Logos and episteme
Feinan YE, Xia LI
ABSTRACT: The gradability of know-how presents a persistent puzzle for theories of skill. While knowing that p is typically binary, knowing how to φ admits of degrees of excellence. Leading Intellectualist accounts (Pavese 2017; Zhang 2025) typically explicate this gradability in terms of representational resolution or default reliability in the actual world. This paper argues, however, that these “Actualist”metrics are insufficient because they fail to distinguish between the intrinsic competence of an “Unlucky Expert”(whose skill is masked by environmental deviation) and the structural luck of a “Lucky Novice”(whose skill is mimicked by environmental assistance). Mere reliability allows luck to masquerade as competence. Drawing on Modal Virtue Epistemology, we propose that gradability is best measured not by actual success frequencies, but by the agent’s Weighted Modal Volume across counterfactual worlds. We conclude that propositional knowledge contributes to skill precisely by functioning as a “Modal Extender”that insulates the agent against modal fragility, resulting in a view I term Modal Intellectualism.
