryle may be suggesting that there is a
prior act of selecting the relevant principle to act on.
But setting aside the matter of how Ryle actually argues for (1),
let’s consider whether the intellectualist view is really committed to
the ‘prior consideration of a proposition’ as a necessary ingredient of
intelligent action?29 One reason to think it is not would be as
follows: if Premise (1) is true, then the intellectualist position is, as
Stanley (2011a) puts it, ‘an absurd datum of phenomenology’. But if
intellectualism is false, it is not false because it is an absurd datum
of phenomenology. Put differently: there must be a reasonable way
to state the view, which would be different from what we encounter
in (1). So, Premise (1) is false.
 And indeed, that Premise (1) reduces intellectualism to an
absurdity is precisely why Stanley (2011a) and Weatherson (2017)
think we should reject Premise (1). The idea is that: for many
propositions φ, we all too often seem to employ our knowledge that
φ without ever contemplating φ. Consider Carl Ginet’s quotidian
doorknob example.
I exercise (or manifest) my knowledge that one can get the door
open by turning the knob and pushing it (as well as my knowledge
that there is a door there) by performing that operation quite
automatically as I leave the room; and I may do this, of course,
without formulating (in my mind or out loud) that proposition or
any other relevant proposition.30
Ginet’s point obviously generalizes. If we exercise propositional
knowledge in this case more or less automatically, without
considering any propositions, then surely we do it all the time. But
then, pace Premise (1), intelligent execution of an action obviously
doesn’t involve the consideration of any proposition.31 And if that’s
right, then Ryle’s Intellectualist Legend is effectively a strawman.
And if so, then what will be of philosophical interest is not whether
Ryle’s implausible version of intellectualism is regress-bait, but
whether a more charitable version is subject to a regress argument.
Can The Concept of Mind regress be saved?
The prospects for defending Premise (1) turn importantly on how
one unpacks the phrase ‘considering a proposition’. If ‘considering a
proposition φ’ is supposed to involve consciously entertaining φ,
then it looks like Premise (1) is wildly implausible as a datum of
phenomenology.32
The natural inclination will be to weaken the first premise to
characterize the intellectualist position in a way that does not require
much to count as ‘considering a proposition’, which is what Ginet’s
doorknob example shows is manifestly wrong with the initial
premise. But, as we’ll see, attempts to weaken the first premise to
avoid Ginet’s example render the second premise implausible. What
must be circumvented then, by any proponent of Ryle’s regress, is
the following kind of double-edged sword:
Premise 1 (Strong) Premise 1 (Weak)
Advantage Premise 2 is plausible Premise 1 is plausible
Disadvantage Premise 1 is not plausible Premise 2 is not plausible

Stanley recognizes this problem. He considers the following

attempt to weaken Premise 1 so as to avoid Ginet-style
counterexamples. In particular, he considers interpreting ‘considering
a proposition’ not as ‘positively avowing a proposition’ but, more
weakly, as having ‘relevant representations triggered’. Thus, we get:

Premise (1) Weak −1 : The intellectualist view entails that for any
operation to be intelligently executed, there must be a prior
consideration of a proposition in so far as a relevant representation
is triggered.
By making the analogous substitution in Premise (2), Stanley says
we get:

Premise (2) Weak −1 : The triggering of representations is itself

an operation the execution of which can be more or less intelligent,
less or more stupid.33

But, the double-edged sword worry threatens; while Premise (1) W

eak −1 looks more plausible than the original Premise (1), Premise

(2) W eak −1 looks much worse than the original Premise (2).
Indeed, Premise (2) W eak −1 looks no more plausible than the claim
that one can more or less intelligently be the recipient of inputs.
Thus, Ryle’s regress does not gain any traction by switching out
‘positively avowing’ with the weaker ‘triggering’ interpretation of
considering a proposition.
Let’s consider now another attempt, drawing inspiration from
Ginet’s point that intelligent action can be automatic. It’s tempting to
think that Premise (1) could be rendered compatible with Ginet’s
observation so long as ‘consideration of the proposition’ is
understood as not needing to be intentional. Here’s a try:

Premise (1) Weak −2 : The intellectualist view entails that for any
operation to be intelligently executed, there must be a prior
consideration of a proposition, where the consideration needn’t be
intentional.34
As Noë notes, though, if Ryle were to frame the first premise this
way, then ‘all would be lost’ for the purposes of generating the
regress. After all, making the relevant substitutions in Premise (2),
we get:

Premise (2) Weak −2 : The unintentional consideration of a

proposition is itself an operation the execution of which can be
more or less intelligent, less or more stupid.35
Again, it looks like insofar as Premise (1) is construed weakly
enough to dodge Ginet-style counterexamples, the corresponding
Premise (2) will feature an engagement with a proposition that
hardly strikes us as of the sort that could be intelligent or stupid.
There is a twist on this regress, considered by Stanley and
Williamson (2001), and framed specifically in terms of knowing-how
and knowing-that.

