Abstract
Understanding has received growing interest from epistemologists in recent years, but no consensus regarding its epistemic properties has yet been reached. This paper extracts, but also rejects, candidates of epistemic properties for construing an epistemological model of understanding from the writings of epistemologists participating in the current discussion surrounding that state. On the basis of these results, a suggestion is put forward according to which understanding is a non-basic epistemic state of warrant rather than knowledge. It is argued that this move provides a satisfactory conciliatory answer to the central question whether understanding is a factive epistemic state. Some differences between understanding and knowledge are recorded along the way: for instance, that in contrast to knowledge, understanding does not require belief and that, even though neither knowledge nor understanding iterates, so that a subject can both know without knowing that she knows, as well as understanding without understanding that she understands, the reasons for the failure is different.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Kvanvig 2009a, 97–9 and 107. Concerning the role that “folk intuitions” should play in epistemology, the favorite example of this author is that most colleagues and students assent to the claim that strawberries are berries while denying that bananas are even though the converse is, in fact, true. Why, then, should folk epistemology carry more weight than folk botanic?
What does “worthy” depict here if not epistemic value (s)? One way to honor the commitment not to invoke epistemic values, would be to draw a distinction between epistemological significance and epistemic value. Epistemological significance depicts the theoretical values or integrity that purportedly epistemic states have and which thus epistemological investigations account for. Epistemic states may possess epistemological significance independently of whether they also possess epistemic value. This is obviously the case if there are no epistemic values, which might still leave the epistemological significance of states like knowledge intact, but there may also exist uneven distributions of epistemological significance and epistemic value over these states as well as lack of strict proportionality between them, possibilities which thus will not be further explored here.
Another exclusion that this author regrets to rapport is that outside analytic epistemology, the philosophical discussion of understanding within the hermeneutical tradition has been much concerned with the metaphysical status of the objects of understanding, in particular whether they must be intentional objects, and what bearings this issue has on philosophy of science and the disputed autonomy of the human sciences vis-à-vis the natural sciences. Despite their epistemological relevance, these issues will not be directly addressed in this paper (although it will be argued in sec. III that the relata of understanding must have propositional form).
Recently Khalifa has emphasized the explanatory nature of all understanding and thus resists any attempt to let understanding cover relations that do not include explanations, as objectual understanding purport to do. In Khalifa 2013a, he criticizes an alleged counterexample from Kvanvig 2009a involving indeterministic systems, for failing to show that we can have understanding without explanation. This author’s suspicion against letting explanation cover all relations that comprises understanding, including understanding within mathematics, logic and philosophy, does not rest on any stand concerning the possibility of reduction from understanding to explaining natural phenomena. (Khalifa mentions in passing that explanations are not absent in mathematics (Khalifa 2013a, 1163), but that is hardly sufficient to establish that they exhaust understanding within that subject.) Rather, such an inclusion seems to stretch the notion of explanation too far by including widely heterogeneous relations, nor is it clear that any similarities they may share are epistemic; as well as blocking the fruitful shift back and forth between understanding a theory and understanding the reality the theory covers discussed in sec. III below. The three examples also examined in sec. III below seem to involve at least some non-explanatory relations. To establish explanatory monopoly requires systematic investigation beyond what Khalifa provides (either in ibid. or in Khalifa 2013b), his successful rejection of Kvanvig’s alleged counterexample notwithstanding.
As stated above, this is but a first step; further down in this section we shall state internalist criteria for grasping and, as we shall see in section III, not just the grasping of any inferences will do.
Note that the point concerns any specific inference at hand; the claim is not that an understanding subject must make all the inferences that can be made from a set of relata. Thanks to an anonymous referee for prompting this clarification.
Or, if it was, then the propositional form would be deceptive precisely because the connectives connecting the relata would consist of nothing more than such a long conjunction rather than expressing an inference with the relata forming premises and another the conclusion. See Stroud 1979 who persuasively argues that Carroll’s argument can be interpreted as refuting such an attempt at complete propositional reduction. The paradox is originally found in Carroll 1895. It was Georgi Gardiner who at her interesting talk at XIXth Bled Philosophical Conference Knowledge, Understanding and Wisdom (published as Gardiner 2012) alerted this author to the significance of Stroud’s paper for epistemologically investigating understanding. Stephen Grimm’s talk at the same conference also prompted discussion along these lines.
