The Practical Mind

Carlotta Pavese is Fulford Clarendon Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at University of Oxford and Fulford Fellow at Saint Catherine College. She is the editor of the Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Skills and Expertise (2020), as well as the author of articles appearing in Philosophical Review and many other journals.

• Part I. Foundations: 1. Skill; 2. Skill in action; 3. Intelligence socialism; 4. Intelligence, regresses, and empiricism; 5. A theory of natural talent; 6. Intellectualisms; Part II. Intellectualism with a Human Face: 7. Anti-intellectualism about skilled action and its discontents; 8. Three kinds of control and the mindedness of skilled action; 9. Practical representation and procedural control; 10. Practical concepts and productive reasoning; 11. An epistemic theory of strategic control; 12. From puzzles about control, learning, and flexibility to a theory of skill; 13. Collective skill, practices, and cultural innovation; Epilogue; References; Index.

'In this outstanding book Pavese delivers one of the most systematic, rich, and rewarding accounts of skills to be found anywhere in the philosophical literature. The book is essential reading for philosophers directly working on the nature and acquisition of skills (individual and collective), intentional action, and intelligence, and it could benefit many others who rely on these notions in more applied contexts. Pavese also draws expertly on relevant work from cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, biology, and linguistics, and her views deserve to find an audience with any theorists doing serious work on skills, no matter what discipline they reside in.' Yuri Cath, La Trobe University