A Seismic Shift in Epistemology | EDUCAUSE Dordecht: Springer, 2014. 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. As will see, a good number of epistemologists would agree that false beliefs are compatible with understanding. 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, 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. 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. This is the idea that one has shifted, or changed, the way he or she takes in knowledge. The Epistemological Shift from Descartes to Nietzsche: Intuition and Uses the concept of understanding to underwrite a theory of explanation. Pritchards verdict is that we should deny understanding in the intervening case and attribute it in the environmental case. Consider, on this point, that a conspiracy theorist might very well grasp* the connection between (false) propositions so as to achieve a coherent, intelligible, though wildly off-base, picture. The Oxford Handbook of Social Justice in Music Education On the one hand, we have manipulationists, who think understanding involves an ability (or abilities) to manipulate certain representations or concepts. 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. 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. In short: understanding is causal propositional knowledge. 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. The thought is that, in cases of achievement, the relevant success must be primarily creditable to the exercise of the agents abilities, rather than to some other factor (for example, luck). Utilize at least 2 credible sources to support your position presented in the paper. 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. 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. In order to make this point clear, Pritchard suggests that we first consider two versions of a case analogous with Kvanvigs. Rationalism is an epistemological theory, so rationalism can be interpreted the distinct aspects or parts of the mind that are separate senses. Longworth, G. Linguistic Understanding and Knowledge. Nous 42 (2008): 50-79. Morris suggests that the writer of the Comanche book might lack understanding due to failing to endorse the relevant propositions, while the reader might have understanding because she does endorse the relevant proposition. 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. 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. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. For example, in Whitcomb (2010: 8), we find the observation that understanding is widely taken to be a higher epistemic good: a state that is like knowledge and true belief, but even better, epistemically speaking. Meanwhile, Pritchard (2009: 11) notes as we might be tempted to put the point, we would surely rather understand than merely know. A helpful clarification here comes from Grimm (2012: 105), who in surveying the literature on the value of understanding points out that the suggestion seems to be that understanding (of a complex of some kind) is better than the corresponding item of propositional knowledge. Discuss the pros and cons of the epistemological shift in an essay. But is understanding factive? Argues against compatibility between understanding and epistemic luck. Grimm (2011) suggests that what we should regard as being understood in cases of objectual understandingnamely, the object of the objectual attitude relationcan be helpfully thought of as akin to a system or structure [that has] parts or elements that depend upon one another in various ways.. For the purposes of thinking about understanding, some of the most important will include: (i) what makes a system of beliefs coherent? In particular, he wants to propose a non-propositional view that has at its heart seeing or grasping, of the terms of the casual relata, their modal relatedness, which he suggests amounts to seeing or grasping how things might have been if certain conditions had been different. To be clear, the nuanced view Grimm suggests is that while understanding is a kind of knowledge of causes, it is not propositional knowledge of causes but rather non-propositional knowledge of causes, where the non-propositional knowledge is itself unpacked as a kind of ability or know-how. If the latterthat is, if we are to understand grasping literally, then, also unfortunately, we are rarely given concrete details of its nature. On such a view, grasping talk could simply be jettisoned altogether. Goldman, A. Such a theory raises questions of its own, such as precisely what answering reliably, in the relevant sense, demands. So too does the fact that one would rather have a success involving an achievement than a mere success, even when this difference has no pragmatic consequences. An overview of the object, psychology, and normativity of understanding. For those who wonder about whether the often-discussed grasping associated with understanding might just amount to the possession of further beliefs (rather than, say, the possession of manipulative abilities), this type of view may seem particularly attractive (and comparatively less mysterious). What (Good) is Historical Epistemology? | MPIWG Argues that the ordinary concept of knowledge is not factive and that epistemologists should therefore not concern themselves with said ordinary concept. fort hood cif inprocessing; bucks county inspector of elections candidates; lockdown limerick poem; boeing seattle badge office. A worry about this move can be put abstractly: consider that if understanding entails true beliefs of form , and that beliefs of form must themselves be the result of exercising reliable cognitive abilities, it might still be that ones reliable -generating abilities are exercised in a bad environment. According to his positive proposal, objectual understanding is the goal and what typically sates the appetite associated with curiosity. ), The Routledge Companion to Epistemology. And, relatedly in social epistemology, we might wonder what if any testimonial transmission principles hold for understanding, and whether there are any special hearer conditions demanded by