Although a range of epistemologists highlighting some of the important features of understanding-why and objectual understanding have been discussed, there are many interesting topics that warrant further research. Many epistemologists have sought to distinguish understanding from knowledge on the basis of alleged differences in the extent to which knowledge and understanding are susceptible to being undermined by certain kinds of epistemic luck. Contains Kims classic discussion of species of dependence (for example, mereological dependence). It is also becoming an increasingly popular position to hold that understanding is more epistemically valuable than knowledge (see Kvanvig 2003; Pritchard 2010). Greco, J. Zagzebski, L. On Epistemology. A. and Pritchard, D. Knowledge-How and Epistemic Luck. Nos (2013). If Kelps thought experiment works, manipulation of representations cannot be a necessary condition of understanding after all. 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. endangered species in the boreal forest; etown high school basketball roster. London: Continuum, 2003. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989. Establishes a pro position, supporting that the shift in how people take in knowledge is good. This objection is worth holding in mind when considering any further positions that incorporate representation manipulability as necessary. . Epistemology is a branch in philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge. 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. This is the idea that one has shifted, or changed, the way he or she takes in knowledge. Many of these questions have gone largely unexplored in the literature. His central claim is that curiosity provides hope for a response-dependent or behaviour-centred explanation of the value of whatever curiosity involves or aims at. Knowledge in a Social World. 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. This point aligns with the datum that we often attribute understanding by degrees. It focuses on means of human knowledge acquisition and how to differentiate the truth knowledge claims from the false one. Secondly, even subject matters that traffic in empirical rather than abstract atemporal phenomena (for example, pure mathematics), are not clearly such that understanding them should involve any appreciation for their coming to be, or their being caused to exist. This view, embraced by DePaul and Grimm (2009), implies that to the extent that understanding and knowledge come apart, it is not with respect to a difference in susceptibility to being undermined by epistemic luck. 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. Kelps account, then, explains our attributions of degrees of understanding in terms of approximations to such well-connected knowledge. Facebook Instagram Email. If so, then the internally consistent delusion objection typically leveled against weakly nonfactive views raises its head. According to Grimm, cases like Kvanvig admit of a more general characterisation, depending on how the details are filled in. Whitcomb (2010) notes that Goldman (1999) has considered that the significance or value of some item of knowledge might be at least in part determined by whether, and to what extent, it provides the knower with answers to questions that they are curious about. Relation question: What is the grasping relationship? 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. Uses the concept of understanding to underwrite a theory of explanation. This is the idea that one has shifted, or changed, the way he or she takes in knowledge. 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. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Grimm, S. The Value of Understanding. Philosophy Compass 7(2) (2012): 103-177. 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. 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. 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. and claims that this goes along with a shift away from studying the cognitive subject's conceptual grasp of objects towards a "reflection on the . 57-74, 2015. ), Object question: What kinds of things are grasped? If we consider some goalsuch as the successful completion of a coronary bypassit is obvious that our attitude towards the successful coronary bypass is different when the completion is a matter of ability as opposed to luck. The modern epistemology deals with the debate between rationalism and empiricism. This is the idea that one has shifted, or changed, the way he or she takes in knowledge. 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. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Summary This chapter contains sections titled: Abstract Introduction Arguments Con Arguments Pro Ambivalence Concerning Relativism? In short: understanding is causal propositional knowledge. In other words, each denies all of the others respective beliefs about the subject, and yet the weak view in principle permits that they might nonetheless understand the subject equally well. Morris (2012), like Rohwer, also defends lucky understandingin particular, understanding-why, or what he calls explanatory understanding). Gives an overview of recent arguments for revisionist theories of epistemic value that suggest understanding is more valuable than knowledge. For example, Hills (2009: 4) says you cannot understand why p if p is false (compare: S knows that p only if p). But no one claims that science has as yet arrived at the truth about the motion of the planets. (2007: 37-8). If a grasping condition is necessary for understanding, does one satisfy this condition only when one exercises a grasping ability to reflect how things are in the world? That said, Hills adds some qualifications. This in part for three principal reasons. Given that the instrumental value is the same, our reaction to the two contrasting bypass cases seems to count in favor of the final value of successes because of abilityachievements. In . On the weakest view, one can understand a subject matter even if none of ones beliefs about that subject matter are true. Pritchard, D. Knowledge, Understanding and Epistemic Value In A. OHear (ed. 