Meanwhile, he suggests that were you to ask a fake fire officer who appeared to you to be a real officer and just happened to give the correct answer, it is no longer plausible (by Pritchards lights) that you have understanding-why. The proponent of moderate factivity owes an explanation. According to Zagzebski (2001), the epistemic value of understanding is tied not to elements of its factivity, but rather to its transparency. 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. Defends the strong claim that propositional knowledge is necessary and sufficient for 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). 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. Abstract. Given that the instrumental value is the same, our reaction to the two contrasting bypass cases seems to count in favor of the final value of successes because of abilityachievements. 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. But no one claims that science has as yet arrived at the truth about the motion of the planets. 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. But it is not strictly true. Fourthly, a relatively fertile area for further research concerns the semantics of understanding attribution. epistemological shift pros and cons - hashootrust.org.pk See answer source: Epistemology in an Hour Caleb Beers 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. How should we distinguish between peripheral beliefs about a subject matter and beliefs that are not properly, Understanding entails true beliefs of the form. Looks at understandings role in recent debates about epistemic value and contains key arguments against Elgins non-factive view of understanding. 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. Of course, many interrelated questions then emerge regarding coherence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. 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. . As such, his commentary here is particularly relevant to the question of whether gasping is factive. ), Knowledge, Truth and Obligation. 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. Outlines a view on which understanding something requires making reasonable sense of it. Kvanvig identifies the main opponent to his view, that the scope of curiosity is enough to support the unrestricted value of understanding, to be one on which knowledge is what is fundamental to curiosity. Sullivan, E. Understanding: Not Know-How. Philosohpical Studies (2017). Why We Dont Deserve Credit for Everything We Know. Synthese 156 (2007). Argues that requiring knowledge of an explanation is too strong a condition on understanding-why. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. (For example, is it a kind of knowledge, another kind of propositional attitude, an ability, and so on? Philip Kitcher and Wesley Salmon. Kvanvig (2003; 2009) offers such a view, according to which understanding of some subject matter is incompatible with false central beliefs about the subject matter. Many epistemologists have sought to distinguish understanding from knowledge on the basis of alleged differences in the extent to which knowledge and understanding are susceptible to being undermined by certain kinds of epistemic luck. ), Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology. The Myth of Factive Verbs. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 80:3 (2010): 497-522. Defends views that hold explanation as indispensable for account of understanding and discusses what a non-factive account of grasping would look like. View Shift in Epistemology.docx from SOCIOLOGY 1010 at Columbia Southern University. 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. Though in light of this fact, it is not obvious that understanding is the appropriate term for this state. 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). ), Epistemic Value. A paper in which it is argued that (contrary to popular opinion) knowledge does not exclude luck. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2005. The Pros And Cons Of Epistemology - Internet Public Library 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). On such a view, grasping talk could simply be jettisoned altogether. Digital Culture and Shifting Epistemology - hybridpedagogy.org . Pritchard maintains that it is intuitive that in the case just described understanding is attainedyou have consulted a genuine fire officer and have received all the true beliefs required for understanding why your house burned down, and acquire this understanding in the right way. The Case of Richard Rorty A Newer Argument Pro: Hales's Defense o. Proponents of weak factivity must address both of these potentially problematic results. As it were, from the inside, these can be indistinguishable much as, from the first-person perspective, mere true belief and knowledge can be indistinguishable. Grimm develops this original position via parity of reasoning, taking as a starting point that the debate about a priori knowledge, for example, knowledge of necessary truths, makes use of metaphors of grasping and seeing that are akin to the ones in the understanding debate. However, Pritchard (2014) responds to Grimms latest proposal with a number of criticisms. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989. His modal model of understanding fits with the intuition that we understand not propositions but relations between parts to wholes or systems of various thoughts.. Hills (2009) is an advocate of such a view of understanding-why in particular. He concedes, though, that sometimes curiosity on a smaller scale can be sated by epistemic justification, and that what seems like understanding, but is actually just intelligibility, can sate the appetite when one is deceived. Early defence of explanations key role in understanding. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-017-0863-z. A good example here is what Riggs (2003) calls intelligibility, a close cousin of understanding that also implies a grasp of order, pattern and connection, but does not seem to require a substantial connection to truth. Olsson, E. Coherentist Theories of Epistemic Justification in E. Zalta (ed. What kind of historical enterprise is historical epistemology? 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). This is perhaps partially because there is a tendency to hold a persons potential understanding to standards of objective appropriateness as well as subjective appropriateness. An important question is whether there are philosophical considerations beyond simply intuition to adjudicate in a principled way why we should think about unifying understanding cases in one way rather than the other. Are the prospects of extending understanding via active externalism on a par with the prospects for extending knowledge, or is understanding essentially internal in a way that knowledge need not be? Elgin, C. Exemplification, Idealization, and Understanding in M. Surez (ed. More generally, as this line of criticism goes, sometimes we simply mistake mere (non-factive) intelligibility for understanding. On the one hand, we have manipulationists, who think understanding involves an ability (or abilities) to manipulate certain representations or concepts. 