10 Greco - Episteme_Knowledge and Understanding - Matilde Carreon

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Virtues and Their
Vices
EDITED BY
KEVIN TIMPE AND CRAIG A. BOYD
1
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Episteme: Knowledge and Understanding
John Greco
INTRODUCTION
The Greek word ‘episteme’ has been variously translated as ‘knowledge,’
‘scientific knowledge,’ and ‘scientific understanding.’1 None of these transla-
tions is ideal, but the translation in terms of ‘knowledge’ seems especially poor.
For example, Aristotle claims that one has episteme only if one can ‘give an
account’ of the thing in question. In particular, one must be able to give the
‘why’ of the thing. But certainly one can know that the cat is on the mat simply
by seeing it there, and without knowing why the cat is on the mat. Likewise,
one can know that the car will not start without knowing why the car will not
start. It would be odd if Aristotle were denying this.
Things get better when we consider the translation ‘scientific knowledge.’ It
does seem, for example, that scientific knowledge requires more than percep-
tion. And it does seem that scientific knowledge puts us in a position to ‘give
an account’ or explain why something is the case. On the other hand, science
often discovers that something is the case before discovering why it is the case.
For example, biology tells us that genes carry information from generation to
generation, and that as a result certain traits are inherited in predictable
patterns. But science told us this (we had this scientific knowledge) long before
science could tell us why this is the case or how it all works. Moreover, the
Greek ‘episteme’ seems to cover more than what science discovers and thus
more than scientific knowledge. For example, one can have episteme regarding
what things are good and how one should live, but these are questions that fall
outside the proper domain of science.
All this suggests that the Greek ‘episteme’ is much closer to the English
‘understanding.’ This includes scientific understanding, but goes beyond it as
well, to include such things as understanding how to live, understanding a
1 Cf. Hankinson (1995) and Shields (2012).
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historical event, and even understanding a map or a model. That is the first
thesis of this essay; i.e. that the Greek ‘episteme’ is more or less what in English
we call ‘understanding’. It would be surprising if the Greek and English
concepts corresponded exactly—if they picked out precisely the same thing.
We are separated too much in time and place to expect that. But in any case,
the Greek ‘episteme’ is much better translated as ‘understanding’ than as
‘knowledge’ or even ‘scientific knowledge.’
The second thesis of the essay is that an Aristotelian account of episteme
fares well as an account of understanding. More exactly: an updated, neo-
Aristotelian account fares well. Aristotle’s account of episteme is roughly this:
one has episteme of a thing when one has knowledge of its causes—when one
is able to give an account or explanation of the thing by citing its causes.
Episteme, according to Aristotle, is knowledge of causes.2 Our neo-Aristotelian
account ‘updates’ Aristotle’s account in several ways. Most importantly, we
replace Aristotle’s notion of ‘cause’ with a notion of dependence relations
more generally. Dependence relations are various, including relations akin to
Aristotle’s ‘four causes,’ but others as well, such as logical relations, mathemat-
ical relations, and various kinds of supervenience relation. The new account
amounts to this: to have understanding is to have systematic knowledge of
dependence relations. To understand a thing is to be able to (knowledgeably)
locate it in a system of appropriate dependence relations.3
The remainder of the essay proceeds as follows. In the first section we better
identify our target of analysis. In particular, we note some salient features of
understanding that any adequate account should accommodate. In the second
section we review the traditional Aristotelian account of episteme as know-
ledge of causes. Here we sketch the broad outline of Aristotle’s account, and
we notice how it already captures much of what we want to say about
understanding. In the third section we update the Aristotelian account and
we bring it into conversation with some of the contemporary literature on
understanding. Here it is argued that the neo-Aristotelian account fares
well against competitors. For example, the account preserves tight relations
among understanding, explanation, and knowledge of causes. It also allows a
unified account of various kinds of understanding, including mathematical
2 In contemporary philosophy, the claim that understanding amounts to knowledge of causes
is more popular in philosophy of science than in epistemology. On this point, see Grimm (2006).
For example, Peter Lipton writes, ‘Understanding is not some sort of super-knowledge, but
simply more knowledge: knowledge of causes’ (Lipton (2004), cited in Grimm).
