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? If Kelps thought experiment works, manipulation of representations cannot be a necessary condition of understanding after all. However, Pritchard (2014) responds to Grimms latest proposal with a number of criticisms. Argues that understanding (unlike knowledge) is a type of cognitive achievement and therefore of distinctive value. 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). If so, why, and if not why not? In contrast with Pritchards partial compatibility view of the relationship between understanding and epistemic luck, where understanding is compatible with environmental but not with intervening luck, Rohwer (2014) defends understandings full compatibility with veritic epistemic luck (that is, of both intervening and environmental varieties). It is just dumb luck the genuine sheep happened to be in the field. The Psychology of Scientific Explanation. Philosophy Compass 2(3) (2007): 564-591. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009. In so doing, he notes that the reader may be inclined to add further internalist requirements to his reliability requirement, of the sort put forward by Kvanvig (2003). Explores understanding as the proper goal of inquiry, in addition to discussing understandings distinctive value. On the one hand, we have manipulationists, who think understanding involves an ability (or abilities) to manipulate certain representations or concepts. Grimm anticipates this point and expresses a willingness to embrace a looser conception of dependence than causal dependence, one that includes (following Kim 1994) species of dependence such as mereological dependences (that is, dependence of a whole on its parts), evaluative dependences (that is, dependence of evaluative on non-evaluative), and so on. Autor de la entrada: Publicacin de la entrada: junio 16, 2022 Categora de la entrada: rivian executive vice president Comentarios de la entrada: most touchdowns in california high school football most touchdowns in california high school football Kvanvig (2013) claims that both of these views are mistaken, and in the course of doing so, locates curiosity at the center of his account of understandings value. As will see, a good number of epistemologists would agree that false beliefs are compatible with understanding. Sullivan, E. Understanding: Not Know-How. Philosohpical Studies (2017). In the study of epistemology, philosophers are concerned with the epistemological shift. Wilkenfeld, D. Understanding as Representation Manipulability. Synthese 190 (2013): 997-1016. ), Object question: What kinds of things are grasped? Assume that the surgeon is suffering from the onset of some degenerative mental disease and the first symptom is his forgetting which blood vessel he should be using to bypass the narrowed section of the coronary artery. 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.. Grimm (2011) suggests that what we should regard as being understood in cases of objectual understandingnamely, the object of the objectual attitude relationcan be helpfully thought of as akin to a system or structure [that has] parts or elements that depend upon one another in various ways.. University of Edinburgh Scotland, U.K. A Weak Factivity Constraint on Objectual Understanding, Moderate Views of Objectual Understandings Factivity, Understanding as Representation Manipulability, Understanding as Well-Connected Knowledge, Understanding as (Partially) Compatible with Epistemic Luck, Newer Defenses of Understandings Compatibility with Epistemic Luck. Builds an account of understanding according to which understanding a subject matter involves possessing a representation that could be manipulated in a useful way. This is because we might be tempted to say instead that we desire to make sense of things because it is good to do so rather than saying that it is good to make sense of things because we desire it. As Wilkenfeld sees it, understanding should be construed as representational manipulability, which is to say that understanding is, essentially, the possessing of some representation that can be manipulated in useful ways. Having abandoned the commitment to absolute space, current astronomers can no longer say that the Earth travels around the sun simpliciter, but must talk about how the Earth and the sun move relative to each other. 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. 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. Your paper should be 3-4 pages in length, not counting the Title page and Reference . For Offers an account of understanding that requires having a theory of the relevant phenomenon. Includes further discussion of the role of acceptance and belief in her view of understanding. epistemological shift pros and cons. This line merits discussion not least because the idea that understanding-why comes by degrees is often ignored in favor of discussing the more obvious point that understanding a subject matter clearly comes by degrees. Taking curiosity to be of epistemic significance is not a new idea. (vi) an ability to give q (the right explanation) when given the information p. This is the idea that one has shifted, or changed, the way he or she takes in knowledge. To the extent that this is right, Zagzebski is endorsing a kind of KU principle (compare: KK). Dordrecht: Reidel, 1975. Since what Grimm is calling subjective understanding (that is, Riggss intelligibility) is by stipulation essentially not factive, the question of the factivity of subjective understanding simply does not arise. The proponent of moderate factivity owes an explanation. Defends a lack of control account of luck. That said, this article nonetheless attempts to outline a selection of topics that have generated the most discussion and highlights what is at issue in each case and what some of the available positions are. This is because we dont learn about causes a priori. Claims that understanding is entirely compatible with both intervening and environmental forms of veritic luck. It is helpful to consider an example. In fact, he claims, the two come apart in both directions: yielding knowledge without strong cognitive achievement andas in the case of understanding that lacks corresponding knowledgestrong cognitive achievement without knowledge. 