Understanding

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Understanding is a cognitive process related to an abstract or physical object, such as a person, situation, or message whereby one is able to use concepts to model that object. Understanding is a relation between the knower and an object of understanding. Understanding implies abilities and dispositions with respect to an object of knowledge that are sufficient to support intelligent behavior. [1]

Contents

Understanding is often, though not always, related to learning concepts, and sometimes also the theory or theories associated with those concepts. However, a person may have a good ability to predict the behavior of an object, animal or system—and therefore may, in some sense, understand it—without necessarily being familiar with the concepts or theories associated with that object, animal, or system in their culture. They may have developed their own distinct concepts and theories, which may be equivalent, better or worse than the recognized standard concepts and theories of their culture. Thus, understanding is correlated with the ability to make inferences.

Definition

Understanding and knowledge are both words without unified definitions. [2] [3]

Ludwig Wittgenstein looked past a definition of knowledge or understanding and looked at how the words were used in natural language, identifying relevant features in context. [4] It has been suggested that knowledge alone has little value whereas knowing something in context is understanding, [5] which has much higher relative value but it has also been suggested that a state short of knowledge can be termed understanding. [6] [7]

Someone's understanding can come from perceived causes [8] or non causal sources, [9] suggesting knowledge being a pillar of where understanding comes from. [10] We can have understanding while lacking corresponding knowledge and have knowledge while lacking the corresponding understanding. [11] The exes understand things differently. Men are different to process a concept while women are usually sorrowful to process. [12] Even with knowledge, relevant distinctions or correct conclusion about similar cases may not be made [13] [14] suggesting more information about the context would be required, which eludes to different degrees of understanding depending on the context. [10] To understand something implies abilities and dispositions with respect to an object of knowledge that are sufficient to support intelligent behavior. [15]

Understanding could therefore be less demanding than knowledge, because it seems that someone can have understanding of a subject even though they might have been mistaken about that subject. But it is more demanding in that it requires that the internal connections among ones' beliefs actually be "seen" or "grasped" by the person doing the understanding when found at a deeper level. [10]

Explanatory realism and the propositional model suggests understanding comes from causal propositions [16] but, it has been argued that knowing how the cause might bring an effect is understanding. [17] As understanding is not directed towards a discrete proposition, but involves grasping relations of parts to other parts and perhaps the relations of part to wholes. [18] The relationships grasped help understanding, but the relationships are not always causal. [19] So understanding could therefore be expressed by knowledge of dependencies. [17]

As a model

Gregory Chaitin propounds a view that comprehension is a kind of data compression. [20] In his 2006 essay "The Limits of Reason", he argues that understanding something means being able to figure out a simple set of rules that explains it. For example, we understand why day and night exist because we have a simple model—the rotation of the earth—that explains a tremendous amount of data—changes in brightness, temperature, and atmospheric composition of the earth. We have compressed a large amount of information by using a simple model that predicts it. Similarly, we understand the number 0.33333... by thinking of it as one-third. The first way of representing the number requires five concepts ("0", "decimal point", "3", "infinity", "infinity of 3"); but the second way can produce all the data of the first representation, but uses only three concepts ("1", "division", "3"). Chaitin argues that comprehension is this ability to compress data. This perspective on comprehension forms the foundation of some models of intelligent agents, as in Nello Cristianini's book "The Shortcut", where it is used to explain that machines can understand the world in fundamentally non-human ways. [21]

Related Research Articles

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called theory of knowledge, it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowledge in the form of skills, and knowledge by acquaintance as a familiarity through experience. Epistemologists study the concepts of belief, truth, and justification to understand the nature of knowledge. To discover how knowledge arises, they investigate sources of justification, such as perception, introspection, memory, reason, and testimony.

Causality is an influence by which one event, process, state, or object (acause) contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an effect) where the cause is at least partly responsible for the effect, and the effect is at least partly dependent on the cause. The cause of something may also be described as the reason for the event or process.

Nyāya, literally meaning "justice", "rules", "method" or "judgment", is one of the six orthodox (Āstika) schools of Hindu philosophy. Nyāya's most significant contributions to Indian philosophy were systematic development of the theory of logic, methodology, and its treatises on epistemology.

Scientific evidence is evidence that serves to either support or counter a scientific theory or hypothesis, although scientists also use evidence in other ways, such as when applying theories to practical problems. Such evidence is expected to be empirical evidence and interpretable in accordance with the scientific method. Standards for scientific evidence vary according to the field of inquiry, but the strength of scientific evidence is generally based on the results of statistical analysis and the strength of scientific controls.

An explanation is a set of statements usually constructed to describe a set of facts that clarifies the causes, context, and consequences of those facts. It may establish rules or laws, and clarifies the existing rules or laws in relation to any objects or phenomena examined.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knowledge</span> Awareness of facts or being competent

Knowledge is an awareness of facts, a familiarity with individuals and situations, or a practical skill. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often characterized as true belief that is distinct from opinion or guesswork by virtue of justification. While there is wide agreement among philosophers that propositional knowledge is a form of true belief, many controversies focus on justification. This includes questions like how to understand justification, whether it is needed at all, and whether something else besides it is needed. These controversies intensified in the latter half of the 20th century due to a series of thought experiments called Gettier cases that provoked alternative definitions.

The epistemic virtues, as identified by virtue epistemologists, reflect their contention that belief is an ethical process, and thus susceptible to intellectual virtue or vice. Some epistemic virtues have been identified by W. Jay Wood, based on research into the medieval tradition. Epistemic virtues are sometimes also called intellectual virtues.

Bertrand Russell makes a distinction between two different kinds of knowledge: knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. Whereas knowledge by description is something like ordinary propositional knowledge, knowledge by acquaintance is familiarity with a person, place, or thing, typically obtained through perceptual experience. According to Bertrand Russell's classic account of acquaintance knowledge, acquaintance is a direct causal interaction between a person and some object that the person is perceiving.

Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski is an American philosopher. She is the Emerita George Lynn Cross Research Professor, as well as Emerita Kingfisher College Chair of the Philosophy of Religion and Ethics, at the University of Oklahoma. She writes in the areas of epistemology, philosophy of religion, and virtue theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virtue epistemology</span> Philosophical approach

Virtue epistemology is a current philosophical approach to epistemology that stresses the importance of intellectual and specifically epistemic virtues. Virtue epistemology evaluates knowledge according to the properties of the persons who hold beliefs in addition to or instead of the properties of the propositions and beliefs. Some advocates of virtue epistemology also adhere to theories of virtue ethics, while others see only loose analogy between virtue in ethics and virtue in epistemology.

Gaṅgeśa was an Indian philosopher, logician and mathematician from the kingdom of Mithila. He established the Navya-Nyāya school. His Tattvachintāmaṇi, also known as Pramāṇacintāmaṇi, is the basic text for all later developments. The logicians of this school were primarily interested in defining their terms and concepts related to non-binary logical categories.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to epistemology:

Jonathan Lee Kvanvig is Professor of Philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Declarative knowledge</span> Awareness of facts

Declarative knowledge is an awareness of facts that can be expressed using declarative sentences. It is also called theoretical knowledge, descriptive knowledge, propositional knowledge, and knowledge-that. It is not restricted to one specific use or purpose and can be stored in books or on computers.

The philosophy of medicine is a branch of philosophy that explores issues in theory, research, and practice within the field of health sciences, more specifically in topics of epistemology, metaphysics, and medical ethics, which overlaps with bioethics. Philosophy and medicine, have had a long history of overlapping ideas. It was not until the nineteenth century that the professionalization of the philosophy of medicine came to be. In the late twentieth century, debates among philosophers and physicians ensued of whether the philosophy of medicine should be considered a field of its own from either philosophy or medicine. A consensus has since been reached that it is in fact a distinct discipline with its set of separate problems and questions. In recent years there have been a variety of university courses, journals, books, textbooks and conferences dedicated to the philosophy of medicine.

The philosophy of archaeology seeks to investigate the foundations, methods and implications of the discipline of archaeology in order to further understand the human past and present.

Jan Faye is a Danish philosopher of science and metaphysics. He is currently associate professor in philosophy at the University of Copenhagen. Faye has contributed to a number of areas in philosophy including explanation, interpretation, philosophy of the humanities and the natural sciences, evolutionary naturalism, philosophy of Niels Bohr, and topics concerning time, causation, and backward causation (Retrocausality).

In the philosophy of science, epistemic humility refers to a posture of scientific observation rooted in the recognition that (a) knowledge of the world is always interpreted, structured, and filtered by the observer, and that, as such, (b) scientific pronouncements must be built on the recognition of observation's inability to grasp the world in itself. The concept is frequently attributed to the traditions of German idealism, particularly the work of Immanuel Kant, and to British empiricism, including the writing of David Hume. Other histories of the concept trace its origin to the humility theory of wisdom attributed to Socrates in Plato's Apology. James Van Cleve describes the Kantian version of epistemic humility–i.e. that we have no knowledge of things in their "nonrelational respects or ‘in themselves'"–as a form of causal structuralism. More recently, the term has appeared in scholarship in postcolonial theory and critical theory to describe a subject-position of openness to other ways of 'knowing' beyond epistemologies that derive from the Western tradition.