Premise (1) S & W If one F s, then one employs knowledge-

how to F.
Premise (2) S & W If one employs knowledge-that p, one
contemplates the proposition that p.
It follows from these two premises that if knowledge-how to F
employs knowledge-that p, then one contemplates the proposition
that p. This would commit the intellectualist to an absurd claim. Ryle
didn’t specifically explicitly argue this way, but suppose he did.
Would this be an effective regress against the position that
knowledge-how is a kind of knowledge-that? Stanley and Williamson
(2001) think not. This is because Premise (1) S & W is true only if we
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 CHAPTER XXVI
SERIOUS THOUGHTS

The young people at The Cedars had taken Garry Knapp right into
the heart of their social life. He knew he was welcome and the
hospitality shown him was a most delightful experience for the young
Westerner.
But “business was business.” He could not see wherein he had
any right to accept a favor from Major Dale because Dorothy wished
her father to aid him. That was not Garry’s idea of a manly part—to
use the father of the girl you love as a staff in getting on in the world.
There was no conceit in Garry’s belief that he had tacit permission,
was it right to accept it, to try to win Dorothy Dale’s heart and hand.
He was just as well assured in his soul that Dorothy had been
attracted to him as he was that she had gained his affection. “Love
like a lightning bolt,” Tavia had called Dorothy’s interest in Garry
Knapp. It was literally true in the young man’s case. He had fallen in
love with Dorothy Dale almost at first sight.
Every time he saw her during that all too brief occasion in New
York his feeling for the girl had grown. By leaps and bounds it
increased until, just as Tavia had once said, if Dorothy had been in
Tavia’s financial situation Garry Knapp would never have left New
York without first learning whether or not there was any possible
chance of his winning the girl he knew he loved.
Now it was revealed to him that he had that chance—and bitterly
did he regret the knowledge. For he gained it at the cost of his peace
of mind.
It is one thing to long for the object forbidden us; it is quite another
thing to know that we may claim that longed-for object if honor did
not interfere. To Garry Knapp’s mind he could not meet what was
Dorothy Dale’s perfectly proper advances, and keep his own self-
respect.
Were he more sanguine, or a more imaginative young man, he
might have done so. But Garry Knapp’s head was filled with hard,
practical common sense. Young men and more often young girls
allow themselves to become engaged with little thought for the
future. Garry was not that kind. Suppose Dorothy Dale did accept his
attentions and was willing to wait for him until he could win out in
some line of industrial endeavor that would afford the competence
that he believed he should possess before marrying a girl used to
the luxuries Dorothy was used to, Garry Knapp felt it would be wrong
to accept the sacrifice.
The chances of business life, especially for a young man with the
small experience and the small capital he would have, were too
great. To “tie a girl up” under such circumstances was a thing Garry
could not contemplate and keep his self-respect. He would not, he
told himself, be led even to admit by word or look that he desired to
be Dorothy’s suitor.
To hide this desire during the few days he remained at The Cedars
was the hardest task Garry Knapp had ever undertaken. If Dorothy
was demure and modest she was likewise determined. Her
happiness, she felt, was at stake and although she could but admire
the attitude Garry held upon this momentous question she did not
feel that he was right.
“Why, what does it matter about money—mere money?” she said
one night to Tavia, confessing everything when her chum had crept
into her bed with her after the lights were out. “I believe I care for
money less than he does.”
“You bet you do!” ejaculated Tavia, vigorously. “Just at present that
young cowboy person is caring more for money than Ananias did.
Money looks bigger to him than anything else in the world. With
money he could have you, Doro Doodlekins—don’t you see?”
“But he can have me without!” wailed Dorothy, burying her head in
the pillow.
 “Oh, no he can’t,” Tavia said wisely and quietly. “You know he
can’t. If you could tempt him to throw up his principles in the matter,
you know very well, Doro, that you would be heartbroken.”
“What?”
“Yes you would. You wouldn’t want a young man dangling after
you who had thrown aside his self-respect for a girl. Now, would
you?” And without waiting for an answer she continued: “Not that I
approve of his foolishness. Some men are that way, however. Thank
heaven I am not a man.”
“Oh! I’m glad you’re not, either,” confessed Dorothy with her soft
lips now against Tavia’s cheek.
“Thank you, ma’am. I have often thought I’d like to be of the
hemale persuasion; but never, no more!” declared Tavia, with vigor.
“Suppose I should then be afflicted with an ingrowing conscience
about taking money from the woman I married? Whe-e-e-ew!”
“He wouldn’t have to,” murmured Dorothy, burying her head again
and speaking in a muffled voice. “I’d give up the money.”
“And if he had any sense or unselfishness at all he wouldn’t let you
do that,” snapped Tavia. “No. You couldn’t get along without much
money now, Dorothy.”
“Nonsense——”
“It is the truth. I know I should be hopelessly unhappy myself if I
had to go home and live again just as they do there. I have been
spoiled,” said Tavia, her voice growing lugubrious. “I want wealth—
luxuries—and everything good that money buys. Yes, Doro, when it
comes my time to become engaged, I must get a wealthy man or
none at all. I shall be put up at auction——”
“Tavia! How you talk! Ridiculous!” exclaimed Dorothy. “You talk like
a heathen.”
“Am one when it comes to money matters,” groaned the girl. “I
have got to marry money——”
 “If Nat White were as poor as a church mouse, you’d marry him in
a minute!”
“Oh—er—well,” sighed Tavia, “Nat is not going to ask me, I am
afraid.”
“He would in a minute if you’d tell him about those Lance Petterby
letters.”
“Don’t you dare tell him, Dorothy Dale!” exclaimed Tavia, almost in
fear. “You must not. Now, promise.”
“I have promised,” her friend said gloomily.
“And see that you stick to it. I know,” said Tavia, “that I could bring
Nat back to me by explaining. But there should be no need of
explaining. He should know that—that—oh, well, what’s the use of
talking! It’s all off!” and Tavia flounced around and buried her nose in
the pillow.
Dorothy’s wits were at work, however. In the morning she “put a
flea in Ned’s ear,” as Tavia would have said, and Ned hurried off to
the telegraph office to send a day letter to his brother. Dorothy did
not censor that telegraph despatch or this section of it would never
have gone over the wire:

