The advances are clearly cognitive advances. 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). For example, Pritchards case of the fake fire officerwhich recall is one in which he thinks understanding (as well as knowledge) is lackingis one in which Rower points out taht all of the true beliefs and grasped connections between those beliefs are from a bad source. This would be the non-factive parallel to the standard view of grasping. For that reason, these will be addressed before moving on to the more explicitly epistemological concerns. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1979. This is because we dont learn about causes a priori. This point aligns with the datum that we often attribute understanding by degrees. 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. ), The Routledge Companion to Epistemology. 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. 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. Whitcomb, D. Epistemic Value In A. Cullison (ed. A view on which the psychics epistemic position in this case qualifies as understanding-why would be unsatisfactorily inclusive. Discusses and defines ability in the sense often appealed to in work on cognitive ability and the value of knowledge. Carter (2014) argues that shifting to more demanding practical environments motivates attributing lower degrees of understanding rather than (as Wilkenfeld is suggests) withholding understanding. 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. A second reason that adverting to grasping-talk in the service of characterizing understanding raises further question is that it is often not clarified just what relationships or connections are being grasped, when they are grasped in a way that is distinctive of understanding. Although many chapters take as their starting point an analysis of how dominant political, educational, and musical ideologies serve to construct and sustain inequities and undemocratic practices, authors also identify practices that seek to promote socially just pedagogy and approaches to music education. Moral Understanding and Knowledge. Philosophical Studies 172(2) (2015): 113-128. 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. According to Zagzebski (2001), the epistemic value of understanding is tied not to elements of its factivity, but rather to its transparency. 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. Both are veritic types of luck on Pritchards viewthey are present when, given how one came to have ones true belief, it is a matter of luck that this belief is true (Pritchard 2005: 146). The notion of curiosity that plays a role in Kvanvigs line is a broadly inclusive one that is meant to include not just obvious problem-solving examples but also what he calls more spontaneous examples, such as turning around to see what caused a noise you just heard. The Nature of Ability and the Purpose of Knowledge. Philosophical Issues 17 (2007): 57-69. Some focus on understanding-why while others focus on objectual understanding. 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. However, this concern might be abated with the addition of a moderate factivity constraint (for example, the constraint discussed in section two above) that rules out cases of mere intelligibility or subjective understanding). See further Bradford (2013; 2015) for resistance to the very suggestion that there can be weak achievements on Pritchards sensenamely, achievements that do not necessarily involve great effort, regardless of whether they are primarily due to ability. 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.. Alston, W. Beyond Justification: Dimensions of Epistemic Evaluation. Elgin, C. Z. Meanwhile, when discussing outright (as opposed to ideal) understanding, Kelp suggests that we adopt a contextualist perspective. An in-depth exploration of different types of epistemic luck. Janvid, M. Knowledge versus Understanding: The Cost of Avoiding Gettier. Acta Analytica 27 (2012): 183-197. Examines reasons to suppose that attributions of understanding are typically attributions of knowledge, understanding-why or objectual understanding. This is perhaps partially because there is a tendency to hold a persons potential understanding to standards of objective appropriateness as well as subjective appropriateness. Hills (2009) is an advocate of such a view of understanding-why in particular. How should we distinguish between peripheral beliefs about a subject matter and beliefs that are not properly, Understanding entails true beliefs of the form. Grimm puts the template formulation as follows: A Comanche-style case is one in which we form true beliefs on the basis of trusting some source, and either (a) the source is unreliable, or (b) the source is reliable, but in the current environment one might easily have chosen an unreliable source. After analysing variations of the Comanche case so conceived, Grimm argues that in neither (a)- or (b)-style Comanche cases do knowledge and understanding come apart. Defends a lack of control account of luck. Unsurprisingly, the comparison between the nature of understanding as opposed to knowledge has coincided with comparisons of their respective epistemic value, particularly since Kvanvig (2003) first defended the epistemic value of the latter to the former. It is clearly cognitively better than the belief that humans did not evolve. He argues that we can gain some traction on the nature of grasping significant to understanding if we view it along such manipulationist lines. In this respect, then, Kvanvigs view achieves the result of a middle ground. Contains Lackeys counterexamples to the knowledge transmission principles. Facebook Instagram Email. He wants us to suppose that grasping has two componentsone that is a purely psychological (that is, narrow) component and one that is the actual obtaining of the state of affairs that is grasped. 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. He leaves grasping at the level of metaphor or uses it them literally but never develops it. A. and Pritchard, D. Knowledge-How and Epistemic Luck. Nos (2013). 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). 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). body positive tiktok accounts; tough guise 2 summary sparknotes; tracking polls quizlet epistemological shift pros and cons. 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. What is curiosity? 