epistemological shift pros and cons

Philosophers concern on epistemological shift - Eddusaver Khalifa, K. Understanding, Grasping and Luck. Episteme 10 (1) (2013b): 1-17. This is the idea that one has shifted, or changed, the way he or she takes in knowledge. This is the idea that one has shifted, or changed, the way he or she takes in knowledge. This skeptical argument is worth engaging with, presumably with the goal of showing that understanding does not turn out to be internally indistinguishable from mere intelligibility. To the extent that this is right, Zagzebski is endorsing a kind of KU principle (compare: KK). Many of these questions have gone largely unexplored in the literature. Discusses the connection between curiosity and true belief. Grimm (2011) also advocates for a fairly straightforward manipulationist approach in earlier work. Epistemological Problems of Perception - Stanford Encyclopedia of Kvanvig stipulates that there are no falsehoods in the relevant class of beliefs that this individual has acquired from the book, and also that she can correctly answer all relevant questions whilst confidently believing that she is expressing the truth. epistemological shift pros and cons Her key thought here is that grasping the truth can actually impede the chances of ones attaining understanding because such a grasp might come at too high a cognitive cost. The Epistemology Shift: Embrace The Change - GradesFixer These similar states share some of the features we typically think understanding requires, but which are not bona fide understanding specifically because a plausible factivity condition is not satisfied. security guard 12 hour shifts aubrey pearsons oaks husband epistemological shift pros and cons. However, Strevens nonetheless offers a rough outline of a parallel, non-factive account of grasping, what he calls grasping*. Hills herself does not believe that understanding-why is some kind of propositional knowledge, but she points out that even if it is there is nonetheless good cause to think that understanding-why is very unlike ordinary propositional knowledge. For example, I can understand the quadratic formula without knowing, or caring, about who introduced it. Suppose further that the agent could have easily ended up with a made-up and incorrect explanation because (unbeknownst to the agent) everyone in the vicinity of the genuine fire officer who is consulted is dressed up as fire officers and would have given the wrong story (whilst failing to disclose that they were merely in costume). In such a case, Kvanvig says, this individual acquires an historical understanding of the Comanche dominance of the Southern plains of North America from the late 17th until the late 19th century (2003: 197). The cons of the epistemology shift that is a major - Course Hero Scotland, U.K. A Weak Factivity Constraint on Objectual Understanding, Moderate Views of Objectual Understandings Factivity, Understanding as Representation Manipulability, Understanding as Well-Connected Knowledge, Understanding as (Partially) Compatible with Epistemic Luck, Newer Defenses of Understandings Compatibility with Epistemic Luck. Toon (2015) has recently suggested, with reference to the hypothesis of extended cognition, that understanding can be located partly outside the head. It is the idea that one has shifted, or changed, the way he or she takes in knowledge (Rayner, 2011).The fact that taking in knowledge has altered is evident in learning institutions today. We can accommodate the thought that not all beliefs relevant to an agents understanding must be true while nonetheless insisting that cases in which false beliefs run rampant will not count as understanding. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. ), Virtue Epistemology Naturalized: Bridges Between Virtue Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. Grimm anticipates this point and expresses a willingness to embrace a looser conception of dependence than causal dependence, one that includes (following Kim 1994) species of dependence such as mereological dependences (that is, dependence of a whole on its parts), evaluative dependences (that is, dependence of evaluative on non-evaluative), and so on. The underlying idea in play here is that, in short, thinking about how things would be if it were true is an efficacious way to get to further truths; an insight has attracted endorsement in the philosophy of science (for example, Batterman 2009). In other words, one mistakenly take knowledge to be distinctively valuable only because knowledge often does have somethingcognitive achievementwhich is essential to understanding and which is finally valuable. Firstly, achievement is often defined as success that is because of ability (see, for example, Greco 2007), where the most sensible interpretation of this claim is to see the because as signifying a casual-explanatory relationshipthis is, at least, the dominant view. Kvanvig (2003; 2009) offers such a view, according to which understanding of some subject matter is incompatible with false central beliefs about the subject matter. Zagzebski notes that this easily leads to a vicious circle because neglect leads to fragmentation of meaning, which seems to justify further neglect and further fragmentation until eventually a concept can disappear entirely.. It also allows attributions of understanding in the presence of peripheral false beliefs, without going so far as to grant that understanding is present in cases of internally consistent delusionsas such delusions will feature at least some false central beliefs. Epistemology - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Wilkenfeld, D. Understanding as Representation Manipulability. Synthese 190 (2013): 997-1016. The Epistemological Shift from Descartes to Nietzsche: Intuition and Section 4 examines the relationship between understanding and types of epistemic luck that are typically thought to undermine knowledge. In this respect, it seems Kelps move against the manipulationist might get off the ground only if certain premises are in play which manipulationists as such would themselves be inclined to resist. As Elgin (2007) notes, it is normal practice to attribute scientific understanding to individuals even when parts of the bodies of information that they endorse diverge somewhat from the truth. For a less concessionary critique of Kvanvigs Comanche case, however, see Grimm (2006). Strevens (2013) focuses on scientific understanding in his discussion of grasping. In particular, one might be tempted to suggest that some of the objections raised to Grimms non-propositional knowledge-of-causes model could be recast as objections to Khalifas own explanation-based view. Gettier, E. Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? Analysis 23 (6) (1963). A more charitable interpretation of Bakers position would be to read making reasonable sense more strongly. Contains Lackeys counterexamples to the knowledge transmission principles. On the other hand, there are explanationists, who argue that it is knowledge or evaluation of explanations that is doing the relevant work. Secondly, there is plenty of scope for understanding to play a more significant role in social epistemology. He claims further that this description of the case undermines the intuition that the writers lack of understanding entails the readers lack of understanding. Gordon, E. C. Is There Propositional Understanding? Logos & Episteme 3 (2012): 181-192. Utilize at least 2 credible sources to support the arguments presented in the paper. Of course, though, just as Lackey (2007) raises creationist teacher style cases against knowledge transmission principles, one might as well raise a parallel kind of creationist teacher case against the thesis that one cannot attain understanding from a source who herself lacks it. Specifically, a very weak view of understandings factivity does not fit with the plausible and often expressed intuition that understanding is something especially epistemically valuable. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. In Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (Hardback) (Vol. Discuss the pros and cons of the epistemological shift in an essay Put generally, according to the coherentist family of proposals of the structure of justified belief, a belief or set of beliefs is justified, or justifiably held, just in case the belief coheres with a set of beliefs, the set forms a coherent system, or some variation on these themes (Olsson 2012: 1). PHIL 201 AIU Philosophy Pros & Cons of The Epistemological Shift Essay Hempel, C. Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science. A second reason that adverting to grasping-talk in the service of characterizing understanding raises further question is that it is often not clarified just what relationships or connections are being grasped, when they are grasped in a way that is distinctive of understanding. ), Epistemic Value. With a wide range of subtly different accounts of understanding (both objectual and understanding-why) on the table, it will be helpful to consider how understanding interfaces with certain key debates in epistemology. Another significant paper endorsing the claim that knowledge of explanations should play a vital role in our theories of understanding. Essentially, this view traditionally holds that understanding why X is the case is equivalent to knowing why X is the case (which is in turn supposed to be equivalent to knowing that X is the case because of Y). As such, Khalifa is not attempting to provide an analysis of grasping. For example, if I competently grasp the relevant coherence-making and explanatory relations between propositions about chemistry which I believe and which are true but which I believed on an improper basis. This is a change from the past. But most knowledge is not metaknowledge, and epistemology is therefore a relatively insignificant source of knowledge. However, it is not entirely clear that extant views on understanding fall so squarely into these two camps. Although a range of epistemologists highlighting some of the important features of understanding-why and objectual understanding have been discussed, there are many interesting topics that warrant further research. According to Zagzebski (2001), the epistemic value of understanding is tied not to elements of its factivity, but rather to its transparency. Khalifa, K. Is Understanding Explanatory or Objectual? Synthese 190(6) (2013a): 1153-1171. Khalifa, K. Inaugurating understanding or repackaging explanation. 57-74, 2015. Kelps account, then, explains our attributions of degrees of understanding in terms of approximations to such well-connected knowledge. This is a point Elgin is happy to grant. Pritchard, D. Epistemic Luck. Discuss the pros and cons of the epistemological - Course Hero He argues that we can gain some traction on the nature of grasping significant to understanding if we view it along such manipulationist lines. Epistemology is the study nature of human knowledge itself. Make sure you cite them appropriately within your paper, and list them in APA format on your Reference page. So, on Grimms (2011) view, grasping the relationships between the relevant parts of the subject matter amounts to possessing the ability to work out how changing parts of that system would or would not impact on the overall system. But when the object of understanding why is essentially evaluativefor example, understanding why the statue is beautifulit seems that the quality of ones understanding could vary dramatically even when we hold fixed that one possesses a correct and complete explanation of how the statue came to be (that is, both a physical and social description of these causes). Our culture is shifting, Dede argues, not just from valuing the opinions of experts to the participatory culture of YouTube or Facebook, but from understanding knowledge as fixed and linear to a . epistemological shift pros and cons. Offers an account of understanding that requires having a theory of the relevant phenomenon. More generally, as this line of criticism goes, sometimes we simply mistake mere (non-factive) intelligibility for understanding. Nevertheless, considering weakly factive construals of objective understanding draws attention to an important pointthat there are also interesting epistemic states in the neighborhood of understanding. Open Document. Most notably here is what we can call linguistic understandingnamely, the kind of understanding that is of particular interest to philosophers of language in connection with our competence with words and their meanings (see, for example, Longworth 2008). Kvanvig does not spell out what grasping might involve, in the sense now under consideration, in his discussion of coherence, and the other