“Come back home and take a squint at the cowboy D.

has picked out for herself.”
 CHAPTER XXVII
“IT’S ALL OFF!”

By this time even Ned, dense as he sometimes showed himself to

be, was aware of how things stood between the handsome stranger
from the West and his cousin Dorothy.
Ned’s heart was particularly warm at this juncture. He spent a
good two hours every forenoon writing a long letter to Jennie.
“What under the sun he finds to write about gets me,” declared
Tavia. “He must indite sonnets to her eyebrows or the like. I never
did believe that Ned White would fall so low as to be a poet.”
“Love plays funny tricks with us,” sighed Dorothy.
“Huh!” ejaculated Tavia, wide-eyed. “Do you feel like writing poetry
yourself, Doro Dale? I vum!”
However, to return to Ned, when his letter writing was done he
was at the beck and call of the girls or was off with Garry Knapp for
the rest of the day. Toward Garry he showed the same friendliness
that his mother displayed and the major showed. They all liked the
young man from Desert City; and they could not help admiring his
character, although they could not believe him either wise or just to
Dorothy.
The situation was delicate in the extreme. As Dorothy and Garry
had never approached the subject of their secret attachment for
each other, and now, of course, did not speak of it to the others, not
even Ned could blunder into any opening wherein he might “out with
his opinion” to the Westerner.
Garry Knapp showed nothing but the most gentlemanly regard for
Dorothy. After that first evening on the ice, he did not often allow
himself to be left alone in her company. He knew very well wherein
his own weakness lay.
 He talked frankly of his future intentions. It had been agreed
between him and Major Dale that the old Knapp ranch should be
turned over to the Hardin estate lawyers when Garry went back West
at a price per acre that was generous, as Garry said, but not so
much above the market value that he would be “ashamed to look the
lawyers in the face when he took the money.”
Just what Garry would do with these few thousands he did not
know. His education had been a classical one. He had taken up
nothing special save mineralogy, and that only because of Uncle
Terry’s lifelong interest in “prospects.”
“I boned like a good fellow,” he told Ned, “on that branch just to
please the old fellow. Of course, I’d tagged along with him on a burro
on many a prospecting trip when I was a kid, and had learned a lot of
prospector’s lore from the dear old codger.
“But what the old prospector knows about his business is a good
deal like what the old-fashioned farmer knows about growing things.
He does certain things because they bring results, but the old farmer
doesn’t know why. Just so with the old-time prospector. Uncle Terry’s
scientific knowledge of minerals wasn’t a spoonful. I showed him
things that made his eyes bug out—as we say in the West,” and
Garry laughed reminiscently.
“I shouldn’t have thought he’d ever have quarreled with you,” said
Ned, having heard this fact from the girls. “You must have been
helpful to him.”
“That’s the reef we were wrecked on,” said Garry, shaking his
head rather sadly.
“You don’t mean it! How?” queried Ned.
“Why, I’ll tell you. I don’t talk of it much. Of course, you understand
Uncle Terry is one of the old timers. He’s lived a rough life and
associated with rough men for most of it. And his slant on moral
questions is not—well—er—what yours and mine would be, White.”
“I see,” said Ned, nodding. “You collided on a matter of ethics?”
 “As you might say,” admitted Garry. “There are abandoned
diggings all over the West, especially where gold was found in rich
deposits that can now be dug over and, by scientific methods, made
to yield comfortable fortunes.
“Why, in the early rush the metal, silver, was not thought of! The
miners cursed the black stuff which got in their way and later proved
to be almost pure silver ore. Other valuable metals were neglected,
too. The miners could see nothing but yellow. They were gold crazy.”
“I see,” Ned agreed. “It must have been great times out there in
those early days.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Garry. “For every ounce of gold mined in the old
times there was a man wasted. The early gold mining cost more in
men than a war, believe me! However, that isn’t the point, or what I
was telling you about.
“Some time after I left the university Uncle Terry wanted me to go
off on a prospecting trip with him and I went—just for the holiday, you
understand. These last few years he hasn’t made a strike. He has
plenty of money, anyway; but the wanderlust of the old prospector
seizes him and he just has to pack up and go.