3 The same idea is defended by Jaegwon Kim: ‘We think of the world as a system with
structure, not a mere agglomeration of unconnected items, and much of the structure we seek
comes from the pervasive presence of dependence relations. . . .My main proposal, then, is this:
explanations track dependence relations’ (Kim 1994). Grimm (forthcoming) explicitly defends
the position that understanding is knowledge of causes, but his notion of cause is very broad, and
so his position is close to the one found in Kim and defended in this essay.
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Nota adhesiva
Comprensión
understanding, philosophical understanding, and practical understanding.4
In particular, it nicely locates scientific understanding within a broader
account of understanding in general. The account also accommodates the
idea that there can be diverse objects of understanding, including ‘propos-
itional objects,’ such as theories and stories, as well as ‘non-propositional’
objects such as maps and models. In the fourth section we consider the value
of understanding. In the fifth section we answer two important objections to
the claim that understanding is a kind of knowledge.
UNDERSTANDING
In this section we note some salient features of understanding. These are
features that are widely recognized and that any account of understanding
ought to accommodate. We have already noted some of these features. For
example, we have noted that understanding is not the same thing as know-
ledge, since one can know that something is the case without understanding
why or how it is the case. A closely related point is that knowledge can be
isolated or episodic in ways that understanding cannot be. Thus one can know
individual or isolated facts about a subject matter, but understanding seems to
come in larger packages. Understanding ‘hangs together’ in ways that know-
ledge need not.5
Another widely recognized feature of understanding, also noted above, is
that understanding can have different kinds of object. Thus we often talk
about understanding concrete objects, or parts of ‘the world,’ such as a
particular ecosystem, or economy, or culture. But we talk about understanding
abstract objects as well; for example, theories, equations, and questions. We
also talk about understanding processes, models, graphs, and even people.
Again, understanding can have a wide variety of objects.6
Another salient feature of understanding is that it is closely tied to explan-
ation. To understand something is very close to being able to explain it. To
explain something, in turn, is very close to seeing how it ‘fits together’ with
other things—how it came about from prior causes, for example, or how it
otherwise ‘makes sense’ given some broader context. Thus understanding is
closely related to explanation, and explanation is closely related to making
sense of how things fit together.7
4 See the chapters in this volume by Wood and Baehr.
5 This feature of understanding is noted by, among others, Kvanvig (2003) andRiggs (2003).
6 This feature of understanding is noted by, among others, Elgin (1996), Zagzebski (2001),
and Riggs (2003).
7 This feature of understanding is widely noted in the philosophy of science. See, for example,
Achinstein (1983), Salmon (1984), Kitcher (1989), Woodward (2003), Cartwright (2004), and
Lipton (2004).
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Finally, it is widely recognized that understanding is more valuable than
mere belief, and even mere knowledge. Thus, at least typically, we prefer
understanding why something is the case over merely knowing that it is the
case. There is probably little consensus regarding why understanding is more
valuable than mere knowledge, or exactly in what sense. But at least this much
seems right: understanding is valuable in some important sense, and is (at least
often) more valuable than mere knowledge.
Here are some typical passages, taken from the recent literature on under-
standing, highlighting these salient features.
Understanding requires the grasping of explanatory and other coherence-making
relationships in a large and comprehensive body of information. One can know
many unrelated pieces of information, but understanding is achieved only when
informational items are pieced together.8
Understanding . . . is the appreciation or grasp of order, pattern, and how things
‘hang together.’Understanding has a multitude of appropriate objects, among them
complicated machines, people, subject disciplines, mathematical proofs, and so on.
