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. He claims further that this description of the case undermines the intuition that the writers lack of understanding entails the readers lack of understanding. While we would apply a description of better understanding to agent A even if the major difference between her and agent B was that A had additional true beliefs, we would also describe A as having better understanding than B if the key difference was that A had fewer false beliefs. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. 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. The medical epistemology we propose conforms to the epistemological responsibility of doctors, which involves a specific professional attitude and epistemological skills. This is a point Elgin is happy to grant. (vi) an ability to give q (the right explanation) when given the information p. Lackey, J. Secondly, she concedes that it is possible that in some cases additional abilities must be added before the set of abilities will be jointly sufficient. 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). Pros and Cons of Epistemological Shift. Social Sciences - EssayZoo Call these, for short, the relation question and the object question. 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. Kim, J. This is a change from the past. Khalifa, K. Understanding, Grasping and Luck. Episteme 10 (1) (2013b): 1-17. Grimm (2011) also advocates for a fairly straightforward manipulationist approach in earlier work. fort hood cif inprocessing; bucks county inspector of elections candidates; lockdown limerick poem; boeing seattle badge office. 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. Epistemology - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 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. More generally, as this line of criticism goes, sometimes we simply mistake mere (non-factive) intelligibility for understanding. epistemological shift - porosity.ca See, however, Carter & Gordon (2014) for a recent criticism on the point of identifying understanding with strong cognitive achievement. In other words, they claim that one cannot always tell that one understands. Pritchard, D. Epistemic Luck. The Pros And Cons Of Epistemology And Theory Of Knowledge 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). An overview of wisdom, including its potential relationship to understanding. If the latterthat is, if we are to understand grasping literally, then, also unfortunately, we are rarely given concrete details of its nature. 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. It is helpful to consider an example. Proposes an account of understandings value that is related to its connection with curiosity. ), The Routledge Companion to Epistemology. Epistemology is a branch in philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. Although a large number of epistemologists hold that understanding is not a species of knowledge (e.g. 824 Words. 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. View Shift in Epistemology.edited.docx from SOCIOLOGY 1010 at Columbia Southern University. Philip Kitcher and Wesley Salmon. Consider a student saying, I thought I understood this subject, but my recent grade suggests I dont understand it after all. 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). 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. ), Scientific Understanding: Philosophical Perspectives. Taking curiosity to be of epistemic significance is not a new idea. Is it problematic to embrace, for example, a contextualist semantics for knowledge attributions while embracing, say, invariantism about understanding? Toon, A. However, such a strong view would also make understanding nearly unobtainable and surely very rarefor example, on the extremely strong proposal under consideration, recognized experts in a field would be denied understanding if they had a single false belief about some very minor aspect of the subject matter. 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. 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. Often-cited discussion of the fake barn counterexample to traditional accounts of knowledge that focus on justified true belief. Would this impede ones understanding? The topic of epistemic value has only relatively recently received sustained attention in mainstream epistemology. 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. 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. When considering interesting features that might set understanding apart from propositional knowledge, the idea of grasping something is often mentioned. This is the idea that one has shifted, or changed, the way he or she takes in knowledge. 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. 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. 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. Epistemology is a way of framing knowledge, it defines how it can be produced and augmented. security guard 12 hour shifts aubrey pearsons oaks husband epistemological shift pros and cons. 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. Keplers theory is a further advance in understanding, and the current theory is yet a further advance. ), Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology. However, Grimm is quick to point out that defending one of these two similar views does not depend on the correctness of the other. 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. Secondly, one might wonder if Wilkenfelds account of understanding as representation manipulation is too inclusivethat it rules in, as cases of bona fide understanding, representations that are based on inaccurate but internally consistent beliefs. It seems as though understanding would possibly be undermined in a case where someone relying on the ideal gas law failed to appreciate it as an idealization. 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. Facebook Instagram Email. Her key thought here is that grasping the truth can actually impede the chances of ones attaining understanding because such a grasp might come at too high a cognitive cost. This is the idea that one has shifted, or changed, the way he or she takes in knowledge. 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). Some of Pritchards (for example, 2009) earlier work on understanding uses the terminology atomistic understanding as synonymous with understanding-why and indeed his more recent work shifts to using the latter term. Summary This chapter contains sections titled: Abstract Introduction Arguments Con Arguments Pro Ambivalence Concerning Relativism? 