How We Know What We’re Doing

In spite of our patent lack of omnipotence, it has been thought by some that through our intentional actions, we human agents can also have a special kind of knowledge of the world. The root of this idea is a provocative claim of Elizabeth Anscombe’s: that when we act intentionally, we seem to know what we are doing without observation. Anscombe initially suggests that when we act intentionally, we necessarily know what we are doing; if one is not aware that one is φ-ing, this suffices to show that one is not φ-ing intentionally. But more than this, she claims that this knowledge is had without the need to observe what it is we are bringing about. Whereas an agent might be able to discover that he is inadvertently drumming his fingers on the table only by hearing the noise he is making, or by noticing the annoyed expressions on his colleagues’ faces, he will not need to appeal to sense evidence to know that he is drumming intentionally (in order to annoy them). He will be able to report a correct description of his intentional actions without looking to see, and often at a level of description that far outstrips the observational evidence provided by his bodily movements and their immediate results. For instance, our drumming agent might know that what he is doing in drumming his fingers is preventing his rival from receiving a job offer by sabotaging the upcoming vote, a claim there is simply not sufficient observational evidence to support. Most intriguingly, Anscombe insists that as long as things go well, what one knows without observation is what happens — not merely what one is trying to do, but what is actually happening out in the world.