We regularly claim that people can understand everything from theories to pieces of technology, accounts of historical events and the psychology of other individuals. Relation question: What is the grasping relationship? 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. body positive tiktok accounts; tough guise 2 summary sparknotes; tracking polls quizlet 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. Consider the view that the kinds of epistemic luck that suffice to undermine knowledge do not also undermine understanding. In particular, how we might define expertise and who has it. 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. Pros and cons of epistemology shift Changes in epistemology even though they have received several criticisms they have significantly played a critical role in the advancement of technology. A central component of Kvanvigs argument is negative; he regards knowledge as ill-suited to play the role of satisfying curiosity, and in particular, by rejecting three arguments from Whitcomb to this effect. ), Scientific Understanding: Philosophical Perspectives. 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. But is understanding factive? 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). 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). What is Justified Belief? In G. S. Pappas (ed. Specifically, Hills outlines six different abilities that she takes to be involved in grasping the reasons why pabilities which effectively constitute, on her view, six necessary conditions for understanding why p. These six abilities allow one to be able to treat q as the reason why p, not merely believe or know that q is the reason why p. They are as follows: (i) an ability to follow another persons explanation of why p. (ii) an ability to explain p in ones own words. ), Knowledge, Virtue and Action. 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). Grimm (2006) and Pritchard (2010) counter that many of the most desirable instances of potential understanding, such as when we understand another persons psychology or understand how the world works, are not transparent. Kvanvig 2003; Zagzebski 2001; Riggs 2003; Pritchard 2010), Grimms view is rooted in a view that comes from the philosophy of science and traces originally to Aristotle. Of course, many interrelated questions then emerge regarding coherence. [] Here is one potential example to illustrate this point: consider that it is not clear that people who desire to understand chemistry generally care about the cause of chemistry. London: Continuum, 2003. 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. However, the core explanationist insight also offers the resources to supplement a grasping account. Many seem to blend manipulationism with explanations, suggesting for example that what is required for understanding is an ability associated with mentally manipulating explanations. 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. According to Zagzebski (2001), the epistemic value of understanding is tied not to elements of its factivity, but rather to its transparency. Therefore, the need to adopt a weak factivity constraint on objectual understandingat least on the basis of cases that feature idealizationslooks at least initially to be unmotivated in the absence of a more sophisticated view about the relationship between factivity, belief and acceptance (however, see Elgin 2004).
The Pros And Cons Of Epistemology - 824 Words | Bartleby (iii) an ability to draw from the information that q the conclusion that p (or that probably p).
epistemological shift pros and cons - dogalureticipazari.com So, on Grimms (2011) view, grasping the relationships between the relevant parts of the subject matter amounts to possessing the ability to work out how changing parts of that system would or would not impact on the overall system. A., Kallestrup, J. Palermos, S.O. He argues that what is grasped or seen when one attains a priori knowledge is not a proposition but a certain modal relationship between properties, objects or identities.
epistemological shift pros and cons - oshawanewhome.ca As Kvanvig sees it, knowing requires non-accidental links between (internal) mental states and external events in just the right way. 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. 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. An influential discussion of understanding is Kvanvigs (2003). One issue worth bringing into sharper focus is whether knowing a good and correct explanation is really the ideal form of understanding-why. However, it is less clear at least initially that retreating from causal dependence to more general dependence will be of use in the kinds of objectual understanding cases noted above. Builds an account of understanding according to which understanding a subject matter involves possessing a representation that could be manipulated in a useful way. ), Virtue Epistemology Naturalized: Bridges Between Virtue Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. A potential worry then is that the achievement one attains when one understands chemistry need not involve the subject working the subject matterin this case, chemistryscause.
Pros and Cons of Epistemological Shift. Social Sciences - EssayZoo 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. Grimm has put his finger on an important commonality at issue in his argument from parity. Hempel, C. Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science. For if the view is correct, then an explanation for why ones understanding why the painting is beautiful is richer, when it is, will simply be in terms of ones possession of a correct answer to the question of why it is beautiful. The epistemological shift in the present In the study of epistemology, philosophers are concerned with the epistemological shift. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Keplers theory is a further advance in understanding, and the current theory is yet a further advance. Stanley, J. Contains the famous counterexamples to the Justified True Belief account of knowledge. 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. In such a case, Kvanvig says, this individual acquires an historical understanding of the Comanche dominance of the Southern plains of North America from the late 17th until the late 19th century (2003: 197). 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. 1. 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. Hazlett, A. Philosophy of Science, 79(1) (2012): 15-37. In practice, individuals' epistemological beliefs determine how they think knowledge or truth can be comprehended, what problems - if any - are associated with various views of pursuing and presenting knowledge and what role researchers play in its discovery (Robson, 2002). Questions about when and what type of understanding is required for permissible assertion connect with issues related to expertise. Taking curiosity to be of epistemic significance is not a new idea. For example, and problematically for any account of objectual understanding that relaxes a factivity constraint, people frequently retract previous attributions of understanding. The guiding task was to clarify what versions of historical epistemology exist and the pros and cons each of them presents. Section 3 examines the notion of grasping which often appears in discussions of understanding in epistemology. Riggs, W. Understanding Virtue and the Virtue of Understanding In M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds. Gettier, E. Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? Analysis 23 (6) (1963). Due to the possibility of overly simple or passive successes qualifying as cognitive achievements (for example, coming to truly believe that it is dark just by looking out of the window in normal conditions after 10pm), Pritchard cautions that we should distinguish between two classes of cognitive achievementstrong and weak: Weak cognitive achievement: Cognitive success that is because of ones cognitive ability. This point aligns with the datum that we often attribute understanding by degrees.
