), Scientific Understanding: Philosophical Perspectives. Contains Lackeys counterexamples to the knowledge transmission principles. So, understanding is compatible with a kind of epistemic luck that knowledge excludes. An epistemological shift: from evidence-based medicine to epistemological responsibility J Eval Clin Pract. For example, we might suppose an agent has a maximally complete explanation of how Michelangelos David came into existence between 1501 and 1504, what methods were used to craft it, what Michelangelos motivating reasons were at the time, how much clay was used, and so on. The advances are clearly cognitive advances. One helpful way to think about this is as follows: if one takes a paradigmatic case of an individual who understands a subject matter thoroughly, and manipulates the credence the agent has toward the propositions constituting the subject matter, how low can one go before the agent no longer understands the subject matter in question? In this respect, it seems Kelps move against the manipulationist might get off the ground only if certain premises are in play which manipulationists as such would themselves be inclined to resist. For one thing, if understanding is both a factive and strongly internalist notion then a radical skeptical argument that threatens to show that we have no understanding is a very intimidating prospect (as Pritchard 2010:86 points out). It is clearly cognitively better than the belief that humans did not evolve. Includes criticism of Kvanvigs line on epistemic luck and understanding. The epistemological shift in the present In the study of epistemology, philosophers are concerned with the epistemological shift. Secondly, one might wonder if Wilkenfelds account of understanding as representation manipulation is too inclusivethat it rules in, as cases of bona fide understanding, representations that are based on inaccurate but internally consistent beliefs. Zagzebski, L. On Epistemology. If, as robust virtue epistemologists have often insisted, cognitive achievement is finally valuable (that is, as an instance of achievements more generally), and understanding necessarily lines up with cognitive achievement but knowledge only sometimes does, then the result is a revisionary story about epistemic value. He also suggests that what epistemic agents want is not just to feel like they are making sense of things but to actually make sense of them. Kvanvig 2003; Zagzebski 2001; Riggs 2003; Pritchard 2010), Grimms view is rooted in a view that comes from the philosophy of science and traces originally to Aristotle. The Psychology of Scientific Explanation. Philosophy Compass 2(3) (2007): 564-591. To defend the claim that possessing the kinds of abilities Hills draws attention to is not a matter of simply having extra items of knowledgeshe notes that one could have the extra items of knowledge and still lack the good judgment that allows you to form new, related true beliefs. Argues that understanding (unlike knowledge) is a type of cognitive achievement and therefore of distinctive value. Usually philosophical problems are overcome not by their resolution but rather by redefinition. While his view fits well with understanding-why, it is less obvious that objectual understanding involves grasping how things came to be. Thirdly, even if one accepts something like a moderate factivity requirement on objectual understandingand thus demand of at least a certain class of beliefs one has of a subject matter that they be trueone can also ask further and more nuanced questions about the epistemic status of these true beliefs. However, it is less clear at least initially that retreating from causal dependence to more general dependence will be of use in the kinds of objectual understanding cases noted above. With a wide range of subtly different accounts of understanding (both objectual and understanding-why) on the table, it will be helpful to consider how understanding interfaces with certain key debates in epistemology. For example, we might require that the agent make sense of X in a way that is reasonablefew would think that the psychic above is reasonable, though it is beyond the scope of the current discussion to stray into exploring accounts of reasonableness. This in part for three principal reasons. Utilize at least 2 credible sources to support your position presented in the paper. Further, suppose that the self-proclaimed psychic even has reason to believe he is right to think he is psychic, as his friends and family deem that it is safer or kinder to buy into his delusions outwardly. Discusses whether intellectualist arguments for reducing know-how to propositional knowledge might also apply to understanding-why (if it is a type of knowing how). For example, while it is easy to imagine a person who knows a lot yet seems to understand very little, think of the student who merely memorizes a stack of facts from a textbook; it is considerably harder to imagine someone who understands plenty yet knows hardly anything at all. We could, for convenience, use the honorific term subjective knowledge for false belief, though in doing so, we are no longer talking about knowledge in the sense that epistemologists are interested in, any more than we are when, as Allan Hazlett (2010) has drawn attention to, we say things like Trapped in the forest, I knew I was going to die; Im so lucky I was saved. Perhaps the same should be said about alleged subjective understanding: to the extent that it is convenient to refer to non-factive states of intelligibility as states of understanding, we are no longer talking about the kind of valuable cognitive achievement of interest to epistemologists. Contains exploration of whether the value knowledge may be in part determined by the extent to which it provides answers to questions one is curious about. A potential worry then is that the achievement one attains when one understands chemistry need not involve the subject working the subject matterin this case, chemistryscause. sustainability scholarship 2021; lost vape centaurus replacement panels; A., Kallestrup, J. Palermos, S.O. Consider, for instance, the felicity of the question: Am I understanding this correctly? and I do not know if I understand my own defense mechanisms; I think I understand them, but I am not sure. The other side of the coin is that one often can think that one understands things that one does not (for example, Trout 2007). Hills herself does not believe that understanding-why is some kind of propositional knowledge, but she points out that even if it is there is nonetheless good cause to think that understanding-why is very unlike ordinary propositional knowledge. This point aligns with the datum that we often attribute understanding by degrees. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Grasping also allows the understander to anticipate what would happen if things were relevantly differentnamely, to make correct inferences about the ways in which relevant differences to the truth-values of the involved propositions would influence the inferences that obtain in the actual world. Often-cited discussion of the fake barn counterexample to traditional accounts of knowledge that focus on justified true belief. Toon (2015) has recently suggested, with reference to the hypothesis of extended cognition, that understanding can be located partly outside the head. This is because Stella lacks beliefs on the matter, even though the students can gain understanding from her. Such discussions, though they can be initially helpful, raise a nest of further questions. Thirdly, and perhaps most interestingly, objectual understanding is attributed in sentences that take the form I understand X where X is or can be treated as a body of information or subject matter. See further Bradford (2013; 2015) for resistance to the very suggestion that there can be weak achievements on Pritchards sensenamely, achievements that do not necessarily involve great effort, regardless of whether they are primarily due to ability. ), Epistemology (Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures). He claims that while we would generally expect her to have knowledge of her relevant beliefs, this is not essential for her understanding and as a result it would not matter if these true beliefs had been Gettierised (and were therefore merely accidentally true). Rationalism is an epistemological theory, so rationalism can be interpreted the distinct aspects or parts of the mind that are separate senses. For example, Carter and Gordon (2011) consider that there might be cases in which understanding, and not just knowledge, is the required epistemic credential to warrant assertion. He argues that intuitions that rule against lucky understanding can be explained away. For example, in Whitcomb (2011) we find the suggestion that theoretical wisdom is a form of particularly deep understanding. According to Grimm, cases like Kvanvig admit of a more general characterisation, depending on how the details are filled in. Meanwhile, when discussing outright (as opposed to ideal) understanding, Kelp suggests that we adopt a contextualist perspective. For that reason, these will be addressed before moving on to the more explicitly epistemological concerns. Grimm develops this original position via parity of reasoning, taking as a starting point that the debate about a priori knowledge, for example, knowledge of necessary truths, makes use of metaphors of grasping and seeing that are akin to the ones in the understanding debate. He also suggests, like Khalifa, that grasping be linked with correct explanations. However, if understanding-why actually is a type of knowing how then this means that intellectualist arguments to the effect that knowing how is a kind of propositional knowledge might apply, mutatis mutandis, to understanding-why as well (see Carter and Pritchard 2013). Pritchard, D. Knowledge, Understanding and Epistemic Value In A. OHear (ed. In the study of epistemology, philosophers are concerned with the epistemological shift. Khalifa, K. Inaugurating understanding or repackaging explanation. But, the chief requirement of understanding, for him, is instead that there be the right coherence-making relations in some agents collection of information (that is, that the agent has a grasp of how all this related information fits together. A second variety of understanding that has generated interest amongst epistemologists is, understanding-why. As such, his commentary here is particularly relevant to the question of whether gasping is factive. Pritchard maintains that it is intuitive that in the case just described understanding is attainedyou have consulted a genuine fire officer and have received all the true beliefs required for understanding why your house burned down, and acquire this understanding in the right way. Hence, he argues that any propositional knowledge is derivative. Rohwer, Y. To the extent that such a move is available, one has reason to resist Morriss rationale for resisting Pritchards diagnosis of Kvanvigs case. Kim, J. al 2014), have for understanding? ), Epistemic Value. Men On the weakest view, one can understand a subject matter even if none of ones beliefs about that subject matter are true. However, Kelp admits that he wonders how his account will make sense of the link between understanding and explanation, and one might also wonder whether it is too strict to say that understanding requires knowledge as opposed to justified belief or justified true belief. In other words, S knows that p only if p is true. For example, Hills (2009: 4) says you cannot understand why p if p is false (compare: S knows that p only if p). bella vista catholic charities housing; wills point tx funeral homes; ptvi triathlon distance; is frankie beverly in the hospital; birria tacos long branch; fort hood cif inprocessing; bucks county inspector of elections candidates; lockdown limerick poem; boeing seattle badge office. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. This entry surveys the varieties of cognitive success, and some recent efforts to understand some of those varieties. These similar states share some of the features we typically think understanding requires, but which are not bona fide understanding specifically because a plausible factivity condition is not satisfied. In other words, even though there is no such gas as that referred to in the law, accepting the law need not involve believing the law to be true and thus believing there to be some gas with properties that it lacks. As Lackey thinks students can come to know evolutionary theory from this teacher despite the teacher not knowing the propositions she asserts (given that the Stella fails the belief condition for knowledge), we might likewise think, and contra Morris, that Stella might fail to understand evolution. There is debate about both (i) whether understanding-why might fairly be called explanatory understanding and (ii) how understanding-why might differ from propositional knowledge. For example, an environment where ones abilities so easily could generate false beliefs of form despite issuing (luckily) true beliefs of the form
on this occasion. Open Document. Know How. Would this impede ones understanding? This is the idea that one has shifted, or changed, the way he or she takes in knowledge. We can acknowledge this simply by regarding Bs understanding as, even if only marginally, relatively impoverished, rather than by claiming, implausibly, that no understanding persists in such cases. This is a view to which Grimm (2010) is also sympathetic, remarking that the object of objectual understanding can be profitably viewed along the lines of the object of know-how, where Grimm has in mind here an anti-intellectualist interpretation of know-how according to which knowing how to do something is a matter of possessing abilities rather than knowing facts (compare, Stanley & Williamson 2001; Stanley 2011). As it were, from the inside, these can be indistinguishable much as, from the first-person perspective, mere true belief and knowledge can be indistinguishable. This is a change from the past. Khalifas indispensability argumentwhich he calls the Grasping Argument runs as follows: Khalifa is, in this argument stipulating that (1) is a ground rule for discussion (2013b: 5). Another seemingly promising lineone that engages with the relation question discussed aboveviews grasping as intimately connected with a certain set of abilities. Her main supporting example is of understanding the rate at which objects in a vacuum fall toward the earth (that is, 32 feet per second), a belief that ignores the gravitational attraction of everything except the earth and so is therefore not true. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1979. But when the object of understanding why is essentially evaluativefor example, understanding why the statue is beautifulit seems that the quality of ones understanding could vary dramatically even when we hold fixed that one possesses a correct and complete explanation of how the statue came to be (that is, both a physical and social description of these causes). Curiosity and a Response-Dependent Account of the Value of Understanding. In T. Henning and D. Schweikard (eds. According to his positive proposal, objectual understanding is the goal and what typically sates the appetite associated with curiosity. An important observation Grimm makes is that merely assenting to necessary truths is insufficient for knowing necessary truths a priorione must also grasp orsee the necessity of the necessary truth. ), Knowledge, Truth and Obligation. While Khalifa favors earlier accounts of scientific understanding to the more recent views that have been submitted by epistemologists, he is aware that some criticisms (for example, Lipton (2009) and Pritchard (2010)) to the effect that requiring knowledge of an explanation is too strong a necessary condition on understanding-why. Explores understanding as the proper goal of inquiry, in addition to discussing understandings distinctive value. Working hypotheses and idealizations need not, on this line, be viewed as representative of realityidealizations can be taken as useful fictions, and working hypotheses are recognized as the most parsimonious theories on the table without thereby being dubbed as wholly accurate. At the other end of the spectrum, we might consider an extremely strong view of understandings factivity, according to which understanding a subject matter requires that all of ones beliefs about the subject matter in question are true. ), Epistemic Value. It is helpful to consider an example. Zagzebski does not mean to say that to understand X, one must also understand ones own understanding of X (as this threatens a psychologically implausible regress), but rather, that to understand X one must also understand that one understands X. In the first version, we are to imagine that the agent gets her beliefs from a faux-academic book filled with mere rumors that turn out to be luckily true. philos201 Assignment Details Recall that epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Kvanvig, J. Elgin, C. Understanding and the Facts. Philosophical Studies 132 (2007): 33-42. To the extent that these worries with transparency are apt, a potential obstacle emerges for the prospects of accounting for the value of understanding in terms of its transparency. Proposes a framework for reducing objectual understanding to what he calls explanatory understanding. It is worth considering how and in what way a plausible grasping condition on understanding should be held to something like a factivity or accuracy constraint. Are the prospects of extending understanding via active externalism on a par with the prospects for extending knowledge, or is understanding essentially internal in a way that knowledge need not be? Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Sullivan, E. Understanding: Not Know-How. Philosohpical Studies (2017). Argues that the concerns plaguing theories of knowledge do not cause problems for a theory of understanding. There is little work focusing exclusively on the prospects of a non-factive construal of understanding-why; most authors, with a few exceptions, take it that understanding-why is obviously factive in a way that is broadly analogous to propositional knowledge. Kvanvig stipulates that there are no falsehoods in the relevant class of beliefs that this individual has acquired from the book, and also that she can correctly answer all relevant questions whilst confidently believing that she is expressing the truth. According to Zagzebski (2001), the epistemic value of understanding is tied not to elements of its factivity, but rather to its transparency. Is it a kind of knowledge, another kind of propositional attitude, an ability, and so forth? His central claim in his recent work is that understanding can be viewed as knowledge of causes, though appreciating how he is thinking of this takes some situating, given that the knowledge central to understanding is non-propositional. Analyzes Kvanvigs Comanche case and argues that knowledge and understanding do not come apart in this example. Section 2 explores the connection between understanding and truth, with an eye to assessing in virtue of what understanding might be defended as factive. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Hills thinks that moral understanding, if it were any kind of propositional knowledge at all, would be knowing a proposition under a practical mode and not necessarily under a theoretical mode.. Khalifa, K. Understanding, Grasping and Luck. Episteme 10 (1) (2013b): 1-17. An overview of wisdom, including its potential relationship to understanding. In other words, one mistakenly take knowledge to be distinctively valuable only because knowledge often does have somethingcognitive achievementwhich is essential to understanding and which is finally valuable. Although the analysis of the value of epistemic states has roots in Plato and Aristotle, this renewed and more intense interest was initially inspired by two coinciding trends in epistemology. What kind of historical enterprise is historical epistemology? According to Goldman (1991) curiosity is a desire for true belief; by contrast, Williamson views curiosity as a desire for knowledge. Zagzebski (2001) and Kvanvig (2003), have suggested that understandings immunity to being undermined by the kinds of epistemic luck which undermine knowledge is one of the most important ways in which understanding differs from knowledge. Intervening epistemic luck is the sort present in the Gettiers original cases (1963) which convinced most epistemologists to abandon the traditional account of knowledge as justified true belief. DePaul, M. and Grimm, S. Review Essay: Kvanvigs The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 74 (2007): 498-514. His modal model of understanding fits with the intuition that we understand not propositions but relations between parts to wholes or systems of various thoughts.. Includes Alstons view of curiosity, according to which the epistemic value of true belief and knowledge partially comes from a link to curiosity. For example, when the issue is understanding mathematics, as opposed to understanding why 22=4, it is perhaps less obvious that dependence has a central role to play. Strevens (2013) focuses on scientific understanding in his discussion of grasping. If Pritchard is right to claim that understanding is always a strong cognitive achievement, then understanding is always finally valuable if cognitive achievement is also always finally valuable, and moreover, valuable in a way that knowledge is not. But most knowledge is not metaknowledge, and epistemology is therefore a relatively insignificant source of knowledge. Morris, K. A Defense of Lucky Understanding. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 63 (2012): 357-371. Pritchard, D. Recent Work on Epistemic Value. American Philosophical Quarterly 44 (2007): 85-110. Riggs, W. Understanding Virtue and the Virtue of Understanding In M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds. These retractions do not t seem to make sense on the weak view. Making such an epistemological shift can then open up the possibility of communication with other-than-human persons in ways that few educational researchers seem able (or willing) to acknowledge (see Harvey, 2003). Pritchard (2008: 8) points out thatfor exampleif one believes that ones house burned down because of the actions of an arsonist when it really burnt down because of faulty wiring, it just seems plain that one lacks understanding of why ones house burned down. Both are veritic types of luck on Pritchards viewthey are present when, given how one came to have ones true belief, it is a matter of luck that this belief is true (Pritchard 2005: 146). The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding. (2007: 37), COPERNICUS: A central tenet of Copernicuss theory is the contention that the Earth travels around the sun in a circular orbit. For one thing, she admits that these abilities can be possessed by degrees. Hills, A. . Zagzebskis weak approach to a factivity constraint aligns with her broadly internalist thinking about what understanding actually does involvenamely, on her view, internal consistency and what she calls transparency. A theoretical advantage to a weak factivity constraint is that it neatly separates propositional knowledge and objectual understanding as interestingly different. Consider here an analogy: a false belief can be subjectively indistinguishable from knowledge.
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