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Scientific Understanding
Understanding is an ability manifested by grasping relations of a phenomenon and articulating new explanations. Hence, scientific understanding is inextricably intertwined with and not possible without explanation, and understanding is not a type of propositional knowledge. Anna Elisabeth Höhl provides a novel philosophical account of scientific understanding by developing and defending necessary and sufficient conditions for the understanding that scientists achieve of the phenomena they are researching. This account of scientific understanding is based on and supported by a detailed investigation of an episode from scientific practice in biology.
Explaining Understanding
What does it mean to understand something? What types of understanding can be distinguished? Is understanding always provided by explanations? And how is it related to knowledge? Such questions have attracted considerable interest in epistemology recently. These discussions, however, have not yet engaged insights about explanations and theories developed in philosophy of science. Conversely, philosophers of science have debated the nature of explanations and theories, while dismissing understanding as a psychological by-product. In this book, epistemologists and philosophers of science together address basic questions about the nature of understanding, providing a new overview of the field. False theories, cognitive bias, transparency, coherency, and other important issues are discussed. Its 15 original chapters are essential reading for researchers and graduate students interested in the current debates about understanding.
Asking and Answering
Questions are everywhere and the ubiquitous activities of asking and answering, as most human activities, are susceptible to failure - at least from time to time. This volume offers several current approaches to the systematic study of questions and the surrounding activities and works toward supporting and improving these activities. The contributors formulate general problems for a formal treatment of questions, investigate specific kinds of questions, compare different frameworks with regard to how they regulate the activities of asking and answering of questions, and situate these activities in a wider framework of cognitive/epistemic discourse. From the perspectives of logic, linguistics, epistemology, and philosophy of language emerges a report on the state of the art of the theory of questions.
The Social Fabric of Understanding
This book is a journey of in-depth exploration into the social dimensions of understanding. As human beings, we strive to understand the world around us. The path to understanding, however, is rarely walked alone; we walk the path with others. We understand more together, by joining forces, than we would understand alone. When we understand something and come to see things clearly, it is probably because someone else has taught us, enlightened us, shared his or her perspective with us, or shaped our environment so that our attempts to make sense of the world were likely to succeed. Understanding, then, is a social rather than an individual achievement. The book will be of great interest to philosophers working in epistemology, philosophy of science, and the philosophy of education.
Pragmatic Encroachment in Epistemology
According to philosophical lore, epistemological orthodoxy is a purist epistemology in which epistemic concepts such as belief, evidence, and knowledge are characterized to be pure and free from practical concerns. In recent years, the debate has focused narrowly on the concept of knowledge and a number of challenges have been posed against the orthodox, purist view of knowledge. While the debate about knowledge is still a lively one, the pragmatic exploration in epistemology has just begun. This collection takes on the task of expanding this exploration into new areas. It discusses how the practical might encroach on all areas of our epistemic lives from the way we think about belief, confidence, probability, and evidence to our ideas about epistemic value and excellence. The contributors also delve into the ramifications of pragmatic views in epistemology for questions about the value of knowledge and its practical role. Pragmatic Encroachment in Epistemology will be of interest to a broad range of epistemologists, as well as scholars working on virtue theory and practical reason.
Philosophy of Social Science
Philosophy of Social Science: A Contemporary Introduction examines perennial questions of philosophy through engaging the empirical study of society. Questions of normativity concern the place of values in social scientific inquiry. Questions of naturalism concern the relationship between the natural and the social sciences. And questions of reductionism ask how social institutions relate to the people who constitute them. This accessible text offers a comprehensive overview of debates in the field, with special attention to new research programs. Topics include the relationship of social policy to social science, interpretive research, cognitive and evolutionary explanations, intentional ac...
Inquiry
This volume brings together essays from several different perspectives on a topic in epistemology that is garnering increased attention: Inquiry. It is the first volume focused solely on philosophical issues related to inquiry. Inquiry is a fundamental human practice. We have questions, and we want answers. These questions span numerous domains and range from the trivial to questions of the utmost importance. Without inquiry, and successful inquiry in particular, our fate is bleak. Inquiry is also familiar. Everyone engages in inquiry. In fact, inquiry (of some sort) is something that we engage in every day. However, while inquiry is both fundamental and familiar, only recently have epistemo...
Understanding, Explanation, and Scientific Knowledge
The first comprehensive exploration of the nature and value of understanding, addressing burgeoning debates in epistemology and philosophy of science.
The Concept of Form in the Twentieth Century
This study provides a history of the concept of form in the twentieth century CE, focusing on the rise and character of relational theory. To some extent drawing on older traditions, relational theory accepts some aspects of modern particularism but moves beyond it by holding that relations simultaneously separate and connect. Particularity and generality are seen as aspects of relationality, and forms are viewed as complexes of relations. Prominent features of a relational view include: an avoidance of rigid structures through an orientation toward probability; multiperspectivity; possibility, not just particular actuality; continuity between the human and the nonhuman; and a valuational ra...
