Comments on Harvey Lederman, “What Is the ‘Unity’ in the ‘Unity of Knowledge and Action’?”

Harvey Lederman has argued that the relationship signaled by Wang Yangming’s 王陽明 slogan “zhi xing he yi 知行合一” is best captured by the principle “Unity: A person genuinely knows filiality if and only if they are acting filially.” In this essay I explain that Lederman views “extending knowing” and attaining “genuine knowing” as primarily episodic, in just the way that our actions are episodic (sometimes we are acting, sometimes we are not), but I argue that “extending knowing” and attaining “genuine knowing” are centrally about a deeper and sustained transformation.