Department of Philosophy, Yale University New Haven, CT, USA.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2013 Aug 29;7:503. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00503. eCollection 2013.
Those in 20th century philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience who have discussed the nature of skilled action have, for the most part, accepted the view that being skilled at an activity is independent of knowing facts about that activity, i.e., that skill is independent of knowledge of facts. In this paper we question this view of motor skill. We begin by situating the notion of skill in historical and philosophical context. We use the discussion to explain and motivate the view that motor skill depends upon knowledge of facts. This conclusion seemingly contradicts well-known results in cognitive science. It is natural, on the face of it, to take the case of H.M., the seminal case in cognitive neuroscience that led to the discovery of different memory systems, as providing powerful evidence for the independence of knowledge and skill acquisition. After all, H.M. seems to show that motor learning is retained even when previous knowledge about the activity has been lost. Improvements in skill generally require increased precision of selected actions, which we call motor acuity. Motor acuity may indeed not require propositional knowledge and has direct parallels with perceptual acuity. We argue, however, that reflection on the specifics of H.M.'s case, as well as other research on the nature of skill, indicates that learning to become skilled at a motor task, for example tennis, depends also on knowledge-based selection of the right actions. Thus skilled activity requires both acuity and knowledge, with both increasing with practice. The moral of our discussion ranges beyond debates about motor skill; we argue that it undermines any attempt to draw a distinction between practical and theoretical activities. While we will reject the independence of skill and knowledge, our discussion leaves open several different possible relations between knowledge and skill. Deciding between them is a task to be resolved by future research.
那些在 20 世纪的哲学、心理学和神经科学领域讨论熟练行为本质的人，在很大程度上接受了这样一种观点，即熟练掌握一项活动与了解该活动的事实无关，也就是说，技能与事实知识是独立的。在本文中，我们对运动技能的这种观点提出质疑。我们首先从历史和哲学背景的角度来定位技能的概念。我们利用讨论来解释和激发这样一种观点，即运动技能依赖于对事实的了解。这个结论似乎与认知科学的著名结果相矛盾。从表面上看，很自然地认为 H.M.的案例，即认知神经科学中导致发现不同记忆系统的开创性案例，为知识和技能获取的独立性提供了有力的证据。毕竟，H.M.似乎表明，即使以前对活动的了解已经丢失，运动学习也会保留下来。技能的提高通常需要更精确地选择动作，我们称之为运动敏锐度。运动敏锐度实际上可能不需要命题知识，并且与知觉敏锐度直接相似。然而，我们认为，对 H.M.案例的具体情况的反思，以及对技能本质的其他研究，表明学习熟练掌握一项运动任务，例如网球，也依赖于基于知识的正确动作选择。因此，熟练的活动既需要敏锐度又需要知识，两者都随着练习而增加。我们讨论的结论不仅限于对运动技能的争论；我们认为，它破坏了试图在实践活动和理论活动之间做出区分的任何尝试。虽然我们将拒绝技能和知识的独立性，但我们的讨论为知识和技能之间的几种可能关系留下了空间。在它们之间做出选择是一个需要未来研究来解决的任务。
