Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-15T07:52:49.038Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

FOLK ATTRIBUTIONS OF UNDERSTANDING: IS THERE A ROLE FOR EPISTEMIC LUCK?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 November 2016

Daniel A. Wilkenfeld ,
Dillon Plunkett  and
Tania Lombrozo
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

As a strategy for exploring the relationship between understanding and knowledge, we consider whether epistemic luck – which is typically thought to undermine knowledge – undermines understanding. Questions about the etiology of understanding have also been at the heart of recent theoretical debates within epistemology. Kvanvig (2003) put forward the argument that there could be lucky understanding and produced an example that he deemed persuasive. Grimm (2006) responded with a case that, he argued, demonstrated that there could not be lucky understanding. In this paper, we empirically examine how participants' patterns of understanding attributions line up with the predictions of Kvanvig and Grimm. We argue that the data challenge Kvanvig's position. People do not differentiate between knowing-why and understanding-why on the basis of proper etiology: attributions of knowledge and understanding involve comparable (and minimal) roles for epistemic luck. We thus posit that folk knowledge and understanding are etiologically symmetrical.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , March 2018 , pp. 24 - 49
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alexander, J. and Weinberg, J. M. 2007. Analytic epistemology and experimental philosophy. Philosophy Compass, 2: 56–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blouw, P., Buckwalter, W. and Turri, J. Forthcoming. ‘Gettier Cases: A Taxonomy.’ In Borges, R., C. de Almeida, and P. Klein, (eds), Explaining Knowledge: New Essays on the Gettier Problem. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brogaard, B. 2005. ‘I Know. therefore I Understand.’ https://sites.google.com/site/brogaardb/ (accessed 1 January 2013).Google Scholar
Cappelen, H. 2014. ‘Replies to Weatherson, Chalmers, Weinberg, and Bengson.’ Philosophical Studies, 171: 577–600.Google Scholar
Colaço, D., Buckwalter, W., Stich, S. and Machery, E. 2014. ‘Epistemic Intuitions in Fake-barn Thought Experiments.’ Episteme, 11: 199–212.Google Scholar
Craig, E. 1999. Knowledge and the State of Nature: An Essay in Conceptual Synthesis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cullen, S. 2010. ‘Survey-driven Romanticism.’ Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 1: 275–96.Google Scholar
De Regt, H. W. and Dieks, D. 2005. ‘A Contextual Approach to Scientific Understanding.’ Synthese, 144: 137–70.Google Scholar
Foley, R. F. 1996. ‘Knowledge is Accurate and Comprehensive Enough True Belief.’ In Kvanvig, J. L. (ed.), Warrant and Contemporary Epistemology: Essays in Honor of Plantinga's Theory of Knowledge, pp. 87–96. Savage, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Gettier, E. 1963. ‘Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?’ Analysis, 23: 121–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, A. I. 1976. ‘Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge.’ Journal of Philosophy, 73: 771–791.Google Scholar
Grimm, S. R. 2006. ‘Is Understanding a Species of Knowledge?’ British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 57: 515–35.Google Scholar
Hawthorne, J. 2004. Knowledge and Lotteries. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kember, D. 1996. ‘The Intention to both Memorise and Understand: Another Approach to Learning?’ Higher Education, 31: 341–54.Google Scholar
Khalifa, K. Forthcoming. In Understanding: An Epistemology of Scientific Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kvanvig, J. L. 2003. The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lombrozo, T. 2011. ‘The Instrumental Value of Explanations.’ Philosophy Compass, 6: 539–51.Google Scholar
Morgan, M. S. and Morrison, M. 1999. Models as Mediators: Perspectives on Natural and Social Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nagel, J., San Juan, V. and Mar, R. A. 2013. ‘Lay Denial of Knowledge for Justified True Beliefs.’ Cognition, 129: 652–61.Google Scholar
Pritchard, D. 2009. ‘Knowledge, Understanding and Epistemic Value.’ Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 64: 19–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenberg, J. 1981. ‘On Understanding the Difficulty in Understanding Understanding.’ In Parret, H. and Bouveresse, J. (eds), Meaning and Understanding, pp. 29–43. Berlin: W. De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Smith, R. 2014. ‘Explanation, Understanding, and Control.’ Synthese, 191: 4169–200.Google Scholar
Starmans, C. and Friedman, O. 2012. ‘The Folk Conception of Knowledge.’ Cognition, 124: 272–83.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Turri, J. 2013. ‘A Conspicuous Art: Putting Gettier to the Test.’ Philosophers’ Imprint, 13: 1–16.Google Scholar
Weinberg, J. 2006. ‘What's Epistemology For? The Case For Neopragmatism in Normative Metaepistemology.’ In Hetherington, S. (ed.), Epistemological Futures, pp. 26–47. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weinberg, J., Nichols, S. and Stich, S. 2001. ‘Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions.’ Philosophical Topics, 29: 429–60.Google Scholar
Wilkenfeld, D. A. 2013. ‘Understanding as Representation Manipulability.’ Synthese, 190: 997–1016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkenfeld, D. A., Plunkett, D. and Lombrozo, T. 2016. ‘Depth and Deference: When and Why We Attribute Understanding.’ Philosophical Studies, 173: 373–93.Google Scholar
Wright, J. C. 2010. ‘On Intuitional Stability: The Clear, the Strong, and the Paradigmatic.’ Cognition, 115: 491–503.Google Scholar
Zagzebski, L. 2001. ‘Recovering Understanding.’ In Steup, M. (ed.), Knowledge, Truth, and Duty: Essays on Epistemic Justification, Responsibility, and Virtue, pp. 235–51. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar