In order to make this point clear, Pritchard suggests that we first consider two versions of a case analogous with Kvanvigs. The Pros And Cons Of Epistemology. Epistemology is the study of sources of knowledge. Proposes a framework for reducing objectual understanding to what he calls explanatory understanding. The following sections consider why understanding might have such additional value. Many seem to blend manipulationism with explanations, suggesting for example that what is required for understanding is an ability associated with mentally manipulating explanations. 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. Contains the paradigmatic case of environmental epistemic luck (that is, the fake barn case). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. epistemological shift pros and cons. Keplers theory is a further advance in understanding, and the current theory is yet a further advance. Examples of the sort considered suggest thateven if understanding has some important internalist component to ittransparency of the sort Zagzebski is suggesting when putting forward the KU claim, is an accidental property of only some cases of understanding and not essential to understanding. This point aligns with the datum that we often attribute understanding by degrees. Grasping also allows the understander to anticipate what would happen if things were relevantly differentnamely, to make correct inferences about the ways in which relevant differences to the truth-values of the involved propositions would influence the inferences that obtain in the actual world. Gordon, E. C. Is There Propositional Understanding? Logos & Episteme 3 (2012): 181-192. Whitcomb, D. Epistemic Value In A. Cullison (ed. Specifically, a very weak view of understandings factivity does not fit with the plausible and often expressed intuition that understanding is something especially epistemically valuable. The Case of Richard Rorty A Newer Argument Pro: Hales's Defense o. 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. Though the demandingness of this ability need not be held fixed across practical circumstances. As such, Khalifa is not attempting to provide an analysis of grasping. 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. An overview of wisdom, including its potential relationship to understanding. 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. 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. Since what Grimm is calling subjective understanding (that is, Riggss intelligibility) is by stipulation essentially not factive, the question of the factivity of subjective understanding simply does not arise. For example, in Whitcomb (2011) we find the suggestion that theoretical wisdom is a form of particularly deep understanding. Pritchard, D. Epistemic Luck. This is because we might be tempted to say instead that we desire to make sense of things because it is good to do so rather than saying that it is good to make sense of things because we desire it. An overview of issues relating to epistemic value, including discussion of understanding as a higher epistemic state. In this respect, then, Kvanvigs view achieves the result of a middle ground. 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. It is not only unnecessary, but moreover, contentious, that a credible scientist would consider the ideal gas law true. 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. Contrast thiscall it the intervening reading of the casewith Pritchards corresponding environmental reading of the case, where we are to imagine that the agent is reading a reliable academic book which is the source of many true beliefs she acquires about the Comanche. 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. 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. In recent years epistemology has experienced gradual changes that are critical in human life. (2007: 37), COPERNICUS: A central tenet of Copernicuss theory is the contention that the Earth travels around the sun in a circular orbit. 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. 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? That is, we often describe an individual as having a better understanding of a subject matter than some other person, perhaps when choosing whom to approach for advice or when looking for someone to teach us about a subject. 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. Kim, J. 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. A novel interpretation of the traditional view according to which understanding-why can be explained in terms of knowledge of causes. 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). He says that knowledge about a phenomenon (P) is maximally well-connected when the basing relations that obtain between the agents beliefs about P reflect the agents knowledge about the explanatory and support relations that obtain between the members of the full account of P (2015: 12). ), The Nature and Limits of Human Understanding. 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. Proponents of weak factivity must address both of these potentially problematic results. The proponent of moderate factivity owes an explanation. 121-132. London: Routledge, 2009. bella vista catholic charities housing; wills point tx funeral homes; ptvi triathlon distance; is frankie beverly in the hospital; birria tacos long branch; 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. However, epistemologists have recently started to turn more attention to the epistemic state or states of understanding, asking questions about its nature, relationship to knowledge, connection with explanation, and potential status as a special type of cognitive achievement. ), Virtue Epistemology Naturalized: Bridges Between Virtue Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. Utilize at least 2 credible sources to support your position presented in the paper. 