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. On such a view, grasping talk could simply be jettisoned altogether. Kelp points out that this type of view is not so restrictive as to deny understanding to, for example, novice students and young children. The conspiracy theorist possesses something which one who grasps (rather than grasps*) a correct theory also possesses, and yet one who fails to grasp* even the conspiracy theory (for example, a would-be conspiracy theorist who has yet to form a coherent picture of how the false propositions fit together) lacks. For example, you read many of your books on screens and e-readers today. For example, you read many of your books on screens and e-readers today. In rationalism way of thinking, knowledge is acquired using reasons or reasoning. Objectual understanding is equivalent to what Pritchard has at some points termed holistic understanding (2009: 12). Since it is central to her take on human evolution, factivists like Kvanvig must conclude that her take on human evolution does not qualify as understanding. 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. Defends a lack of control account of luck. Thus, given that understanding that p and knowing that p can in ordinary contexts be used synonymously (for example, understanding that it will rain is just to know that it will rain) we can paraphrase Zagzebskis point with no loss as: understanding X entails knowing that one understands X. ), The Stanford Enclopedia of Philosophy. On the other hand, there are explanationists, who argue that it is knowledge or evaluation of explanations that is doing the relevant work. This is a change from the past. Consider here an analogy: a false belief can be subjectively indistinguishable from knowledge. This is because we dont learn about causes a priori. A second variety of understanding that has generated interest amongst epistemologists is, understanding-why. 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 this Gettier-style case, she has good reason to believe her true beliefs, but the source of these beliefs (for example, the rumor mill) is highly unreliable and this makes her beliefs only luckily true, in the sense of intervening epistemic luck. ), Justification and Knowledge. 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. In . Section 2 explores the connection between understanding and truth, with an eye to assessing in virtue of what understanding might be defended as factive. Batterman, R. W. Idealization and modelling. Synthese, 169(3) (2009): 427-446. 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. This point aligns with the datum that we often attribute understanding by degrees. 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. Cases of intervening luck taketo use a simple examplethe familiar pattern of Chisholms sheep in a field case, where an agent sees a sheep-shaped rock which looks just like a sheep, and forms the belief There is a sheep. Pritchards (2010) account of the distinctive value of understanding is, in short, that understanding essentially involves a strong kind of finally valuable cognitive achievement, and secondly, that while knowledge comes apart from cognitive achievement in both directions, understanding does not. Suppose further that the agent could have easily ended up with a made-up and incorrect explanation because (unbeknownst to the agent) everyone in the vicinity of the genuine fire officer who is consulted is dressed up as fire officers and would have given the wrong story (whilst failing to disclose that they were merely in costume). As will see, a good number of epistemologists would agree that false beliefs are compatible with understanding. 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. This holds regardless of whether we are Platonists or nominalists about such entities. Another significant paper endorsing the claim that knowledge of explanations should play a vital role in our theories of understanding. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Argues that we should replace the main developed accounts of understanding with earlier accounts of scientific explanation. Would this impede ones understanding? Outlines a view on which understanding something requires making reasonable sense of it. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2005. An overview of the background, development and recent issues in epistemology, including a chapter on understanding as an epistemic good. Achievements, unlike mere successes, are regarded as valuable for their own sake, mainly because of the way in which these special sorts of successes come to be. A monograph that explores the nature and value of achievements in great depth. Such a constraint would preserve the intuition that understanding is a particularly desirable epistemic good and would accordingly be untroubled by the issues highlighted for the weakest view outlined at the start of the section. Boston: Routledge, 2013. Summary This chapter contains sections titled: Abstract Introduction Arguments Con Arguments Pro Ambivalence Concerning Relativism? 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. If so, why, and if not why not? Epistemology is the study nature of human knowledge itself. Section 5 considers questions about what might explain the value of understanding; for example, various epistemologists have made suggestions focusing on transparency, distinctive types of achievement and curiosity, while others have challenged the assumption that understanding is of special value. So the kind of knowledge that it provides is metaknowledgeknowledge about knowledge. In other words, S knows that p only if p is true. Knowledge is almost universally taken to be to be factive (compare, Hazlett 2010). 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). But in this version of the case, suppose that, although the book is entirely authoritative, genuine and reliable, it is the only trustworthy book on the Comanche on the shelvesevery book on the shelves nearby, which she easily could have grabbed rather than the genuine authoritative book, was filled with rumors and ungrounded suppositions. New York: Routledge, 2011. Looks at understandings role in recent debates about epistemic value and contains key arguments against Elgins non-factive view of understanding. 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? He considers that grasping might be a modal sense or ability that allows the understander to, over and above registering how things are. The Problem of the External World 2. Epistemology is a branch in philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge. Riggs (2003: 21-22) asks whether an explanation has to be true to provide understanding, and Strevens thinks that it is implied that grasping is factive. 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. Of course, many interrelated questions then emerge regarding coherence. 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. Epistemology is often defined as the theory of knowledge, and talk of propositional knowledge (that is, "S knows that p") has dominated the bulk of modern literature in epistemology. Taking curiosity to be of epistemic significance is not a new idea. A worry about this move can be put abstractly: consider that if understanding entails true beliefs of form , and that beliefs of form must themselves be the result of exercising reliable cognitive abilities, it might still be that ones reliable -generating abilities are exercised in a bad environment. Strevens, M. No Understanding Without Explanation. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 44 (2013): 510-515. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. For View Shift in Epistemology.docx from SOCIOLOGY 1010 at Columbia Southern University. He claims further that this description of the case undermines the intuition that the writers lack of understanding entails the readers lack of understanding. 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. A. and Gordon, E. C. Norms of Assertion: The Quantity and Quality of Epistemic Support. Philosophia 39(4) (2011): 615-635. Utilize at least 2 credible sources to support your position presented in the paper. 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. as in testimony cases in friendly environments, where knowledge acquisition demands very little on the part of the agent), he argues that cognitive achievement is not essentially wedded to knowledge (as robust virtue epistemologists would hold). Toon, A. Pritchard, D. Knowing the Answer, Understanding and Epistemic Value. Grazer Philosophische Studien 77 (2008): 325-39. Meanwhile, he suggests that were you to ask a fake fire officer who appeared to you to be a real officer and just happened to give the correct answer, it is no longer plausible (by Pritchards lights) that you have understanding-why. 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.. 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. 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. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. 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.

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