Definitions of knowledge aim to identify the essential features of knowledge. Closely related terms are conception of knowledge, theory of knowledge, and analysis of knowledge. Some general features of knowledge are widely accepted among philosophers, for example, that it involves cognitive success and epistemic contact with reality. Despite extensive study, disagreements about the nature of knowledge persist, in part because researchers use diverging methodologies, seek definitions for distinct purposes, and have differing intuitions about the standards of knowledge.

References

  1. ↑ Bereiter, Carl. "Education and mind in the Knowledge Age". Archived from the original on 2006-02-25.
  2. ↑ Zagzebski, Linda (2017), "What is Knowledge?", The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, pp. 92–116, doi:10.1002/9781405164863.ch3, ISBN   978-1-4051-6486-3, S2CID   158886670 , retrieved 2021-11-28
  3. ↑ Târziu, Gabriel (2021-04-01). "How Do We Obtain Understanding with the Help of Explanations?". Axiomathes. 31 (2): 173–197. doi:10.1007/s10516-020-09488-6. ISSN   1572-8390. S2CID   218947045.
  4. ↑ Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty , remark 42
  5. ↑ Pritchard, Duncan (2008-08-12). "Knowing the Answer, Understanding and Epistemic Value". Grazer Philosophische Studien. 77 (1): 325–339. doi:10.1163/18756735-90000852. hdl: 20.500.11820/522fbeba-15b2-46d0-8019-4647e795642c . ISSN   1875-6735.
  6. ↑ Kvanvig, Jonathan L. (2003-08-21). The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   978-1-139-44228-2.
  7. ↑ Elgin, Catherine Z. (2017-09-29). True Enough. MIT Press. ISBN   978-0-262-03653-5.
  8. ↑ Lipton, Peter (2003-10-04). Inference to the Best Explanation. Routledge. ISBN   978-1-134-54827-9.
  9. ↑ Kitcher, Philip (1985-11-01). "Two Approaches to Explanation". The Journal of Philosophy. 82 (11): 632–639. doi:10.2307/2026419. JSTOR   2026419.
  10. 1 2 3 Grimm, Stephen R. (2014), Fairweather, Abrol (ed.), "Understanding as Knowledge of Causes", Virtue Epistemology Naturalized: Bridges Between Virtue Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, Synthese Library, vol. 366, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 329–345, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-04672-3_19, ISBN   978-3-319-04672-3
  11. ↑ Pritchard, Duncan (2009). "Knowledge, Understanding and Epistemic Value". Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements. 64: 19–43. doi:10.1017/S1358246109000046. hdl: 20.500.11820/0ef91ebb-b9f0-44e9-88d6-08afe5e96cc0 . ISSN   1755-3555. S2CID   170647127.
  12. ↑ Clooney, George. "O brother where art though". Bluegrass Lyrics. Retrieved 15 December 2024.
  13. ↑ Hills, Alison (2009-10-01). "Moral Testimony and Moral Epistemology". Ethics. 120 (1): 94–127. doi:10.1086/648610. ISSN   0014-1704. S2CID   144361023.
  14. ↑ Hills, Alison (2010-04-29). The Beloved Self: Morality and the Challenge from Egoism. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-921330-6.
  15. ↑ Bereiter, Carl (2005-04-11). Education and Mind in the Knowledge Age. Routledge. ISBN   978-1-135-64479-6.
  16. ↑ Kim, Jaegwon (1994). "Explanatory Knowledge and Metaphysical Dependence". Philosophical Issues. 5: 51–69. doi:10.2307/1522873. ISSN   1533-6077. JSTOR   1522873.
  17. 1 2 Grimm, Stephen R. (2014), Fairweather, Abrol (ed.), "Understanding as Knowledge of Causes", Virtue Epistemology Naturalized: Bridges Between Virtue Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, Synthese Library, vol. 366, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 329–345, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-04672-3_19, ISBN   978-3-319-04672-3
  18. ↑ Zagzebski, Linda (2008-07-08). On Epistemology. Cengage Learning. ISBN   978-0-534-25234-2.
  19. ↑ Ruben, David-Hillel; Ruben, Director of New York University in London and Professor of Philosophy at the School of Oriental and African Studies David-Hillel (2003). Action and Its Explanation. Clarendon Press. ISBN   978-0-19-823588-0.
  20. ↑ Chaitin, Gregory (2006), "The Limits Of Reason" (PDF), Scientific American, 294 (3): 74–81, Bibcode:2006SciAm.294c..74C, doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0306-74, PMID   16502614, archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04
  21. ↑ Cristianini, Nello (2023). The shortcut: why intelligent machines do not think like us. Boca Raton. ISBN   978-1-003-33581-8. OCLC   1352480147.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
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