He takes his account to be roughly in line with the laymans concept of curiosity. 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. Keplers theory is a further advance in understanding, and the current theory is yet a further advance. Incudes arguments for the position that understanding need not be factive. Philosophy of Science, 79(1) (2012): 15-37. 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. 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. 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. Zagzebski notes that this easily leads to a vicious circle because neglect leads to fragmentation of meaning, which seems to justify further neglect and further fragmentation until eventually a concept can disappear entirely.. To borrow a case from Riggs, stealing an Olympic medal or otherwise cheating to attain it lacks the kind of value one associates with earning the medal, through ones own skill. This type of understanding is ascribed in sentences that take the form I understand why X (for example, I understand why the house burnt down). Epistemology is the study of sources of knowledge. Specifically, he points out that an omniscient agent who knows everything and intuitively therefore understands every phenomenon might do so while being entirely passivenot drawing interferences, making predictions or manipulating representations (in spite of knowing, for example, which propositions can be inferred from others). 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. Pritchard, meanwhile, claims that the matter of understandings compatibility with epistemic luck can be appreciated only against the background of a distinction between two kinds of epistemic luckintervening and environmentalboth of which are incompatible with knowledge. 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). According to Grimm, cases like Kvanvig admit of a more general characterisation, depending on how the details are filled in. According to his positive proposal, objectual understanding is the goal and what typically sates the appetite associated with curiosity. 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). 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. Grimm thinks the metaphor involves something like apprehending how things stand in modal space (that is, that there are no possible worlds in which the necessary truth is false). Firstly, Wilkenfelds context-sensitive approach is in tension with a more plausible diagnosis of the example just considered: rather than to withhold attributing understanding in the case where the student is surrounded by experts, why notinsteadand in a way that is congruous with the earlier observation that understanding comes in degreesattribute understanding to the student surrounded by experts, but to a lesser degree (for example, Tim has some understanding of physics, while the professor has a much more complete understanding). ), Fictions in Science: Essays on Idealization and Modeling. This is a change from the past. According to Zagzebski (2001), the epistemic value of understanding is tied not to elements of its factivity, but rather to its transparency. The Myth of Factive Verbs. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 80:3 (2010): 497-522. Contains Kims classic discussion of species of dependence (for example, mereological dependence). Digital Culture and Shifting Epistemology - hybridpedagogy.org and Pritchard, D. Varieties of Externalism. Philosophical Issues 41(1) (2014): 63-109. 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). 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). What is the grasping relation? Defends a lack of control account of luck. Call these, for short, the relation question and the object question. Pritchard, D. The Value of Knowledge: Understanding. In A. Haddock, A. Millar and D. Pritchard (eds. 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. The Pros And Cons Of Epistemology And Theory Of Knowledge Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. 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). 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). Perhaps, as Harvey (2006b) suggests, we do need to reconfigure academic protocols in order to make more room for these kinds of . The following sections consider why understanding might have such additional value. Looks at the increasing dissatisfaction with ever-more complicated attempts to generate a theory of knowledge immune to counterexamples. In terms of parallels with the understanding debate, it is important to note that the knowledge of causes formula is not limited to the traditional propositional reading. The agents belief is justified and true, thanks to the fact that there is a genuine sheep hiding behind the rock, but the belief is not knowledge, as it could easily have been false. 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. With a wide range of subtly different accounts of understanding (both objectual and understanding-why) on the table, it will be helpful to consider how understanding interfaces with certain key debates in epistemology. This point aligns with the datum that we often attribute understanding by degrees. 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. It is just dumb luck the genuine sheep happened to be in the field. But it is not strictly true. Argues against the view that moral understanding can be immune to luck while moral knowledge is not. Carter, J. Bradford, G. Achievement. Curiosity and a Response-Dependent Account of the Value of Understanding. In T. Henning and D. Schweikard (eds. 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. DePaul, M. Ugly Analysis and Value in A. Haddock, A. Millar and D. Pritchard (eds. Ginet, C. Knowledge, Perception and Memory. Cases of intervening luck taketo use a simple examplethe familiar pattern of Chisholms sheep in a field case, where an agent sees a sheep-shaped rock which looks just like a sheep, and forms the belief There is a sheep. Utilize at least 2 credible sources to support the arguments presented in the paper. Toon, A. In particular, how we might define expertise and who has it. ), Contemporary Debates in Epistemology (2nd Edition). Elgin, C. Understanding and the Facts. Philosophical Studies 132 (2007): 33-42. The notion of curiosity that plays a role in Kvanvigs line is a broadly inclusive one that is meant to include not just obvious problem-solving examples but also what he calls more spontaneous examples, such as turning around to see what caused a noise you just heard. Although the analysis of the value of epistemic states has roots in Plato and Aristotle, this renewed and more intense interest was initially inspired by two coinciding trends in epistemology. Stanley, J. Gordon, E. C. Is There Propositional Understanding? Logos & Episteme 3 (2012): 181-192. In recent years epistemology has experienced gradual changes that are critical in human life. 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. 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.. However, Pritchard (2014) responds to Grimms latest proposal with a number of criticisms. Khalifas indispensability argumentwhich he calls the Grasping Argument runs as follows: Khalifa is, in this argument stipulating that (1) is a ground rule for discussion (2013b: 5). When considering interesting features that might set understanding apart from propositional knowledge, the idea of grasping something is often mentioned. However, Baker (2003) has offered an account on which at least some instances of understanding-why are non-factive. Secondly, there is plenty of scope for understanding to play a more significant role in social epistemology. Moral Understanding and Knowledge. Philosophical Studies 172(2) (2015): 113-128. Such a theory raises questions of its own, such as precisely what answering reliably, in the relevant sense, demands. Resists the alleged similarity between understanding and knowing-how. Riggs (2003: 21-22) asks whether an explanation has to be true to provide understanding, and Strevens thinks that it is implied that grasping is factive. Eds. Since, for instance, the ideal gas law (for example, Elgin 2007) is recognized as a helpful fiction and is named and taught as such, as is, nave Copernicanism or the simple view that humans evolved from apes. 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. 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 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. For example: Although a moderate view of understandings factivity may look promising in comparison with competitor accounts, many important details remain left to be spelled out. It will accordingly be helpful to narrow our focus to the varieties of understanding that feature most prominently in the epistemological literature. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2005. A second variety of understanding that has generated interest amongst epistemologists is, understanding-why. As such, Khalifa is not attempting to provide an analysis of grasping. One can split views on this question into roughly three positions that advocate varying strengths of a factivity constraint on objectual understanding. It is plausible that a factivity constraint would also be an important necessary condition on objectual understanding, but there is more nuanced debate about the precise sense in which this might be the case. 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 cons of the epistemology shift that is a major - Course Hero If the latterthat is, if we are to understand grasping literally, then, also unfortunately, we are rarely given concrete details of its nature. Khalifa, K. Understanding, Grasping and Luck. Episteme 10 (1) (2013b): 1-17. Zagzebski, L. Recovering Understanding In M. Steup (ed. in barn faade cases, where environmental luck is incompatible with knowledge but compatible with cognitive achievement) and the absence of cognitive achievement in the presence of knowledge (e.g. For one thing, she admits that these abilities can be possessed by degrees. iwi galil ace rs regulate; pedestrian killed in london today; holly woodlawn biography; how to change icon size in samsung s21; houston marriott westchase 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. epistemological shift pros and cons - erikapowers.com Hazlett, A. ), The Continuum Companion to Epistemology. Make sure you cite them appropriately within your paper and list them in APA format on your Reference page. For example, if I competently grasp the relevant coherence-making and explanatory relations between propositions about chemistry which I believe and which are true but which I believed on an improper basis. This is the idea that one has shifted, or changed, the way he or she takes in knowledge. Usually philosophical problems are overcome not by their resolution but rather by redefinition. Though in light of this fact, it is not obvious that understanding is the appropriate term for this state.