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principles that govern it. Or he may explain little, and the learning proceeds by example and imitation. For the apprentice there is a progressive revelation of the reasonableness of the master’s actions. He may not know why things have to be done a certain way at first, and have to take it on faith, but the rationale becomes apparent as he gains experience. Teamwork doesn’t have this progressive character. It depends on group dynamics, which are inherently unstable and subject to manipulation.

On a crew, skill becomes the basis for a circle of mutual regard among those who recognize one another as peers, even across disciplines. This may take the form of an actual circle at lunchtime, sitting on little coolers. An apprentice may aspire to be a journeyman so he can enter that circle, quite apart from considerations of pay. This is the basis on which his submission to the judgments of a master feel ennobling rather than debasing. There is a sort of friendship or solidarity that becomes possible at work when people are open about differences of rank, and there are clear standards.

7

Thinking as Doing

It is by having hands that man is the most intelligent of animals.

—ANAXAGORAS1

The nearest kind of association is not mere perceptual cognition, but, rather, a handling, using, and taking care of things which has its own kind of “knowledge.”

—MARTIN HEIDEGGER2

Experienced firefighters know when to flee a burning build ing ; it is not uncommon for them to leave moments before one collapses. When asked how they knew exactly when to leave, they fall back on ideas like “a sixth sense.” The fact that the firefighters’ intuitions strike us, and even themselves, as somehow otherworldly is a good indication that our understanding of how our minds grasp the world must be incomplete.

The current educational regime is based on a certain view about what kind of knowledge is important: “knowing that,” as opposed to “knowing how.” This corresponds roughly to universal knowledge versus the kind that comes from individual experience. If you know that something is the case, then this proposition can be stated from anywhere. In fact, such knowledge aspires to a view from nowhere. That is, it aspires to a view that gets at the true nature of things because it isn’t conditioned by the circumstances of the viewer. It can be transmitted through speech or writing without loss of meaning, and expounded by a generic self that need not have any prerequisite experiences. Occupations based on universal, propositional knowledge are more prestigious, but they are also the kind that face competition from the whole world as book learning becomes more widely disseminated in the global economy. Practical know-how, on the other hand, is always tied to the experience of a particular person. It can’t be downloaded, it can only be lived.

To parody the pretensions of theoretical knowledge, the ancient comedian Aristophanes coined a new word, phrontisterion. The literal translation is “think tank.” In his play Clouds he has a distracted Socrates swing into view while suspended from a crane in a wicker basket, his gaze skyward. A supplicant has come, wishing to gain admission to Socrates’ think tank. He calls out to Socrates from below. Socrates peers over the edge of his basket and responds.

Socrates: “Why dost thou call me, thou transient mortal?”

The would-be student: “First tell me: What the hell are you doing up there?”

Socrates: “I traverse the air and contemplate the sun.”

The would-be student wonders why Socrates does these things from his contrived perch. “Why not do it from the ground, if at all?”

Socrates: “I could never have made correct discoveries about meteorological matters if I hadn’t suspended my mind and infused the minute particles of my thought into the air, which it resembles. If I had been on the ground and merely gaped at the upper regions from below, I would never have made my discoveries. For the earth sucks the thought-juice down.”3

We take a very partial view of knowledge when we regard it as the sort