Understanding something like this requires . . . appreciation . . . or awareness of
how its parts fit together, what role each one plays in the context of the whole,
and of the role it plays in the larger scheme of things.9
Understanding appears to be even more valuable than knowledge. . . .A head full
of trivia and detail is an amazing thing, but nothing compared with the reach and
sweep of a person of understanding, so if knowledge is a good thing, understand-
ing is even better.10
According tomany philosophers of science, for example, understanding is the good
at which scientific inquiry aims. On this way of looking at things, what scientists
want, when they begin their inquiries . . . is to understand the world (or at least
some part of it), where understanding the world involves something more than the
acquisition of true beliefs. More generally, and looking outside of science, under-
standing is often said to be one of the great goods that makes life worth living.11
In sum, we can list several widely recognized features of understanding. These
features play two important roles in an account of understanding. First, they
help us to identify our ‘target of analysis.’ That is, they help us to locate the
thing that our account is supposed to explicate or explain. Second, they help us
to evaluate an account that we (or someone else) propose. That is, an adequate
account of understanding ought to at least be consistent with these features.
Even better, an adequate account will explain why understanding has these
features—why understanding would be expected to have these features, if the
account being proposed is correct.12
8 Kvanvig (2003), 192. 9 Riggs (2003), 217.
10 Kvanvig (2003), 186. 11 Grimm (2010).
12 At the very least, an account of understanding ought to explain why understanding seems
to have these features, even if in the end we find that it does not.
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Here are the features we have identified:
� Understanding can have different objects, such as economies, ecosystems,
people, theories, stories, equations, and models.
� One can have knowledge without having understanding. One can know
that something is the case without understanding why or how it is the
case.
� Understanding cannot be isolated or episodic.
� Understanding is closely tied to explanation.
� Understanding is closely tied to being able to answer ‘Why’ and ‘How’
questions.
� Understanding involves grasping coherence, or seeing patterns, or seeing
how things ‘fit’ or ‘hang’ together.
� Understanding is in some important way valuable, and at least sometimes
more valuable than mere knowledge.
ARISTOTLE ’S ACCOUNT OF EPISTEME
According to Aristotle, episteme (variously translated as ‘knowledge,’ ‘scien-
tific knowledge,’ ‘understanding’) consists in knowledge of causes. To have
episteme is to know the cause of a thing.
An important aspect of Aristotle’s account concerns the relationships
among (a) episteme, (b) having the answer to ‘Why’ questions, and (c) being
able to cite causes. Specifically, to have episteme regarding some fact that p is to
have an account or explanation regarding why p is the case. To have such an
account, in turn, is to be able to (knowledgeably) cite causes. So again, episteme
consists in knowledge of causes.
Explicating Aristotle’s account, R. J. Hankinson writes,
To have scientific knowledge, then, is to have explanatory understanding: not
merely to ‘know’ a fact incidentally, to be able to assent to something which is
true, but to know why it is a fact. The proper function of science is to provide
explanations.13
In order to better understand what Aristotle has in mind, it is necessary to
review his theory of causation, or of what it is to be a cause. Famously, Aristotle
thought that there are four kinds of cause: efficient, material, formal, and final.
Aristotle’s notion of efficient cause is closest to our own notion of cause.
Roughly, an efficient cause is a source or agent of change. For example, fire is
13 Hankinson (1995), 110.
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the efficient cause of the wood’s burning. The explosion was the efficient cause
of the house’s catching fire.
But Aristotle recognizes other kinds of cause as well. A material cause is,
roughly, the material out of which a thing is made. For example, the material
cause of the house’s burning is that it is made out of wood. The material cause
of the vase’s breaking is that it was made out of glass. Here again we note the
close connection between Aristotle’s four causes and the various answers we
can give to ‘Why’ questions. For example, someone might ask, ‘Why is that
house over there in ruins?’ In some contexts, we will be inclined to cite the
efficient cause—it was a fire, an explosion. But in other contexts we might cite
the material cause—the house was made out of wood, or of straw. For
example, that is why the first two houses are in ruins, whereas the third
(made out of brick) is still standing.
A formal cause is a thing’s ‘nature’ or ‘essence’ or ‘what-it-is.’ For example,
we might say that ‘the cause’ of the dog’s barking is that it is a dog. In other
words, that’s what dogs do—they bark! Notice that we are inclined to say such
things in certain situations. For example, a guest sleeping at the farmhouse
might be annoyed at the roosters crowing. The guest might ask, ‘Why do those
roosters crow so early in the morning?’ Here a natural answer might be, ‘Well,
they’re roosters! That is what roosters do!’
