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Understanding: not know-how

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Abstract

There is considerable agreement among epistemologists that certain abilities are constitutive of understanding-why. These abilities include: constructing explanations, drawing conclusions, and answering questions. This agreement has led epistemologists to conclude that understanding is a kind of know-how. However, in this paper, I argue that the abilities constitutive of understanding are the same kind of cognitive abilities that we find in ordinary cases of knowledge-that and not the kind of practical abilities associated with know-how. I argue for this by disambiguating between different senses of abilities that are too often lumped together. As a consequence, non-reductionists about understanding—those that claim that understanding-why is not reducible to knowledge-that—need to find another way to motivate the view. In the end, the fact that abilities are constitutive of understanding-why does not give us reason to conclude that understanding is a kind of know-how.

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Notes

  1. A version of this case was introduced in Pritchard (2010). I simply changed the cause of the fire from faulty wiring to batteries sparking for the sake of variety and as a genuine public service announcement.

  2. Some, such as Sliwa (2015), claim that the daughter understands here, but she just has very limited understanding. Despite this, there is agreement that for the daughter to understand better would be for her to have additional knowledge—knowledge-how to give an explanation. This nuance will be developed in more detail in Sect. 2.

  3. The following endorse a reductive view of understanding: Lipton (2004), Kelp (2015), Khalifa (2013a, b), Riaz (2015), Sliwa (2015).

  4. The following endorse a non-reductive view of understanding: Elgin (2007), Grimm (2014), Hills (2016), Lawler (2016), Pritchard (2014), Riggs (2003).

  5. For example, Grimm (2017, especially n. 2) and Khalifa (2013b) claim objectual understanding is not different from understanding-why. See, Elgin (2007), Kelp (2015), Kvanvig (2003), Riggs (2003), Wilkenfeld (2013), and Zagzebski (2001) for more on the uniqueness of objectual understanding.

  6. Emphasis in original.

  7. The following endorse anti-intellectualism: Adams (2009), Carr (1981), Devitt (2011), Ryle (1949), Wallis (2008). The following endorse intellectualism: Pavese (2015), Stanley (2011), Stanley and Williamson (2001).

  8. The following endorse a virtue theoretical approach to the nature of knowledge: Baehr (2006), Greco (2009, 2010), Pritchard (2010), Riggs (2009), Sosa (2009, 2015), Zagzebski (1996). There is an interesting debate within virtue epistemology whether or not epistemic virtues are best understood as character traits (Baehr 2006; Zagzebski 1996) or processes and powers of the mind (Greco 2010; Sosa 2015). For the purposes of this paper I focus on the view that epistemic virtues are powers and processes of the mind.

  9. The scope of the conditions under which one must get things right in order to have an ability is determined by the particular domain, subject matter, or practical context.

  10. Not only does Sosa discuss an triple-S structure of competency more generally, he also discusses epistemic norms through an AAA (triple-A) structure. For the purposes of this paper, we can discuss the general themes about ability using theory neutral language to broaden the lessons beyond Sosa’s view and perhaps even beyond virtue epistemology itself.

  11. The lines between ability functional and ability judgmental are blurry. Since I am arguing that both are constitutive of propositional knowledge, the precise line does not matter for our purposes.

  12. There is dispute over the way in which dispositions contribute to the nature of know-how. For an in-depth discussion on the difference between intellectualists and anti-intellectualists on the way dispositions contribute to know-how see Bengson and Moffett (2012). Despite this, it is enough for our purposes to stick with the dispositional approach adopted by virtue epistemologists.

  13. See Pavese (2015) for a discussion on the way that know-how is uniquely about practical tasks and for an account of practical sense.

  14. There is an objection to the first two abilities that Hills (2016) discusses. The objection is that one may not have any linguistic abilities and still have understanding. I think this objection is on track. After all, one can have knowledge without having any linguistic abilities to give a verbal answer to a “whether p” question. For simplicity’s sake I focus on cases in which agents already have an ordinary set of abilities, including linguistic.

  15. This may bring to mind Sosa’s triple-S and triple-A structure of competences. To have an innermost skill is to reliably get things right in a set of shapes and situations. My claim here is that if someone has an ability in one situation, then the person will also have the ability in a similarly relevant situation. For example, since I know how to drive, the exact road I am on, be it the BQE or the New Jersey Turnpike, I will still get on driving just as well. In the epistemic case, if I have the ability to see that the fire is caused by a particular battery in one house, I can make judgments about another house, or even concerning different battery types.

  16. See Sect. 3.3.

  17. For example, Hetherington (2006) argues for such a view.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the anonymous referee for very helpful comments and suggestions. For many other helpful comments and conversations, I would like to thank Nathan Ballantyne, Stephen Grimm, Diana Heney, Sam Kampa, Insa Lawler, Michael Strevens, Peter Siepel, Coran Stewart, and special thanks to John Mumm.

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  1. Philosophy Department, Fordham University, 443 E. Fordham Road, Bronx, NY, 10458, USA

    Emily Sullivan

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Sullivan, E. Understanding: not know-how. Philos Stud 175, 221–240 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-017-0863-z

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