), Virtue Epistemology Naturalized: Bridges Between Virtue Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. Ginet, C. Knowledge, Perception and Memory. The Varieties of Cognitive Success 1.1 What Kinds of Things Enjoy Cognitive Success? What is Justified Belief? In G. S. Pappas (ed. Her main supporting example is of understanding the rate at which objects in a vacuum fall toward the earth (that is, 32 feet per second), a belief that ignores the gravitational attraction of everything except the earth and so is therefore not true. 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. Understanding entails that such beliefs must be the result of exercising reliable cognitive abilities. As Lackey thinks students can come to know evolutionary theory from this teacher despite the teacher not knowing the propositions she asserts (given that the Stella fails the belief condition for knowledge), we might likewise think, and contra Morris, that Stella might fail to understand evolution. Zagzebski, L. On Epistemology. This is a change from the past. A paper in which it is argued that (contrary to popular opinion) knowledge does not exclude luck. 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. Some focus on understanding-why while others focus on objectual understanding. Defends the strong claim that propositional knowledge is necessary and sufficient for understanding. While his view fits well with understanding-why, it is less obvious that objectual understanding involves grasping how things came to be. Claims that understanding is entirely compatible with both intervening and environmental forms of veritic luck. How should an account of objectual understanding incorporate these types of observationsnamely, where the falsity of a central belief or central beliefs appears compatible with the retention of some degree of understanding? Many of these questions have gone largely unexplored in the literature. (2007: 37), COPERNICUS: A central tenet of Copernicuss theory is the contention that the Earth travels around the sun in a circular orbit. An influential discussion of understanding is Kvanvigs (2003). 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. In addition, Zagzebski supports the provocative line that understanding can perhaps sometimes be more desirable when the epistemic agent does not have the relevant true beliefs. 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. To what extent do the advantages and disadvantages of, for example, sensitive invariantist, contextualist, insensitive invariantist and relativist approaches to knowledge attributions find parallels in the case of understanding attributions. 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). Uses the hypothesis of extended cognition to argue that understanding can be located (at least partly) outside the head. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. Proposes an account of understandings value that is related to its connection with curiosity. Longworth, G. Linguistic Understanding and Knowledge. Nous 42 (2008): 50-79. One issue worth bringing into sharper focus is whether knowing a good and correct explanation is really the ideal form of understanding-why. 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. Would this impede ones understanding? However, this concern might be abated with the addition of a moderate factivity constraint (for example, the constraint discussed in section two above) that rules out cases of mere intelligibility or subjective understanding). Epistemology is the study of sources of knowledge. However, Elgin takes this line further and insists thatwith some qualificationsfalse central beliefs, and not merely false peripheral beliefs, are compatible with understanding a subject matter to some degree. A. and Pritchard, D. Knowledge-How and Epistemic Luck. Nos (2013). On the weakest view, one can understand a subject matter even if none of ones beliefs about that subject matter are true. However, advocates of moderate approaches to the factivity of understanding are left with some difficult questions to answer. Firstly, achievement is often defined as success that is because of ability (see, for example, Greco 2007), where the most sensible interpretation of this claim is to see the because as signifying a casual-explanatory relationshipthis is, at least, the dominant view. According to Elgin, a factive conception of understanding neither reflects our practices in ascribing understanding nor does justice to contemporary science. 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. Includes further discussion of the role of acceptance and belief in her view of understanding. Khalifa, K. Is Understanding Explanatory or Objectual? Synthese 190(6) (2013a): 1153-1171. These similar states share some of the features we typically think understanding requires, but which are not bona fide understanding specifically because a plausible factivity condition is not satisfied. 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. In particular, how we might define expertise and who has it. 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. His central claim in his recent work is that understanding can be viewed as knowledge of causes, though appreciating how he is thinking of this takes some situating, given that the knowledge central to understanding is non-propositional. The cons of the epistemology shift that is a major concern to philosophers are the loss of, reading and communications since the student do not interact physically, these skills be instilled EPISTEMOLOGY SHIFT 5 by the teachers and through the help of physical environments. ), The Nature and Value of Knowledge: Three Investigations. Whitcomb also cites Alston (2005) as endorsing a stronger view, according to which true belief or knowledge gets at least some of its epistemic value from its connection to, and satisfaction of, curiosity. To defend the claim that possessing the kinds of abilities Hills draws attention to is not a matter of simply having extra items of knowledgeshe notes that one could have the extra items of knowledge and still lack the good judgment that allows you to form new, related true beliefs. Strevens (2013) focuses on scientific understanding in his discussion of grasping. According to Grimm, cases like Kvanvig admit of a more general characterisation, depending on how the details are filled in. Contains exploration of whether the value knowledge may be in part determined by the extent to which it provides answers to questions one is curious about. Having abandoned the commitment to absolute space, current astronomers can no longer say that the Earth travels around the sun simpliciter, but must talk about how the Earth and the sun move relative to each other. A useful taxonomising question is the following: how strong a link does understanding demand between the beliefs we have about a given subject matter and the propositions that are true of that subject matter? Make sure you cite them appropriately within your paper, and list them in APA format on your Reference page. Pritchard, D. Knowledge and Understanding in A. Fairweather (ed. Grimm, S. Is Understanding a Species of Knowledge? British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 57 (2006): 515-535. An overview of issues relating to epistemic value, including discussion of understanding as a higher epistemic state. Stephen P. Stitch: The Fragmentation of Reason. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 51(1) (1991): 189-193. For example, Kvanvig (2003) holds that understanding is particularly valuable in part because it requires a special grasp of explanatory and other coherence-making relationships. Riggs (2003: 20) agrees, stating that understanding of a subject matter requires a deep appreciation, grasp or awareness of how its parts fit together, what role each one plays in the context of the whole, and of the role it plays in the larger scheme of things (italics added). The Psychology of Scientific Explanation. Philosophy Compass 2(3) (2007): 564-591. ), Object question: What kinds of things are grasped? 