The inferential character of understanding may also explain its earlier application to intentional objects within hermeneutics, as well as constituting the goal of scientific inquiry within philosophy of science. In the former case the understanding subject grasps the logical relations (in the wide sense of the term) between the relata that comprise the intentional object while in the latter case the scientist grasps the causal relations between the relata under investigation.
Although Grimm does not employ the category “objectual” understanding and thus does not draw the aforementioned distinction between objectual and propositional understanding, he can be interpreted as arguing along similar lines in Grimm 2010.
It has been objected to this argument that not all explanations are inferential and thus that the involved “because” is not a premise indicator in such cases. If this is indeed the case, then not all instances of understanding why are to be included in objectual understanding. Moreover, for those that are included thusly, precisely what inferences are involved in cases of understanding why is of course a matter of much debate to which this author unfortunately at present has nothing to contribute. If it would turn out that explanatory relations, or some other relation for that matter, are not genuinely epistemic, i.e. truth conducive, then these would have to be omitted from the list of those relations that the subject qualifies as understanding by grasping them. The present author, for instance, does not know what to say about “inference to the best explanation” in this regard. See sec. III below.
In the latter case, of course, me knowing that she is seems to amount to the same epistemic state. The account defended here does not depend on propositional understanding constituting a genuine epistemic kind distinct from, on the one hand, objectual understanding and propositional knowledge, or warranted belief, on the other. The distinction drawn in sec. I serves as nothing more than a preliminary. If, on closer scrutiny, presumed cases of propositional understanding in the end always collapse into one or the other, then so be it. Propositional understanding would then only appear as a surface phenomenon in our epistemic practice. The features proposed in this paper would then unite all genuine cases of understanding and the contrasts pointed out in the main text above would then be between knowledge and understanding instead of differences within the latter domain. In her paper (Gordon 2012) Gordon in fact precisely argues that there is no propositional understanding: all such purported cases should instead be re-classified as cases of knowledge, objectual understanding, or “atomistic” understanding, a category under which she places understanding why, when, where and what. Her thesis thus does not undercut or rebut the present proposal.
See, for instance, Alston 2006, 46 and 163, Kvanvig 2003, 200–2 and Sosa 2009, 192. Alston’s claim concerns a group of “epistemic desiderata” that he labels “[f]eatures of system of beliefs that are among the goals of cognition” (45) of which understanding is a member together with explanation, coherence and systematicity. This author shall take issue with the view that the relata must consist of beliefs in sec. III below.
Note here the qualification “directly”. To characterize understanding as a non-basic, detached, theoretical or intellectual epistemic state is not to deny that understanding through the meditation of the relata is factual, objective or captures domains of the external world. See sec. III below.
This author is thus in disagreement with Sosa who seems to argue for such enhancement of the relata in Sosa 2009, part II. Epistemic circularity is a recurrent theme of Alston’s epistemological writings, most recently expressed in Alston 2006, Ch. 9 sec. iv-vi. It may be the case that the epistemic value, as well as the epistemological significance to some extent, of understanding primarily resides in this increased stability of the relata.
If a new state, perhaps a belief, is instead generated as a result of any of the aforementioned inferences, then no circularity is per se involved and then whatever account of warrant of inference turns out to be adequate will apply to this case. We may also come across cases of overdetermination, where a relatum previously enjoyed independent warrant on its own, but then also come to receive warrant as following from other relata.
Also noted by Pritchard in Pritchard 2010, 75–6. In sec. III below, this author will agree with this last sentence, but with an important qualification.
One may note that understanding thus characterized is reminiscent of Sosa’s characterization of the broad coherence that constitutes reflective knowledge in Sosa 2009, 138, 191–3; a higher from of knowledge (contrasting with animal knowledge), which Kvanvig sees as similar to his view of understanding in several respects in Kvanvig 2003, 206.