testimonial understanding acquisition that are not shared in cases of testimonial knowledge acquisition. Contrary to premise (3), such abilities (of the sort referenced by Khalifa in premise 2 and 3) arguably need not involve discriminating between explanations, so long as one supposes that discriminating between explanations is something one has the reliable ability to do only if one could not very easily form a belief of the form when this is false. The Pros And Cons Of Epistemology And Theory Of Knowledge 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. For example, Kvanvig (2003: 206) observes that we have an ordinary conception that understanding is a milestone to be achieved by long and sustained efforts at knowledge acquisition and Whitcomb (2012: 8) reflects that understanding is widely taken to be a higher epistemic good: a state that is like knowledge and true belief, but even better, epistemically speaking. Yet, these observations do not fit with the weak views commitment to, for example, the claim that understanding is achievable in cases of delusional hallucinations that are disconnected from the facts about how the world is. A second variety of understanding that has generated interest amongst epistemologists is, understanding-why. Attempts to explain away the intuitions suggesting that lucky understanding is incompatible with epistemic luck. Pritchard (2008: 8) points out thatfor exampleif one believes that ones house burned down because of the actions of an arsonist when it really burnt down because of faulty wiring, it just seems plain that one lacks understanding of why ones house burned down. Bradford, G. Achievement. ), The Continuum Companion to Epistemology. For example, you read many of your books on screens and e-readers today. He claims that while we would generally expect her to have knowledge of her relevant beliefs, this is not essential for her understanding and as a result it would not matter if these true beliefs had been Gettierised (and were therefore merely accidentally true). 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. An in-depth exploration of different types of epistemic luck. Taking curiosity to be of epistemic significance is not a new idea. Often-cited discussion of the fake barn counterexample to traditional accounts of knowledge that focus on justified true belief. In recent years epistemology has experienced gradual changes that are critical in human life. He also suggests, like Khalifa, that grasping be linked with correct explanations. A more sophisticated understanding has it that human beings and the other great apes descended from a common hominid ancestor (who was not, strictly speaking, an ape). This leaves us, however, with an interesting question about the point at which there is no understanding at all, rather than merely weaker or poorer understanding. It also allows attributions of understanding in the presence of peripheral false beliefs, without going so far as to grant that understanding is present in cases of internally consistent delusionsas such delusions will feature at least some false central beliefs. Goldman, A. Kelp, C. Understanding Phenomena. Synthese (2015). Epistemology is a way of framing knowledge, it defines how it can be produced and augmented. For example, a self-proclaimed psychic might see someone trip and believe that he caused this persons fall. Includes further discussion of the role of acceptance and belief in her view of understanding. Discuss the pros and cons of the epistemological shift in an essay. ), The Nature and Limits of Human Understanding. Grimm anticipates this point and expresses a willingness to embrace a looser conception of dependence than causal dependence, one that includes (following Kim 1994) species of dependence such as mereological dependences (that is, dependence of a whole on its parts), evaluative dependences (that is, dependence of evaluative on non-evaluative), and so on. Stanley, J. al 2014), have for understanding? 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. ), Epistemology (Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures). 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). CA: Wadsworth, 2009. 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. Usually philosophical problems are overcome not by their resolution but rather by redefinition. But most knowledge is not metaknowledge, and epistemology is therefore a relatively insignificant source of knowledge. 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. Zagzebski (2001), whose view maintains that at least not all cases of understanding require true beliefs, gestures to something like this view. 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. 121-132. 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. A view on which the psychics epistemic position in this case qualifies as understanding-why would be unsatisfactorily inclusive. Olsson, E. Coherentist Theories of Epistemic Justification in E. Zalta (ed. 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. 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. Rohwer, Y. It is clearly cognitively better than the belief that humans did not evolve. 1pt1): pp. and Pritchard, D. Varieties of Externalism. Philosophical Issues 41(1) (2014): 63-109. 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? Defends a lack of control account of luck. epistemological shift pros and cons. This objection is worth holding in mind when considering any further positions that incorporate representation manipulability as necessary. This would be the non-factive parallel to the standard view of grasping. In this respect, then, Kvanvigs view achieves the result of a middle ground. ), The Routledge Companion to Epistemology. It focuses on means of human knowledge acquisition and how to differentiate the truth knowledge claims from the false one. Such discussions, though they can be initially helpful, raise a nest of further questions. Put generally, according to the coherentist family of proposals of the structure of justified belief, a belief or set of beliefs is justified, or justifiably held, just in case the belief coheres with a set of beliefs, the set forms a coherent system, or some variation on these themes (Olsson 2012: 1). 