The paper argues that an account of understanding should take the form of a Carnapian explication and acknowledge that understanding comes in degrees. An explication of objectual understanding is defended, which helps to make sense of the cognitive achievements and goals of science. The explication combines a necessary condition with three evaluative dimensions: an epistemic agent understands a subject matter by means of a theory only if the agent commits herself sufficiently to the theory of the subject matter, and to (...) the degree that the agent grasps the theory (i.e., is able to make use of it), the theory answers to the facts and the agent’s commitment to the theory is justified. The threshold for outright attributions of understanding is determined contextually. The explication has descriptive as well as normative facets and allows for the possibility of understanding by means of non-explanatory (e.g., purely classificatory) theories. (shrink)

In diesem Aufsatz entwickle ich eine Definition von explanatorischem Verstehen, indem ich dieses mit Wissen vergleiche. Erstens zeige ich, inwiefern explanatorisches Verstehen das Erfassen einer anspruchsvolleren Erklärung und eine anspruchsvollere Rechtfertigung verlangt als explanatorisches Wissen. Zweitens argumentiere ich dafür, dass die Erklärung den Tatsachen gerecht werden muss, explanatorisches Verstehen aber im Gegensatz zu Wissen nicht immer faktiv ist. Drittens verteidige ich die Auffassung, dass explanatorisches Verstehen, anders als Wissen, mit epistemischem Glück kompatibel ist. Als Ergebnis schlage ich vor, dass S (...) (in einem gewissen Ausmaß) versteht, warum p, gdw. S jede der folgenden Bedingungen (in einem gewissen Ausmaß) erfüllt: (a) S legt sich auf eine Erklärung E fest, die aus dem Explanandum p und einem Explanans besteht, das zeigt, wie p von q abhängt, (b) S erfasst E, (c) S ist fähig, E zu rechtfertigen, und (d) E wird den Tatsachen gerecht. Die Bedingungen (b) und (c) verlangen bestimmte Fähigkeiten: das Erfassen einer Erklärung die Fähigkeit, von ihr Gebrauch zu machen, und das Rechtfertigen einer Erklärung die Fähigkeit, zeigen zu können, dass sie die beste verfügbare und eine hinreichend gute Erklärung ist. Ich zeige, wie die Definition für objektuales Verstehen adaptiert werden kann, und argumentiere gegen eine Reduktion des explanatorischen Verstehens auf propositionales Verstehen. (shrink)

Die Erkenntnistheorie wird meist als Theorie des Wissens charakterisiert. In jüngerer Zeit ist der alleinige Fokus auf Wissen kritisiert und sind weitere epistemische Güter diskutiert worden. Verstehen und Weisheit sind von besonderer Bedeutung. Erstens ist Verstehen ein hohes und Weisheit vielleicht das höchste epistemische Gut; beide scheinen epistemisch wertvoller zu sein als Wissen (Riggs 2003). Zudem ist unklar, ob der epistemische Wert von Wissen den Wert seiner Bestandteile (z.B. wahre, gerechtfertigte Meinung) übersteigt. Es ist behauptet worden, dass sich für Verstehen (...) kein solches Wertproblem stellt und die Erkenntnistheorie deshalb Verstehen ins Zentrum rücken sollte (Kvanvig 2003; Pritchard 2010). Zweitens ist Verstehen ein Ziel von Wissenschaft (Elgin 2017) und von wissenschaftlicher Erklärung (Friedman 1974). Theorien der Erklärung und der kognitiven Leistungen der Wissenschaft verlangen deshalb nach einer Theorie des Verstehens (de Regt u.a. 2009). Drittens mag ein geeigneter Begriff des Verstehens es erlauben, tiefsitzende Intuitionen zur epistemischen Rechtfertigung anzuerkennen, die für Wissen zurückgewiesen wurden, z.B. internalistische und kohärentistische Intuitionen sowie solche zur Rolle von intellektuellen Charaktertugenden (Riggs 2003; Zagzebski 1996). Diese Idee ist kürzlich kritisiert (z.B. Greco 2014) und dafür vorgeschlagen worden, dass solche Intuitionen Merkmale von Weisheit betreffen (Grimm u.a. 2017, Kap. 10). Dieser Artikel behandelt die Natur von Verstehen und von Weisheit, indem er Verstehen mit Wissen und beide mit Weisheit vergleicht (für die Wertfrage s. Kap. „Der Wert des Wissens“). (shrink)

The major contributions of operationism have been negative, largely because operationists failed to distinguish logical theories of reference from empirical accounts of language. Behaviorism never finished an adequate formulation of verbal reports and therefore could not convincingly embrace subjective terms. But verbal responses to private stimuli can arise as social products through the contingencies of reinforcement arranged by verbal communities.