A comment on the nature of the challenge may be in order. The challenge cannot simply be met, as elsewhere in epistemology, by pointing out that the internalist complaint consists in the externalist criteria being insufficient without invoking or adding one of access to these criteria; the challenge consists in allowing for an epistemic state where access is built into to that state, i.e. the grasping of relationships constitutive of understanding, without losing hold of the externalist criteria.
Another feature of understanding, which this author aligns himself to, is that understanding comes in degrees. Elgin, for instance discerns “three dimensions along which understanding can vary: breadth, depth and significance” (Elgin 2007, 36) where the first concerns the number of beliefs included in the understanding and the second how “tightly woven” they are. The account presented in this paper easily incorporates all these gradual parameters, but since this author readily allows that other divergent accounts also can do so, this author does not advance the gradual character of understanding in the main text.
See Kvanvig 2009b, 341–3, which is a response to Elgin 2009 who points to the fictitious and idealized aspects that some scientific theories contain, as well as to Riggs 2009 who also discusses the factivity requirement. Elgin elaborates her view in Elgin 2006 and 2007.
Kvanvig’s typically employs the phrase “body of information” to depict the object of understanding in Kvanvig 2003 and 2009a. Given the factivity condition he poses on understanding, Kvanvig seems to treat these bodies of information as being true, but this constraint is precisely what is at stake here.
Kvanvig adds the requirement of understanding the relation between the theory and its covered reality as well – at least in case of idealizations, which is the example Kvanvig is presented with by Elgin in the work referred to in the preceding note.
See Janvid 2012.
A fourth example in line with the third would be the understanding philosophers have of various competing philosophical positions concerning a certain unresolved issue where they possess understanding of the competing alternatives to the same extent even though not all these positions can be true and ahead of any verdict on which one of them it actually is. Although the identity of the object of understanding is dependent upon that verdict (see below), it seems highly unreasonable to deprive the losing side of understanding if we ever reach a final verdict on one of these issues.
The claim that understanding both sides of a dispute entails a deeper understanding of the dispute comes with some qualifications. For instance, the externalist constraints introduced below must hold of both sides.
Or too tight, if grasping could only occur if the relata were true.
Grimm distinguishes, following Salmon, between “subjective” and “objective” understanding where the former sense only requires an internal “fit” with the belief system of the subject whereas the latter requires an external fit with the world as well in sec. 3 of Grimm 2010. This distinction constitutes an improvement, but the distinction is underdescribed. Unless the externalist constraints given below in this section are imposed on the subjective side as well, this author is reluctant to grant subjective understanding any epistemic distinction per se.
The suggestion that the relata should be warranted, with or without externalist constraints, may give rise to the objection that understanding, just like knowledge, may be “Gettierized”. That understanding is immune to this possibility is on of the main motives for redirecting epistemology towards that state according to Kvanvig 2003. In response, this author argues in Janvid 2012 that exposure to Gettier cases is the prize to pay for epistemological significance.
That understanding does not possess such a high epistemological significance compared to knowledge is one of the points made in Janvid 2012.
See Janvid 2012. In line with the conditional character of understanding, the subject may need to have conditional beliefs of the form “If y is true, then z is true” where y and z are constituents of the object of understanding x, but the subject need not believe that either x, y or z is true.
Moreover, the subject must presumably have some true beliefs about x as well in order to be credited with having any understanding of x. For instance, the Marxist must believe, say, that Sweden was a monarchy both before and after the overthrow of king. The point stressed upon in the main text is that there is not the same connection between understanding and belief as there is between knowing that p and believing that p.
In Grimm 2010, Grimm distinguishes between straightforward assent and the qualified assent that subjects who understand idealized or false theories give. However, unlike the examples discussed here, this seems to be cases where the subjects understand that the theories in question are false or contain idealized aspects. His distinction may allow for cases where the subject is hesitant to assent to the theory in question, but not for cases where the subject gives unqualified assent, like the Marxist historian. It thus seems that the grasping can occur independently of whether the subject gives qualified, unqualified assent or, as suggested in this paper, any assent at all.