Lastly, a final cause is an end or goal. It is ‘that for the sake of which a thing
is done.’14 The easiest place to see what Aristotle has in mind is in the case of
human action. Thus, we commonly answer ‘Why’ questions by citing what a
person is trying to do or trying to achieve. For example, ‘Why is she running
down the road?’ ‘Because she is trying to lose weight.’ Or: ‘Because she wants
to get home in time for dinner.’
Notice, finally, that we can answer the same ‘Why’ question by citing any
one of Aristotle’s four causes. Why did the house burn down? There was an
explosion (efficient cause). It was made of wood (material cause). The owner
wanted to collect on the insurance (final cause). We might even cite a formal
cause here: ‘Sometimes houses burn down,’ said in answer to the insurance
agent, trying to understand why this happened, just now, in this economy.
What do these various kinds of answers havein common? Put differently,
what do Aristotle’s four causes have in common? One way to think of it is that
they each cite some kind of ‘dependence relation.’ In other words, they each
cite some way in which one thing can depend on another. Thus the house’s
burning down depended on there being an explosion. But it also depended, in
various ways, on the house’s being made of wood, the owner wanting to collect
insurance, and the fact that houses are the sort of thing that can burn down.
Put differently, each of these things is relevant to the fact that the house
14 Falcon (2011).
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burned down. Consider: not everything can burn down, and not everything
that can burn down does burn down. To understand why this house burned
down—to understand it fully—requires knowing how the house’s burning
down depended on these various factors.
Think of a complex net, constituted by these various kinds of dependence
relations. According to Aristotle, to have episteme regarding some thing is to
know its location in such a net.
Finally, notice the tight relations between (a) Aristotle’s episteme, (b)
knowing the cause, (c) being able to cite the cause, (d) having an account or
explanation, and (e) having the answer to a ‘Why’ question. Our contempor-
ary concept of understanding, we have seen, displays similar tight relations.
This is a clue to a close relationship between Aristotle’s episteme and our
understanding.
A NEO-ARISTOTELIAN ACCOUNT OF
UNDERSTANDING
In this section we update Aristotle’s account of episteme so as to turn it into a
plausible account of our understanding.
First, we replace Aristotle’s ‘four causes’ with dependence relations in
general. Aristotle, we have seen, recognizes (a) efficient causal relations, (b)
constitutive (or ‘material’) relations, (c) essential (or ‘formal’) relations, and
(d) teleological (or ‘final’) relations. All of these, we have said, are various sorts
of dependence relations—they are ways in which one thing (or process, or
event) can depend on another. But there are other dependence relations as
well. For example, there are (e) part-whole or ‘mereological’ relations, (f )
logical and mathematical relations, (g) conceptual relations, and (h) super-
venience relations of varying strength. This list is meant to be neither exclusive
nor exhaustive. Rather, the substantive point is that there are many and
various dependence relations, and understanding centrally involves know-
ledge of these. Again, think of a complex net of many and various modally
strong dependence relations. According to the present account, to have
understanding regarding some thing is to know its location in such a net.
The present account preserves close relations between (a) understanding,
(b) knowing the cause, (c) being able to cite the cause, (d) having an account or
explanation, and (e) having answers to ‘Why’ questions. Another feature of the
account is that it makes causal explanation (in our more restricted sense of
‘cause’) a species of explanation in general. To have an explanation is to be able
to cite appropriate dependence relations. To have a causal explanation is to be
able to cite causal relations. In similar fashion, the account makes scientific
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understanding and explanation (in our more restricted sense of ‘science’) a
species of understanding and explanation in general, including mathematical
understanding and explanation, philosophical understanding and explan-
ation, and practical understanding and explanation.
Our second update is to stress that understanding consists in systematic
knowledge of dependence relations. Put differently, understanding consists in
knowledge of a system of dependence relations. This accommodates the idea
that understanding, unlike mere knowledge, cannot be isolated.15 It also
accommodates the idea that understanding comes in degrees, in terms of
both breadth and depth. We can think of ‘depth of understanding’ in terms
of ‘depth of knowledge,’ where the latter corresponds to knowledge of more
fundamental dependence relations. Likewise, we can think of ‘breadth of
understanding’ in terms of ‘breath of knowledge,’ where the latter corresponds
to knowledge of more diverse dependence relations.