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. 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). Decent Essays. Discuss the pros and cons of the epistemological shift in an essay Shift in Epistemology.edited.docx - Running head: SHIFT IN Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. ), The Stanford Enclopedia of Philosophy. And, thirdly, two questions about what is involved in grasping can easily be run together, but should be kept separate. epistemological shift pros and cons - hashootrust.org.pk See answer source: Epistemology in an Hour Caleb Beers Contains the paradigmatic case of environmental epistemic luck (that is, the fake barn case). Kelp points out that this type of view is not so restrictive as to deny understanding to, for example, novice students and young children. Her line is that understanding-why involves (i) knowing what something is, and (ii) making reasonable sense of it. 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. epistemological shift pros and cons - roci.biz We regularly claim that people can understand everything from theories to pieces of technology, accounts of historical events and the psychology of other individuals. Objectual understanding is equivalent to what Pritchard has at some points termed holistic understanding (2009: 12). 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). Open Document. The distinctive aspects can be identified as human abilities to engage in mathematics and intellectual reasoning. 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. However, Pritchard (2014) responds to Grimms latest proposal with a number of criticisms. So the kind of knowledge that it provides is metaknowledgeknowledge about knowledge. Van Camp, W. Explaining Understanding (or Understanding Explanation. European Journal for Philosophy of Science 4(1) (2014): 95-114. 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. 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. Janvid, M. Knowledge versus Understanding: The Cost of Avoiding Gettier. Acta Analytica 27 (2012): 183-197. manage list views salesforce. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009. Finally, there is fruitful work to do concerning the relationship between understanding and wisdom. Understanding in Epistemology | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy 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. (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. 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. 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., Kallestrup, J. Palermos, S.O. This is a point Elgin is happy to grant. Grimm, S. Understanding as Knowledge of Causes in A. Fairweather (ed. 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. Or, should we adopt a more relaxed view of what would be required to satisfy this conditionnamely, a view that focuses on the way the agent connects information. epistemological shift pros and cons. 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. 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. The root of the recent resurgence of interest in understanding in epistemology. Philosophers concern on epistemological shift - Eddusaver This is not so obvious, and at least, not as obvious as it is in the case of knowledge. In the study of epistemology, philosophers are concerned with the epistemological shift. Understanding entails that such beliefs must be the result of exercising reliable cognitive abilities. 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. If Kelps thought experiment works, manipulation of representations cannot be a necessary condition of understanding after all. For example, by trusting someone I should not have trusted, or even worse, by reading tea leaves which happened to afford me true beliefs about chemistry. Pragmatism as an epistemological approach accentuates the reasoning of theories and concepts by studying their consequences and goals, values and interests they support. Grimm has put his finger on an important commonality at issue in his argument from parity. Given the extent to which grasping is highly associated with understanding and left substantively unspecified, it is perhaps unsurprising that the matter of how to articulate grasping-related conditions on understanding has proven to be rather divisive. 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). Carter (2014) argues that shifting to more demanding practical environments motivates attributing lower degrees of understanding rather than (as Wilkenfeld is suggests) withholding understanding. Secondly, even subject matters that traffic in empirical rather than abstract atemporal phenomena (for example, pure mathematics), are not clearly such that understanding them should involve any appreciation for their coming to be, or their being caused to exist. Section 3 examines the notion of grasping which often appears in discussions of understanding in epistemology. In Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (Hardback) (Vol. London: Routledge, 2009. Where should an investigation of understanding in epistemology take us next? Many seem to blend manipulationism with explanations, suggesting for example that what is required for understanding is an ability associated with mentally manipulating explanations. Consider here an analogy: a false belief can be subjectively indistinguishable from knowledge. 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. Ashleigh Kelley Morbid Drew, Stonebridge Wedding Venue Photos, Wreck In Shelbyville, Ky Yesterday, Articles E
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epistemological shift pros and cons

epistemological shift pros and cons

