DePaul, M. Ugly Analysis and Value in A. Haddock, A. Millar and D. Pritchard (eds. De Regt, H. and Dieks, D. A Contextual Approach to Scientific Understanding. Synthese 144 (2005): 137-170. 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. For a less concessionary critique of Kvanvigs Comanche case, however, see Grimm (2006). It is not only unnecessary, but moreover, contentious, that a credible scientist would consider the ideal gas law true. ), The Routledge Companion to Epistemology. Eds. 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. Riggs, W. Why Epistemologists Are So Down on Their Luck. Synthese 158 (3) (2007): 329-344. The possession of such judgment plausibly lines up more closely with ability possession (that is, (i)-(vi)) than with propositional attitude possession. The group designated explanationists by Kelp (2015) share a general commitment to the idea that knowledge of explanations should play a key role in a theory of understanding (for example, Hempel 1965; Salmon 1989; Khalifa 2012; 2013). For the purposes of thinking about understanding, some of the most important will include: (i) what makes a system of beliefs coherent? Defends a lack of control account of luck. 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. Morris challenges the assumption that hearers cannot gain understanding through the testimony of those who lack understanding, and accordingly, embraces a kind of understanding transmission principle that parallels the kind of knowledge transmission principle that is presently a topic of controversy in the epistemology of testimony. Pros and Cons of Epistemological Shift. Social Sciences - EssayZoo Trout, J.D. Janvid, M. Knowledge versus Understanding: The Cost of Avoiding Gettier. Acta Analytica 27 (2012): 183-197. Epistemological assumptions are those that focus on what can be known and how knowledge can be acquired (Bell, 8). Kvanvig, J. Fourthly, a relatively fertile area for further research concerns the semantics of understanding attribution. and (ii) what qualifies a group of beliefs as a system in the sense that is at issue when it is claimed that understanding involves grasping relationships or connections within a system of beliefs? Her line is that understanding-why involves (i) knowing what something is, and (ii) making reasonable sense of it. His conception of mental representations defines these representations as computational structures with content that are susceptible to mental transformations. Wilkenfeld constructs a necessary condition on objectual understanding around this definition. 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? Hazlett, A. Armed with this distinction, Pritchard criticizes Kvanvigs assessment of the Comanche case by suggesting that just how we should regard understanding as being compatible or incompatible with epistemic luck depends on how we fill out the details of Kvanvigs case, which is potentially ambiguous between two kinds of readings. 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. 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. 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. Builds an account of understanding according to which understanding a subject matter involves possessing a representation that could be manipulated in a useful way. Utilize at least 2 credible sources to support the arguments presented in the paper. Discuss the pros and cons of the epistemological - Course Hero Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2005. Explores the pros and cons with at least 2 credible sources. ), Epistemic Value. Objectual understanding is equivalent to what Pritchard has at some points termed holistic understanding (2009: 12). An influential discussion of understanding is Kvanvigs (2003). The childs opinion displays some grasp of evolution. Thirdly, even if one accepts something like a moderate factivity requirement on objectual understandingand thus demand of at least a certain class of beliefs one has of a subject matter that they be trueone can also ask further and more nuanced questions about the epistemic status of these true beliefs. Finally, on the other side of the spectrum from Zagzebski and Kvanvig, and also in opposition with Pritchard, is the view that understandings immunity to epistemic luck is isomorphic to knowledges immunity to epistemic luck. 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? Section 4 examines the relationship between understanding and types of epistemic luck that are typically thought to undermine knowledge. 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. There is a common and plausible intuition that understanding might be at least as epistemically valuable as knowledgeif not more soand relatedly that it demands more intellectual sophistication than other closely related epistemic states. An overview of wisdom, including its potential relationship to understanding. A second variety of understanding that has generated interest amongst epistemologists is, understanding-why. 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). For example, you read many of your books on screens and e-readers today. Kelp points out that this type of view is not so restrictive as to deny understanding to, for example, novice students and young children. Since it is central to her take on human evolution, factivists like Kvanvig must conclude that her take on human evolution does not qualify as understanding. Grimm, S. Understanding In S. Bernecker and D. Pritchard (eds. Utilize at least 2 credible sources to support your position presented in the paper. In particular, how we might define expertise and who has it. An overview of the background, development and recent issues in epistemology, including a chapter on understanding as an epistemic good. However, if understanding-why actually is a type of knowing how then this means that intellectualist arguments to the effect that knowing how is a kind of propositional knowledge might apply, mutatis mutandis, to understanding-why as well (see Carter and Pritchard 2013). Given that the result is the same (that is, the patients heart muscle blood supply is improved) regardless of whether he successfully completes the operation by luck or by skill, the instrumental value of the action is the same. Such discussions, though they can be initially helpful, raise a nest of further questions. As Kvanvig sees it, knowing requires non-accidental links between (internal) mental states and external events in just the right way. 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. Discuss the pros and cons of the epistemological shift in an essay. 