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. Should we say that the use of the term understanding that applies to such cases should be of no interest to epistemology? However, advocates of moderate approaches to the factivity of understanding are left with some difficult questions to answer. This objection is worth holding in mind when considering any further positions that incorporate representation manipulability as necessary. This is a change from the past. epistemological shift pros and cons. facebook android official. Solicitar ms informacin: 310-2409701 | administracion@consultoresayc.co. Early defence of explanations key role in understanding. 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.. Here, and unlike in the case of intervening epistemic luck, nothing actually goes awry, and the fact that the belief could easily have been false is owed entirely to the agents being in a bad environment, one with faades nearby. The thought is that, in cases of achievement, the relevant success must be primarily creditable to the exercise of the agents abilities, rather than to some other factor (for example, luck). Consequently, engaging with the project of clarifying and exploring the epistemic states or states attributed when we attribute understanding is a complex matter. 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. It is not only unnecessary, but moreover, contentious, that a credible scientist would consider the ideal gas law true. On the most straightforward characterization of her proposal, one fails to possess understanding why, with respect to p, if one lacks any of the abilities outlined in (i-vi), with respect to p. Note that this is compatible with one failing to possess understanding why even if one possesses knowledge that involves, as virtue epistemologists will insist, some kinds of abilities or virtues. Your paper should be 3-4 pages in length, not counting the Title page and Reference page. Finally, Section 6 proposes various potential avenues for future research, with an eye towards anticipating how considerations relating to understanding might shed light on a range of live debates elsewhere in epistemology and in philosophy more generally. Relatedly, Van Camp (2014) calls understanding a higher level cognition that involves recognizing connections between different pieces of knowledge, and Kosso (2007: 1) submits that inter-theoretic coherence is the hallmark of understanding, stating knowledge of many facts does not amount to understanding unless one also has a sense of how the facts fit together. While such remarks are made with objectual understanding (that is, understanding of a subject matter) in mind, there are similar comments about understanding-why (for example, Hills 2009) that suggest an overlapping need to consider connections between items of information, albeit on a smaller scale. Morris, K. A Defense of Lucky Understanding. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 63 (2012): 357-371. Janvid, M. Knowledge versus Understanding: The Cost of Avoiding Gettier. Acta Analytica 27 (2012): 183-197. If we sometimes attribute understanding to two people even when they differ only in terms of who has more false beliefs about a subject, this difference in degrees indicates that one can have understanding that includes some false beliefs. It also allows attributions of understanding in the presence of peripheral false beliefs, without going so far as to grant that understanding is present in cases of internally consistent delusionsas such delusions will feature at least some false central beliefs. Furthermore, Section 3 considers whether characterizations of understanding that focus on explanation provide a better alternative to views that capitalize on the idea of manipulating representations, also giving due consideration to views that appear to stand outside this divide. That said, Grimms more recent work (2014) expands on these earlier observations to form the basis of a view that spells out grasping in terms of a modal relationship between properties, objects or entitiesa theory on which what is grasped when one has understanding-why will be how changes in one would lead (or fail to lead) to changes in the other. While Pritchard can agree with Rohwers conclusion that understanding (and specifically as Rohwer is interested in, scientific understanding) is not a species of knowledge, the issue of adjudicating between Rohwers intuition in the case of unifying understanding and the diagnosis Pritchard will be committed to in such a case is complicated. 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. 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. Her key thought here is that grasping the truth can actually impede the chances of ones attaining understanding because such a grasp might come at too high a cognitive cost. He argues that intuitions that rule against lucky understanding can be explained away. 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. Many of these questions have gone largely unexplored in the literature. 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. Salmon, W. Four Decades of Scientific Explanation. In Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. Putting this all together, a scientist who embraces the ideal gas law, as an idealization, would not necessarily have any relevant false beliefs. To borrow a case from Riggs, stealing an Olympic medal or otherwise cheating to attain it lacks the kind of value one associates with earning the medal, through ones own skill. Kvanvig does not spell out what grasping might involve, in the sense now under consideration, in his discussion of coherence, and the other remarks we considered above. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. sustainability scholarship 2021; lost vape centaurus replacement panels; Though in light of this fact, it is not obvious that understanding is the appropriate term for this state. More specifically, Kvanvig aims to support the contention that objectual understanding has a special value knowledge lacks by arguing that the nature of curiositythe motivational element that drives cognitive machinery (2013: 152)underwrites a way of vindicating understandings final value. butterfly pea flower vodka cocktail Anasayfa; aware super theatre parking. London: Continuum, 2012. On the view he recommends, the ability to grasp explanatory or evidential connections is an ability that is central to understanding only if the relevant grasping ability is understood as involving reliable explanatory evaluation. 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). More generally, as this line of criticism goes, sometimes we simply mistake mere (non-factive) intelligibility for understanding. A paper in which it is argued that (contrary to popular opinion) knowledge does not exclude luck. Morris challenges the assumption that hearers cannot gain understanding through the testimony of those who lack understanding, and accordingly, embraces a kind of understanding transmission principle that parallels the kind of knowledge transmission principle that is presently a topic of controversy in the epistemology of testimony. 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. That is, we often describe an individual as having a better understanding of a subject matter than some other person, perhaps when choosing whom to approach for advice or when looking for someone to teach us about a subject. London: Continuum, 2003. For example, Kvanvig (2003: 206) observes that we have an ordinary conception that understanding is a milestone to be achieved by long and sustained efforts at knowledge acquisition and Whitcomb (2012: 8) reflects that understanding is widely taken to be a higher epistemic good: a state that is like knowledge and true belief, but even better, epistemically speaking. Yet, these observations do not fit with the weak views commitment to, for example, the claim that understanding is achievable in cases of delusional hallucinations that are disconnected from the facts about how the world is. Due to the possibility of overly simple or passive successes qualifying as cognitive achievements (for example, coming to truly believe that it is dark just by looking out of the window in normal conditions after 10pm), Pritchard cautions that we should distinguish between two classes of cognitive achievementstrong and weak: Weak cognitive achievement: Cognitive success that is because of ones cognitive ability. Dordecht: Springer, 2014. Pritchard, meanwhile, claims that the matter of understandings compatibility with epistemic luck can be appreciated only against the background of a distinction between two kinds of epistemic luckintervening and environmentalboth of which are incompatible with knowledge. 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. epistemological shift pros and cons. To what extent do the advantages and disadvantages of, for example, sensitive invariantist, contextualist, insensitive invariantist and relativist approaches to knowledge attributions find parallels in the case of understanding attributions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. If the former, then this is unfortunate given the theoretical work the term is supposed to be doing in characterizing understanding. Philosophy of Science, 79(1) (2012): 15-37. (For example, is it a kind of knowledge, another kind of propositional attitude, an ability, and so on? Some of Pritchards (for example, 2009) earlier work on understanding uses the terminology atomistic understanding as synonymous with understanding-why and indeed his more recent work shifts to using the latter term. 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). 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. This aside, can we consider extending Grimms conception of understanding as non-propositional knowledge of causes to the domain of objectual understanding? Argues against a factive conception of scientific understanding. Stanley, J. Alston, W. Beyond Justification: Dimensions of Epistemic Evaluation. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. De Regt, H. and Dieks, D. A Contextual Approach to Scientific Understanding. Synthese 144 (2005): 137-170. The Value of Understanding In D. Pritchard, A. Haddock and A. Millar (eds. But no one claims that science has as yet arrived at the truth about the motion of the planets. Make sure you cite them appropriately within your paper, and list them in APA format on your Reference page. 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). Emma C. Gordon He concedes, though, that sometimes curiosity on a smaller scale can be sated by epistemic justification, and that what seems like understanding, but is actually just intelligibility, can sate the appetite when one is deceived. Grimm, S. The Value of Understanding. Philosophy Compass 7(2) (2012): 103-177. Kelp (2015) makes a helpful distinction between two broad camps here. Specifically, he points out that an omniscient agent who knows everything and intuitively therefore understands every phenomenon might do so while being entirely passivenot drawing interferences, making predictions or manipulating representations (in spite of knowing, for example, which propositions can be inferred from others). Nevertheless, considering weakly factive construals of objective understanding draws attention to an important pointthat there are also interesting epistemic states in the neighborhood of understanding. 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). While the matter of how to think about the incompatibility of knowledge with epistemic luck remains a contentious pointfor instance, here modal accounts (for example, Pritchard 2005) are at odds with lack-of-control accounts (for example, Riggs 2007), few contemporary epistemologists dissent from the comparatively less controversial claim that knowledge excludes luck in a way that true beliefs and sometimes even justified true beliefs do not (see Hetherington (2013) for a dissenting position).
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