Carter, J. However, Elgin takes this line further and insists thatwith some qualificationsfalse central beliefs, and not merely false peripheral beliefs, are compatible with understanding a subject matter to some degree. For the purposes of thinking about understanding, some of the most important will include: (i) what makes a system of beliefs coherent? In short: understanding is causal propositional knowledge. Uses the hypothesis of extended cognition to argue that understanding can be located (at least partly) outside the head. Elgin, C. Z. The childs opinion displays some grasp of evolution. More generally, though, it is important to note that Khalifa, via his grasping argument, is defending reliable explanatory evaluation as merely a necessarythough not sufficientcomponent of grasping. The topic of epistemic value has only relatively recently received sustained attention in mainstream epistemology. 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. Resists Pritchards claim that there can be weak achievements, that is, ones that do not necessarily involve great effort. 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). He suggests that manipulating the system allows the understander to see the way in which the manipulation influences (or fails to influence) other parts of the system (2011: 11). For that reason, these will be addressed before moving on to the more explicitly epistemological concerns. The Value of Understanding In D. Pritchard, A. Haddock and A. Millar (eds. The Pros And Cons Of Epistemology. Examines reasons to suppose that attributions of understanding are typically attributions of knowledge, understanding-why or objectual understanding.
The epistemological shift in the present in the study - Course Hero 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. Pritchard, D. Recent Work on Epistemic Value. American Philosophical Quarterly 44 (2007): 85-110. 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. 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). However, Grimm is quick to point out that defending one of these two similar views does not depend on the correctness of the other. ), The Continuum Companion to Epistemology. Riaz (2015), Rohwer (2014) and Morris (2012) have continued to uphold this line on understandings compatibility with epistemic luck and defend this line against some of the objections that are examined below. Argues against compatibility between understanding and epistemic luck. ), Contemporary Debates in Epistemology (2nd Edition).
Digital Culture and Shifting Epistemology - hybridpedagogy.org 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. Relatedly, if framed in terms of credence, what credence threshold must be met, with respect to propositions in some set, for the agent to understand that subject matter? In recent years epistemology has experienced gradual changes that are critical in human life. Another significant paper endorsing the claim that knowledge of explanations should play a vital role in our theories of understanding. How should an account of objectual understanding incorporate these types of observationsnamely, where the falsity of a central belief or central beliefs appears compatible with the retention of some degree of understanding? A. and Gordon, E. C. On Pritchard, Objectual Understanding and the Value Problem. American Philosophical Quarterly 51 (2014): 1-14. 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. 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. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Janvid, M. Knowledge versus Understanding: The Cost of Avoiding Gettier. Acta Analytica 27 (2012): 183-197. Running head: SHIFT IN EPISTEMOLOGY 1 Shift in Epistemology Student's Name Professor's Name Institution NY: Cambridge University Press, 2003. This is explained in the following way: If it is central to ordinary cognitive function that one is motivated to pursue X, then X has value in virtue of its place in this functional story. Regarding the comparison between the value of understanding and the value of knowledge, then, he will say that if understanding is fundamental to curiosity then this provides at least a partial explanation for why it is superior to the value of knowledge. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1975. 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? 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. Proponents of weak factivity must address both of these potentially problematic results. Would this impede ones understanding? Grimm, S. The Value of Understanding. Philosophy Compass 7(2) (2012): 103-177. 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. 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). 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. 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. Khalifa, K. Inaugurating understanding or repackaging explanation. Knowledge in a Social World. 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. Should we say that the use of the term understanding that applies to such cases should be of no interest to epistemology? 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. A second variety of understanding that has generated interest amongst epistemologists is, understanding-why. Objectual understanding is equivalent to what Pritchard has at some points termed holistic understanding (2009: 12). 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. It is plausible that a factivity constraint would also be an important necessary condition on objectual understanding, but there is more nuanced debate about the precise sense in which this might be the case. For example, we might suppose that a system of beliefs contains only beliefs about a particular subject matter, and that these beliefs will ordinarily be sufficient for a rational believer who possesses them to answer questions about that subject matter reliably. Riaz, A. 13. 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. 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. Owing to Kvanvigs use of the words perceived achievement, Grimm thinks that the curiosity account of understandings value suggests that subjective understanding (or what is referred to as intelligibility above) can satisfy the desire to make sense of the world or really marks the legitimate end of inquiry.. 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. 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. In particular, he wants to propose a non-propositional view that has at its heart seeing or grasping, of the terms of the casual relata, their modal relatedness, which he suggests amounts to seeing or grasping how things might have been if certain conditions had been different. To be clear, the nuanced view Grimm suggests is that while understanding is a kind of knowledge of causes, it is not propositional knowledge of causes but rather non-propositional knowledge of causes, where the non-propositional knowledge is itself unpacked as a kind of ability or know-how. 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. Firstly, achievement is often defined as success that is because of ability (see, for example, Greco 2007), where the most sensible interpretation of this claim is to see the because as signifying a casual-explanatory relationshipthis is, at least, the dominant view. There is a common and plausible intuition that understanding might be at least as epistemically valuable as knowledgeif not more soand relatedly that it demands more intellectual sophistication than other closely related epistemic states. Keplers theory is a further advance in understanding, and the current theory is yet a further advance. 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. One issue worth bringing into sharper focus is whether knowing a good and correct explanation is really the ideal form of understanding-why. Looks at understandings role in recent debates about epistemic value and contains key arguments against Elgins non-factive view of understanding. Disputes the popular claim that understanding is more epistemically valuable than knowledge. Section 3 examines the notion of grasping which often appears in discussions of understanding in epistemology. Epistemological assumptions are those that focus on what can be known and how knowledge can be acquired (Bell, 8). To the extent that such a move is available, one has reason to resist Morriss rationale for resisting Pritchards diagnosis of Kvanvigs case. Utilize at least 2 credible sources to support your position presented in the paper. Description Recall that epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. 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. Strevens, M. No Understanding Without Explanation. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 44 (2013): 510-515. Our culture is shifting, Dede argues, not just from valuing the opinions of experts to the participatory culture of YouTube or Facebook, but from understanding knowledge as fixed and linear to a . 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. In terms of parallels with the understanding debate, it is important to note that the knowledge of causes formula is not limited to the traditional propositional reading. 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. However, it is not entirely clear that extant views on understanding fall so squarely into these two camps. The Epistemological Shift from Descartes to Nietzsche: Intuition and Although a large number of epistemologists hold that understanding is not a species of knowledge (e.g. Dordrecht: Springer, 2014. The Varieties of Cognitive Success 1.1 What Kinds of Things Enjoy Cognitive Success? The advances are clearly cognitive advances. ), Epistemology (Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures). The agents belief is justified and true, thanks to the fact that there is a genuine sheep hiding behind the rock, but the belief is not knowledge, as it could easily have been false. For example, in Whitcomb (2011) we find the suggestion that theoretical wisdom is a form of particularly deep understanding. (2007: 37-8). A view on which the psychics epistemic position in this case qualifies as understanding-why would be unsatisfactorily inclusive. Kelp, C. Understanding Phenomena. Synthese (2015). As Elgin (2007) notes, it is normal practice to attribute scientific understanding to individuals even when parts of the bodies of information that they endorse diverge somewhat from the truth. In other words, S knows that p only if p is true. 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. Consider here an analogy: a false belief can be subjectively indistinguishable from knowledge. 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). 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. Alston, W. Beyond Justification: Dimensions of Epistemic Evaluation. A Brief Reflection On Epistemological Shifts (Essay Sample)
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