knowing how does not consist in the knowledge of any particular propo-
sition; second, knowing how manifests itself in having a particular capa-
city to act in certain ways.^32 Correspondingly, we might look to learning
in two different ways: learning that something is the case, compared with
learning how to do something. After all, we often learnhowto do certain
things without learning facts at all. Ancient rhetoricians were convinced
that the best method of learning how to deliver an excellent speech was to
watch other excellent speakers and to imitate and practice accordingly;
this wouldn’t involve any statements of fact about how best to deliver a
speech–indeed, most writers on the subject agreed that trying to write
down clearly articulated truths about delivery would be pointless. Finally,
note that learning how needn’t have any verbal content at all: I might
learn how to drill a hole in a wall just by watching and repeating–neither
the action nor the learning requires words; nor would I necessarily be
able to express what I have learnt in words. This is helpful, because it
takes us away from needing to look for verbally expressed (or implied)
‘truths’ to account for our learning–and summaries of the‘messages’
from particular plays are notoriously weak (what one writer has nicely
called the‘poverty of propositional paraphrase’^33 ). So might what we
learn from theatre be a matter of learninghow, not learningthat?^34
For the moment, though, note that if thefirst feature of knowing/
learning how (that it is not propositional) was helpful, the second looks to
be more problematic–namely, the commitment to‘knowing how’as an
activity. The typical cases of learning how involve some kind of activity in
response to something: riding a bike, drilling a hole in the wall, delivering a
better, more powerful speech. It’s not clear what the equivalent of this
activity would be in the case of theatre. Audiences at plays are, to the dismay
of some critics (such as Nietzsche or Rousseau), distinctly inactive; they
are not obviously practising anything, during or after the performance.^35 The
second, related point has to do with the evidence that something has been
learned. It is perfectly true that those who have learned how to do something
cannot always articulate in words what or how they have learned. But there
is still little doubtthatthey have learned something. Abilities, like deliver-
ing a speech well or using new philosophical terminology and techniques,
may not be reducible to lists of facts; but they can be demonstrated.
Theatre audiences do not leave with any obvious new skill or ability.
Illusion
The other kind of worry that we noted at the start of this chapter was
focused on the form of theatre, not on the content. This worry was focused
on the concept of theatrical illusion. The association between theatre
and (some form of) illusion is long-standing, although there have also
Truth and illusion 55