The present account also accommodates the idea that understanding can
have diverse objects of understanding. In particular, it accommodates the idea
that understanding can have ‘non-propositional’ objects, such as maps,
graphs, pictures, and models, as well as ‘propositional’ objects such as theories,
narratives, and mathematical equations. This is because all of these involve
complex representations of relations, or representations of complexes of
relations.
Our two ‘updates’ together also accommodate close relations between (a)
understanding, (b) knowledge how to do something, and (c) knowing how
something works. Notice that ‘knowledge how to do something’ is ambiguous
between (a) having cognitive knowledge of how to do something, and (b)
being able to do something oneself. For example, the old and out of shape
gymnastics coach ‘knows how’ to do a standing backflip in the former sense—
he knows the mechanics involved, the proper sequence of steps, etc. But he
can’t do a standing backflip himself! Perhaps he never could. In contrast, the
star gymnast knows how to do the backflip in the latter sense—she can
perform one. But she might not know how to explain or teach the backflip
to someone else. She might not ‘know how’ to do it in the former sense. We
may now see that understanding tracks the former concept. Our star gymnast
can perform a standing backflip, but does not understand how it is done.
So far, we have that understanding consists in a systematic knowledge of
dependence relations, where both relations and relata (the objects of the
relations) may be of various sorts. This allows a further distinction among
15 Not everyone agrees that understanding cannot be isolated. Thus Grimm (forthcoming)
thinks, contra Pritchard, that one can understand that faulty wiring caused the fire while in
ignorance of how faulty wiring might do that. If Grimm is right on this point, then isolated
knowledge of a cause can be considered as a limit case of knowledge of a system of causes.
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the various objects of understanding, one that will become important later. In
particular, understanding can take as its object:
(a) A system of ‘real’ relations, or relations ‘in the world’; for example: an
ecosystem, an economy, a machine, a historical event.
(b) A representation of a real system; for example: a theory, a narrative, a
model, a set of equations.
(c) The relations between a real system and a representation; for example:
relations between a model and the economy that it represents, relations
between a theory and a causal process that it represents, relations
between a diagram and a machine that it represents, relations between
a narrative and a historical event that it represents.
In each case, we can make a distinction between the object of understanding
and the vehicle of understanding, i.e. between the thing understood and its
representation. In case (a), understanding will involve a representation of some
part of ‘the world’. In case (b), understanding will involve a representation of a
representation. In case (c), understanding will involve a representation of
a relation between representation and world.
To summarize, understanding consists in a systematic knowledge of
dependence relations, where dependence relations can be of various sorts,
including ‘real’ relations between parts of the world, conceptual and logical
relations between parts of a theory, and semantic relations between theory
and world. Our neo-Aristotelian account also explains why scientific explan-
ation is only one kind of explanation, and it locates scientific understanding
within a unified account of understanding in general.This ‘understanding of
understanding’ also accommodates our various pre-theoretical data nicely. In
particular: it explains why one can have knowledge without having under-
standing; why understanding cannot be isolated or episodic; why under-
standing is closely tied to explanation and answering ‘Why’ questions; and
why understanding involves coherence, especially explanatory coherence. In
the next section we consider the value of understanding.
THE VALUE OF UNDERSTANDING
An adequate account of understanding ought to explain the value of under-
standing. That is, it ought to explain why understanding is valuable, and why it
is at least often more valuable than mere knowledge. In one sense, the neo-
Aristotelian account does this straightforwardly. Specifically, it identifies
understanding with a kind of knowledge, and so on the present account
understanding inherits the value of knowledge in general. Moreover, under-
standing always involves a system of knowledge rather than mere episodic
Episteme: Knowledge and Understanding 293
knowledge. But if more knowledge is more valuable than less, then there is a
straightforward sense in which understanding will often be more valuable than
mere knowledge. Finally, understanding involves knowledge of an especially
valuable sort; that is, understanding involves knowledge why and knowledge
how, including knowledge how to live. Plausibly, these kinds of knowledge are
more valuable than other kinds of knowledge, or at least some other kinds of
knowledge.