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. As such, Khalifa is not attempting to provide an analysis of grasping. 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. 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. 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. ), Epistemic Value. Moderate factivity implies that we should withhold attributions of understanding when an agent has a single false central belief, even in cases where the would-be understanding is of a large subject matter where all peripheral beliefs in this large subject matter are true. Description Recall that epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. 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. Summary This chapter contains sections titled: Abstract Introduction Arguments Con Arguments Pro Ambivalence Concerning Relativism? A Seismic Shift in Epistemology | EDUCAUSE Dordecht: Springer, 2014. 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. As will see, a good number of epistemologists would agree that false beliefs are compatible with understanding. 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, 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. 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. This is the idea that one has shifted, or changed, the way he or she takes in knowledge. The Epistemological Shift from Descartes to Nietzsche: Intuition and Uses the concept of understanding to underwrite a theory of explanation. Pritchards verdict is that we should deny understanding in the intervening case and attribute it in the environmental case. Consider, on this point, that a conspiracy theorist might very well grasp* the connection between (false) propositions so as to achieve a coherent, intelligible, though wildly off-base, picture. The Oxford Handbook of Social Justice in Music Education On the one hand, we have manipulationists, who think understanding involves an ability (or abilities) to manipulate certain representations or concepts. 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. 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. In short: understanding is causal propositional knowledge. 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. The thought is that, in cases of achievement, the relevant success must be primarily creditable to the exercise of the agents abilities, rather than to some other factor (for example, luck). Utilize at least 2 credible sources to support your position presented in the paper. 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. 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. In order to make this point clear, Pritchard suggests that we first consider two versions of a case analogous with Kvanvigs. Rationalism is an epistemological theory, so rationalism can be interpreted the distinct aspects or parts of the mind that are separate senses. Longworth, G. Linguistic Understanding and Knowledge. Nous 42 (2008): 50-79. Morris suggests that the writer of the Comanche book might lack understanding due to failing to endorse the relevant propositions, while the reader might have understanding because she does endorse the relevant proposition. 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. 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. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. For example, in Whitcomb (2010: 8), we find the observation that understanding is widely taken to be a higher epistemic good: a state that is like knowledge and true belief, but even better, epistemically speaking. Meanwhile, Pritchard (2009: 11) notes as we might be tempted to put the point, we would surely rather understand than merely know. A helpful clarification here comes from Grimm (2012: 105), who in surveying the literature on the value of understanding points out that the suggestion seems to be that understanding (of a complex of some kind) is better than the corresponding item of propositional knowledge. Discuss the pros and cons of the epistemological shift in an essay. But is understanding factive? Argues against compatibility between understanding and epistemic luck. Grimm (2011) suggests that what we should regard as being understood in cases of objectual understandingnamely, the object of the objectual attitude relationcan be helpfully thought of as akin to a system or structure [that has] parts or elements that depend upon one another in various ways.. For the purposes of thinking about understanding, some of the most important will include: (i) what makes a system of beliefs coherent? In particular, he wants to propose a non-propositional view that has at its heart seeing or grasping, of the terms of the casual relata, their modal relatedness, which he suggests amounts to seeing or grasping how things might have been if certain conditions had been different. To be clear, the nuanced view Grimm suggests is that while understanding is a kind of knowledge of causes, it is not propositional knowledge of causes but rather non-propositional knowledge of causes, where the non-propositional knowledge is itself unpacked as a kind of ability or know-how. If the latterthat is, if we are to understand grasping literally, then, also unfortunately, we are rarely given concrete details of its nature. On such a view, grasping talk could simply be jettisoned altogether. Goldman, A. Such a theory raises questions of its own, such as precisely what answering reliably, in the relevant sense, demands. So too does the fact that one would rather have a success involving an achievement than a mere success, even when this difference has no pragmatic consequences. An overview of the object, psychology, and normativity of understanding. For those who wonder about whether the often-discussed grasping associated with understanding might just amount to the possession of further beliefs (rather than, say, the possession of manipulative abilities), this type of view may seem particularly attractive (and comparatively less mysterious). What (Good) is Historical Epistemology? | MPIWG Argues that the ordinary concept of knowledge is not factive and that epistemologists should therefore not concern themselves with said ordinary concept. fort hood cif inprocessing; bucks county inspector of elections candidates; lockdown limerick poem; boeing seattle badge office. A worry about this move can be put abstractly: consider that if understanding entails true beliefs of form , and that beliefs of form must themselves be the