On The Nature And Value Of Understanding In The Contemporary Epistemology

Looking back on the history of epistemology for more than two thousand years,philosophers have a lot of discussion about knowledge,but rarely focus on understanding.There is nothing wrong with focusing on knowledge,because we,as agent,always try to know the world.This will give us some cognitive benefits,as well as some practical gains.However,it is not enough to focus on knowledge,because it makes the domain of epistemology too narrow to ignore some cognitive states,such as understanding,which are more cognitively accomplished.Understanding,as the core concept of epistemology,can be traced back to "the value turn" of epistemology.This is a wave that has only been in its last two or three decades.Looking back over the past few decades,contemporary theory of knowledge has been a fierce debate about the definition of knowledge,which unfortunately has been in vain."The value turn" is a good end to this situation,and brings some non-cognitive concepts such as value,trust,responsibility into the theory of knowledge,which broadens the field of epistemology.From focusing on knowledge to focusing on more elements,"the value turn" is a good demonstration,and at the same time,it also triggers some thinking.Some philosophers believe that knowledge itself has no unique value,and that "understanding" is more valuable than knowledge,and that "understanding" should be the center of epistemology.However,what is understanding? What is its relationship with knowledge? Many problems have become an urgent problem to the theory of understanding.This paper starts from the two dimensions of essence and value,and tries to paint a clear and complete picture of the understanding of epistemology.In the first chapter,the historical context of the theory of understanding is explained,and it is carried out from the following two aspects: on the one hand,focuse on the internal development of epistemology through depicting how epistemology itself develops understanding from the theory of knowledge,and on the other hand,focuse on the change of the goal of epistemology with explaining how the goal of epistemology has shifted from monism to pluralism.In the second chapter,try to describe and frame the concept of "understanding",try to prove that understanding is a cognitive achievement,especially a strong cognitive achievement,in order to distinguish it from knowledge as a weak cognitive achievement.The reason why knowledge is regarded as weak cognitive achievement lies in the relatively simple cognitive ability involved,and the ability of function and judgment is easy for agent to grasp.Understanding is regarded as a strong cognitive achievement,because it involves relatively complex cognitive ability,explanatory ability and application ability is a high level of ability.Agent need to take a certain amount of thought to master.Secondly,it explores the classification of "understanding"."Explanatory ability" and "application ability" of understanding are more likely to be cognitive ability than practical ability.Furthermore,the object of understanding is discussed: understanding natural events and behavioral events.Understanding natural events and understanding behavioral events has some commonalities: understanding natural events requires grasping the relationship between natural events and the causes of their occurrence,and understanding behavioral events also needs to grasp the relationship between human behavior and the causes of their occurrence.However,applying the pattern of understanding natural events to understanding behavioral events can lead to the failure of understanding.It is easy for agent to understand human behavior based on their own opinions,value tendencies,and ways of seeing the world.Once there is a disagreement in opinions,value tendencies,and the way of seeing the world,it is likely that certain actions cannot be understood or even misunderstood.It is advisable for agent to hang over his beliefs,his value tendencies,and to devote himself to the situation of the agent,and to examine his actions in the way he believes and the way of seeing the world.Finally,the type of understanding is discussed.Although it can be divided into object understanding,atomic understanding and propositional understanding in terms of sentence pattern,in fact,object understanding and atomic understanding can all be transformed into propositional understanding.We try to prove it subsequently.In the third chapter,the necessary and sufficient conditions for understanding are discussed.Knowledge has long been regarded as the justified true belief with additional elements,and "understanding" as a substitute for knowledge has led most philosophers to believe that this is also the constituent condition of "understanding".However,some scholars have pointed out that "belief" is not a constituent condition of understanding,and in some special cases,there is the possibility that the agent understands p but does not believe that p.By analyzing the counterexample provided,it is pointed out that "understanding p and not believing p" leads to unacceptable results,either falling into the "Moore Paradox" or making "understanding" impossible to characterize the world,through which to justify "belief is the constituent condition of understanding".Some scholars have pointed out that "justification" is not a constituent condition of understanding,and it is possible that the belief of the agent is not justified,but he still has understanding.Analysis of the case provided,we indicate that the agent in the case does not have understanding.Justification is also an essential component of understanding.Of course,"truth" is also a necessary component of understanding.Generally speaking,the "truth" in epistemology refers to the truth in the sense of the correspondence theory.Some philosophers apply this view of truth to the theory of understanding,which encounters theoretical difficulties as follow.The objectivity of facts cannot be proved.Furthermore,the mapping relationship of "proposition-fact" is problematic,and even if the mapping relationship of "proposition-fact" is valid,the understanding of the cause of an event cannot find the corresponding fact.These make the correspondence theory not compatible with the theory of understanding.Understanding requires the agent to grasp the relationship between propositions,which makes it possible to the compatibility of the theory of understanding with the coherence theory.Finally,it is proved that understanding is not compatible with luck.In the fourth chapter,the value of understanding is explained.First of all,it discusses the proper expression of the value of understanding.When we talk about the value of understanding,we are not examining its practical value,but the cognitive value.More precisely,we are asking "is it better to understand that p than to know that p?" "This section provides a positive response and notes that the explanatory ability and application ability of understanding are providers of the value of understanding.Because the explanatory ability and application ability are high level of cognitive abilities,and the abilities of knowledge are relatively simple cognitive abilities,so understanding is most appropriate if you set an ultimate goal for cognition.From this point of view,understanding is the"fundamental" cognitive good,and it has the"fundamental" cognitive value.Secondly,the explanatory ability requires the agent to grasp the relationship between propositions.The relationship between propositions may correspond to the relationship between facts.This means that if the agent understands that p,then he has an insight into some deep structures of the world.Finally,understanding is an excellence cognitive state and a strong cognitive achievement,which reaches a height beyond the reach of knowledge.