Abstract
Recent work in epistemology and philosophy of science has argued that understanding is an important cognitive state that philosophers should seek to analyse. This paper offers a new perspective on understanding by looking to work in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Understanding is normally taken to be inside the head. I argue that this view is mistaken. Often, understanding is a state that criss-crosses brain, body and world. To support this claim, I draw on extended cognition, a burgeoning framework in cognitive science that stresses the crucial role played by tools, material representations and the wider environment in our cognitive processes. I defend an extended view of understanding against likely objections and argue that it has important consequences for questions concerning the nature of understanding and its relationship to explanation.
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Notes
Of course, these remarks are not intended as a wholesale rejection of Kitcher’s account. It may well be that Kitcher himself did not intend talk of “internalisation” to be taken too seriously and would be sympathetic to a view along the lines suggested. Thanks to Arnon Levy for discussion on this point.
I am grateful to an anonymous referee for suggesting this line of argument. The exact formulation is my own.
I would like to thank two anonymous referees for urging me to consider the implications of extended cognition for the ability view of understanding. Thanks also to Tom Roberts for very helpful discussion on this issue.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the editors, Raphael van Riel and Markus Eronen, for inviting me to take part in the extremely enjoyable and stimulating workshop on “Understanding Through Modelling” at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, which gave rise to this special issue. Thanks also to Giovanna Colombetti, John Dupré, Sabina Leonelli, Arnon Levy, Tom Roberts, Juha Saatsi, and two anonymous referees, for very helpful discussion of the ideas in this paper, as well as audiences at the 41st Annual Philosophy of Science Conference at the Inter-University Centre in Dubrovnik, April 14–18th 2014, a Departmental Seminar at the University of Exeter, May 19th 2014, the workshop on “Modelling, Simulating and Experimenting” at the University of Geneva, June 27–28th 2014, and the annual conference of the British Society for the Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge, July 10–11th 2014. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under Grant agreement No. 331432.
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Toon, A. Where is the understanding?. Synthese 192, 3859–3875 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-015-0702-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-015-0702-8