“We struck Seeper’s Gulch. It was some strike in its day, about
thirty years ago. The gold hunters dug fortunes out of that gulch, and
then the Chinese came in and raked over and sifted the refuse.
You’d think there wasn’t ten cents worth of valuable metal left in that
place, wouldn’t you?”
Ned nodded, keenly interested in the story.
“Well, that’s what the old man thought. He made all kinds of jokes
over a squatter’s family that had picketed there and were digging
and toiling over the played out claims.
“It seemed that they held legal title to a big patch of the gulch.
Some sharper had sawed off the claim on them for good, hard-
earned money; and here they were, broke and desperate. Why!
there hadn’t been any gold mined there for years and years, and
their title, although perfectly legal, wasn’t worth a cent—or so it
seemed.
 “Uncle Terry tried to show them that. They were stubborn. They
had to be, you see,” said Garry, shaking his head. “Every hope they
had in the world was right in that God-forsaken gulch.
“Well,” he sighed, “I got to mooning around, impatient to be gone,
and I found something. It was so plain that I wonder I didn’t fall over
it and break my neck,” and Garry laughed.
“What was it? Not gold?”
“No. Copper. And a good, healthy lead of it. I traced the vein some
distance before I would believe it myself. And the bulk of it seemed
to lie right inside the boundaries of that supposedly worthless claim
those poor people had bought.
“I didn’t dare tell anybody at first. I had to figure out how she could
be mined (for copper mining isn’t like washing gold dust) and how
the ore could be taken to the crusher. The old roads were pretty
good, I found. It wouldn’t be much of a haul from Seeper’s Gulch to
town.
“Then I told Uncle Terry—and showed him.”
Ned waited, looking at Garry curiously.
“That—that’s where he and I locked horns,” sighed Garry. “Uncle
Terry was for offering to buy the claim for a hundred dollars. He had
that much in his jeans and the squatters were desperate—meat and
meal all out and not enough gold in the bottom of the pans to color a
finger-ring.”
He was silent again for a moment, and then continued:
“I couldn’t see it. To take advantage of the ignorance of that poor
family wasn’t a square deal. Uncle Terry lost his head and then lost
his temper. To stop him from making any such deal I out with my
story and showed those folks just where they stood. A little money
would start ’em, and I lent them that——”
“But your Uncle Terry?” asked Ned, curiously.
“Oh, he went off mad. I saw the squatters started right and then
made for home. I was some time getting there——”
 “You cleaned yourself out helping the owners of the claim?” put in
Ned, shrewdly.
“Why—yes, I did. But that was nothing. I’d been broke before. I got
a job here and there to carry me along. But when I reached home
Uncle Terry had hiked out for Alaska and left a letter with a lawyer for
me. I was the one bad egg in the family,” and Garry laughed rather
ruefully, “so he said. He’d rather give his money to build a
rattlesnake home than to me. So that’s where we stand to-day. And
you see, White, I did not exactly prepare myself for any profession or
any business, depending as I was on Uncle Terry’s bounty.”
“Tough luck,” announced Ned White.
“It was very foolish on my part. No man should look forward to
another’s shoes. If I had gone ahead with the understanding that I
had my own row to hoe when I got through school, believe me, I
should have picked my line long before I left the university and
prepared accordingly.
“I figure that I’m set back several years. With this little bunch of
money your uncle is going to pay me for my old ranch I have got to
get into something that will begin to turn me a penny at once. Not so
easy to do, Mr. White.”
“But what about the folks you steered into the copper mine?”
asked Ned.
“Oh, they are making out fairly well. It was no great fortune, but a
good paying proposition and may keep going for years. Copper is
away up now, you know. They paid me back the loan long ago. But
poor old Uncle Terry—well, he is still sore, and I guess he will remain
so for the remainder of his natural. I’m sorry for him.”
“And not for yourself?” asked Ned, slyly.
“Why, I’d be glad if he’d back me in something. Developing my
ranch into wheat land, for instance. Money lies that way, I believe.
But it takes two or three years to get going and lots of money for
machinery. Can’t raise wheat out there in a small way. It means
tractors, and gangplows and all such things. Whew! no use thinking
of that now,” and Garry heaved a final sigh.
 He had not asked Ned to keep the tale to himself; therefore, the
family knew the particulars of Garry Knapp’s trouble with his uncle in