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? 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. 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. A. and Gordon, E. C. On Pritchard, Objectual Understanding and the Value Problem. American Philosophical Quarterly 51 (2014): 1-14. It is also becoming an increasingly popular position to hold that understanding is more epistemically valuable than knowledge (see Kvanvig 2003; Pritchard 2010). ), Contemporary Debates in Epistemology (2nd Edition). An overview of the background, development and recent issues in epistemology, including a chapter on understanding as an epistemic good. Unlike de Regt and Dieks (2005), Wilkenfeld aims to propose an inclusive manipulation-based view that allows agents to have objectual understanding even if they do not have a theory of the phenomenon in question. When considering interesting features that might set understanding apart from propositional knowledge, the idea of grasping something is often mentioned. University of Edinburgh 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. Builds an account of understanding according to which understanding a subject matter involves possessing a representation that could be manipulated in a useful way. Pritchards (2010) account of the distinctive value of understanding is, in short, that understanding essentially involves a strong kind of finally valuable cognitive achievement, and secondly, that while knowledge comes apart from cognitive achievement in both directions, understanding does not. 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. 4 Pages. An earlier paper defending the intellectualist view of know-how. 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. ), Knowledge, Virtue and Action. The Oxford Handbook of Social Justice in Music Education 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. Utilize at least 2 credible sources to support the arguments presented in the paper. One point that could potentially invite criticism is the move from (1) and (2) to (3). Achievements, unlike mere successes, are regarded as valuable for their own sake, mainly because of the way in which these special sorts of successes come to be. More generally, though, it is important to note that Khalifa, via his grasping argument, is defending reliable explanatory evaluation as merely a necessarythough not sufficientcomponent of grasping. 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. The childs opinion displays some grasp of evolution. Gettier, E. Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? Analysis 23 (6) (1963). Looks at the increasing dissatisfaction with ever-more complicated attempts to generate a theory of knowledge immune to counterexamples. He argues that we can gain some traction on the nature of grasping significant to understanding if we view it along such manipulationist lines. Moral Understanding and Knowledge. Philosophical Studies 172(2) (2015): 113-128. For example, you read many of your books on screens and e-readers today. Lucky Understanding Without Knowledge. Synthese 191 (2014): 945-959. This is a point Elgin is happy to grant. 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. Carter, J. Firstly, grasping is often used in such a way such that it is not clear whether it should be understood metaphorically or literally. Discuss the pros and cons of the epistemological shift in an essay. And furthermore, weakly factive accounts welcome the possibility that internally coherent delusions (for example, those that are drug-induced) that are cognitively disconnected from real events might nonetheless yield understanding of those events. In other words, S knows that p only if p is true. 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. 824 Words. As such, Khalifa is not attempting to provide an analysis of grasping. For one thing, abstract objects, such as mathematical truths and other atemporal phenomena, can plausibly be understood even though our understanding of them does not seem to require an appreciation of their coming to existence. 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. Greco, J. Curiosity and a Response-Dependent Account of the Value of Understanding. In T. Henning and D. Schweikard (eds. 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 wisdom, including its potential relationship to understanding. In the study of epistemology, philosophers are concerned with the epistemological shift. New York: Routledge, 2011. This broader interpretation seems well positioned to handle abstract object cases, for example, mathematical understanding, when the kind of understanding at issue is understanding-why. 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. Argues that understanding (unlike knowledge) is a type of cognitive achievement and therefore of distinctive value. Strong cognitive achievement: Cognitive success that is because of ones cognitive ability where the success in question either involves the overcoming of a significant obstacle or the exercise of a significant level of cognitive ability. For example, you read many of your books on screens and e-readers today. The epistemological shift in the present In the study of epistemology, philosophers are concerned with the epistemological shift. But more deeply, atemporal phenomena such as mathematical truths have, in one clear sense, never come to be at all, but have always been, to the extent that they are the case at all. Carter, J. Argues that we should replace the main developed accounts of understanding with earlier accounts of scientific explanation. The Value of Understanding In D. Pritchard, A. Haddock and A. Millar (eds. Zagzebski (2001), whose view maintains that at least not all cases of understanding require true beliefs, gestures to something like this view. In such a parallel case, we simply modify Lackeys original case and suppose that Stella, a creationist teacher, who does not believe in evolution, nonetheless teaches it reliably and in accordance with the highest professional standards. The Epistemology Shift, Essay Example With these three types of understanding in mindpropositional understanding, understanding-why and objectual understandingthe next section considers some of the key questions that arise when one attempts to think about when, and under what conditions, understanding should be ascribed to epistemic agents. Hazlett, A. ), Object question: What kinds of things are grasped? In other words, one mistakenly take knowledge to be distinctively valuable only because knowledge often does have somethingcognitive achievementwhich is essential to understanding and which is finally valuable. A Seismic Shift in Epistemology | EDUCAUSE
epistemological shift pros and cons