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. New York: Routledge, 2011. A. and Gordon, E. C. On Pritchard, Objectual Understanding and the Value Problem. American Philosophical Quarterly 51 (2014): 1-14. A second reason that adverting to grasping-talk in the service of characterizing understanding raises further question is that it is often not clarified just what relationships or connections are being grasped, when they are grasped in a way that is distinctive of understanding. As will see, a good number of epistemologists would agree that false beliefs are compatible with understanding. Both are veritic types of luck on Pritchards viewthey are present when, given how one came to have ones true belief, it is a matter of luck that this belief is true (Pritchard 2005: 146). Know How. 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). Epistemology is a way of framing knowledge, it defines how it can be produced and augmented. Stanley, J. Analyzes Kvanvigs Comanche case and argues that knowledge and understanding do not come apart in this example. Of course, many interrelated questions then emerge regarding coherence. Consequently, engaging with the project of clarifying and exploring the epistemic states or states attributed when we attribute understanding is a complex matter. Proposes an account of understandings value that is related to its connection with curiosity. One reason a manipulationist will be inclined to escape the result in this fashion (by denying that all-knowing entails all-understanding) is precisely because one already (qua manipulationist) is not convinced that understanding can be attained simply through knowledge of propositions. The Nature of Ability and the Purpose of Knowledge. Philosophical Issues 17 (2007): 57-69. Grimm (2011) also advocates for a fairly straightforward manipulationist approach in earlier work. In this respect, then, Kvanvigs view achieves the result of a middle ground. However, Strevens nonetheless offers a rough outline of a parallel, non-factive account of grasping, what he calls grasping*. Much of the philosophical tradition has viewed the central epistemological problems concerning perception largely and sometimes exclusively in terms of the metaphysical responses to skepticism. 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. epistemological shift pros and cons - singhaniatabletting.in sustainability scholarship 2021; lost vape centaurus replacement panels; Dordrecht: Springer, 2014. 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. Kim, J. 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 . 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. Discuss the pros and cons of the epistemological shift 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. Pros and cons of the epistemological shift - Ideal Term Papers Since Kvanvig claims that the coherence-making relationships that are traditionally construed as necessary for justification on a coherentist picture are the very relations that one grasps (for example, the objects of grasping) when one understands, the justification literature may be a promising place to begin. He leaves grasping at the level of metaphor or uses it them literally but never develops it. 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). 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. Finally, Section 6 proposes various potential avenues for future research, with an eye towards anticipating how considerations relating to understanding might shed light on a range of live debates elsewhere in epistemology and in philosophy more generally. 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. . 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. Establishes a pro position, supporting that the shift in how people take in knowledge is good. 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). Finally, there is fruitful work to do concerning the relationship between understanding and wisdom. Meanwhile, when discussing outright (as opposed to ideal) understanding, Kelp suggests that we adopt a contextualist perspective. 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. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1975. Keplers theory is a further advance in understanding, and the current theory is yet a further advance. Rohwer, Y. Grimm, S. Is Understanding a Species of Knowledge? British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 57 (2006): 515-535. While the matter of how to think about the incompatibility of knowledge with epistemic luck remains a contentious pointfor instance, here modal accounts (for example, Pritchard 2005) are at odds with lack-of-control accounts (for example, Riggs 2007), few contemporary epistemologists dissent from the comparatively less controversial claim that knowledge excludes luck in a way that true beliefs and sometimes even justified true beliefs do not (see Hetherington (2013) for a dissenting position). ), The Continuum Companion to Epistemology. This consequence does not intuitively align with our practices of attributing understanding. Argues that understanding (unlike knowledge) is a type of cognitive achievement and therefore of distinctive value. Epistemology is a branch in philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge. Knowledge in a Social World. epistemological shift pros and cons - kaminokawa-shokokai.net philos201 Assignment Details Recall that epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. 824 Words. 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. Olsson, E. Coherentist Theories of Epistemic Justification in E. Zalta (ed. 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. Contains the famous counterexamples to the Justified True Belief account of knowledge. 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. What kind of historical enterprise is historical epistemology? Includes Alstons view of curiosity, according to which the epistemic value of true belief and knowledge partially comes from a link to curiosity. In Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (Hardback) (Vol. DePaul, M. and Grimm, S. Review Essay: Kvanvigs The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 74 (2007): 498-514. Epistemological Relativism: Arguments Pro and Con The Pros And Cons Of Epistemology - 824 Words | Bartleby Pritchard, D. Knowing the Answer, Understanding and Epistemic Value. Grazer Philosophische Studien 77 (2008): 325-39. Shift in Epistemology.docx - Running head: SHIFT IN The following sections consider why understanding might have such additional value. Consider here an analogy: a false belief can be subjectively indistinguishable from knowledge. In a given context, then, one understands some subject matter P only if one approximates fully comprehensive and maximally well-connected knowledge of P closely enough that one is sufficiently likely to successfully perform any task relating to P that is determined by the context, assuming that one has the skills needed to do so and to exercise them in suitably favorable conditions. For In all these cases, epistemology seeks to understand one or another kind of cognitive success (or, correspondingly, cognitive failure ). 