An epistemological shift: from evidence-based medicine to This is not so obvious, and at least, not as obvious as it is in the case of knowledge. 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. These retractions do not t seem to make sense on the weak view. He argues that intuitions that rule against lucky understanding can be explained away. On such a view, grasping talk could simply be jettisoned altogether.
Discuss the pros and cons of the epistemological - Course Hero ), The Continuum Companion to Epistemology. Though the demandingness of this ability need not be held fixed across practical circumstances. In rationalism way of thinking, knowledge is acquired using reasons or reasoning.
epistemological shift - porosity.ca This would be the non-factive parallel to the standard view of grasping. 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. Kelps account, then, explains our attributions of degrees of understanding in terms of approximations to such well-connected knowledge. 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. So the kind of knowledge that it provides is metaknowledgeknowledge about knowledge. The following sections consider why understanding might have such additional value.
Shift in Epistemology.docx - Running head: SHIFT IN Offers an account of understanding that requires having a theory of the relevant phenomenon. 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. However, Strevens nonetheless offers a rough outline of a parallel, non-factive account of grasping, what he calls grasping*. Rationalism is an epistemological theory, so rationalism can be interpreted the distinct aspects or parts of the mind that are separate senses. Hills, A. Epistemology is a branch in philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge. Contains a discussion of the fact that we often take ourselves to understand things we do not. Defends the strong claim that propositional knowledge is necessary and sufficient for understanding. 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. On such an interpretation, explanationism can be construed as offering a simple answer to the object question discussed above: the object of understanding-relevant grasping would, on this view, be explanations. The topic of epistemic value has only relatively recently received sustained attention in mainstream epistemology. The ambiguity between assenting to a necessary proposition and the grasping or seeing of certain properties and their necessary relatedness mirrors the ambiguity between assenting to a casual proposition and grasping or seeing of the terms of the causal relata: their modal relatedness. 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. Consequently, engaging with the project of clarifying and exploring the epistemic states or states attributed when we attribute understanding is a complex matter. It focuses on means of human knowledge acquisition and how to differentiate the truth knowledge claims from the false one. 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. Defends views that hold explanation as indispensable for account of understanding and discusses what a non-factive account of grasping would look like. In order to illustrate this point, Kvanvig invites us to imagine a case where an individual reads a book on the Comanche tribe, and she thereby acquires a belief set about the Comanche. According to Goldman (1991) curiosity is a desire for true belief; by contrast, Williamson views curiosity as a desire for knowledge. Call these, for short, the relation question and the object question. In short: understanding is causal propositional knowledge. Putting this all together, a scientist who embraces the ideal gas law, as an idealization, would not necessarily have any relevant false beliefs. This is of course an unpalatable result, as we regularly attribute understanding in the presence of not just one, but often many, false beliefs. Knowledge is almost universally taken to be to be factive (compare, Hazlett 2010). 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. Khalifa, K. Inaugurating understanding or repackaging explanation. For one thing, she admits that these abilities can be possessed by degrees. He argues that we can gain some traction on the nature of grasping significant to understanding if we view it along such manipulationist lines. 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. NY: Cambridge University Press, 2003. If the former, then this is unfortunate given the theoretical work the term is supposed to be doing in characterizing understanding. 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. The Varieties of Cognitive Success 1.1 What Kinds of Things Enjoy Cognitive Success? Specifically, he takes his opponents view to be that knowledge through direct experience is what sates curiosity, a view that traces to Aristotle. Firstly, Kvanvig introduces propositional understanding as what is attributed in sentences that take the form I understand that X (for example, John understands that he needs to meet Harold at 2pm).
epistemological shift pros and cons For example, you read many of your books on screens and e-readers today. and Pritchard, D. Varieties of Externalism. Philosophical Issues 41(1) (2014): 63-109. Looks at understandings role in recent debates about epistemic value and contains key arguments against Elgins non-factive view of understanding.