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.. Whitcomb, D. Wisdom. In S. Bernecker and D. Pritchard (eds. For example, you read many of your books on screens and e-readers today. In the study of epistemology, philosophers are concerned with the epistemological shift. The Myth of Factive Verbs. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 80:3 (2010): 497-522. Hence, he argues that any propositional knowledge is derivative. Uses the hypothesis of extended cognition to argue that understanding can be located (at least partly) outside the head. An important question is whether there are philosophical considerations beyond simply intuition to adjudicate in a principled way why we should think about unifying understanding cases in one way rather than the other. Pritchard, D. Recent Work on Epistemic Value. American Philosophical Quarterly 44 (2007): 85-110. A useful taxonomising question is the following: how strong a link does understanding demand between the beliefs we have about a given subject matter and the propositions that are true of that subject matter? For those who wonder about whether the often-discussed grasping associated with understanding might just amount to the possession of further beliefs (rather than, say, the possession of manipulative abilities), this type of view may seem particularly attractive (and comparatively less mysterious). 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. Includes Alstons view of curiosity, according to which the epistemic value of true belief and knowledge partially comes from a link to curiosity. Kim, J. There is arguably a further principled reason that an overly weak view of the factivity of understanding will not easily be squared with pretheoretical intuitions about understanding. Philip Kitcher and Wesley Salmon. Proposes a framework for reducing objectual understanding to what he calls explanatory understanding. This leaves us, however, with an interesting question about the point at which there is no understanding at all, rather than merely weaker or poorer understanding. Some focus on understanding-why while others focus on objectual understanding. Some (for example, Gordon 2012) suggest that attributions of propositional understanding typically involve attributes of propositional knowledge or a more comprehensive type of understandingunderstanding-why, or objectual understanding (these types are examined more closely below). Hills (2009) is an advocate of such a view of understanding-why in particular. And furthermore, weakly factive accounts welcome the possibility that internally coherent delusions (for example, those that are drug-induced) that are cognitively disconnected from real events might nonetheless yield understanding of those events. But it is not strictly true. The Case of Richard Rorty A Newer Argument Pro: Hales's Defense o. Contains a discussion of the fact that we often take ourselves to understand things we do not. We regularly claim that people can understand everything from theories to pieces of technology, accounts of historical events and the psychology of other individuals. 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. Wilkenfeld suggests that this ability consists at least partly in being able to correct minor mistakes in ones mental representation and use it to make assessments in similar cases. That is, there is something defective about a scientists would-be understanding of gas behavior were that scientist, unlike all other competent scientists, to reject that the ideal gas law is an idealization and instead embraced it as a fact. Dordecht: Springer, 2014. A view on which the psychics epistemic position in this case qualifies as understanding-why would be unsatisfactorily inclusive. For example, Kvanvig describes it as obtaining when understanding grammatically is followed by an object/subject matter, as in understanding the presidency, or the president, or politics (2003: 191). As it turns out, not all philosophers who give explanation a central role in an account of understanding want to dispense with talk of grasping altogether, and this is especially so in the case of objectual understanding. Van Camp, W. Explaining Understanding (or Understanding Explanation. European Journal for Philosophy of Science 4(1) (2014): 95-114. Defends a lack of control account of luck. If this is right, then at least one prominent case used to illustrate a luck-based difference between knowledge and understanding does not hold up to scrutiny. Discusses the connection between curiosity and true belief. Pritchard, D. Epistemic Luck. Strevens, however, holds that than an explanation is only correct if its constitutive propositions are true, and therefore the reformulation of grasping that he provides is not intended by