This is because it would be perfectly possible that one needs to believe while learning, but once they are an adept practitioner that belief ceases.
— Leontiskos

I don't think so. It just becomes a less conscious belief. — AmadeusD

It seems to me that is saying about the same thing.

It's definitely been awhile, but I would think that before I ever rode a bike I had a conscious model of how bike riding worked. The model was rather wrong, but thinking I knew how it worked gave me the courage to try riding a bike. It was in the process of trying to ride, falling and scraping things, and trying again, that competence at riding a bike was automatized, in a subconscious 'muscle memory' sense. At some point I was just riding a bike with no mental modeling of what it is to ride a bike, or even conscious thoughts about a bike, being involved.

or even conscious thoughts about a bike, being involved. — wonderer1

It just becomes a less conscious belief. — AmadeusD

;) I agree with what you're saying, but maintain this indicates you have retained the beliefs required to ride a bike.

Yep. And if know-how were a subset of know-that, that might be a problem. But if knowing-that is a subset of knowing-how, that is not a problem - is it? — Banno

Yes. you're right.

I may know how to ride a bicycle and that knowledge seems to have nothing necessarily to do with belief.
— Janus
Well, it implies belief in Bicycles and riding.

Animals know how to do things, and we commonly attribute knowing-that to them. The cat knows that the bowl is empty, and so on.

The temptation is there to draw a hard line between knowing-how and knowing-that. But they are not as distinct as folk might presume. — Banno

I don't frame it that way, but that is a possible way of framing it. I tend to think that with things we can see, like bicycles and do, like riding, there is no need for belief.

I also agree that there is no hard line between knowing how and knowing that, and I think even knowing that (given that we apply the idea of knowing in relation to things we can simply be aware of such as having hands and countless other things) does not necessarily involve believing.

To include believing in those kinds of instances would be to capitulate to what I consider to be pointless skepticism. For example, I see the bike, and belief in its existence would only come into play if I could doubt its existence. I don't know if I've explained where I'm coming from with that adequately, but I hope so.

1. How do you suppose Nietzsche "defines" knowing (besides the quote provided)? That is what (ontology(?) if I am using the word properly) does he "ascribe" to human knowledge? It is clearly not a thing inherent in the universe which our superior brains can uncover? Is it, to N, a fiction, an illusion? — ENOAH

It’s easy to misrepresent Nietzsche, and when you try to briefly summarize what he says you are in danger of leaving so much out. A lot of philosophic writers are like that. But I’ll attempt.

“What then is truth? …truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions..” - FN

I see this as with so much of what he says as an exaggeration to make a complex point. He wrote with passion, but the point is that we humans make way too much of this “truth” we have invented. It’s not that truth is not something. It’s not that we can avoid knowing and seeking the truth. It’s that we have over valued so many truths and then built obscene facades of dogma and institution out of these over-valuations.

So if we could get to the core essence of what it is to know, what knowledge is to Nietzsche, in the end we are more likely to have built another illusion than to have stumbled upon the truth. And instead of being a truth seeker, of following the drive and will to truth, instead he was willing to live without it.

He devalued truth for all of the misconceptions it has been used to prop up. That is what truth is - based on convention so that when I say “poison” and then say “mashed potatoes” we all don’t get confused about what to eat - truth is less important than poison or potatoes or the will to eat both.

Unfortunately, he did such a good job correcting us from our over-valuing of our science and truth (and yes all science is only practical convention and can be over-valued as well), hammering everything down to where, as he says above, where “nothing happened”, philosophy hasn’t recovered. And worse, instead of over-valuing truth, we now over-value the disintegration, the act of disintegrating, and we now reify only the illusion, only the will without any content whatsoever. So because of Nietzsche we again stray from Nietzsche in the other direction.

He ruined all good discussions of what is “knowledge.” Damn Nietzsche.

And I just disagree with him. I agree that truth has emerged on the scene because of we humans being human, all too-human. And I agree that willing a truth or believing our own knowledge is fraught with peril and likely to lead where nothing happened, a house of cards with the knowing self standing on top smiling like an idiot. But then, once in a while, in those moments where science might be mixed with gaity, where the tuning fork makes use of the hammer’s rubble, we skip right past truth and knowledge straight to wisdom. Some things are just there, and by humans, once in a twinkling of a star in a remote corner of the universe, wisdom shines (for an instant for sure, but now forever if you will, because that is what wisdom knows).