In his interesting paper, Khalifa 2011 who shares the ambition with this author of providing a more systematic epistemological account of understanding, instead of a piece mal approach that merely relies on our intuitive verdicts on certain cases, Khalifa makes the point that scientific anti-realists hold “that q is a correct explanation of p does not entail believing that q” (101, he explicates understanding in terms of explanation as is common within philosophy of science), but Khalifa requires that one must still believe “that q is the best available explanation of p” (102, italics in original) which seems to strong for aforementioned reasons. Nevertheless, since both Grimm and Khalifa have understanding why in mind, they may have spotted a difference between such understanding and objectual understanding.
To repeat, the variable does not vary over propositions here, but over objects of the kind that sec. I provides illustrations of. The occurrence of a “that”-clause in the consequent does not affect the subsequent point in the main text.
In line with the results from sec. II above, the access is less actual the weaker the access requirement becomes. The difference with respect to knowledge remains, nonetheless, in that no amount of extended reflection, or conceptual development on part of the subject, guarantees that the subject comes to know that she stands in the relation of knowledge with respect to p.
Note also that the more cumbersome formulation is not needed in case of the Marxist historian who precisely believes in the relata. They thus figure among his beliefs. The relevance of this example lies elsewhere in that the fact that he regards these relata, as well as the theory that contains them, as more warranted than they in fact are, does not impair his understanding.
References
Alston, W. (1989). “Concepts of epistemic justification” in epistemic justification (pp. 81–114). Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Alston, W. (2006). Beyond “justification” dimensions of epistemic evaluation. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Carroll, L. (1895). What the tortoise said to achilles”. Mind, 4, 278–280.
Elgin, C. (2006). From knowledge to understanding”. In S. Hetherington (Ed.), Epistemology futures (pp. 199–215). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Elgin, C. (2007). Understanding and the facts”. Philosophical Studies, 132, 33–42.
Elgin, C. (2009). Is understanding factive?”. In A. Haddock, A. Millar, & D. Pritchard (Eds.), Epistemic value (pp. 322–330). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gardiner, G. (2012). Understanding, integration and epistemic value”. Acta Analytica, 27, 163–181.
Gordon, E. (2012). Is there propositional understanding?”. Episteme III, 181–192.
Grimm, S. (2010). Understanding”. In S. Bernecker & D. Pritchard (Eds.), The routledge companion to epistemology (pp. 84–94). New York: Routledge.
Janvid, M. (2012). Knowledge versus understanding: the cost of avoiding Gettier. Acta Analytica, 27, 183–197.
Khalifa, K. (2011). Understanding, knowledge and scientific antirealism”. Grazer Philosophische Studien, 83, 93–112.
Khalifa, K. (2013a). Is understanding explanatory or objectual?”. Synthese, 190, 1153–1171.
Khalifa, K. (2013b). “Understanding, grasping and luck”. Episteme, 10, 1–17.
Kvanvig, J. (2003). The value of knowledge and the pursuit of understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kvanvig, J. 2009a “The Value of Understanding” in Haddock, Millar & Pritchard, 95–111.
Kvanvig, J. 2009b “Responses to Critics” in Haddock, Millar & Pritchard, 339–51.
Pritchard, D. (2010). “Knowledge and understanding”. In Haddock, Millar & Pritchard (Eds.), The nature and value of knowledge (pp. 5–88). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Riggs, W. 2009 “Understanding, Knowledge and the Meno Requirement” in Haddock, Millar & Pritchard, 331–338.
Sosa, E. (2009). Reflective knowledge. Apt belief and reflective knowledge (Vol. II). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stroud, B. (1979). Inference, belief, and understanding”. Mind, 86, 179–196.
Zagzebski, L. (2001). Recovering understanding”. In M. Steup (Ed.), Knowledge, truth and duty (pp. 235–251). New York: Oxford University Press.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to David Henderson, participants in the higher seminar in theoretical philosophy at the Department of Philosophy at Stockholm University in the fall of 2012 and an anonymous referee for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Janvid, M. Understanding Understanding: An Epistemological Investigation. Philosophia 42, 971–985 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-014-9531-0
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-014-9531-0