epistemological shift pros and cons - consultoresayc.co Introduces intelligibility as an epistemic state similar to understanding but less valuable. 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. Proposes a framework for reducing objectual understanding to what he calls explanatory understanding. If Hills is right about this connection between grasping and possessing abilities, it might seem as though understanding-why is, at the end of the day, very similar to knowing-how (see, however, Sullivan 2017 for resistance to this suggestion).. It is clearly cognitively better than the belief that humans did not evolve. ), Contemporary Debates in Epistemology (2nd Edition). Curiosity and a Response-Dependent Account of the Value of Understanding. In T. Henning and D. Schweikard (eds. In other words, they claim that one cannot always tell that one understands. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Philosophers concern on epistemological shift - Eddusaver 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. For example, he attempts to explain the intuitions in Pritchards intervening luck spin on Kvanvigs Comanche case by noting that some of the temptation to deny understanding here relates to the writer of the luckily-true book himself lacking the relevant understanding. One point that could potentially invite criticism is the move from (1) and (2) to (3). 2015 Jun;21(3):433-9. doi: 10.1111/jep.12282. In looking at moral understanding-why, outlines some key abilities that may be necessary to the grasping component of understanding. 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. Epistemologically, a single-right-answer is believed to underlie each phenomenon, even though experts may not yet have developed a full understanding of the systemic causes that provide an accurate interpretation of some situations. The Nature of Ability and the Purpose of Knowledge. Philosophical Issues 17 (2007): 57-69. However, Baker (2003) has offered an account on which at least some instances of understanding-why are non-factive.
Discuss the pros and cons of the epistemological shift 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. If a grasping condition is necessary for understanding, does one satisfy this condition only when one exercises a grasping ability to reflect how things are in the world? Grimm, S. Understanding as Knowledge of Causes in A. Fairweather (ed. 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. Is it a kind of knowledge, another kind of propositional attitude, an ability, and so forth? It is worth considering how and in what way a plausible grasping condition on understanding should be held to something like a factivity or accuracy constraint. 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..
What (Good) is Historical Epistemology? | MPIWG That is, there is something defective about a scientists would-be understanding of gas behavior were that scientist, unlike all other competent scientists, to reject that the ideal gas law is an idealization and instead embraced it as a fact. 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. This section considers the connection between understanding-why and truth, and then engages with the more complex issue of whether objectual understanding is factive. 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).
The Pros And Cons Of Epistemology - 1280 Words | Cram Argues that requiring knowledge of an explanation is too strong a condition on understanding-why. Olsson, E. Coherentist Theories of Epistemic Justification in E. Zalta (ed. In this sense, the history of thought can be seen as the sometimes imperceptibly fluid, sometimes bizarre and abrupt, movements of our concepts. 57-74, 2015.
Epistemology - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy For example, you read many of your books on screens and e-readers today. Epistemology is the study nature of human knowledge itself. The Psychology of Scientific Explanation. Philosophy Compass 2(3) (2007): 564-591. A more charitable interpretation of Bakers position would be to read making reasonable sense more strongly. (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. In this Gettier-style case, she has good reason to believe her true beliefs, but the source of these beliefs (for example, the rumor mill) is highly unreliable and this makes her beliefs only luckily true, in the sense of intervening epistemic luck. Kvanvig stipulates that there are no falsehoods in the relevant class of beliefs that this individual has acquired from the book, and also that she can correctly answer all relevant questions whilst confidently believing that she is expressing the truth. Rohwers inventive move involves a contrast case featuring unifying understanding, that is, understanding that is furnished from multiple sources, some good and some bad. Wilkenfeld, D. Understanding as Representation Manipulability. Synthese 190 (2013): 997-1016. 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. Relatedly, Van Camp (2014) calls understanding a higher level cognition that involves recognizing connections between different pieces of knowledge, and Kosso (2007: 1) submits that inter-theoretic coherence is the hallmark of understanding, stating knowledge of many facts does not amount to understanding unless one also has a sense of how the facts fit together. While such remarks are made with objectual understanding (that is, understanding of a subject matter) in mind, there are similar comments about understanding-why (for example, Hills 2009) that suggest an overlapping need to consider connections between items of information, albeit on a smaller scale. As will see, a good number of epistemologists would agree that false beliefs are compatible with understanding. Pritchards verdict is that we should deny understanding in the intervening case and attribute it in the environmental case. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. An overview of the background, development and recent issues in epistemology, including a chapter on understanding as an epistemic good. 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. Some focus on understanding-why while others focus on objectual understanding. 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). This holds regardless of whether we are Platonists or nominalists about such entities. 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 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. as in testimony cases in friendly environments, where knowledge acquisition demands very little on the part of the agent), he argues that cognitive achievement is not essentially wedded to knowledge (as robust virtue epistemologists would hold). Hence, he argues that any propositional knowledge is derivative. Such cases she claims feature intervening luck that is compatible with understanding. Pritchard, D. Knowing the Answer, Understanding and Epistemic Value. Grazer Philosophische Studien 77 (2008): 325-39. I side with positivism; which states knowledge can be found via empirical observations (obtained through the senses). 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). Early defence of explanations key role in understanding. An overview of wisdom, including its potential relationship to understanding. The context-sensitive element of Wilkenfelds account of understanding allows him to attribute adequate understanding to, for example, a student in an introductory history class and yet deny understanding to that student when the context shifts to place him in a room with a panel of experts. In so doing, he notes that the reader may be inclined to add further internalist requirements to his reliability requirement, of the sort put forward by Kvanvig (2003). Baker, L. R. Third Person Understanding in A. Sanford (ed. The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding. But when the object of understanding why is essentially evaluativefor example, understanding why the statue is beautifulit seems that the quality of ones understanding could vary dramatically even when we hold fixed that one possesses a correct and complete explanation of how the statue came to be (that is, both a physical and social description of these causes).