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. Curiosity and a Response-Dependent Account of the Value of Understanding. In T. Henning and D. Schweikard (eds. Working hypotheses and idealizations need not, on this line, be viewed as representative of realityidealizations can be taken as useful fictions, and working hypotheses are recognized as the most parsimonious theories on the table without thereby being dubbed as wholly accurate. Lackey, J. Outlines and evaluates the anti-intellectualist and intellectualist views of know-how. NY: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Zagzebski (2001) and Kvanvig (2003), have suggested that understandings immunity to being undermined by the kinds of epistemic luck which undermine knowledge is one of the most important ways in which understanding differs from knowledge. Kvanvig, J. Pritchard, D. Recent Work on Epistemic Value. American Philosophical Quarterly 44 (2007): 85-110. fort hood cif inprocessing; bucks county inspector of elections candidates; lockdown limerick poem; boeing seattle badge office. Morris, K. A Defense of Lucky Understanding. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 63 (2012): 357-371. ), Contemporary Debates in Epistemology (2nd Edition). In the study of epistemology, philosophers are concerned with the epistemological shift. Despite the fact that Copernicuss central claim was strictly false, the theory it belongs to constitutes a major advance in understanding over the Ptolemaic theory it replaced. Discusses the connection between curiosity and true belief. Epistemology is the study nature of human knowledge itself. Since Kvanvig claims that the coherence-making relationships that are traditionally construed as necessary for justification on a coherentist picture are the very relations that one grasps (for example, the objects of grasping) when one understands, the justification literature may be a promising place to begin. This broader interpretation seems well positioned to handle abstract object cases, for example, mathematical understanding, when the kind of understanding at issue is understanding-why. On the basis of considerations Pritchard argues for in various places (2010; 2012; 2013; 2014), relating to cognitive achievements presence in the absence of knowledge (for example. What is the grasping relation? 2015 Jun;21(3):433-9. doi: 10.1111/jep.12282. In such a parallel case, we simply modify Lackeys original case and suppose that Stella, a creationist teacher, who does not believe in evolution, nonetheless teaches it reliably and in accordance with the highest professional standards. Disputes the popular claim that understanding is more epistemically valuable than knowledge. (2007: 37), COPERNICUS: A central tenet of Copernicuss theory is the contention that the Earth travels around the sun in a circular orbit. Elgin, C. Understanding and the Facts. Philosophical Studies 132 (2007): 33-42. Make sure you cite them appropriately within your paper, and list them in APA format on your Reference page. 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. One issue worth bringing into sharper focus is whether knowing a good and correct explanation is really the ideal form of understanding-why. Know How. For example, we might suppose an agent has a maximally complete explanation of how Michelangelos David came into existence between 1501 and 1504, what methods were used to craft it, what Michelangelos motivating reasons were at the time, how much clay was used, and so on. Claims that understanding is entirely compatible with both intervening and environmental forms of veritic luck. Consider here an analogy: a false belief can be subjectively indistinguishable from knowledge. Putting this all together, a scientist who embraces the ideal gas law, as an idealization, would not necessarily have any relevant false beliefs. 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. Wilkenfeld, D. Understanding as Representation Manipulability. Synthese 190 (2013): 997-1016. Perhaps, as Harvey (2006b) suggests, we do need to reconfigure academic protocols in order to make more room for these kinds of . Strevens, M. No Understanding Without Explanation. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 44 (2013): 510-515. He also suggests, like Khalifa, that grasping be linked with correct explanations. 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. Kim, J. Finally, there is fruitful work to do concerning the relationship between understanding and wisdom. The possession of such judgment plausibly lines up more closely with ability possession (that is, (i)-(vi)) than with propositional attitude possession. It is moreover of interest to note that Khalifa (2013b) also sees a potential place for the notion of grasping in an account of understanding, though in a qualified sense. manage list views salesforce. 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. 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. For example, you read many of your books on screens and e-readers today. By contrast, Pritchard believes that understanding always involves strong cognitive achievement, that is, an achievement that necessarily involves either a significant exercise of skill or the overcoming of a significant obstacle. Carter, J. epistemological shift pros and cons. What kind of historical enterprise is historical epistemology? Pritchards verdict is that we should deny understanding in the intervening case and attribute it in the environmental case. Resists the alleged similarity between understanding and knowing-how. Solicitar ms informacin: 310-2409701 | [email protected]. Take first the object question. Such discussions, though they can be initially helpful, raise a nest of further questions. This in part for three principal reasons. ), Epistemic Value. Toon (2015) has recently suggested, with reference to the hypothesis of extended cognition, that understanding can be located partly outside the head. 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. 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. 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. Grimm has put his finger on an important commonality at issue in his argument from parity. 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). 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. Consider here two cases she offers to this effect: EVOLUTION: A second graders understanding of human evolution might include as a central strand the proposition that human beings descended from apes. 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. Explanatory Knowledge and Metaphysical Dependence. In his Essays in the Metaphysics of Mind. 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. One point that could potentially invite criticism is the move from (1) and (2) to (3). 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). (2007: 37-8). In . 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. Riggs, W. Why Epistemologists Are So Down on Their Luck. Synthese 158 (3) (2007): 329-344. 