a short time. It was the one thing needed to make Major Dale, at
least, desire to keep in touch with the young Westerner.
“I’m not surprised that he looks upon any understanding with
Dorothy in the way he does,” the major said to Aunt Winnie. “He is a
high-minded fellow—no doubt of it. And I believe he is no namby-
pamby. He will go far before he gets through. I’ll prophesy that.”
“But, my dear Major,” said his sister, with a rather tremulous smile,
“it may be years before such an honorable young man as Garry
Knapp will acquire a competence sufficient to encourage him to
come after our Dorothy.”
“Well—er——”
“And they need each other now,” went on Mrs. White, with
assurance, “while they are young and can get the good of youth and
of life itself. Not after their hearts are starved by long and impatient
waiting.”
“Oh, the young idiot!” growled the major, shaking his head.
Aunt Winnie laughed, although there was still a tremor in her
voice. “You call him high-minded and an idiot——”
“He is both,” growled Major Dale. “Perhaps, to be cynical, one
might say that in this day and generation the two attributes go
together! I—I wish I knew the way out.”
“So do I,” sighed Mrs. White. “For Dorothy’s sake,” she added.
“For both their sakes,” said the major. “For, believe me, this young
man isn’t having a very good time, either.”
Tavia wished she might “cut the Gordian knot,” as she expressed
it. Ned would have gladly shown Garry a way out of the difficulty. And
Dorothy Dale could do nothing!
“What helpless folk we girls are, after all,” she confessed to Tavia.
“I thought I was being so bold, so brave, in getting Garry to come
East. I believed I had solved the problem through father’s aid. And
look at it now! No farther toward what I want than before.”
“Garry Knapp is a—a chump!” exclaimed Tavia, with some heat.
“But a very lovable chump,” added Dorothy, smiling patiently. “Oh,
dear! It must be his decision, not mine, after all. I tell you, even the
most modern of girls are helpless in the end. The man decides.”
Nat came back to North Birchland in haste. It needed only a word
—even from his brother—to bring him. Perhaps he would have met
Tavia as though no misunderstanding had arisen between them had
she been willing to ignore their difficulty.
But when he kissed Dorothy and his mother, and turned to Tavia,
she put out her hand and looked Nat sternly in the eye. He knew
better than to make a joke of his welcome home with her. She had
raised the barrier herself and she meant to keep it up.
“The next time you kiss me it must be in solemn earnest.”
She had said that to Nat and she proposed to abide by it. The old,
cordial, happy-go-lucky comradeship could never be renewed. Nat
realized that suddenly and dropped his head as he went indoors with
his bag.
He had returned almost too late to meet Garry Knapp after all. The
Westerner laughingly protested that he had loafed long enough. He
had to run down to New York for a day or so to attend to some
business for Bob Douglas and then must start West.
“Come back here before you really start for the ‘wild and woolly,’”
begged Ned. “We’ll get up a real house party——”
“Tempt me not!” cried Garry, with hand raised. “It is hard enough
for me to pull my freight now. If I came again I’d only have to—well! it
would be harder, that’s all,” and his usually hopeful face was
overcast.
“Remember you leave friends here, my boy,” said the major, when
he saw the young man alone the evening before his departure.
“You’ll find no friends anywhere who will be more interested in your
success than these at The Cedars.”
 “I believe you, Major. I wish I could show my appreciation of your
kindness in a greater degree by accepting your offer to help me. But
I can’t do it. It wouldn’t be right.”
“No. From your standpoint, I suppose it wouldn’t,” admitted the
major, with a sigh. “But at least you’ll correspond——”
“Ned and I are going to write each other frequently—we’ve got
quite chummy, you know,” and Garry laughed. “You shall all hear of
me. And thank you a thousand times for your interest Major Dale!”
“But my interest hasn’t accomplished what I wanted it to
accomplish,” muttered the old gentleman, as Garry turned away.
Dorothy showed a brave face when the time came for Garry’s
departure. She did not make an occasion for seeing him alone, as
she might easily have done. Somehow she felt bound in honor—in
Garry’s honor—not to try to break down his decision. She knew he
understood her; and she understood Garry. Why make the parting
harder by any talk about it?
But Tavia’s observation as Garry was whirled away by Ned in the
car for the railway station, sounded like a knell in Dorothy Dale’s
ears.
“It’s all off!” remarked Tavia.
 CHAPTER XXVIII
THE CASTAWAYS

