Is Understanding Reducible?

Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 63 (2):117-135 (2020)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Despite playing an important role in epistemology, philosophy of science, and more recently in moral philosophy and aesthetics, the nature of understanding is still much contested. One attractive framework attempts to reduce understanding to other familiar epistemic states. This paper explores and develops a methodology for testing such reductionist theories before offering a counterexample to a recently defended variant on which understanding reduces to what an agent knows.

Similar books and articles

Understanding in Epistemology.Emma C. Gordon - 2017 - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Understanding, Knowledge, and Scientific Antirealism.Kareem Khalifa - 2011 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 83 (1):93-112.
Explaining understanding (or understanding explanation).Wesley Van Camp - 2014 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 4 (1):95-114.
Types of Understanding: Their Nature and Their Relation to Knowledge.Christoph Baumberger - 2014 - Conceptus: Zeitschrift Fur Philosophie 40 (98):67-88.
Is There Propositional Understanding?Emma C. Gordon - 2012 - Logos and Episteme 3 (2):181-192.
The epistemology of understanding.Neil Cooper - 1995 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 38 (3):205 – 215.
Must Understanding Be Coherent?Kareem Khalifa - 2016 - In Stephen Grimm, Christoph Baumberger & Sabine Ammon (eds.), Explaining understanding: new perspectives from epistemology and philosophy of science. London, UK: Routledge. pp. 139-164.
Understanding and the Norm of Explanation.John Turri - 2015 - Philosophia 43 (4):1171-1175.
The omniscienter: Beauty and scientific understanding.Peter Kosso - 2002 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 16 (1):39 – 48.
Understanding, Explanation, and Scientific Knowledge.Kareem Khalifa - 2017 - Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Analytics

Added to PP
2018-12-13

Downloads
690 (#16,217)

6 months
84 (#18,988)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Lewis Ross
London School of Economics

References found in this work

Higher‐Order Evidence and the Limits of Defeat.Maria Lasonen-Aarnio - 2014 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 88 (2):314-345.
Understanding Why.Alison Hills - 2015 - Noûs 49 (2):661-688.
No understanding without explanation.Michael Strevens - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 44 (3):510-515.
Is understanding a species of knowledge?Stephen R. Grimm - 2006 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 57 (3):515-535.

View all 19 references / Add more references