remarks we considered above. This view, while insisting that central beliefs must all be true, is flexible enough to accommodate that there are degrees of understandingthat is, that understanding varies not just according to numbers of true beliefs but also numbers of false, peripheral beliefs. View Shift in Epistemology.docx from SOCIOLOGY 1010 at Columbia Southern University. Assuming that we need an account of degrees of understanding if we are going to give an account of outright understanding (as opposed to working the other way around, as he thinks many others are inclined to do), Kelp (2015) suggests we adopt a knowledge based account of objectual understanding according to which maximal understanding of a given phenomenon is to be cashed out in terms of fully comprehensive and maximally well-connected knowledge of that phenomenon. View Shift in Epistemology.edited.docx from SOCIOLOGY 1010 at Columbia Southern University. As such, his commentary here is particularly relevant to the question of whether gasping is factive. Kvanvig (2013) claims that both of these views are mistaken, and in the course of doing so, locates curiosity at the center of his account of understandings value. Grimm, S. Understanding In S. Bernecker and D. Pritchard (eds. For example, we might suppose that a system of beliefs contains only beliefs about a particular subject matter, and that these beliefs will ordinarily be sufficient for a rational believer who possesses them to answer questions about that subject matter reliably. ), Knowledge, Truth and Obligation. Summary This chapter contains sections titled: Abstract Introduction Arguments Con Arguments Pro Ambivalence Concerning Relativism? Your paper should be 3-4 pages in length, not counting the Title page and Reference . His view is that understanding requires the agent to, in counterfactual situations salient to the context, be able to modify their mental representation of the subject matter. As it turns out, not all philosophers who give explanation a central role in an account of understanding want to dispense with talk of grasping altogether, and this is especially so in the case of objectual understanding. Boston: Routledge, 2013. . As it were, from the inside, these can be indistinguishable much as, from the first-person perspective, mere true belief and knowledge can be indistinguishable. This view, he notes, can make sense of the example (see 3(b))which he utilizes against manipulationists accountsof the omniscient, omni-understanding agent who is passive (that is, an omni-understanding agent who is not actively drawing explanatory inferences) as one would likely attribute to this agent maximally well-connected knowledge in spite of that passivity. However, Elgin takes this line further and insists thatwith some qualificationsfalse central beliefs, and not merely false peripheral beliefs, are compatible with understanding a subject matter to some degree. When considering interesting features that might set understanding apart from propositional knowledge, the idea of grasping something is often mentioned. However, advocates of moderate approaches to the factivity of understanding are left with some difficult questions to answer. But, the chief requirement of understanding, for him, is instead that there be the right coherence-making relations in some agents collection of information (that is, that the agent has a grasp of how all this related information fits together. (For example, is it a kind of knowledge, another kind of propositional attitude, an ability, and so on? For example, while it is easy to imagine a person who knows a lot yet seems to understand very little, think of the student who merely memorizes a stack of facts from a textbook; it is considerably harder to imagine someone who understands plenty yet knows hardly anything at all. It should be noted that Hills 2009: 7 is also sympathetic to a similar thought, suggesting that the threshold for understanding might be contextually determined. Specifically, Hills outlines six different abilities that she takes to be involved in grasping the reasons why pabilities which effectively constitute, on her view, six necessary conditions for understanding why p. These six abilities allow one to be able to treat q as the reason why p, not merely believe or know that q is the reason why p. They are as follows: (i) an ability to follow another persons explanation of why p. (ii) an ability to explain p in ones own words. Consequently, engaging with the project of clarifying and exploring the epistemic states or states attributed when we attribute understanding is a complex matter. Riaz (2015), Rohwer (2014) and Morris (2012) have continued to uphold this line on understandings compatibility with epistemic luck and defend this line against some of the objections that are examined below. Pros and cons of epistemology shift Changes in epistemology even though they have received several criticisms they have significantly played a critical role in the advancement of technology. Kvanvig, J. The agents belief is justified and true, thanks to the fact that there is a genuine sheep hiding behind the rock, but the belief is not knowledge, as it could easily have been false. Early defence of explanations key role in understanding. Longworth, G. Linguistic Understanding and Knowledge. Nous 42 (2008): 50-79. The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding. Would this impede ones understanding? Pritchards verdict is that we should deny understanding in the intervening case and attribute it in the environmental case. Goldman, A. 1. That said, for manipulationists who are not already inclined to accept the entailment from all-knowing to omni-understanding, the efficacy against the manipulationist is diffused as the example does not get off the ground. Hence, he argues that any propositional knowledge is derivative. ), Fictions in Science: Essays on Idealization and Modeling. Argues that a type of understanding might be the norm that warrants assertion in a restricted class of cases. In the study of epistemology, philosophers are concerned with the epistemological shift. Grimm (2012) has wondered whether this view might get things explanatorily backwards. Explores the epistemological role of exemplification and aims to illuminate the relationship between understanding and scientific idealizations construed as fictions. But it is not strictly true.