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. That said, Hills adds some qualifications. The root of the recent resurgence of interest in understanding in epistemology. So, understanding is compatible with a kind of epistemic luck that knowledge excludes. and Pritchard, D. Varieties of Externalism. Philosophical Issues 41(1) (2014): 63-109. In the study of epistemology, philosophers are concerned with the epistemological shift. In contrast with Pritchards partial compatibility view of the relationship between understanding and epistemic luck, where understanding is compatible with environmental but not with intervening luck, Rohwer (2014) defends understandings full compatibility with veritic epistemic luck (that is, of both intervening and environmental varieties). At the other end of the spectrum, we might consider an extremely strong view of understandings factivity, according to which understanding a subject matter requires that all of ones beliefs about the subject matter in question are true. 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. Specifically, he takes his opponents view to be that knowledge through direct experience is what sates curiosity, a view that traces to Aristotle. 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. Should we say that the use of the term understanding that applies to such cases should be of no interest to epistemology? An epistemological shift: from evidence-based medicine to epistemological responsibility J Eval Clin Pract. Divides recent views of understanding according to whether they are manipulationist or explanationst; argues for a different view according to which understanding is maximally well-connected knowledge. Rohwer, Y. 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. Scotland, U.K. A Weak Factivity Constraint on Objectual Understanding, Moderate Views of Objectual Understandings Factivity, Understanding as Representation Manipulability, Understanding as Well-Connected Knowledge, Understanding as (Partially) Compatible with Epistemic Luck, Newer Defenses of Understandings Compatibility with 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.. With each step in the sequence, we understand the motion of the planets better than we did before. Such a theory raises questions of its own, such as precisely what answering reliably, in the relevant sense, demands. Perhaps the strongest of these is his suggestion that while the faculty of rational insight is indispensable to the grasping account of a priori, it is actually essential to knowledge of causes that it not be grasped through rational insight. Epistemology is often defined as the theory of knowledge, and talk of propositional knowledge (that is, S knows that p) has dominated the bulk of modern literature in epistemology. Relatedly, if framed in terms of credence, what credence threshold must be met, with respect to propositions in some set, for the agent to understand that subject matter? 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. 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. Drawing from Stanley and Williamson, she makes the distinction between knowing a proposition under a practical mode of presentation and knowing it under a theoretical mode of presentation. Stanley and Williamson admit that the former is especially tough to spell out (see Glick 2014 for a recent discussion), but it must surely involve having complex dispositions, and so it is perhaps possible to know some proposition under only one of these modes of presentation (that is, by lacking the relevant dispositions, or something else). Unsurprisingly, the comparison between the nature of understanding as opposed to knowledge has coincided with comparisons of their respective epistemic value, particularly since Kvanvig (2003) first defended the epistemic value of the latter to the former. Though her work on understanding is not limited to scientific understanding (for example, Elgin 2004), one notable argument she has made is framed to show that a factive conception cannot do justice to the cognitive contributions of science and that a more flexible conception can (2007: 32). Kvanvig, J. 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. Our culture is shifting, Dede argues, not just from valuing the opinions of experts to the participatory culture of YouTube or Facebook, but from understanding knowledge as fixed and linear to a . 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. 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, an environment where ones abilities so easily could generate false beliefs of form
despite issuing (luckily) true beliefs of the form on this occasion. Although many chapters take as their starting point an analysis of how dominant political, educational, and musical ideologies serve to construct and sustain inequities and undemocratic practices, authors also identify practices that seek to promote socially just pedagogy and approaches to music education. In his article "A Seismic Shift in Epistemology" (2008), Chris Dede draws a distinction between classical perceptions of knowledge and the approach to knowledge underpinning Web 2.0 activity. But in this version of the case, suppose that, although the book is entirely authoritative, genuine and reliable, it is the only trustworthy book on the Comanche on the shelvesevery book on the shelves nearby, which she easily could have grabbed rather than the genuine authoritative book, was filled with rumors and ungrounded suppositions. 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). epistemological shift pros and cons. Whitcomb (2010) notes that Goldman (1999) has considered that the significance or value of some item of knowledge might be at least in part determined by whether, and to what extent, it provides the knower with answers to questions that they are curious about. 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. If Kelps thought experiment works, manipulation of representations cannot be a necessary condition of understanding after all. 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. To complicate matters further, some of the philosophers who appear to endorse one approach over the other can elsewhere be seen considering a more mixed view (for example, Khalifa 2013b). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989. 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. Philosophy of Science, 79(1) (2012): 15-37. Pritchard, D. Knowing the Answer, Understanding and Epistemic Value. Grazer Philosophische Studien 77 (2008): 325-39. 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). For example, you read many of your books on screens and e-readers today. epistemological shift pros and cons. endangered species in the boreal forest; etown high school basketball roster. 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.. This in part for three principal reasons. Working hypotheses and idealizations need not, on this line, be viewed as representative of realityidealizations can be taken as useful fictions, and working hypotheses are recognized as the most parsimonious theories on the table without thereby being dubbed as wholly accurate. Hills herself does not believe that understanding-why is some kind of propositional knowledge, but she points out that even if it is there is nonetheless good cause to think that understanding-why is very unlike ordinary propositional knowledge.
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