2. How would N. characterize the conclusions about Being (as ontology(?)) made by Heidegger and Sartre, for e.g.? As "arrogant and mendacious"? Or meaningfully nonetheless, and if meaningful, then how? — ENOAH

Hard to predict who Nietzsche would agree with and distance himself from. I get lumping Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre (along with Camus, Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Goethe, and others. They all use such different vocabularies (absurd, dread, anxiety, nausea) to point at the same deeply intrinsic places and moments. If you want to talk about Nietzsche’s ontology, I think you start with the birth of tragedy - the Dionysian, the murky unformed passion out of which instinct is first born. You have to look there, using his words.

But as soon as we fix things with too much Apollonian appearance, it gets ugly again (to Nietzsche) and loses its art.

But he was a true artist of a writer. He said many wise things. These refute his exaggerations, to me, and allow me to still cherish what he did for these discussions.

But he was a true artist of a writer. He said many wise things. These refute his exaggerations, to me, and allow me to still cherish what he did for these discussions. — Fire Ologist

This is a incredibly lucid take on Nietzsche to my mind. Nice.

It’s easy to misrepresent Nietzsche, and when you try to briefly summarize what he says you are in danger of leaving so much out. — Fire Ologist

Acknowledged.

we have invented. It’s not that truth is not something. It’s not that we can avoid knowing and seeking the truth. It’s that we have over valued so many truths and then built obscene facades of dogma and institution out of these over-valuations. — Fire Ologist

You gave an excellent explanation given space/time, and the aforementioned caveat. I would assume, an "orthodox" one as well (recognizing there's no such thing, all the more so for one like Nietzsche).

Obviously, like everyone else, my explorations have a "why" of their own. So I'm not pursuing this argumentatively, but also not entirely openmindedly, but rather, with an openly confessed personal path in mind. I've learned it's fair and functional sometimes to unshroud where you're coming from.

Having said all that, there seemed to me in your explanation, a reluctance to go a certain distance as far as truth being an illusion/invention. It is as if you have found there is a lingering of truth for Nietzsche in his assessment in this regard.

Is that because for certain N. hung on to a level of truth even in how we experience, for lack of better terms, our phenomenal or existential?

Or are you reluctant to ascribe to N. a more absolute abandonment of truth in human existential/phenomenal experience because, for e.g. he's so ambiguous and that would be pinpointing him to an extreme; or, it sounds like nihilism, etc.?

I see this as with so much of what he says as an exaggeration to make a complex point — Fire Ologist

Is that for certain? Or, though he wrote with passion, was he, nonetheless, dead serious that all [human] existential truths, I.e. the way we see and interpret the world, is illusion? He wouldn't have been the first, nor the only. But perhaps he was dead serious and any subtle hints to the contrary are there because, 1) his age did not equip him yet with the Narratives to boldly make that claim (he lacked post modernism for e.g., exposed to Buddhism, but not really). 2) we read those subtleties into N to mean he clung to a more traditional metaphysics when really he didn't. ?

instead of being a truth seeker, of following the drive and will to truth, instead he was willing to live without it. — Fire Ologist

Ok, and here, I accept, without need for further query. Because, to clarify, I'm not wondering if N. rejected Truth per se. I know he didn't. He Isn't a nihilist. But I'm seeing a reluctance to say he rejected truth in all things human. And sure, there are truths in the sense of we believe, and truths in the sense of it is functional to believe, but for N. in human existence, these too are ultimately illusions. No?

yes all science is only practical convention and can be over-valued as well — Fire Ologist

Damn right. So if even science is not shielded from illusion...

He ruined all good discussions of what is “knowledge.” Damn Nietzsche. — Fire Ologist

Fair enough. But I think you agree (are there people who don't?) we don't really judge these types of theories for there impact on history. . . wait, or is that exactly what we do but don't like to admit it, so when someone says, "I disagree with N because he ruined discourse," we call them out and remind them to judge the theory on the merits, as in, does it stand to reason?

Hmm.

wisdom shines — Fire Ologist

Agreed. Unlike truth and knowledge. A hazy thing. Im not as comfortable with its ontology (?) true nature (?). It involves some of N's illusion, but also brings in organic feelings and drives in a way which bypasses emotions and sometimes logic and reason. A bit like Kant’s sublime.