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. A. and Gordon, E. C. On Pritchard, Objectual Understanding and the Value Problem. American Philosophical Quarterly 51 (2014): 1-14. ), The Nature and Value of Knowledge: Three Investigations. 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. 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. This is a change from the past. 115, No. manage list views salesforce. Where should an investigation of understanding in epistemology take us next? 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. For example, a self-proclaimed psychic might see someone trip and believe that he caused this persons fall. To the extent that this is right, Zagzebski is endorsing a kind of KU principle (compare: KK). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. One point that could potentially invite criticism is the move from (1) and (2) to (3). Kelp points out that this type of view is not so restrictive as to deny understanding to, for example, novice students and young children. Consider the view that the kinds of epistemic luck that suffice to undermine knowledge do not also undermine understanding. 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. Running head: SHIFT IN EPISTEMOLOGY 1 Shift in Epistemology Student's Name Professor's Name Institution So the kind of knowledge that it provides is metaknowledgeknowledge about knowledge. Nonetheless, Zagzebski thinks that believing this actually allows us more understanding for most purposes than the vastly more complicated truth owing to our cognitive limitations. Claims that understanding is entirely compatible with both intervening and environmental forms of veritic luck. In . Likewise, just as all understanding will presumably involve achieving intelligibility even though intelligibility does not entail understanding, so too will all grasping involve grasping* even though grasping* does not entail grasping. 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. Kvanvig (2013) claims that both of these views are mistaken, and in the course of doing so, locates curiosity at the center of his account of understandings value. 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. This in part for three principal reasons. Open Document. In fact, he claims, the two come apart in both directions: yielding knowledge without strong cognitive achievement andas in the case of understanding that lacks corresponding knowledgestrong cognitive achievement without knowledge. The Varieties of Cognitive Success 1.1 What Kinds of Things Enjoy Cognitive Success? 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. 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. A paper in which it is argued that (contrary to popular opinion) knowledge does not exclude luck. 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. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. This would be the non-factive parallel to the standard view of grasping. Carter, J. Section 2 explores the connection between understanding and truth, with an eye to assessing in virtue of what understanding might be defended as factive. 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). 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. Epistemology is a way of framing knowledge, it defines how it can be produced and augmented. If so, why, and if not why not? Grimm, S. Understanding as Knowledge of Causes in A. Fairweather (ed. This is a change from the past. He also suggests, like Khalifa, that grasping be linked with correct 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. As such, his commentary here is particularly relevant to the question of whether gasping is factive. 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). New York: Free Press, 1965. Wilkenfeld, D. Understanding as Representation Manipulability. Synthese 190 (2013): 997-1016. On the view he recommends, the ability to grasp explanatory or evidential connections is an ability that is central to understanding only if the relevant grasping ability is understood as involving reliable explanatory evaluation. This view, while insisting that central beliefs must all be true, is flexible enough to accommodate that there are degrees of understandingthat is, that understanding varies not just according to numbers of true beliefs but also numbers of false, peripheral beliefs. 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. 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. 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. The underlying idea in play here is that, in short, thinking about how things would be if it were true is an efficacious way to get to further truths; an insight has attracted endorsement in the philosophy of science (for example, Batterman 2009). Defends the strong claim that propositional knowledge is necessary and sufficient for understanding. In looking at moral understanding-why, outlines some key abilities that may be necessary to the grasping component of understanding. Janvid, M. Knowledge versus Understanding: The Cost of Avoiding Gettier. Acta Analytica 27 (2012): 183-197. Argues against compatibility between understanding and epistemic luck. 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. DePaul, M. Ugly Analysis and Value in A. Haddock, A. Millar and D. Pritchard (eds. Even so, and especially over the past decade, there has been agreement amongst most epistemologists working on epistemic value that that understanding is particularly valuable (though see Janvid 2012 for a rare dissenting voice). 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. Thirdly, even if one accepts something like a moderate factivity requirement on objectual understandingand thus demand of at least a certain class of beliefs one has of a subject matter that they be trueone can also ask further and more nuanced questions about the epistemic status of these true beliefs. That said, Hills adds some qualifications. For Looks at understandings role in recent debates about epistemic value and contains key arguments against Elgins non-factive view of understanding. Gettier, E. Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? Analysis 23 (6) (1963). These retractions do not t seem to make sense on the weak view. Riggs, W. Understanding Virtue and the Virtue of Understanding In M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds. . But most knowledge is not metaknowledge, and epistemology is therefore a relatively insignificant source of knowledge. and Pritchard, D. Varieties of Externalism. Philosophical Issues 41(1) (2014): 63-109. Riggs, W. Why Epistemologists Are So Down on Their Luck. Synthese 158 (3) (2007): 329-344. A more charitable interpretation of Bakers position would be to read making reasonable sense more strongly. As Wilkenfeld sees it, understanding should be construed as representational manipulability, which is to say that understanding is, essentially, the possessing of some representation that can be manipulated in useful ways. This is not so obvious, and at least, not as obvious as it is in the case of knowledge. Knowledge is almost universally taken to be to be factive (compare, Hazlett 2010). Questions about when and what type of understanding is required for permissible assertion connect with issues related to expertise. Elgin, C. Z. An overview of coherentism that can be useful when considering how theories of coherence might be used to flesh out the grasping condition on understanding. Bradford, G. Achievement. 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. 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. (vi) an ability to give q (the right explanation) when given the information p. epistemological shift pros and cons. Given that the result is the same (that is, the patients heart muscle blood supply is improved) regardless of whether he successfully completes the operation by luck or by skill, the instrumental value of the action is the same. CA: Wadsworth, 2009. According to Grimm, cases like Kvanvig admit of a more general characterisation, depending on how the details are filled in. Lackey, J. Contains a discussion of the fact that we often take ourselves to understand things we do not. philos201 Assignment Details Recall that epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. 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. On the one hand, we have manipulationists, who think understanding involves an ability (or abilities) to manipulate certain representations or concepts. 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. Kvanvig (2003; 2009) offers such a view, according to which understanding of some subject matter is incompatible with false central beliefs about the subject matter. Rohwer argues that counterexamples like Pritchards intervening luck cases only appear plausible because the beliefs that make up the agents understanding come exclusively from a bad source. Would this impede ones understanding? That said, the question of whether, and if so to what extent, understanding is compatible with epistemic luck, lacks any contemporary consensus, though this is an aspect of understanding that is receiving increased attention. ), Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology. An overview of the object, psychology, and normativity of understanding. 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 Routledge Companion to Epistemology. Examines reasons to suppose that attributions of understanding are typically attributions of knowledge, understanding-why or objectual understanding. 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. A longer discussion of the nature of understanding and its distinctive value (in relation to the value of knowledge) than in his related papers. 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. This view, embraced by DePaul and Grimm (2009), implies that to the extent that understanding and knowledge come apart, it is not with respect to a difference in susceptibility to being undermined by epistemic luck. What is Justified Belief? In G. S. Pappas (ed. ), Justification and Knowledge. Most notably here is what we can call linguistic understandingnamely, the kind of understanding that is of particular interest to philosophers of language in connection with our competence with words and their meanings (see, for example, Longworth 2008). Epistemology is the study nature of human knowledge itself. 13. Epistemology is a branch in philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge. 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). As Zagzebski (2009: 141) remarks, different uses of understanding seem to mean so many different things that it is hard to identify the state that has been ignored (italics added). To defend the claim that possessing the kinds of abilities Hills draws attention to is not a matter of simply having extra items of knowledgeshe notes that one could have the extra items of knowledge and still lack the good judgment that allows you to form new, related true beliefs. . 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. ), Epistemic Value. Why We Dont Deserve Credit for Everything We Know. Synthese 156 (2007). Putting this all together, a scientist who embraces the ideal gas law, as an idealization, would not necessarily have any relevant false beliefs. Of course, many interrelated questions then emerge regarding coherence. Alston, W. Beyond Justification: Dimensions of Epistemic Evaluation. 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. 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. ), The Stanford Enclopedia of Philosophy. (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. The advances are clearly cognitive advances. 2015 Jun;21(3):433-9. doi: 10.1111/jep.12282. security guard 12 hour shifts aubrey pearsons oaks husband epistemological shift pros and cons. Stanley, J. 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. Pros and Cons of Epistemological Shift Epistemology refers to a dynamic concept that shows how humans understand knowledge, which entails how it is received, classified, justified, and transmitted in distinctive ways and at different periods in history.

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