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). In the study of epistemology, philosophers are concerned with the epistemological shift. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. The Varieties of Cognitive Success 1.1 What Kinds of Things Enjoy Cognitive Success? Positivism follows an identical approach as the study of natural sciences in the testing of a theory. Is it a kind of knowledge, another kind of propositional attitude, an ability, and so forth? The Problem of the External World 2. Where is the Understanding? Synthese, 2015. The root of the recent resurgence of interest in understanding in epistemology. There is arguably a further principled reason that an overly weak view of the factivity of understanding will not easily be squared with pretheoretical intuitions about understanding. ), Epistemic Value. 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). 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. Grimm (2006) and Pritchard (2010) counter that many of the most desirable instances of potential understanding, such as when we understand another persons psychology or understand how the world works, are not transparent. Contains the paradigmatic case of environmental epistemic luck (that is, the fake barn case). 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). Curiosity and a Response-Dependent Account of the Value of Understanding. In T. Henning and D. Schweikard (eds. It is clearly cognitively better than the belief that humans did not evolve. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. 0. Sullivan, E. Understanding: Not Know-How. Philosohpical Studies (2017). Is it problematic to embrace, for example, a contextualist semantics for knowledge attributions while embracing, say, invariantism about understanding? Goldman, A. Examines reasons to suppose that attributions of understanding are typically attributions of knowledge, understanding-why or 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. See further Bradford (2013; 2015) for resistance to the very suggestion that there can be weak achievements on Pritchards sensenamely, achievements that do not necessarily involve great effort, regardless of whether they are primarily due to ability. 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.. It is also becoming an increasingly popular position to hold that understanding is more epistemically valuable than knowledge (see Kvanvig 2003; Pritchard 2010). Decent Essays. We could, for convenience, use the honorific term subjective knowledge for false belief, though in doing so, we are no longer talking about knowledge in the sense that epistemologists are interested in, any more than we are when, as Allan Hazlett (2010) has drawn attention to, we say things like Trapped in the forest, I knew I was going to die; Im so lucky I was saved. Perhaps the same should be said about alleged subjective understanding: to the extent that it is convenient to refer to non-factive states of intelligibility as states of understanding, we are no longer talking about the kind of valuable cognitive achievement of interest to epistemologists. This is a view to which Grimm (2010) is also sympathetic, remarking that the object of objectual understanding can be profitably viewed along the lines of the object of know-how, where Grimm has in mind here an anti-intellectualist interpretation of know-how according to which knowing how to do something is a matter of possessing abilities rather than knowing facts (compare, Stanley & Williamson 2001; Stanley 2011). That said, this article nonetheless attempts to outline a selection of topics that have generated the most discussion and highlights what is at issue in each case and what some of the available positions are. London: Routledge, 2009. Outlines a view on which understanding something requires making reasonable sense of it. He also suggests, like Khalifa, that grasping be linked with correct explanations. Digital Culture and Shifting Epistemology - hybridpedagogy.org 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? epistemological shift pros and cons - roci.biz epistemological shift pros and cons Incudes arguments for the position that understanding need not be factive. and Pritchard, D. Varieties of Externalism. Philosophical Issues 41(1) (2014): 63-109. Khalifa, K. Is Understanding Explanatory or Objectual? Synthese 190(6) (2013a): 1153-1171. 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. Zagzebski, L. On Epistemology. Stanley, J and Williamson, T. Knowing How. Journal of Philosophy 98(8) (2001): 411-444. He suggests that manipulating the system allows the understander to see the way in which the manipulation influences (or fails to influence) other parts of the system (2011: 11). To the extent that such a move is available, one has reason to resist Morriss rationale for resisting Pritchards diagnosis of Kvanvigs case. Grimm (2014) also notes that his modal view of understanding fits well with the idea that understanding involves a kind of ability or know-how, as one who sees or grasps how certain propositions are modally related has the ability to answer a wide variety of questions about how things could have been different. 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.. Running head: SHIFT IN EPISTEMOLOGY 1 Shift in Epistemology Student's Name Professor's Name Institution This skeptical argument is worth engaging with, presumably with the goal of showing that understanding does not turn out to be internally indistinguishable from mere intelligibility. Riaz, A. 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. 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. 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. Kvanvig (2013) claims that both of these views are mistaken, and in the course of doing so, locates curiosity at the center of his account of understandings value.
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