I get lumping Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre (along with Camus, Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Goethe, and others. They all use such different vocabularies (absurd, dread, anxiety, nausea) — Fire Ologist

I'm interested in seeing if people who are comfortable with N. would be comfortable saying that from a Nietzschean perspective Heidegger's Dasein, throwness, ready at hand, etc. etc. etc., though brilliant and functional, is also, in the end, illusion, and has not described Truth, but has only described the illusion, because Truth is inscrutable and ineffable and, actually inaccessible by means of the illusion, .

He said many wise things. These refute his exaggerations — Fire Ologist

I'm good with respecting ideas even if the dominant thinking in my locus of history has found reason to refute it. Ideas build ideas, and so on. We don't even always know how and which ones. For sure N has influenced my thinking even though I have read admittedly little N., and, even though my locus might have removed him from the current circle of influence.

As for "exaggerations," I'm not sure I see them that way, which is the "why" of my queries here.

Thanks for the time and edifying discourse.

I

air enough. But I think you agree (are there people who don't?) we don't really judge these types of theories for there impact on history. . . wait, or is that exactly what we do but don't like to admit it, so when someone says, "I disagree with N because he ruined discourse," we call them out and remind them to judge the theory on the merits, as in, does it stand to reason? — ENOAH

I think this is true for most of the shallower readers (the teenagers I've discussed at times, for instance) so they're just as easily able to discard N as not 'worth reading' rather than 'Not a philosopher' which i think is probably the most scathing (reasonable) criticism of N.

But Philosophers (broadly speaking) who read N seem to read into his work philosophy even he didn't necessarily understand or think of while writing (also true for a lot of lyricists!!) He was writing for other reasons.

Hey. Once again, for no particular reason while agreeing in a rhetorical fashion…..

I question whether all knowledge does require belief. — Janus

If such were the case, it reduces to belief being a necessary condition for knowledge. If it is true the only source for knowledge is experience, and there is no possibility of experiencing that which one merely believes, wouldn’t it follow that one cannot condition the other?

Pretty dumb, methinks, to merely believe I know how to ride a bike while I’m actually doing it, and conversely, even dumber to claim to know I can ride a bike by merely believing I’ve been on one and in control of it.

Maybe I believe I can’t know how to ride a bike cuz I’m a hopeless klutz who believes he shouldn’t use a hammer given the historical precedent of experiencing serious bodily injury. But then, out of sheer well-being necessity, I find myself riding a bike in order to escape the neighbor’s mutt. If knowledge requires belief, and the belief is negative the knowledge must also be negative thereby how to ride a bike should not have been known to me, and under sufficiently strong negative belief that I can’t know how, I shouldn’t have even bothered to try. Yet given that riding a bike….which I’m now doing….presupposes at least the awareness of the mechanics and principles by which bike riding is accomplished, re: I’m peddling upright in a progressive series of times, it is the case what I believe about bike riding (I can’t know how) has nothing whatsoever to do with my coming to know how to do it (YEA!! Look it me, here I am bike riding).

So did I switch beliefs and come to believe I can know how to ride a bike? Like that little engine that could? Seems kinds silly to me, to take the time to believe something at the same time I’m discovering it for myself in conjunction with the extant experience that bikes are inherently ride-able. Even if IthinkIcanIthinkIcanIthinkIcan is running through my brain, am I navigating positively because of that alone, or am I concentrating on the objects of certain mechanics and principles necessary for transportation via bicycle? Do I really need to believe in the authority of those principles in order to use them, especially considering the fact I’m only interested in their objects I use and not the principles themselves I merely think as given?

Wonder why Nike, instead taglining with “Just do it”, didn’t instead go with “Believe you can know how to do it then just do it”?

Philosophers (broadly speaking) who read N seem to read into his work philosophy even he didn't necessarily understand or think of while writing — AmadeusD

Interesting. I had that hunch but didn't know it was commonly regarded.

I think there is a valid distinction between knowledge and belief, although I also think that much of what is generally considered to be knowledge might be more accurately classed as belief. It may well turn out that I am sympathetic to Chet's belief. Let's see... — Janus

When "knowledge is defined as: "justified true belief", the "belief" aspect means truths that one is aware of, not expressions of language that are tentatively held as true. We can easily overcome the {Gettier problem} by adding that "Knowledge is justified true belief such that the justification guarantees the truth of the belief.

