The root of the recent resurgence of interest in understanding in epistemology. . What kind of historical enterprise is historical epistemology? The group designated explanationists by Kelp (2015) share a general commitment to the idea that knowledge of explanations should play a key role in a theory of understanding (for example, Hempel 1965; Salmon 1989; Khalifa 2012; 2013). 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. 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). This aside, can we consider extending Grimms conception of understanding as non-propositional knowledge of causes to the domain of objectual understanding? 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. This holds regardless of whether we are Platonists or nominalists about such entities. It is the idea that one has shifted, or changed, the way he or she takes in knowledge (Rayner, 2011).The fact that taking in knowledge has altered is evident in learning institutions today. This is the idea that one has shifted, or changed, the way he or she takes in knowledge. 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. New York: Free Press, 1965. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-017-0863-z. 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). Know How. The Psychology of Scientific Explanation. Philosophy Compass 2(3) (2007): 564-591. This is not so obvious, and at least, not as obvious as it is in the case of knowledge. Would this impede ones understanding? As such, Khalifa is not attempting to provide an analysis of grasping. The childs opinion displays some grasp of evolution. An in-depth exploration of different types of epistemic luck. 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. 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 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. 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. 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. Zagzebski notes that this easily leads to a vicious circle because neglect leads to fragmentation of meaning, which seems to justify further neglect and further fragmentation until eventually a concept can disappear entirely.. In the study of epistemology, philosophers are concerned with the epistemological shift. Often-cited discussion of the fake barn counterexample to traditional accounts of knowledge that focus on justified true belief. Perhaps the strongest of these is his suggestion that while the faculty of rational insight is indispensable to the grasping account of a priori, it is actually essential to knowledge of causes that it not be grasped through rational insight. A., Kallestrup, J. Palermos, S.O. Essentially, this view traditionally holds that understanding why X is the case is equivalent to knowing why X is the case (which is in turn supposed to be equivalent to knowing that X is the case because of Y). CA: Wadsworth, 2009. Criticizes the claim that understanding-why should be identified with strong cognitive achievement. Argues against compatibility between understanding and epistemic luck. Such discussions, though they can be initially helpful, raise a nest of further questions. Bradford, G. The Value of Achievements. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 94(2) (2013): 204-224. and (ii) what qualifies a group of beliefs as a system in the sense that is at issue when it is claimed that understanding involves grasping relationships or connections within a system of beliefs? In this respect, then, Kvanvigs view achieves the result of a middle ground. 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 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. Grimm, S. Is Understanding a Species of Knowledge? British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 57 (2006): 515-535. Van Camp, W. Explaining Understanding (or Understanding Explanation. European Journal for Philosophy of Science 4(1) (2014): 95-114. 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. It is not only unnecessary, but moreover, contentious, that a credible scientist would consider the ideal gas law true. Epistemology is the study nature of human knowledge itself. The proponent of moderate factivity owes an explanation. This is the idea that one has shifted, or changed, the way he or she takes in knowledge. 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). Pritchard, D. Recent Work on Epistemic Value. American Philosophical Quarterly 44 (2007): 85-110. ), Virtue Epistemology Naturalized: Bridges Between Virtue Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. If making reasonable sense merely requires that some event or experience make sense to the epistemic agent herself, Bakers view appears open, as Grimm (2011) has suggested, to counterexamples according to which an agent knows that something happened and yet accounts for that occurrence by way of a poorly supported theory. Proposes an account of understandings value that is related to its connection with curiosity. For one thing, abstract objects, such as mathematical truths and other atemporal phenomena, can plausibly be understood even though our understanding of them does not seem to require an appreciation of their coming to existence. In rationalism way of thinking, knowledge is acquired using reasons or reasoning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. The next section considers some of the most prominent examples of attempts to expand on or replace a grasping condition on understanding. Proposes a framework for reducing objectual understanding to what he calls explanatory understanding. We can accommodate the thought that not all beliefs relevant to an agents understanding must be true while nonetheless insisting that cases in which false beliefs run rampant will not count as understanding. The advances are clearly cognitive advances. 