Abstract: Knowing-how is a kind of vital skilled knowledge that represents the holder of knowing-how knows how to do something. With respect to whether knowing-how has cognitive component and what kind of cognitive component knowing-how has， orthodox intellectualism and anti-intellectualism provide various answers. The former uses the propositional knowledge to describe knowing-how and proposes that knowing-how is a kind of knowing-that. On the contrary， anti-intellectualism uses action capacity or action disposition to interpret knowing-how and neglects or denies the cognitive component of knowing-how. On the basis of combination of merits of intellectualism and anti-intellectualism， the theory of intelligent action capacity about essence of knowing-how is put forward， which admits that knowing-how has cognitive component and proposes that the holder of knowing-how has true belief about method of doing something.