In the face of environmental crises such as climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss—which all adversely impact on health—Gils-Schmidt and Salloch explore whether physicians can be justified in taking climate issues into account in clinical care.1 While their approach centres on the ‘climate-sensitive’ decisions, physicians can carry out on the micro-level of clinical decision-making, they encourage further discussions on how climate-related issues can be included across different levels of decision-making in healthcare. We propose a list of tasks and a model (...) to assist with navigating the range of factors and structural elements an environmentally sensitive ethics must address. Stephen Gardiner’s notion of a perfect moral storm is central to understanding these issues.2 Gardiner describes how a perfect moral storm occurs in the centre of three overlapping conditions for human action and policymaking in the face of climate change. This storm is driven by: (1) a lack of interest among current generations to meet global needs and accommodate the well-being of future generations, (2) a lack of ecological concerns for other parts of nature than humans and (3) weak ethical and political theories and institutions shaping policy decisions on issues with severe implications across borders and generations. Moreover, these conditions are embedded in the existing, complex world of ethically unjustified power imbalances and social injustice. The growing awareness of healthcare’s climate footprint has amplified and accelerated global, grassroots action to make healthcare more environmentally friendly. This includes incorporating environmental impacts into quality improvement methodologies, building communities of practice to explore how to make …. (shrink)

_The VaKE Handbook: Theory and Practice of Values and Knowledge Education_ presents a theoretical model and many examples in various fields of education and training for the realization of the principle "Values without knowledge are blind, while knowledge without values is irresponsible".

Daniel Dennett is arguably one of the most influential yet radical philosophers in America today. In this volume, Dennett is confronted by colleagues and critics, from philosophy, biology and psychology. His reply constitutes an extensive essay which clarifies, and develops further, central themes in his philosophy. The debate ranges over Dennett's whole corpus, but special attention is given to his major work on consciousness, Consciousness Explained. The volume includes a critical assessement of Dennett's views on behaviouralism and the subjectivity of (...) consciousness, the nature of perception and mental representation, intentional laws and computational psychology, the rationality of thought, culture as a virus, the architecture of mind, and the role of artifacts in thinking. Also included is an introduction to Dennett's philosophy and a full bibliography of his publications. (shrink)

The main result of this paper is Theorem 3.1 which is a criterion for weak o-minimality of a linearly ordered structure in terms of realizations of 1-types. Here we also prove some other properties of weakly o-minimal structures. In particular, we characterize all weakly o-minimal linear orderings in the signature $\{ . Moreover, we present a criterion for density of isolated types of a weakly o-minimal theory. Lastly, at the end of the paper we present some remarks on the Exchange (...) Principle for algebraic closure in a weakly o-minimal structure. (shrink)

There is currently a debate over whether cognitive architecture is classical or connectionist in nature. One finds the following three comparisons between classical architecture and connectionist architecture made in the pro-connectionist literature in this debate: (1) connectionist architecture is neurally plausible and classical architecture is not; (2) connectionist architecture is far better suited to model pattern recognition capacities than is classical architecture; and (3) connectionist architecture is far better suited to model the acquisition of pattern recognition capacities by learning than (...) is classical architecture. If true, (1)-(3) would yield a compelling case against the view that cognitive architecture is classical, and would offer some reason to think that cognitive architecture may be connectionist. We first present the case for (1)-(3) in the very words of connectionist enthusiasts. We then argue that the currently available evidence fails to support any of (1)-(3). (shrink)

Human adults possess the extraordinary ability to produce mental imagery about a wide variety of non-occurrent events. We can, for example, simulate the perception of different places, different times, different possibilities, or others’ perspectives. Findings from cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, and cognitive neuroscience suggest that all of these capacities rely on the same neuro-cognitive mechanism: episodic simulation. This ability produces mental imagery by constructively recombining elements of past experiences to simulate event representations. However, if episodic simulation indeed produces mental imagery, it (...) remains unclear how the non-imagistic aspects of its outputs become cognitively determined. In this article, I argue that there are (at least) four such non-imagistic ‘dimensions’ of episodic simulation: specificity, temporal orientation, subjectivity, and factuality. Further, I propose an account of the mechanisms which might be responsible for determining where a given output of episodic simulation falls within this dimensional space. According to this view, episodic simulation relies on propositional ‘scope-operators’ either deployed as inputs to the simulation process itself or produced by post-hoc monitoring processes operating over its outputs. This view has consequences for how we should view the operation, development, and evolution of episodic simulation. (shrink)

This essay focuses on the theme of intersubjectivity, which is central to the entire Indo-Tibetan Buddhist tradition. It addresses the following five themes pertaining to Buddhist concepts of intersubjectivity: the Buddhist practice of the cultivation of meditative quiescence challenges the hypothesis that individual human consciousness emerges solely from the dynamic interrelation of self and other; the central Buddhist insight practice of the four applications of mindfulness is a means for gaining insight into the nature of oneself, others and the relation (...) between oneself and the rest of the world, which provides a basis for cultivating a deep sense of empathy; the Buddhist cultivation of the four immeasurables is expressly designed to arouse a rich sense of empathy with others; the meditative practice of dream yoga, which illuminates the dream-like nature of waking reality is shown to have deep implications regarding the nature of intersubjectivity; the theory and practice of Dzogchen, the 'great perfection' system of meditation, challenges the assertion of the existence of an inherently real, localized, ego-centred mind, as well as the dichotomy of objective space as opposed to perceptual space. (shrink)