824 Words. Although, many commentators suggest that understanding requires something further, that is something in additional to merely knowing a proposition or propositions, Grimm thinks we can update the knowledge of causes view so that this intuition is accommodated and explained. Questions about when and what type of understanding is required for permissible assertion connect with issues related to expertise. For example, you read many of your books on screens and e-readers today. Lipton, P. Understanding Without Explanation in H. de Regt, S. Leonelli, and K. Eigner (eds. 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. 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. 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. And, relatedly in social epistemology, we might wonder what if any testimonial transmission principles hold for understanding, and whether there are any special hearer conditions demanded by testimonial understanding acquisition that are not shared in cases of testimonial knowledge acquisition. 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). Wilkenfeld (2013) offers the account that most clearly falls under Kelps characterization of manipulationist approaches to understanding. 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. Establishes a pro position, supporting that the shift in how people take in knowledge is good. For example, and problematically for any account of objectual understanding that relaxes a factivity constraint, people frequently retract previous attributions of understanding. According to Zagzebski (2001), the epistemic value of understanding is tied not to elements of its factivity, but rather to its transparency. Abstract. An influential discussion of understanding is Kvanvigs (2003). View Shift in Epistemology.docx from SOCIOLOGY 1010 at Columbia Southern University. On the one hand, we have manipulationists, who think understanding involves an ability (or abilities) to manipulate certain representations or concepts. For example, Hills (2009: 4) says you cannot understand why p if p is false (compare: S knows that p only if p). Keplers theory is a further advance in understanding, and the current theory is yet a further advance. epistemological shift pros and cons. Alston, W. Beyond Justification: Dimensions of Epistemic Evaluation. It is just dumb luck the genuine sheep happened to be in the field. epistemological shift pros and cons. 13. Stanley, J. With these three types of understanding in mindpropositional understanding, understanding-why and objectual understandingthe next section considers some of the key questions that arise when one attempts to think about when, and under what conditions, understanding should be ascribed to epistemic agents. For example, if I competently grasp the relevant coherence-making and explanatory relations between propositions about chemistry which I believe and which are true but which I believed on an improper basis. Pritchards assessment then of whether understanding is compatible with epistemic luck that is incompatible with knowledge depends on which kind of epistemic luck incompatible with knowledge one is discussing. 1pt1): pp. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. On the one hand, there is the increasing support for virtue epistemology that began in the 1980s, and on the other there is growing dissatisfaction with the ever-complicated attempt to generate an account of knowledge that is appropriately immune to Gettier-style counterexamples (see, for example, DePaul 2009). 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. 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. Looks at understandings role in recent debates about epistemic value and contains key arguments against Elgins non-factive view of understanding. Kvanvig, J. 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. Pritchard (2007) has put forward some ideas that may prevent the need to adopt a weak view of understandings factivity while nonetheless maintaining the key thrust of Elgins insight. Divides recent views of understanding according to whether they are manipulationist or explanationst; argues for a different view according to which understanding is maximally well-connected knowledge. He considers that grasping might be a modal sense or ability that allows the understander to, over and above registering how things are. 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. The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding. Relation question: What is the grasping relationship? 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). 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. The Problem of the External World 2. 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. Kelp (2015) makes a helpful distinction between two broad camps here. This view, he notes, can make sense of the example (see 3(b))which he utilizes against manipulationists accountsof the omniscient, omni-understanding agent who is passive (that is, an omni-understanding agent who is not actively drawing explanatory inferences) as one would likely attribute to this agent maximally well-connected knowledge in spite of that passivity. Explores understanding as the proper goal of inquiry, in addition to discussing understandings distinctive value. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2005. Olsson, E. Coherentist Theories of Epistemic Justification in E. Zalta (ed. 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). The surgeons successful bypass is valued differently when one is made aware that it was by luck that he picked an appropriate blood vessel for the bypass. 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. According to Grimm, cases like Kvanvig admit of a more general characterisation, depending on how the details are filled in. One reason a manipulationist will be inclined to escape the result in this fashion (by denying that all-knowing entails all-understanding) is precisely because one already (qua manipulationist) is not convinced that understanding can be attained simply through knowledge of propositions. On such an interpretation, explanationism can be construed as offering a simple answer to the object question discussed above: the object of understanding-relevant grasping would, on this view, be explanations. 