Strevens to be used in an actual account of understanding. In other words, they claim that one cannot always tell that one understands. A central component of Kvanvigs argument is negative; he regards knowledge as ill-suited to play the role of satisfying curiosity, and in particular, by rejecting three arguments from Whitcomb to this effect. epistemological shift pros and cons. Khalifa, K. Understanding, Grasping and Luck. Episteme 10 (1) (2013b): 1-17. Alston, W. Beyond Justification: Dimensions of Epistemic Evaluation. Discusses and defines ability in the sense often appealed to in work on cognitive ability and the value of knowledge. Take first the object question. Know How. Argues that understanding (unlike knowledge) is a type of cognitive achievement and therefore of distinctive value. On the other hand, there are explanationists, who argue that it is knowledge or evaluation of explanations that is doing the relevant work. An overview of wisdom, including its potential relationship to understanding. Specifically, a very weak view of understandings factivity does not fit with the plausible and often expressed intuition that understanding is something especially epistemically valuable. Kvanvig, J. Epistemology is the study of sources of knowledge. Pros and Cons of Epistemological Shift Epistemology refers to a dynamic concept that shows how humans understand knowledge, which entails how it is received, classified, justified, and transmitted in distinctive ways and at different periods in history. Email: emma.gordon@ed.ac.uk See answer source: Epistemology in an Hour Caleb Beers These retractions do not t seem to make sense on the weak view. 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. Early defence of explanations key role in understanding. Emma C. Gordon Examples of the sort considered suggest thateven if understanding has some important internalist component to ittransparency of the sort Zagzebski is suggesting when putting forward the KU claim, is an accidental property of only some cases of understanding and not essential to understanding. Contains the paradigmatic case of environmental epistemic luck (that is, the fake barn case). Resists Pritchards claim that there can be weak achievements, that is, ones that do not necessarily involve great effort. Lucky Understanding Without Knowledge. Synthese 191 (2014): 945-959. Given the extent to which grasping is highly associated with understanding and left substantively unspecified, it is perhaps unsurprising that the matter of how to articulate grasping-related conditions on understanding has proven to be rather divisive. A. and Gordon, E. C. On Pritchard, Objectual Understanding and the Value Problem. American Philosophical Quarterly 51 (2014): 1-14. 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. To the extent that such a move is available, one has reason to resist Morriss rationale for resisting Pritchards diagnosis of Kvanvigs case. In looking at moral understanding-why, outlines some key abilities that may be necessary to the grasping component of understanding. 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. Wilkenfeld, D. Understanding as Representation Manipulability. Synthese 190 (2013): 997-1016. Men It should be noted that Hills 2009: 7 is also sympathetic to a similar thought, suggesting that the threshold for understanding might be contextually determined. Carter, J. According to Goldman (1991) curiosity is a desire for true belief; by contrast, Williamson views curiosity as a desire for knowledge. Rohwers inventive move involves a contrast case featuring unifying understanding, that is, understanding that is furnished from multiple sources, some good and some bad. This aside, can we consider extending Grimms conception of understanding as non-propositional knowledge of causes to the domain of objectual understanding? Given that the result is the same (that is, the patients heart muscle blood supply is improved) regardless of whether he successfully completes the operation by luck or by skill, the instrumental value of the action is the same. Argues against a factive conception of scientific understanding. Carter, J. Grimm (2014) also notes that his modal view of understanding fits well with the idea that understanding involves a kind of ability or know-how, as one who sees or grasps how certain propositions are modally related has the ability to answer a wide variety of questions about how things could have been different. Builds an account of understanding according to which understanding a subject matter involves possessing a representation that could be manipulated in a useful way. 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. 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). Consider how some people think they grasp the ways in which their zodiac sign has an influence on their life path, yet their sense of understanding is at odds with the facts of the matter. 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). Much of the philosophical tradition has viewed the central epistemological problems concerning perception largely and sometimes exclusively in terms of the metaphysical responses to skepticism. In recent years epistemology has experienced gradual changes that are critical in human life. Orand this is a point that has received little attentioneven more weakly, can the true beliefs be themselves unreliably formed or held on the basis of bad reasons. Argues that a type of understanding might be the norm that warrants assertion in a restricted class of cases. Your paper should be 3-4 pages in length, not counting the Title page and Reference page. Khalifas (2013) view of understanding is a form of explanatory idealism. 