result of exercising reliable cognitive abilities, it might still be that ones reliable -generating abilities are exercised in a bad environment. According to his positive proposal, objectual understanding is the goal and what typically sates the appetite associated with curiosity. ), The Routledge Companion to Epistemology. And, relatedly in social epistemology, we might wonder what if any testimonial transmission principles hold for understanding, and whether there are any special hearer conditions demanded by testimonial understanding acquisition that are not shared in cases of testimonial knowledge acquisition. Contrary to premise (3), such abilities (of the sort referenced by Khalifa in premise 2 and 3) arguably need not involve discriminating between explanations, so long as one supposes that discriminating between explanations is something one has the reliable ability to do only if one could not very easily form a belief of the form when this is false. The Pros And Cons Of Epistemology And Theory Of Knowledge 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. For example, Kvanvig (2003: 206) observes that we have an ordinary conception that understanding is a milestone to be achieved by long and sustained efforts at knowledge acquisition and Whitcomb (2012: 8) reflects that understanding is widely taken to be a higher epistemic good: a state that is like knowledge and true belief, but even better, epistemically speaking. Yet, these observations do not fit with the weak views commitment to, for example, the claim that understanding is achievable in cases of delusional hallucinations that are disconnected from the facts about how the world is. A second variety of understanding that has generated interest amongst epistemologists is, understanding-why. Attempts to explain away the intuitions suggesting that lucky understanding is incompatible with epistemic luck. Pritchard (2008: 8) points out thatfor exampleif one believes that ones house burned down because of the actions of an arsonist when it really burnt down because of faulty wiring, it just seems plain that one lacks understanding of why ones house burned down. Bradford, G. Achievement. ), The Continuum Companion to Epistemology. For example, you read many of your books on screens and e-readers today. He claims that while we would generally expect her to have knowledge of her relevant beliefs, this is not essential for her understanding and as a result it would not matter if these true beliefs had been Gettierised (and were therefore merely accidentally true). 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. An in-depth exploration of different types of epistemic luck. Taking curiosity to be of epistemic significance is not a new idea. Often-cited discussion of the fake barn counterexample to traditional accounts of knowledge that focus on justified true belief. In recent years epistemology has experienced gradual changes that are critical in human life. He also suggests, like Khalifa, that grasping be linked with correct explanations. A more sophisticated understanding has it that human beings and the other great apes descended from a common hominid ancestor (who was not, strictly speaking, an ape). This leaves us, however, with an interesting question about the point at which there is no understanding at all, rather than merely weaker or poorer understanding. It also allows attributions of understanding in the presence of peripheral false beliefs, without going so far as to grant that understanding is present in cases of internally consistent delusionsas such delusions will feature at least some false central beliefs. Goldman, A. Kelp, C. Understanding Phenomena. Synthese (2015). Epistemology is a way of framing knowledge, it defines how it can be produced and augmented. For example, a self-proclaimed psychic might see someone trip and believe that he caused this persons fall. Includes further discussion of the role of acceptance and belief in her view of understanding. Discuss the pros and cons of the epistemological shift in an essay. ), The Nature and Limits of Human Understanding. Grimm anticipates this point and expresses a willingness to embrace a looser conception of dependence than causal dependence, one that includes (following Kim 1994) species of dependence such as mereological dependences (that is, dependence of a whole on its parts), evaluative dependences (that is, dependence of evaluative on non-evaluative), and so on. Stanley, J. al 2014), have for understanding? 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. ), Epistemology (Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures). 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). CA: Wadsworth, 2009. 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. Usually philosophical problems are overcome not by their resolution but rather by redefinition. But most knowledge is not metaknowledge, and epistemology is therefore a relatively insignificant source of knowledge. 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. Zagzebski (2001), whose view maintains that at least not all cases of understanding require true beliefs, gestures to something like this view. 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. 121-132. 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. A view on which the psychics epistemic position in this case qualifies as understanding-why would be unsatisfactorily inclusive. Olsson, E. Coherentist Theories of Epistemic Justification in E. Zalta (ed. 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. 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. Rohwer, Y. It is clearly cognitively better than the belief that humans did not evolve. 1pt1): pp. and Pritchard, D. Varieties of Externalism. Philosophical Issues 41(1) (2014): 63-109. 