epistemological shift pros and cons

To the extent that these worries with transparency are apt, a potential obstacle emerges for the prospects of accounting for the value of understanding in terms of its transparency. 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. 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. What is Justified Belief? In G. S. Pappas (ed. It is helpful to consider an example. Zagzebski (2001), whose view maintains that at least not all cases of understanding require true beliefs, gestures to something like this view. 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. Boston: Routledge, 2013. ), Scientific Understanding: Philosophical Perspectives. Make sure you cite them appropriately within your paper, and list them in APA format on your Reference page. 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. 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. Pritchard, D. Epistemic Luck. 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. At the other end of the spectrum, we might consider an extremely strong view of understandings factivity, according to which understanding a subject matter requires that all of ones beliefs about the subject matter in question are true. In short, then, Kvanvig wants to insist that the true beliefs that one attains in acquiring ones understanding can all be Gettiered, even though the Gettier-style luck which prevents these beliefs from qualifying as knowledge does not undermine the understanding this individual acquires. On the other hand, there are explanationists, who argue that it is knowledge or evaluation of explanations that is doing the relevant work. In all these cases, epistemology seeks to understand one or another kind of cognitive success (or, correspondingly, cognitive failure ). 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). For that reason, these will be addressed before moving on to the more explicitly epistemological concerns. 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. 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. This is the idea that one has shifted, or changed, the way he or she takes in knowledge. Claims that understanding is entirely compatible with both intervening and environmental forms of veritic luck. 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. endangered species in the boreal forest; etown high school basketball roster. 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. This skeptical argument is worth engaging with, presumably with the goal of showing that understanding does not turn out to be internally indistinguishable from mere intelligibility. Grimm, S. Is Understanding a Species of Knowledge? British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 57 (2006): 515-535. 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. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. 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. Grimm develops this original position via parity of reasoning, taking as a starting point that the debate about a priori knowledge, for example, knowledge of necessary truths, makes use of metaphors of grasping and seeing that are akin to the ones in the understanding debate. bella vista catholic charities housing; wills point tx funeral homes; ptvi triathlon distance; is frankie beverly in the hospital; birria tacos long branch; 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. Gettier, E. Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? Analysis 23 (6) (1963). The guiding task was to clarify what versions of historical epistemology exist and the pros and cons each of them presents. 2015 Jun;21(3):433-9. doi: 10.1111/jep.12282. 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. The topic of epistemic value has only relatively recently received sustained attention in mainstream epistemology. Knowledge is almost universally taken to be to be factive (compare, Hazlett 2010). 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. Drawing from Stanley and Williamson, she makes the distinction between knowing a proposition under a practical mode of presentation and knowing it under a theoretical mode of presentation. Stanley and Williamson admit that the former is especially tough to spell out (see Glick 2014 for a recent discussion), but it must surely involve having complex dispositions, and so it is perhaps possible to know some proposition under only one of these modes of presentation (that is, by lacking the relevant dispositions, or something else). 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. Many of these questions have gone largely unexplored in the literature. For Goldman, A. Fourthly, a relatively fertile area for further research concerns the semantics of understanding attribution. 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. The following sections consider why understanding might have such additional value. Take first the object question. Janvid, M. Knowledge versus Understanding: The Cost of Avoiding Gettier. Acta Analytica 27 (2012): 183-197. A more charitable interpretation of Bakers position would be to read making reasonable sense more strongly. 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. Finally, there is fruitful work to do concerning the relationship between understanding and wisdom. (For example, propositions, systems, bodies of information, the relationships thereof, and so on?). In particular, as Pritchard suggests, we might want to consider that agents working with the ideal gas law or other idealizations do not necessarily have false beliefs as a result, even if the content of the proposition expressed by the law is not strictly true. While Khalifa favors earlier accounts of scientific understanding to the more recent views that have been submitted by epistemologists, he is aware that some criticisms (for example, Lipton (2009) and Pritchard (2010)) to the effect that requiring knowledge of an explanation is too strong a necessary condition on understanding-why. A second variety of understanding that has generated interest amongst epistemologists is, understanding-why. His view is that understanding requires the agent to, in counterfactual situations salient to the context, be able to modify their mental representation of the subject matter. For the purposes of thinking about understanding, some of the most important will include: (i) what makes a system of beliefs coherent? ), Knowledge, Truth and Obligation. 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. Wilkenfeld, D. Understanding as Representation Manipulability. Synthese 190 (2013): 997-1016. 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. Fifthly, to what extent might active externalist approaches (for example, extended mind and extended cognition) in epistemology, the ramifications of which have recently been brought to bear on the theory of knowledge (see Carter, et. 