Because of the brain in a bottle thought experiment we cannot be logically certain of any empirical truth. Instead of saying {there is} a dog in my living room right now we must qualify this {there appears to be} a dog in my living room right now. It is not 100% logically impossible that all of reality is not a mere figment of the imagination. We can be logically certain that 2 + 3 = 5;

Wonder why Nike, instead taglining with “Just do it”, didn’t instead go with “Believe you can know how to do it then just do it”? — Mww

:lol:

Knowledge, then, is multifaceted. Since to agree, to accept and to devote have different truth conditions - or none at all, like a devotion. One can say one knows in different senses. Knowledge isn't one kind of thing, and an item of knowledge need not be a statement. And knowing as conviction may not be itemizable at all. — fdrake

I think this bears reiterating. There is no point in trying to nail down the one correct definition of knowledge, because, like many words in the ordinary language, "knowledge" is used in different ways. And since meaning is use, the meaning of "knowledge" is not univocal.

Those who insist that when we say "I know" we mean nothing other than "I am convinced" (or some such) have a point, because that is one of the common uses of the word. But that doesn't exhaust all uses. For example, when we deny someone's claim of knowledge, most of the time, what we deny is the truth of what they claim to know, not the truth of their conviction.

Of course, all of the above considerations apply only if all we care about is the ordinary language meaning, which is best left to semantics scholars, anyway. But then - and I realize that this flies in the face of the long and rich history of philosophical debates on the subject of knowledge - I am not sure what value philosophers could contribute to this discussion. (That was realization was kind of a dead end for "ordinary language philosophy".)

Yes, there are different kinds of knowing. There is 'knowing how', there is the knowing of familiarity and there is 'knowing that'. I think the salient question in this thread concerns only 'knowing that' or propositional knowing, because the other two categories do not necessarily involve belief. — Janus

Even if you want to bracket out 'knowing how' (and I agree with @Moliere and @Banno that knowing is entangled with doing), there is still more than one way in which 'knowing that' is used propositionally.

The distinction between belief and knowledge may involve the epistemological basis of ideas. It may embrace the evidence of the senses, cultural ideas and evidence. All of these may be important in philosophy understanding Each person may incorporate aspects of this in thinking and the interplay may lead to the differences between subjective and objective knowledge. Knowledge is bound to objective criteria for understanding whereas belief may involve subjectivity. However, the interplay between the objective and subjective may mean that the nature of belief and knowledge remains fluid in human understanding.

The original argument you gave had to do with “avoiding danger,” and because of this it was a good example of the invalidity of the inference from learning to riding. — Leontiskos

Please set this purported argument out.

Truth is inscrutable and ineffable — ENOAH

Huh. Self defeat much?

There are a variety of ways in which the experienced rider is not avoiding danger in the way that someone who is learning is avoiding danger — Leontiskos

Irrelevant to the point being made.

Where there has never been bikes and people there could have never been people riding bikes. The first creator must have believed it were possible to make a bike, otherwise they would not have tried.

It points at a problem with claiming that belief is not necessary for bike riding.

It's a matter of existential dependency.

I question whether all knowledge does require belief.
— Janus

If such were the case, it reduces to belief being a necessary condition for knowledge. — Mww

That's one way to talk about it.

Hey. Once again, for no particular reason while agreeing in a rhetorical fashion…..

I question whether all knowledge does require belief.
— Janus

Pretty dumb, methinks, to merely believe I know how to ride a bike while I’m actually doing it, and conversely, even dumber to claim to know I can ride a bike by merely believing I’ve been on one and in control of it. — Mww

Yup.

Who's made those claims anyway?

Maybe I believe I can’t know how to ride a bike cuz I’m a hopeless klutz who believes he shouldn’t use a hammer given the historical precedent of experiencing serious bodily injury. But then, out of sheer well-being necessity, I find myself riding a bike in order to escape the neighbor’s mutt. If knowledge requires belief, and the belief is negative the knowledge must also be negative thereby how to ride a bike should not have been known to me, and under sufficiently strong negative belief that I can’t know how, I shouldn’t have even bothered to try. Yet given that riding a bike….which I’m now doing….presupposes at least the awareness of the mechanics and principles by which bike riding is accomplished, re: I’m peddling upright in a progressive series of times, it is the case what I believe about bike riding (I can’t know how) has nothing whatsoever to do with my coming to know how to do it (YEA!! Look it me, here I am bike riding).