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. Discusses the connection between curiosity and true belief. What is Justified Belief? In G. S. Pappas (ed. Strevens, M. No Understanding Without Explanation. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 44 (2013): 510-515. Moderate factivity implies that we should withhold attributions of understanding when an agent has a single false central belief, even in cases where the would-be understanding is of a large subject matter where all peripheral beliefs in this large subject matter are true. However, Pritchards work on epistemic luck (for example, 2005) and how it is incompatible with knowledge leads him to reason that understanding is immune to some but not all forms of malignant luck (that is, luck which is incompatible with knowledge). 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. 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. 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? Make sure you cite them appropriately within your paper and list them in APA format on your Reference page. Pritchard, D. Knowledge and Understanding in A. Fairweather (ed. See, however, Carter & Gordon (2014) for a recent criticism on the point of identifying understanding with strong cognitive achievement. 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. 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. NY: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Achievements are thought of as being intrinsically good, though the existence of evil achievements (for example, skillfully committing genocide) and trivial achievements (for example, competently counting the blades of grass on a lawn) shows that we are thinking of successes that have distinctive value as achievements (Pritchard 2010: 30) rather than successes that have all-things-considered value. Strong cognitive achievement: Cognitive success that is because of ones cognitive ability where the success in question either involves the overcoming of a significant obstacle or the exercise of a significant level of cognitive ability. 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. Outlines and evaluates the anti-intellectualist and intellectualist views of know-how. An overview of wisdom, including its potential relationship to understanding. Explores the epistemological role of exemplification and aims to illuminate the relationship between understanding and scientific idealizations construed as fictions. ), The Stanford Enclopedia of Philosophy. By contrast, the paradigmatic case of environmental epistemic luck is the famous barn faade case (for example, Ginet 1975; Goldman 1979), a case where what an agent looks at is a genuine barn which unbeknownst to the individual is surrounded by faades which are indistinguishable to the agent from the genuine barn. So the kind of knowledge that it provides is metaknowledgeknowledge about knowledge. Grimm, S. The Value of Understanding. Philosophy Compass 7(2) (2012): 103-177. Grimm, S. Understanding as Knowledge of Causes in A. Fairweather (ed. 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. (2007: 37-8). 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. True enough. Philosophical issues, 14(1) (2004): 113-131. Fourthly, a relatively fertile area for further research concerns the semantics of understanding attribution. However, Strevens nonetheless offers a rough outline of a parallel, non-factive account of grasping, what he calls grasping*. Epistemological assumptions are those that focus on what can be known and how knowledge can be acquired (Bell, 8). His alternative suggestion is to propose explanation as the ideal of understanding, a suggestion that has as a consequence that one should measure degrees of understanding according to how well one approximate[s] the benefits provided by knowing a good and correct explanation. Khalifa submits that this line is supported by the existence of a correct and reasonably good explanation in the background of all cases of understanding-why that does not involve knowledge of an explanationa background explanation that would, if known, provide a greater degree of understanding-why. Riggs, W. Understanding Virtue and the Virtue of Understanding In M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds. Utilize at least 2 credible sources to support your position presented in the paper. He leaves grasping at the level of metaphor or uses it them literally but never develops it. In other words, they claim that one cannot always tell that one understands. Autore dell'articolo: Articolo pubblicato: 16/06/2022 Categoria dell'articolo: fixed gantry vs moving gantry cnc Commenti dell'articolo: andy's dopey transposition cipher andy's dopey transposition cipher It will accordingly be helpful to narrow our focus to the varieties of understanding that feature most prominently in the epistemological literature. This objection is worth holding in mind when considering any further positions that incorporate representation manipulability as necessary. In looking at moral understanding-why, outlines some key abilities that may be necessary to the grasping component of understanding. 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). Perhaps, as Harvey (2006b) suggests, we do need to reconfigure academic protocols in order to make more room for these kinds of . Curiosity and a Response-Dependent Account of the Value of Understanding. In T. Henning and D. Schweikard (eds. In his article "A Seismic Shift in Epistemology" (2008), Chris Dede draws a distinction between classical perceptions of knowledge and the approach to knowledge underpinning Web 2.0 activity. Discusses and defines ability in the sense often appealed to in work on cognitive ability and the value of knowledge. Eds. Attempts to explain away the intuitions suggesting that lucky understanding is incompatible with epistemic luck.