The present account claims that understanding is valuable because under-
standing is a kind of knowledge, and knowledge is valuable. But why is
knowledge valuable? That is itself a difficult and controversial issue. I cannot
pretend to settle it here, but I will describe what I take to be the best answer.
Whether or not that answer is right, however, the more superficial point
holds: on the present account, understanding is systematic knowledge of an
important kind, and that in itself goes some way toward explaining why
understanding is valuable, and at least sometimes more valuable than mere
knowledge, i.e. knowledge that does not qualify as understanding.
So why is knowledge valuable? One reason is that knowledge is instrumen-
tally valuable. That is, knowledge helps us to achieve our goals, to get what we
want. For example, knowing that the road goes to Larissa will help me to get
there. Knowing that the mushroom is poisonous will help keep me alive.
But many will think that knowledge is more than instrumentally valuable—
it is also valuable as an end in itself. In the language of value theory, knowledge
has ‘final’ value. But how so? The best answer that I know is that knowledge is
a kind of achievement—a kind of success from ability, as opposed to mere
lucky success. And in general, we value success from ability (we value achieve-
ment) over mere lucky success. This point is closely related to Aristotle’s idea
that virtuous activity is an end in itself. In fact, Aristotle thought, virtuous
(or excellent) activity is the highest good for human beings. Insofar as know-
ledge is a kind of excellent activity, and understanding is a kind of knowledge,
both inherit the kind of value that Aristotle attributed to excellent activity in
general.16
TWO OBJECTIONS TO THE NEO-ARISTOTELIAN
ACCOUNT OF UNDERSTANDING
The neo-Aristotelian account, we have seen, has much to recommend it. It
does face objections, however, two of which will be considered in this section.
16 I defend this account of the value of knowledge in Greco (2003) and (2010), especially
chapter 6. For extended discussions concerning the value of understanding, see Zagzebski (2001),
Kvanvig (2003), Riggs (2003), and Pritchard (2010).
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The two objections sound a common theme: that understanding is not a kind
of knowledge at all, and therefore cannot be understood as knowledge of
dependence relations. The first argument that understanding is not a kind of
knowledge goes as follows: knowledge is ‘factive,’ in the sense that something
cannot count as knowledge unless it is true. Otherwise put, knowledge entails
truth. But understanding is not like this, the objection goes. Understanding
does not entail truth.17 The second objection is a bit harder to state in short
form. The general idea, though, is that knowledge is inconsistent with luck in a
way that understanding is not. Otherwise put, knowledge cannot be lucky (in
certain respects) whereas understanding can be.18
Understanding and Truth
According to the first objection, understanding can’t be a kind of knowledge
because understanding is not factive, whereas knowledge is. Catherine Elgin
has developed a powerful version of this kind of objection. According to Elgin,
understanding need only be ‘true enough,’ as opposed to strictly true. In fact,
Elgin argues, this feature is essential to an adequate account of understanding.
First, if we restrict understanding to what is true, then much of what we count
as understanding falls by the wayside. In fact, what seem to be paradigm
instances of understanding will no longer count.
Despite the fact that Copernicus’s central claim was strictly false, the theory it
belongs to constitutes a major advance in understanding over the Ptolemaic
theory it replaced. Kepler’s theory is a further advance in understanding, and
the current theory is yet a further advance. The advances are clearly cognitive
advances. With each step in the sequence, we understand the motion of the
planets better than we did before. But no one claims that science has as yet arrived
at the truth about the motion of the planets.19
Second, if we think that understanding must be true, then we will miss much
about the nature and role scientific theories, and the relationship of such
theories to scientific understanding.
. . . science routinely transgresses the boundary between truth and falsehood. It
smoothes curves and ignores outliers. It develops and deploys simplified models
that diverge, sometimes considerably, from the phenomena they purport to
represent. Even the best scientific theories are not true.20
The problem comes with the laws, models, idealizations, and approximations
which are acknowledged not to be true, but which are nonetheless critical to,
17 Elgin (2004) and (2007). 18 Kvanvig (2003).
19 Elgin (2007), 37–8. 20 Elgin (2004), 113.
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indeed constitutive of, the understanding that science delivers. Far from being
defects, they figure ineliminably in the success of science.21
The point can be generalized.