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. For example, Kvanvig (2003) holds that understanding is particularly valuable in part because it requires a special grasp of explanatory and other coherence-making relationships. Riggs (2003: 20) agrees, stating that understanding of a subject matter requires a deep appreciation, grasp or awareness of how its parts fit together, what role each one plays in the context of the whole, and of the role it plays in the larger scheme of things (italics added). Must they be known or can they be Gettiered true beliefs? Lipton, P. Understanding Without Explanation in H. de Regt, S. Leonelli, and K. Eigner (eds. Grimm does not make the further claim that understanding is a kind of know-howhe merely says that there is similarity regarding the object, which does not guarantee that the activity of understanding and know-how are so closely related. Baker, L. R. Third Person Understanding in A. Sanford (ed. 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 particular, one might be tempted to suggest that some of the objections raised to Grimms non-propositional knowledge-of-causes model could be recast as objections to Khalifas own explanation-based view. Elgin, C. Z. 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). Utilize at least 2 credible sources to support your position presented in the paper. Open Document. Whitcomb, D. Epistemic Value In A. Cullison (ed. 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. This is a point Elgin is happy to grant. 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). Contains Kims classic discussion of species of dependence (for example, mereological dependence). On this basis Pritchard insists that Grimms analogy breaks down. 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. She claims, it may be possible to know without knowing one knows, but it is impossible to understand without understanding one understands (2001: 246) and suggests that this property of understanding might insulate it from skepticism. See, however, Carter & Gordon (2014) for a recent criticism on the point of identifying understanding with strong cognitive achievement. 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. Defends views that hold explanation as indispensable for account of understanding and discusses what a non-factive account of grasping would look like. True enough. Philosophical issues, 14(1) (2004): 113-131. Proponents of weak factivity must address both of these potentially problematic results. Argues against the view that moral understanding can be immune to luck while moral knowledge is not. 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. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1979. Objectual understanding is equivalent to what Pritchard has at some points termed holistic understanding (2009: 12). For example, you read many of your books on screens and e-readers today. The medical epistemology we propose conforms to the epistemological responsibility of doctors, which involves a specific professional attitude and epistemological skills. However, it is not entirely clear that extant views on understanding fall so squarely into these two camps. His conception of mental representations defines these representations as computational structures with content that are susceptible to mental transformations. Wilkenfeld constructs a necessary condition on objectual understanding around this definition. This allows the agent to produce a slightly different mental representation of the subject matter that enables efficacious inferences pertaining to (or manipulations of) the subject matter. 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. 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. The Case of Richard Rorty A Newer Argument Pro: Hales's Defense o. One natural place to start will be to examine the relationship between understanding and epistemic luck. But no one claims that science has as yet arrived at the truth about the motion of the planets. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. 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. In recent years epistemology has experienced gradual changes that are critical in human life. This holds regardless of whether we are Platonists or nominalists about such entities. If so, why, and if not why not? According to Zagzebski (2001), the epistemic value of understanding is tied not to elements of its factivity, but rather to its transparency. This type of understanding is ascribed in sentences that take the form I understand why X (for example, I understand why the house burnt down). Discusses and defines ability in the sense often appealed to in work on cognitive ability and the value of knowledge. A. and Gordon, E. C. On Pritchard, Objectual Understanding and the Value Problem. American Philosophical Quarterly 51 (2014): 1-14. Kvanvig does not spell out what grasping might involve, in the sense now under consideration, in his discussion of coherence, and the other remarks we considered above. Contains exploration of whether the value knowledge may be in part determined by the extent to which it provides answers to questions one is curious about. ), Object question: What kinds of things are grasped? For example: Although a moderate view of understandings factivity may look promising in comparison with competitor accounts, many important details remain left to be spelled out. Examines reasons to suppose that attributions of understanding are typically attributions of knowledge, understanding-why or objectual understanding. 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. 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. 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. 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? 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. Builds an account of understanding according to which understanding a subject matter involves possessing a representation that could be manipulated in a useful way. Epistemology is a branch in philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge. In addition, Zagzebski supports the provocative line that understanding can perhaps sometimes be more desirable when the epistemic agent does not have the relevant true beliefs. Although a large number of epistemologists hold that understanding is not a species of knowledge (e.g. It is controversial just which epistemological issues concerning understanding should be central or primarygiven that understanding is a relative newcomer in the mainstream epistemological literature. Uses the concept of understanding to underwrite a theory of explanation. Assume that the surgeon is suffering from the onset of some degenerative mental disease and the first symptom is his forgetting which blood vessel he should be using to bypass the narrowed section of the coronary artery. ), Virtue Epistemology Naturalized: Bridges Between Virtue Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. In addition, the weak view leaves it open that two agents might count as understanding some subject matter equally well in spite of the fact that for every relevant belief that one has, the other agent maintains its denial. 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. 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).

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