Understanding and the facts

Journal for General Philosophy of Science, 2019

Review of Explaining Understanding: New Perspectives from Epistemology and Philosophy of Science.

A new concept of understanding is articulated, modal understanding, which is characterized as follows: one has some modal understanding of some phenomena if and only if one knows how to navigate some of the possibility space associated with these phenomena, where by “possibility space" it is meant the set of possible dependency structures that give rise to all subsets of the phenomena and the relations between those structures. When fully articulated, the notion of modal understanding serves as a suitable concept of understanding that is appropriately neutral with respect to the debate on scientific realism.

What does it mean to understand something? What types of understanding can be distinguished? Is understanding always provided by explanations? And how is it related to knowledge? Such questions have attracted considerable interest in epistemology recently. These discussions, however, have not yet engaged insights about explanations and theories developed in philosophy of science. Conversely, philosophers of science have debated the nature of explanations and theories, while dismissing understanding as a psychological by-product. In this book, epistemologists and philosophers of science together address basic questions about the nature of understanding, providing a new overview of the field. False theories, cognitive bias, transparency, coherency, and other important issues are discussed. Its 15 original chapters are essential reading for researchers and graduate students interested in the current debates about understanding.

Philosophy of Science, 2009

This paper analyzes the epistemic value of understanding and offers an account of the role of understanding in science. First, I discuss the objectivist view of the relation between explanation and understanding, defended by Carl Hempel and J.D. Trout. I challenge this view by arguing that pragmatic aspects of explanation are crucial for achieving the epistemic aims of science. Subsequently, I present an analysis of these pragmatic aspects in terms of 'intelligibility', and a contextual account of scientific understanding based on this notion.

We attack the traditionally accepted view that a criterion of representational veridicality is a necessary condition for scientific understanding. To replace this ‘veridicality condition’, we propose an effectiveness condition on understanding: understanding requires representational devices that are scientifically effective; where scientific effectiveness is the tendency to produce useful scientific outcomes such as correct predictions, successful practical applications and fruitful ideas for further research. We illustrate our claims using three case studies: phlogiston theory versus oxygen theory for understanding of chemical phenomena; Newton’s theory of gravitation versus Einstein's general theory of relativity; and fluid models of energy and electricity in science education.

Synthese, 2015

It is often claimed—especially by scientific realists—that science provides understanding of the world only if its theories are (at least approximately) true descriptions of reality, in its observable as well as unobservable aspects. This paper critically examines this ‘realist thesis’ concerning understanding. A crucial problem for the realist thesis is that (as study of the history and practice of science reveals) understanding is frequently obtained via theories and models that appear to be highly unrealistic or even completely fictional. So we face the dilemma of either giving up the realist thesis that understanding requires truth, or allowing for the possibility that in many if not all practical cases we do not have scientific understanding. I will argue that the first horn is preferable: the link between understanding and truth can be severed. This becomes a live option if we abandon the traditional view that scientific understanding is a special type of knowledge. While this view implies that understanding must be factive, I avoid this implication by identifying understanding with a skill rather than with knowledge. I will develop the idea that understanding phenomena consists in the ability to use a theory to generate predictions of the target system’s behavior. This implies that the crucial condition for understanding is not truth but intelligibility of the theory, where intelligibility is defined as the value that scientists attribute to the theoretical virtues that facilitate the construction of models of the phenomena. I will show, first, that my account accords with the way practicing scientists conceive of understanding, and second, that it allows for the use of idealized or fictional models and theories in achieving understanding.

Epoché Magazine, 2023

This paper aims to provide support for a knowledge-based account of understanding. More specifically, I will outline an account of understanding according to which, roughly, (i) ideal understanding of phenomenon P is maximal knowledge of P and (ii) degrees of understanding of P are distances from maximal knowledge of P. In addition (iii), (i) and (ii) are combined with a contextualist semantics for outright attributions of understanding. I will argue that there is positive reason to favour this account over the internalist competitors offered by Kvanvig and Elgin as only this account can do proper justice to data concerning comparative degrees of understanding. Finally, it will be shown that this account does not fall prey to a number of attacks on knowledge-based accounts of understanding in recent literature, due to 1 Notice that objectual understanding may itself have propositional objects. Crucially, however, these objects will be what Kvanvig (2003, 192) calls "bodies of information" rather than individual propositions. 2