Nor is science the only casualty. In other disciplines such as philosophy, and in
everyday discourse, we often convey information and advance understanding by
means of sentences that are not literally true. An adequate epistemology should
account for this as well.22
Here are some examples that Elgin uses to make her point.
Ceteris paribus claims: Many lawlike claims in science obtain only ceteris paribus.
The familiar law of gravity
F ¼ Gm1m2=r2
is not universally true, for other forces may be in play. The force between charged
bodies, for example, is a resultant of electrical and gravitational forces. Neverthe-
less, we are not inclined to jettison the law of gravity.
Idealizations: Some laws never obtain. They characterize ideal cases that do
not, perhaps cannot, occur in nature. The ideal gas law represents gas molecules
as perfectly elastic spheres that occupy negligible space and exhibit no mutual
attraction. There are no such molecules. Explanations that adduce the ideal gas
law would be epistemically unacceptable if abject fidelity to truth were required.
Curve smoothing: Ordinarily, each data point is supposed to represent an
independently ascertained truth. (The temperature at t1, the temperature at
t2 . . . ) By interpolating between and extrapolating beyond these truths, we expect
to discern the pattern they instantiate. If the curve we draw connectsthe data
points, this is reasonable. But the data rarely fall precisely on the curve adduced to
account for them. The curve then reveals a pattern that the data do not in-
stantiate. . . .Unwavering commitment to truth would seem then to require
connecting all the data points no matter how convoluted the resulting curve
turned out to be. This is not done. To accommodate every point would be to
abandon hope of finding order in most data sets, for jagged lines and complicated
curves mask underlying regularities.23
We may reply to Elgin’s objection by recalling a distinction made above,
regarding the various objects of understanding. Specifically, recall the distinc-
tion between (a) a system of real relations in the world, (b) a representation of
a real system, and (c) the relations between a real system and a representation.
Any of these, we said, can be a proper object of understanding. Keeping this in
mind allows us to see that understanding indeed tracks knowledge and is
therefore factive: understands that p always entails knowing that p, and hence
that p is true.
21 Elgin (2004), 113–14. 22 Elgin (2004), 114. 23 Elgin (2004), 116–18.
296 John Greco
To illustrate, consider two cases in which a student of chemistry is studying
the ideal gas law.
Case 1. Jill knows what the ideal gas laws says (i.e., she knows relevant facts about
the representation), Jill knows that the ideal gas law is an idealization of how
actual gases behave in the world (i.e. she knows relevant facts about the repre-
sentation-world relation), and Jill knows that actual gases behave so as to
approximate the ideal gas law (i.e. she knows relevant facts about the world).
In all of these instances, Jill has understanding as well. In each instance, she
understands the relevant ‘object,’ and understands the relevant facts about the
object of understanding.
Case 2. Jack knows what the ideal gas law says, but does not know that it is
supposed to be an idealization. Accordingly, Jack knows relevant facts about the
representation, but he does not know relevant facts about the representation-
world relation, and he does not know relevant facts about the world (for example,
that actual gases behave only so as to approximate the ideal gas law).
But with these distinctions in place, knowledge and understanding seem to
come and go together. Specifically, Jack understands the representation (the
law-statement) insofar as he has systematic knowledge of what it means. But
Jack does not understand the relation between the law-statement and the
world insofar as he lacks relevant knowledge (that the law is an idealization
of what goes on in the world). Likewise, Jack does not understand the behavior
of gases in the world insofar as he lacks relevant knowledge (that gases in the
world do not instantiate the law).
In fact, it seems right to say that Jack not only lacks understanding in the
latter two cases, but actually misunderstands the relation between the law-
statement and the world, and misunderstands the behavior of gases in the
world. Again, once our distinction between different objects of understanding
is in place, knowledge and understanding seem to come and go together in just
the way that the neo-Aristotelian account predicts.