So did I switch beliefs and come to believe I can know how to ride a bike? Like that little engine that could? Seems kinds silly to me, to take the time to believe something at the same time I’m discovering it for myself in conjunction with the extant experience that bikes are inherently ride-able. Even if IthinkIcanIthinkIcanIthinkIcan is running through my brain, am I navigating positively because of that alone, or am I concentrating on the objects of certain mechanics and principles necessary for transportation via bicycle? Do I really need to believe in the authority of those principles in order to use them, especially considering the fact I’m only interested in their objects I use and not the principles themselves I merely think as given?

Wonder why Nike, instead taglining with “Just do it”, didn’t instead go with “Believe you can know how to do it then just do it”? — Mww

Do you think someone has made the argument that all belief is necessary for bike riding?

If A is existentially dependent upon B, then either B emerged prior to or simultaneously with A.

Fill in the blanks. Find an exception.

Bike riding - as we know it - is existentially dependent on the belief of the original bike makers.

"Belief is not necessary for bike riding" is proven false.

Maybe I believe I can’t know how to ride a bike cuz I’m a hopeless klutz who believes he shouldn’t use a hammer given the historical precedent of experiencing serious bodily injury. — Mww

The bike emerged onto the world stage through the belief of the original bike makers. Impossible to ride a bike that you do not believe is there.

I know how to ride a bike, plane a board, paint a picture, write a poem, play the piano and so on, and I don't see how any of that requires belief. — Janus

Five activities with five different sets of existential conditions. Is expectation nowhere to be found?

For future events? Depends. In a practical sense, sure it's warranted in that not assuming (to the degree needed) would prevent action.
But I do not think it right that past events can warrant certainty about future events, in the strict sense. Constant conjunction and all.. — AmadeusD

Does not matter to me how many conjunctions are necessary.

I'm certain that my fridge will be there when I go grab a yogurt.

Unshakably. Absolutely. Certitude is worth keeping. It's temperance and judgment that need honed. In other words, sometimes it is wise to not expect a pattern to continue. Not all.

If "knowing that" includes my cat knowing that I was about to put food in her bowl as I began the ritual, despite her clear inability to form/possess and/or otherwise have/display a propositional attitude, then it only follows that not all belief is equivalent to propositional attitude. Some. Not all

Are you and I still at odds on that? Searle shares my loathing towards the notion of belief as propositional attitude.

:wink:

One sees the bike, handles it...no need for belief. I have to go right now...will resume later. — Janus

I'm thinking deterministic causal chain of events. Bike riding definitely arose via belief. It makes no sense to say that belief is not necessary for bike riding.

I share your well respected trepidation of religious remnants of language regarding the key terms here.

Knowledge, then, is multifaceted. Since to agree, to accept and to devote have different truth conditions - or none at all, like a devotion. — fdrake

Devotion is of the believer. Truth conditions are not always.

Knowing and believing are language games, .

You are about to put food in the bowl. The cat knows that. That is a proposition. Searle rightly makes the point that the proposition is the content, not the object, of the belief:

Each intentional state divides into two components: the type of state it is and its content, typically a propositional content. We can represent the distinction between intentional type and propositional content with the notation "(p)." For example, I can believe that it is raining, fear that it is raining, or desire that it be raining. In each of these cases I have the same propositional content, p, that it is raining, but I have them in different intentional types, that is, different psychological modes: belief, fear, desire, and so on, represented by the 'S'. Many intentional states come in whole propositions, and for that reason those that do are often described by philosophers as "propositional attitudes." This is a bad terminology because it suggests that my intentional state is an attitude to a proposition. In general, beliefs, desires, and so on are not attitudes to propositions. If I believe that Washington was the first president, my attitude is to Washington and not to the proposition. Very few of our intentional states are directed at propositions. Most are directed at objects and states of affairs in the world independent of any proposition. Sometimes an intentional state might be directed at a proposition. If, for example, I believe that Bernoulli's principle is trivial, then the object of my belief is a proposition, namely, Bernoulli's principle. In the sentence "John believes that Washington was the first president," it looks like the proposition that Washington was the first president is the object of the belief. But that is a grammatical illusion. The proposition is the content of the belief, not the object of the belief. In this case, the object of the belief is Washington. It is impossible to exaggerate the damage done to philosophy and cognitive science by the mistaken view that "believe" and other intentional verbs name relations between believers and propositions. — Searle, my bolding

The object of your cat's belief is presumably the imminent full bowl.