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. This section considers the connection between understanding-why and truth, and then engages with the more complex issue of whether objectual understanding is factive. In order to make this point clear, Pritchard suggests that we first consider two versions of a case analogous with Kvanvigs. An overview of issues relating to epistemic value, including discussion of understanding as a higher epistemic state. The following sections consider why understanding might have such additional value. De Regt, H. and Dieks, D. A Contextual Approach to Scientific Understanding. Synthese 144 (2005): 137-170. Explores the epistemological role of exemplification and aims to illuminate the relationship between understanding and scientific idealizations construed as fictions. According to Grimm, cases like Kvanvig admit of a more general characterisation, depending on how the details are filled in. Carter, J. 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. 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. Email: emma.gordon@ed.ac.uk On the one hand, there is the increasing support for virtue epistemology that began in the 1980s, and on the other there is growing dissatisfaction with the ever-complicated attempt to generate an account of knowledge that is appropriately immune to Gettier-style counterexamples (see, for example, DePaul 2009). Introduces intelligibility as an epistemic state similar to understanding but less valuable. 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). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. 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. Discusses and defines ability in the sense often appealed to in work on cognitive ability and the value of knowledge. 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). . 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. epistemological shift pros and cons - kaminokawa-shokokai.net Section 5 considers questions about what might explain the value of understanding; for example, various epistemologists have made suggestions focusing on transparency, distinctive types of achievement and curiosity, while others have challenged the assumption that understanding is of special value. 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. sustainability scholarship 2021; lost vape centaurus replacement panels; Thus, given that understanding that p and knowing that p can in ordinary contexts be used synonymously (for example, understanding that it will rain is just to know that it will rain) we can paraphrase Zagzebskis point with no loss as: understanding X entails knowing that one understands X. Kelps account, then, explains our attributions of degrees of understanding in terms of approximations to such well-connected knowledge. That said, the question of whether, and if so to what extent, understanding is compatible with epistemic luck, lacks any contemporary consensus, though this is an aspect of understanding that is receiving increased attention. Wilkenfeld (2013) offers the account that most clearly falls under Kelps characterization of manipulationist approaches to understanding. Criticizes Grimms view of understanding as knowledge of causes. 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. 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. A central component of Kvanvigs argument is negative; he regards knowledge as ill-suited to play the role of satisfying curiosity, and in particular, by rejecting three arguments from Whitcomb to this effect. One can split views on this question into roughly three positions that advocate varying strengths of a factivity constraint on objectual understanding. (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. This is a change from the past. Morris (2012), like Rohwer, also defends lucky understandingin particular, understanding-why, or what he calls explanatory understanding). In the study of epistemology, philosophers are concerned with the epistemological shift. 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. That said, Hills adds some qualifications. View Shift in Epistemology.docx from SOCIOLOGY 1010 at Columbia Southern University. 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). Pritchard, D. Knowing the Answer, Understanding and Epistemic Value. Grazer Philosophische Studien 77 (2008): 325-39. An earlier paper defending the intellectualist view of know-how. Morris, K. A Defense of Lucky Understanding. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 63 (2012): 357-371. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Discuss the pros and cons of the epistemological - Course Hero Shift in Epistemology.edited.docx - Running head: SHIFT IN 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. Contains Kims classic discussion of species of dependence (for example, mereological dependence). What kind of historical enterprise is historical epistemology? However, Pritchards work on epistemic luck (for example, 2005) and how it is incompatible with knowledge leads him to reason that understanding is immune to some but not all forms of malignant luck (that is, luck which is incompatible with 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. Sliwa, P. IVUnderstanding and Knowing. This holds regardless of whether we are Platonists or nominalists about such entities. 