“…This moral has not, to my knowledge, been drawn before in the literature. However, in a very recent paper, Alison Hills () argues (among other things) that understanding differs from knowledge in virtue of being compatible with epistemic defeat. Hills does not draw the conclusion that understanding is compatible with a lack of epistemic justification, but it is worth noting that her primary example is at least superficially similar to my case 2 (concerning Bernie and the con man): Suppose that you read in your [history text] book that Napoleon was tactically astute, and so on, and on the basis conclude that he was a great leader.…”
Section: Understanding Without Justificationmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…[… You] have the abilities required for understanding, your beliefs are correct and in short, you understand why Napoleon was great. (Hills, : 12)…”
Section: Understanding Without Justificationmentioning
In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest among epistemologists in the nature of understanding, with some authors arguing that understanding
“…This moral has not, to my knowledge, been drawn before in the literature. However, in a very recent paper, Alison Hills () argues (among other things) that understanding differs from knowledge in virtue of being compatible with epistemic defeat. Hills does not draw the conclusion that understanding is compatible with a lack of epistemic justification, but it is worth noting that her primary example is at least superficially similar to my case 2 (concerning Bernie and the con man): Suppose that you read in your [history text] book that Napoleon was tactically astute, and so on, and on the basis conclude that he was a great leader.…”
Section: Understanding Without Justificationmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…[… You] have the abilities required for understanding, your beliefs are correct and in short, you understand why Napoleon was great. (Hills, : 12)…”
Section: Understanding Without Justificationmentioning
In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest among epistemologists in the nature of understanding, with some authors arguing that understanding
“…Elgin's idea seems to be that grasping a proposition is a matter of being able to use the information in a certain way – e.g., as a basis for non‐trivial inference, reasoning, and maybe even action (when one's ends are cognitive). Hills () also defends an ability‐based account of grasping. She writes that “when you grasp a relationship between two propositions, you have that relationship under your control.…”
Section: Graspingmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…You can manipulate it. You have a set of abilities or know‐how relevant to it, which you can exercise if you choose” (Hills, , p. 663; emphasis added).…”
Can we transmit understanding via testimony in more or less the same way in which we transmit knowledge? The standard view in social epistemology has a straightforward answer: no, we cannot. Three arguments supporting the standard view have been formulated so far. The first appeals to the claim that gaining understanding requires a greater cognitive effort than acquiring testimonial knowledge does. The second appeals to a certain type of epistemic trust that is supposedly characteristic of knowledge transmission (and maybe of the transmission of epistemic goods in general) and that is allegedly incompatible with understanding. The third aims to show that there is a certain aspect of understanding (what epistemologists these days like to call “grasping”) that cannot be passed on to another person via testimony alone. In this article, I show that all of these arguments can be resisted. Thus, there seem to be no compelling reasons to embrace the standard view.
“…Similarly, Hills () takes the value of understanding to lie in the manner in which it mirrors reality on a formal level. I take the line I am taking here on these issues to be in general sympathy with that idea, although such talk of “mirroring” independent facts may not be apt for (say) constitutivists or constructivists when it comes to normative facts.…”
In this essay, I develop and defend a virtue‐theoretic conception of rationality as a capacity whose function is understanding, as opposed to mere truth or correctness. I focus on two main potential advantages of this view. First, its ability to explain the rationality of forms of explanatory reasoning, and second, its ability to offer a more unified account of theoretical and practical rationality.
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