Drifts covered the fences and fitted every evergreen about The
Cedars with a white cap. The snow had come quite unexpectedly
and in the arms of a blizzard.
For two days and nights the storm had raged all over the East.
Wires were down and many railroad trains were blocked. New York
City was reported snowbound.
“I bet old Garry is holed up in the hotel there all right,” said Ned.
“He’d never have got away before the storm.”
Dorothy hoped Garry had not started for the West and had
become snowbound in some train; but she said nothing about it.
It took two full days for the roads to be broken around North
Birchland. And then, of course, to use an automobile was quite
impossible.
The Dale boys were naturally delighted, for there was no school
for several days and snow-caves, snowmen and snow monuments
of all kind were constructed all over the White lawns.
Nor were Joe and Roger alone in these out-of-door activities. The
girls, as well as Ned and Nat, lent their assistance, and Tavia proved
to be a fine snow sculptor.
“Always was. Believe I might learn to work putty and finally
become a great sculptor,” she declared. “At Glenwood they said I
had a talent for composition.”
“What kind of figure do you prefer to sculp, Tavia?” asked Ned,
with curiosity.
“Oh, I think I should just love a job in an ice-cream factory, turning
out works of art for parties and banquets. Or making little figures on
New Year’s and birthday cakes. And then—think of all the nice
‘eats’!”
“Oh! I’d like to do that,” breathed Roger, with round eyes.
“Now, see,” laughed Dorothy, “you have started Roger, perhaps, in
a career. He does love ice-cream and cake.”
At least the joke started something else if it did not point Roger on
the road to fame as an “ice-cream sculptor.” The boy was
inordinately fond of goodies and Tavia promised him a treat just as
soon as ever she could get into town.
A few days before Tavia had been the recipient of a sum of money
from home. When he had any money himself Mr. Travers never
forgot his pretty daughter’s need. He was doing very well in business
now, as well as holding a political position that paid a good salary.
This money she had received was of course burning a hole in Tavia’s
pocket. She must needs get into town as soon as the roads were
passable, to buy goodies as her contract with Roger called for.
The horses had not been out of the stable for a week and the
coachman admitted they needed exercise. So he was to drive Tavia
to town directly after breakfast. It was washday, however, and
something had happened to the furnace in the laundry. The
coachman was general handy man about the White premises, and
he was called upon to fix the furnace just as Tavia—and the horses
—were ready.
“But who’ll drive me?” asked Tavia, looking askance at the spirited
span that the boy from the stables was holding. “Goodness! aren’t
they full of ginger?”
“Better wait till afternoon,” advised Dorothy.
“But they are all ready, and so am I. Besides,” said Tavia with a
glance at Roger’s doleful face, “somebody smells disappointment.”
Roger understood and said, trying to speak gruffly:
“Oh, I don’t mind.”
 “No. I see you don’t,” Tavia returned dryly, and just then Nat
appeared on the porch in bearskin and driving gloves.
“Get in, Tavia, if you want to go. The horses need the work,
anyway; and the coachman may be all day at that furnace.”
“Oh—I—ah——” began Tavia. Then she closed her lips and
marched down the steps and got into the cutter. Whatever her
feeling about the matter, she was not going to attract everybody’s
attention by backing out.
Nat tucked the robes around her and got in himself. Then he
gathered up the reins, the boy sprang out of the way, and they were
off.
With the runners of the light sleigh humming at their heels the
horses gathered speed each moment. Nat hung on to the reins and
the roses began to blow in Tavia’s cheeks and the fire of excitement
burn in her eyes.
How she loved to travel fast! And in riding beside Nat the pleasure
of speed for her was always doubled. Whether it was in the
automobile, or behind the galloping blacks, as now, to speed along
the highways by Nat’s side was a delight.
The snow was packed just right for sleighing and the wildly excited
span tore into town at racing speed. Indeed, so excited were the
horses that Nat thought it better not to stop anywhere until the
creatures had got over their first desire to run.
So they swept through the town and out upon the road to The
Beeches.
“Don’t mind, do you?” Nat stammered, casting a quick, sidelong
glance at Tavia.
“Oh, Nat! it’s wonderful!” she gasped, but looked straight ahead.
“Good little sport—the best ever!” groaned Nat; but perhaps she
did not hear the compliment thus wrested from him.
He turned into the upper road for The Beeches, believing it would
be more traveled than the other highway. In this, however, he was
proved mistaken in a very few minutes. The road breakers had not