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. He says that knowledge about a phenomenon (P) is maximally well-connected when the basing relations that obtain between the agents beliefs about P reflect the agents knowledge about the explanatory and support relations that obtain between the members of the full account of P (2015: 12). (iii) an ability to draw from the information that q the conclusion that p (or that probably p). Elgin, C. Understanding and the Facts. Philosophical Studies 132 (2007): 33-42. For example, he attempts to explain the intuitions in Pritchards intervening luck spin on Kvanvigs Comanche case by noting that some of the temptation to deny understanding here relates to the writer of the luckily-true book himself lacking the relevant understanding. In this sense, the history of thought can be seen as the sometimes imperceptibly fluid, sometimes bizarre and abrupt, movements of our concepts. endangered species in the boreal forest; etown high school basketball roster. Resists the alleged similarity between understanding and knowing-how. As Elgin (2007) notes, it is normal practice to attribute scientific understanding to individuals even when parts of the bodies of information that they endorse diverge somewhat from the truth. Khalifa, K. Inaugurating understanding or repackaging explanation. Philosophers concern on epistemological shift - Eddusaver That is, there is something defective about a scientists would-be understanding of gas behavior were that scientist, unlike all other competent scientists, to reject that the ideal gas law is an idealization and instead embraced it as a fact. Elgin (2007), like Zagzebski, is sympathetic to a weak factivity constraint on objectual understanding, where the object of understanding is construed as a fairly comprehensive, coherent body of information (2007: 35). ), Virtue Epistemology Naturalized: Bridges Between Virtue Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. The Pros And Cons Of Epistemology - 1280 Words | Cram This is a change from the past. 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. 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. 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. epistemological shift pros and cons - consultoresayc.co This would be the non-factive parallel to the standard view of grasping. Toon (2015) has recently suggested, with reference to the hypothesis of extended cognition, that understanding can be located partly outside the head. Decent Essays. Pros and cons of epistemology shift Changes in epistemology even though they have received several criticisms they have significantly played a critical role in the advancement of technology. The Oxford Handbook of Social Justice in Music Education Wilkenfeld suggests that this ability consists at least partly in being able to correct minor mistakes in ones mental representation and use it to make assessments in similar cases. Whitcomb, D. Epistemic Value In A. Cullison (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. A discussion of whether linguistic understanding is a form of knowledge. Builds an account of understanding according to which understanding a subject matter involves possessing a representation that could be manipulated in a useful way. 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. Objectual understanding is equivalent to what Pritchard has at some points termed holistic understanding (2009: 12). For 121-132. Therefore, the need to adopt a weak factivity constraint on objectual understandingat least on the basis of cases that feature idealizationslooks at least initially to be unmotivated in the absence of a more sophisticated view about the relationship between factivity, belief and acceptance (however, see Elgin 2004). Establishes a pro position, supporting that the shift in how people take in knowledge is good. It is not only unnecessary, but moreover, contentious, that a credible scientist would consider the ideal gas law true. 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. Kvanvig, J. 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). Grimm, S. Understanding In S. Bernecker and D. Pritchard (eds. Emma C. Gordon 0. However, epistemologists have recently started to turn more attention to the epistemic state or states of understanding, asking questions about its nature, relationship to knowledge, connection with explanation, and potential status as a special type of cognitive achievement. It is controversial just which epistemological issues concerning understanding should be central or primarygiven that understanding is a relative newcomer in the mainstream epistemological literature. Kvanvig 2003; Zagzebski 2001; Riggs 2003; Pritchard 2010), Grimms view is rooted in a view that comes from the philosophy of science and traces originally to Aristotle. If Kelps thought experiment works, manipulation of representations cannot be a necessary condition of understanding after all. 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. epistemological shift pros and cons - roci.biz 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.. 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. Shift in Epistemology.docx - Running head: SHIFT IN Goldman, A. Explores the pros and cons with at least 2 credible sources. The next section considers some of the most prominent examples of attempts to expand on or replace a grasping condition on understanding. A restatement of Grimms view might accordingly be: understanding is knowledge of dependence relations. Make sure you cite them appropriately within your paper and list them in APA format on your Reference page. Uses the concept of understanding to underwrite a theory of explanation. Epistemological assumptions are those that focus on what can be known and how knowledge can be acquired (Bell, 8). Proposes a framework for reducing objectual understanding to what he calls explanatory understanding. Your paper should be 3-4 pages in length, not counting the Title page and Reference . The Myth of Factive Verbs. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 80:3 (2010): 497-522. A. and Pritchard, D. Knowledge-How and Epistemic Luck. Nos (2013). Running head: SHIFT IN EPISTEMOLOGY 1 Shift in Epistemology Student's Name Professor's Name Institution Grimm has put his finger on an important commonality at issue in his argument from parity. Section 2 explores the connection between understanding and truth, with an eye to assessing in virtue of what understanding might be defended as factive. Batterman, R. W. Idealization and modelling. Synthese, 169(3) (2009): 427-446. 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. He considers that grasping might be a modal sense or ability that allows the understander to, over and above registering how things are. For example, we might suppose an agent has a maximally complete explanation of how Michelangelos David came into existence between 1501 and 1504, what methods were used to craft it, what Michelangelos motivating reasons were at the time, how much clay was used, and so on. The distinctive aspects can be identified as human abilities to engage in mathematics and intellectual reasoning. For example, you read many of your books on screens and e-readers today. Another seemingly promising lineone that engages with the relation question discussed aboveviews grasping as intimately connected with a certain set of abilities.