Cool, that gave me a good laugh, and made a lot of sense to boot.

Who's made those claims anyway? — creativesoul

Somebody was talking to. You should know; you commented right after, a day ago.

Do you think someone has made the argument that all belief is necessary for bike riding? — creativesoul

Nope. I know the thread topic major premise has the form, “Knowledge is only belief”. I know from reading the discourse, that someone said all knowledge requires belief, both of which I for sure, and apparently, reject.
————-

Bike riding - as we know it - is existentially dependent on the belief of the original bike makers. "Belief is not necessary for bike riding" is proven false. — creativesoul

Categorical error: one subject’s beliefs are irrelevant with respect to another subject’s skill acquisition. Whatever the dude believed about the possibility of a bike disappears upon its successful manufacture.
—————-

The bike emerged onto the world stage through the belief of the original bike makers. — creativesoul

True enough, but irrelevant. Post hoc ergo propter hoc informal fallacy, when attached to my knowledge of bike riding.

Impossible to ride a bike that you do not believe is there. — creativesoul

Whatever bike I consider riding must be right there in front of me. Otherwise all I’m doing is considering the possibility of what a bike ride would be like. I grant it is impossible to ride a bike that isn’t right in front of me, but in such case there is no need to believe it isn’t there if I already know there’s nothing there to ride.

Any sympathy forthcoming here? Maybe a slight tip of the pointy hat?

That's one way to talk about it. — creativesoul

I agree that it comes down to which should be thought the best way of talking about it, since there is no empirical fact of the matter to be found. I personally prefer to think in terms of direct awareness, knowledge and belief all being quite distinct and independent of one another. So, we can simply be aware of things and entities. We can know how to do things and recognize things, entities, events, characteristics, relations and regularities which can feed into propositional knowledge about things which goes beyond simple awareness. And we can believe things we cannot be certain about. This is a simple picture, and no doubt there are crossover cases, but it seems to me worthwhile to start simple before working our way into understanding the subtleties.

Because of the brain in a bottle thought experiment we cannot be logically certain of any empirical truth. Instead of saying {there is} a dog in my living room right now we must qualify this {there appears to be} a dog in my living room right now. It is not 100% logically impossible that all of reality is not a mere figment of the imagination. We can be logically certain that 2 + 3 = 5; — PL Olcott

Such skepticism based on mere imaginable possibilities seem toothless and irrelevant to me. I see a dog in the room, I have no cogent reason to doubt its existence. And that is exactly why I say that where there is no possibility of genuine, as opposed to merely feigned, doubt, then speaking in terms of belief is inapt.

I'm reminded of something that came up on a thread about, I think, Wittgenstein's On Certainty: I think it was regarding Moore's statement he knew he had hands, and the point was that to speak in terms of knowing such things is inapt, because in those kinds of cases there is no possibility of doubt. @Banno may remember this point better than I. My point here is that I think the same inaptitude applies, perhaps even more so, to speaking in terms of belief in those kinds of cases.

Even if you want to bracket out 'knowing how' (and I agree with Moliere and @Banno that knowing is entangled with doing), there is still more than one way in which 'knowing that' is used propositionally — SophistiCat

Totally agree, and i haven't wanted to say otherwise.

Knowledge is bound to objective criteria for understanding whereas belief may involve subjectivity. However, the interplay between the objective and subjective may mean that the nature of belief and knowledge remains fluid in human understanding. — Jack Cummins

As above, I agree. That said, I see the whole theoretical side of science as being, in the propositional sense, a matter of belief. I think the way in which it can be understood to be knowledge turns on a different way in which it can be thought of: not as propositional belief, but as know-how which consists in all the ways scientific theories enable us to do new things and investigate in novel ways. For example, I think we all agree that in the propositional sense the ancient belief that the Earth is flat was not knowledge but could be counted as such in the 'know-how' sense, insofar as it enabled new activities and approaches.