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). That said, Hills adds some qualifications. That said, for manipulationists who are not already inclined to accept the entailment from all-knowing to omni-understanding, the efficacy against the manipulationist is diffused as the example does not get off the ground. Epistemology is a branch in philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge. Khalifas (2013) view of understanding is a form of explanatory idealism. This is of course an unpalatable result, as we regularly attribute understanding in the presence of not just one, but often many, false beliefs. But most knowledge is not metaknowledge, and epistemology is therefore a relatively insignificant source of knowledge. I side with positivism; which states knowledge can be found via empirical observations (obtained through the senses). 121-132. Of course, many interrelated questions then emerge regarding coherence. 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. Call these, for short, the relation question and the object question. Zagzebski, L. Recovering Understanding In M. Steup (ed. Bradford, G. The Value of Achievements. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 94(2) (2013): 204-224. On the one hand, we have manipulationists, who think understanding involves an ability (or abilities) to manipulate certain representations or concepts. There is debate about both (i) whether understanding-why might fairly be called explanatory understanding and (ii) how understanding-why might differ from propositional knowledge. Grimm (2011) calls this subjective understanding. He describes subjective understanding as being merely a grasp of how specific propositions interlinkone that does not depend on their truth but rather on their forming a coherent picture. 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. ), Knowledge, Truth and Obligation. While his view fits well with understanding-why, it is less obvious that objectual understanding involves grasping how things came to be. (iv) an ability to draw from the information q the conclusion that p (or probably p), (v) an ability to give q (the right explanation) when given the information that p, and. Grimm, S. The Value of Understanding. Philosophy Compass 7(2) (2012): 103-177. 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. An earlier paper defending the intellectualist view of know-how. Summary This chapter contains sections titled: Abstract Introduction Arguments Con Arguments Pro Ambivalence Concerning Relativism? He gives the name grasping* to the purely psychological component that would continue to be satisfied even if, say, an evil demon made it the case at the moment of your grasping that there was only an appearance of the thing that appears to you to be the case. 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. For example, Hills (2009: 4) says you cannot understand why p if p is false (compare: S knows that p only if p). It is also becoming an increasingly popular position to hold that understanding is more epistemically valuable than knowledge (see Kvanvig 2003; Pritchard 2010). Utilize at least 2 credible sources to support the arguments presented in the paper. In particular, how we might define expertise and who has it. However, Grimm is quick to point out that defending one of these two similar views does not depend on the correctness of the other. 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. Defends the strong claim that propositional knowledge is necessary and sufficient for understanding. 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. We can acknowledge this simply by regarding Bs understanding as, even if only marginally, relatively impoverished, rather than by claiming, implausibly, that no understanding persists in such cases. 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. Explores the pros and cons with at least 2 credible sources. 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 objection is worth holding in mind when considering any further positions that incorporate representation manipulability as necessary. This is not so obvious, and at least, not as obvious as it is in the case of knowledge. Grimm, S. Is Understanding a Species of Knowledge? British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 57 (2006): 515-535. 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 Eds. Secondly, one might wonder if Wilkenfelds account of understanding as representation manipulation is too inclusivethat it rules in, as cases of bona fide understanding, representations that are based on inaccurate but internally consistent beliefs. As Kvanvig sees it, knowing requires non-accidental links between (internal) mental states and external events in just the right way. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009. Explores understanding as the proper goal of inquiry, in addition to discussing understandings distinctive value. Khalifa, K. Understanding, Grasping and Luck. Episteme 10 (1) (2013b): 1-17. Though the demandingness of this ability need not be held fixed across practical circumstances. To this end, the first section offers an overview of the different types of understanding discussed in the literature, though their features are gradually explored in more depth throughout later sections. This is a change from the past. Hence, he argues that any propositional knowledge is derivative. On such a view, grasping talk could simply be jettisoned altogether. Many seem to blend manipulationism with explanations, suggesting for example that what is required for understanding is an ability associated with mentally manipulating explanations. and Pritchard, D. Varieties of Externalism. Philosophical Issues 41(1) (2014): 63-109. With each step in the sequence, we understand the motion of the planets better than we did before. When considering interesting features that might set understanding apart from propositional knowledge, the idea of grasping something is often mentioned. Of course, though, just as Lackey (2007) raises creationist teacher style cases against knowledge transmission principles, one might as well raise a parallel kind of creationist teacher case against the thesis that one cannot attain understanding from a source who herself lacks it. For example, we might require that the agent make sense of X in a way that is reasonablefew would think that the psychic above is reasonable, though it is beyond the scope of the current discussion to stray into exploring accounts of reasonableness. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Rohwers inventive move involves a contrast case featuring unifying understanding, that is, understanding that is furnished from multiple sources, some good and some bad.