been far on this highway, so the blacks were soon floundering
through the drifts and were rapidly brought down to a sensible pace.
“Say! this is altogether too rough,” Nat declared. “It’s no fun being
tossed about like beans in a sack. I’d better turn ’em around.”
“You’ll tip us over, Nat,” objected Tavia.
“Likely to,” admitted the young man. “So we’d better both hop out
while I perform the necessary operation.”
“Maybe they will get away from you,” she cried with some fear. “Be
careful.”
“Watch your Uncle Nat,” he returned lightly. “I’ll not let them get
away.”
Tavia was the last person to be cautious; so she hopped out into
the snow on her side of the sleigh while Nat alighted on the other. A
sharp pull on the bits and the blacks were plunging in the drift to one
side of the half beaten track. Tavia stepped well back out of the way.
The horses breasted the deep snow, snorting and tossing their
heads. Their spirits were not quenched even after this long and hard
dash from The Cedars.
The sleigh did go over on its side; but Nat righted it quickly. This,
however, necessitated his letting go of the reins with one hand.
The next moment the sleigh came with a terrific shock into
collision with an obstruction. It was a log beside the road, completely
hidden in the snow.
Frightened, the horses plunged and kicked. The doubletree
snapped and the reins were jerked from Nat’s grasp. The horses
leaped ahead, squealing and plunging, tearing the harness
completely from their backs. The sleigh remained wedged behind the
log; but the animals were freed and tore away along the road, back
toward North Birchland.
Tavia had made no outcry; but now, in the midst of the snow cloud
that had been kicked up, she saw that Nat was floundering in the
drift.
“Oh, Nat! are you hurt?” she moaned, and ran to him.
But he was already gingerly getting upon his feet. He had lost his
cap, and the neck of his coat, where the big collar flared away, was
packed with snow.
“Badly hurt—in my dignity,” he growled. “Oh gee, Tavia! Come and
scoop some of this snow out of my neck.”
She giggled at that. She could not help it, for he looked really
funny. Nevertheless she lent him some practical aid, and after he
had shaken himself out of the loose snow and found his cap, he
could grin himself at the situation.
“We’re castaway in the snow, just the same, old girl,” he said.
“What’ll we do—start back and go through North Birchland, the
beheld of all beholders, or take the crossroad back to The Cedars—
and so save a couple of miles?”
“Oh, let’s go home the quickest way,” she said. “I—I don’t want to
be the laughing stock for the whole town.”
“My fault, Tavia. I’m sorry,” he said ruefully.
“No more your fault than it was mine,” she said loyally.
“Oh, yes it was,” he groaned, looking at her seriously. “And it
always is my fault.”
“What is always your fault?” she asked him but tremulously and
stepping back a little.
“Our scraps, Tavia. Our big scrap. I know I ought not to have
questioned you about that old letter. Oh, hang it, Tavia! don’t you see
just how sorry and ashamed I am?” he cried boyishly, putting out
both gloved hands to her.
“I—I know this isn’t just the way to tell you—or the place. But my
heart just aches because of that scrap, Tavia. I don’t care how many
letters you have from other people. I know there’s nothing out of the
way in them. I was just jealous—and—and mean——”
 “Anybody tell you why Lance Petterby was writing to me?” put in
Tavia sternly.
“No. Of course not. Hang Lance Petterby, anyway——”
“Oh, that would be too bad. His wife would feel dreadfully if Lance
were hung.”
“What!”
“I knew you were still jealous of poor Lance,” Tavia shot in,
wagging her head. “And that word proves it.”
“I don’t care. I said what I meant before I knew he was married. Is
he?” gasped Nat.
“Very much so. They’ve got a baby girl and I’m its godmother.
Octavia Susan Petterby.”
“Tavia!” Nat whispered still holding out his hands. “Do—do you
forgive me?”
“Now! is this a time or a place to talk things over?” she demanded
apparently inclined to keep up the wall. “We are castaway in the
snow. Bo-o-ooh! we’re likely to freeze here——”
“I don’t care if I do freeze,” he declared recklessly. “You’ve got to
answer me here and now, Tavia.”
“Have I?” with a toss of her head. “Who are you to command me,
I’d like to know?” Then with sudden seriousness and a flood of
crimson in her face that fairly glorified Tavia Travers: “How about that
request I told you your mother must make, Nat? I meant it.”
“See here! See here!” cried the young man, tearing off his gloves
and dashing them into the snow while he struggled to open his
bearskin coat and then the coat beneath.
From an inner pocket he drew forth a letter and opened it so she
could read.
“See!” Nat cried. “It’s from mother. She wrote it to me while I was
in Boston—before old Ned’s telegram came. See what she says
here—second paragraph, Tavia.”
 The girl read the words with a little intake of her breath:

