Understanding, Knowledge, and Scientific Antirealism
Grazer Philosophische Studien 83 (1):93-112 (2011)
| Abstract | Epistemologists have recently debated whether understanding is a species of knowledge. However, because they have offered little in the way of a detailed analysis of understanding, they lack the resources to resolve this issue. In this paper, I propose that S understands why p if and only if S has the non-Gettierised true belief that p, and for some proposition q, S has the non-Gettierised true belief that q is the best available explanation of p, S can correctly explain p with q, and S can identify the features that make q the best explanation of p. On this analysis, understanding is reducible to knowing that p and that q is the best available explanation of p. | |||||||||
| Keywords | knowledge understanding explanation antirealism science Gettier | |||||||||
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