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. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Grimm (2006) and Pritchard (2010) counter that many of the most desirable instances of potential understanding, such as when we understand another persons psychology or understand how the world works, are not transparent. Elgin (2007), like Zagzebski, is sympathetic to a weak factivity constraint on objectual understanding, where the object of understanding is construed as a fairly comprehensive, coherent body of information (2007: 35). Outlines and evaluates the anti-intellectualist and intellectualist views of know-how. Call these, for short, the relation question and the object question. This is the idea that one has shifted, or changed, the way he or she takes in knowledge. Many seem to blend manipulationism with explanations, suggesting for example that what is required for understanding is an ability associated with mentally manipulating explanations. Explores understanding as the proper goal of inquiry, in addition to discussing understandings distinctive value. The cons of the epistemology shift that is a major concern to philosophers are the loss of, reading and communications since the student do not interact physically, these skills be instilled EPISTEMOLOGY SHIFT 5 by the teachers and through the help of physical environments. Usually philosophical problems are overcome not by their resolution but rather by redefinition. A good example here is what Riggs (2003) calls intelligibility, a close cousin of understanding that also implies a grasp of order, pattern and connection, but does not seem to require a substantial connection to truth. Just as we draw a distinction between this epistemic state (that is, intelligibility, or what Grimm calls subjective understanding) and understanding (which has a much stricter factivity requirement), it makes sense to draw a line between grasping* and grasping where one is factive and the other is not. He says that knowledge about a phenomenon (P) is maximally well-connected when the basing relations that obtain between the agents beliefs about P reflect the agents knowledge about the explanatory and support relations that obtain between the members of the full account of P (2015: 12). 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. The medical epistemology we propose conforms to the epistemological responsibility of doctors, which involves a specific professional attitude and epistemological skills. As such, Khalifa is not attempting to provide an analysis of grasping. 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. 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). Understanding entails that such beliefs must be the result of exercising reliable cognitive abilities. Includes further discussion of the role of acceptance and belief in her view of understanding. 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. 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. Finally, there is fruitful work to do concerning the relationship between understanding and wisdom. A., Kallestrup, J. Palermos, S.O. Putting this all together, a scientist who embraces the ideal gas law, as an idealization, would not necessarily have any relevant false beliefs. ), Fictions in Science: Essays on Idealization and Modeling. 13. epistemological shift pros and cons. However, such a strong view would also make understanding nearly unobtainable and surely very rarefor example, on the extremely strong proposal under consideration, recognized experts in a field would be denied understanding if they had a single false belief about some very minor aspect of the subject matter. Rohwer argues that counterexamples like Pritchards intervening luck cases only appear plausible because the beliefs that make up the agents understanding come exclusively from a bad source. 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). Rationalism is an epistemological theory, so rationalism can be interpreted the distinct aspects or parts of the mind that are separate senses. The Nature of Ability and the Purpose of Knowledge. Philosophical Issues 17 (2007): 57-69. Nevertheless, distinguishing between the two in this manner raises some problems for her view of objectual understanding, which should be unsurprising given the aforementioned counterexamples that can be constructed against a non-factive reading of Bakers construal of understanding-why. For, even if understanding why 22=4 does not require a grasp of any causal relation, it might nonetheless involve a grasp of some kind of more general dependence, for instance the kind of dependence picked out by the metaphysical grounding relation. Hempel, C. Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science. In such a case, Kvanvig says, this individual acquires an historical understanding of the Comanche dominance of the Southern plains of North America from the late 17th until the late 19th century (2003: 197). Make sure you cite them appropriately within your paper, and list them in APA format on your Reference page. On the one hand, we have manipulationists, who think understanding involves an ability (or abilities) to manipulate certain representations or concepts.
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