PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE AND PERCEPTION 1 EVGENIA MYLONAKI In this paper, I examine the relation between intentional action and morality from the perspective of their epistemology. In particular, I study the relation between the knowledge one has when one knows what one is doing in acting intentionally (knowledge in acting, for short) and the knowledge one has when one knows what one ought to do in the particular circumstances one finds oneself and not in general (knowledge in the circumstances, for short); and I focus on a problem concerning the role of perception in the Anscombean conception of knowledge in acting and the Murdochean conception of knowledge in the circumstances. 2 1 For invaluable help with earlier drafts of this paper I would like to thank John McDowell, Kieran Setiya, Karl Schaffer, Matt Boyle, James Pearson, Greg Strom, Aristeides Baltas, Alexandra Newton, and Steven Kyle. I would also like to give special thanks to Andrea Kern for a series of extremely helpful and exciting discussions on almost all the issues touched on in this paper, to Patricio Fernández for his sharp criticism at the conference on Theories of Action and Morality at the University of Navarra, and to Konstandinos Sfinarolis for his support and understanding. 2 For a brilliant discussion of the relevance of Murdoch’s book The Sovereignty of Good to contemporary discussions see Setiya, K., Murdoch on the Sovereignty of Good, (unpublished). For explicit appropriations of Murdoch’s view in discussions of practical knowledge see Blum, L., “Moral Perception and Particularity”, Ethics, 101/4 (1991), pp. 701-725; Bagnoli, C., “Moral Perception and Knowledge by Principles”, in Hernandez, J. (ed.), New Intuitionism, London, Continuum, 2011, pp. 89-106; Clarke, B., “Imagination and Politics in Iris Murdoch’s Moral Philosophy”, Philosophical Papers, 35/3 (2006), pp. 387-411; McDowell, J. H., “What is the Content of an Intention in Action?”, Ratio, 23/4 (2010), pp. 415-432. For discussions on Anscombe’s book Intention and practical knowledge see for instance Moran, R.,, “Anscombe on ‘Practical Knowledge’”, in Hyman, J. – Steward, H. (eds.), Agency and Action (Royal Institute of Philosophy Suppl. 55), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004; Falvey, K., “Knowledge in Intention”, Philosophical Studies, 99/1 (2000), pp. 21-44; Setiya, K., “Knowledge of Intention”, in Ford, A. – Hornsby, J. – Stoutland, F. (eds.), Essays on Anscombe’s Intention, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2011; McDowell, J. H., “How Receptive Knowledge relates to Practical Knowledge”, (unpublished); etc. For more elaborate renderings of the Anscombean tradition in the philosophy of action see Thompson, M., Life and Action: Elementary Structures of Practice and Practical Thought, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2008; Rödl, R., Self-Consciousness, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2007; etc.