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? Defends a lack of control account of luck. epistemological shift pros and cons. This objection is worth holding in mind when considering any further positions that incorporate representation manipulability as necessary. This would be the non-factive parallel to the standard view of grasping. In this respect, then, Kvanvigs view achieves the result of a middle ground. ), The Routledge Companion to Epistemology. It focuses on means of human knowledge acquisition and how to differentiate the truth knowledge claims from the false one. Such discussions, though they can be initially helpful, raise a nest of further questions. Put generally, according to the coherentist family of proposals of the structure of justified belief, a belief or set of beliefs is justified, or justifiably held, just in case the belief coheres with a set of beliefs, the set forms a coherent system, or some variation on these themes (Olsson 2012: 1). 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. 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). Decent Essays. Discuss the pros and cons of the epistemological shift in an essay Shift in Epistemology.edited.docx - Running head: SHIFT IN Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. ), The Stanford Enclopedia of Philosophy. And, thirdly, two questions about what is involved in grasping can easily be run together, but should be kept separate. epistemological shift pros and cons - hashootrust.org.pk See answer source: Epistemology in an Hour Caleb Beers Contains the paradigmatic case of environmental epistemic luck (that is, the fake barn case). Kelp points out that this type of view is not so restrictive as to deny understanding to, for example, novice students and young children. Her line is that understanding-why involves (i) knowing what something is, and (ii) making reasonable sense of it. 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. epistemological shift pros and cons - roci.biz We regularly claim that people can understand everything from theories to pieces of technology, accounts of historical events and the psychology of other individuals. Objectual understanding is equivalent to what Pritchard has at some points termed holistic understanding (2009: 12). 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). Open Document. The distinctive aspects can be identified as human abilities to engage in mathematics and intellectual reasoning. 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. However, Pritchard (2014) responds to Grimms latest proposal with a number of criticisms. So the kind of knowledge that it provides is metaknowledgeknowledge about knowledge. Van Camp, W. Explaining Understanding (or Understanding Explanation. European Journal for Philosophy of Science 4(1) (2014): 95-114. 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. 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. Janvid, M. Knowledge versus Understanding: The Cost of Avoiding Gettier. Acta Analytica 27 (2012): 183-197. manage list views salesforce. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009. Finally, there is fruitful work to do concerning the relationship between understanding and wisdom. Understanding in Epistemology | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy 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. (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. 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. 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., Kallestrup, J. Palermos, S.O. This is a point Elgin is happy to grant. Grimm, S. Understanding as Knowledge of Causes in A. Fairweather (ed. 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. Or, should we adopt a more relaxed view of what would be required to satisfy this conditionnamely, a view that focuses on the way the agent connects information. epistemological shift pros and cons. 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. 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. The root of the recent resurgence of interest in understanding in epistemology. Philosophers concern on epistemological shift - Eddusaver This is not so obvious, and at least, not as obvious as it is in the case of knowledge. In the study of epistemology, philosophers are concerned with the epistemological shift. Understanding entails that such beliefs must be the result of exercising reliable cognitive abilities. 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. If Kelps thought experiment works, manipulation of representations cannot be a necessary condition of understanding after all. For example, by trusting someone I should not have trusted, or even worse, by reading tea leaves which happened to afford me true beliefs about chemistry. Pragmatism as an epistemological approach accentuates the reasoning of theories and concepts by studying their consequences and goals, values and interests they support. Grimm has put his finger on an important commonality at issue in his argument from parity. Given the extent to which grasping is highly associated with understanding and left substantively unspecified, it is perhaps unsurprising that the matter of how to articulate grasping-related conditions on understanding has proven to be rather divisive. 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). Carter (2014) argues that shifting to more demanding practical environments motivates attributing lower degrees of understanding rather than (as Wilkenfeld is suggests) withholding understanding. Secondly, even subject matters that traffic in empirical rather than abstract atemporal phenomena (for example, pure mathematics), are not clearly such that understanding them should involve any appreciation for their coming to be, or their being caused to exist. Section 3 examines the notion of grasping which often appears in discussions of understanding in epistemology. In Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (Hardback) (Vol. London: Routledge, 2009. Where should an investigation of understanding in epistemology take us next? Many seem to blend manipulationism with explanations, suggesting for example that what is required for understanding is an ability associated with mentally manipulating explanations. Consider here an analogy: a false belief can be subjectively indistinguishable from knowledge. 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.

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