“And, my dear boy, I know that you have quarreled in

some way and for some reason with our pretty, impetuous
Tavia. Do not risk your own happiness and hers,
Nathaniel, through any stubbornness. Tavia is worth
breaking one’s pride for. She is the girl I hope to see you
marry—nobody else in this wide world could so satisfy me
as your wife.”

That was as far as Tavia could read, for her eyes were misty. She
hung her head like a child and whispered, as Nat approached:
“Oh, Nat! Nat! how I doubted her! She is so good!”
He put his arms about her, and she snuggled up against the
bearskin coat.
“Say! how about me?” he demanded huskily. “Now that the Widder
White has asked you to be her daughter-in-law, don’t I come into the
picture at all?”
Tavia raised her head, looked at him searchingly, and suddenly
laid her lips against his eager ones.
“You’re—you’re the whole picture for me, Nat!” she breathed.
 CHAPTER XXIX
SOMETHING AMAZING

Now that Garry Knapp had left The Cedars—had passed out of
her life forever perhaps—Dorothy Dale found herself in a much
disturbed state of mind. She did not wish to sit and think over her
situation. If she did she knew she would break down.
She was tempted—oh! sorely tempted—to write Garry Knapp all
that was in her heart. Her cheeks burned when she thought of doing
such a thing; yet, after all, she was fighting for happiness and as she
saw it receding from her she grew desperate.
But Dorothy Dale had gone as far as she could. She had done her
best to bring the man she loved into line with her own thought. She
had the satisfaction of believing he felt toward her as she did toward
him. But there matters stood; she could do no more. She did not let
her mind dwell upon this state of affairs; she could not and retain that
calm expected of Dorothy Dale by the rest of the family at The
Cedars. It is what is expected of us that we accomplish, after all. She
had never been in the habit of giving away to her feelings, even as a
schoolgirl. Much more was expected of her now.
The older people about her were, of course, sympathetic. She
would have been glad to get away from them for that very reason.
Whenever Tavia looked at her Dorothy saw commiseration in her
eyes. So, too, with Aunt Winnie and the major. Dorothy turned with
relief to her brothers who had not much thought for anything but fun
and frolic.
Joe and Roger had quite fallen in love with Garry Knapp and
talked a good deal about him. But their talk was innocent enough
and was not aimed at her. They had not discovered—as they had
regarding Jennie Hapgood and Ned—that their big sister was in the
toils of this strange new disease that seemed to have smitten the
young folk at The Cedars.