We should consider another of Elgin’s points, however. Namely, she notes
that we often talk of understanding that is not strictly true, but true enough.
For example, we would be happy to say that Jack understands something of
the behavior of gases, even if what he believes about the gases is strictly false.
But notice that we talk about knowledge in the same way. Thus, let p be that it
is 3 o’clock. We are happy to say, ‘S knows that p,’ even when p is strictly false,
because it is in fact 3:01. Why? Because p is ‘true enough.’ Similarly for ‘You
know he never declines an invitation’ (when in fact he almost never does) and
‘I know the table is level’ (when in fact it is not perfectly level).
Elgin herself gives us a framework for understanding these non-factive uses
of ‘knows’.
Episteme: Knowledge and Understanding 297
Evidently, to accept a claim is not to take it to be true, but to take it that the
claim’s divergence from truth, if any, is negligible. The divergence need not be
small, but whatever its magnitude, it can be safely neglected. We accept a claim,
I suggest, when we consider it true enough. . . . I suggest that to accept that p is to
take it that p’s divergence from truth, if any, does not matter.24
A sentence can be true enough in some contexts but not in others. . . .There is
no saying whether a given contention is true enough independently of answering,
or presupposing an answer to the question ‘True enough for what?’ . . .Whether a
given sentence is true enough depends on what ends its acceptance is supposed to
serve.25
As Elgin notes, filling in the details here raises large issues. One such issue is
whether the notion of ‘true enough’ figures into the semantics or the pragmat-
ics of understanding claims. Elgin’s own view seems to be that it figures into
the semantics: when we say that S understands that p, it is part of the very
content of our claim that p is true enough relative to present purposes. An
alternative view, however, would be that this is rather a feature of the prag-
matics of such claims. On this view, to say that someone understands that p,
when p is merely true enough for present purposes, is to speak loosely, but in a
way that is acceptable for present purposes.
Elgin is committed to the view that non-factive uses of knowledge claims
should be explained in just this way—i.e. by reference to loose talk and
pragmatics. Thus she writes, ‘That “knowledge” is a factive term is uncontro-
versial. Regardless of the evidence or reasons that support a person’s belief that
p, she does not know that p unless “p” is true.’26 But then it is hard to see why
we should not handle non-factive uses of understanding claims in the same
way. At the very least, Elgin has not given us good reason to think that the one
kind of claim displays a feature of semantics while the other displays a feature
of pragmatics. In the absence of such good reason, however, a unified view
seems preferable.
Understanding and Luck
The second objection to the neo-Aristotelian account of understanding is
roughly this: understanding can’t be a kind of knowledge because understand-
ing can be lucky, whereas knowledge can’t be.
More exactly, knowledge cannot tolerate certain kinds of luck. This is a
lesson of Gettier cases in epistemology.27 For example, consider the following
scenario.
24 Elgin (2004), 119–20. 25 Elgin (2004), 120–1. 26 Elgin (2007), 33.
27 For insightful discussion of the relationship between Gettier cases and luck, see Zagzebski
(1999) and Pritchard (2005).
298 John Greco
Sheep in the Field: S seems to see a sheep, and on the basis of convincing visual
experience forms a belief that there is a sheep in the field. But in this instance there
is an irregular trick of light, making a dog in the field look just like a sheep. S’s
belief is true nevertheless, however, as there is a sheep in another part of the field,
out of S’s view.28
Plausibly, S does not know that there is a sheep in the field, and precisely because
his hitting on the truth here is ‘too lucky.’Again, it is widely accepted that this is a
lesson of Gettier cases. Jonathan Kvanvig has argued, however, that understand-
ing is not inconsistent with luck in the same way that knowledge is. Whereas
‘lucky knowledge’ is impossible, ‘lucky understanding’ is not. More exactly, it
is possible to have understanding even when one’s true belief is lucky in a way
that rules out knowledge. Kvanvig proposes the following case to illustrate.
Suppose you pick up a textbook on Native American History and read through a
chapter documenting the Comanche dominance of the southern plains, until
eventually you seem genuinely to understand why the Comanches dominated the
southern plains. But suppose as well that while the book youhappened to pick up is
accurate, most other books on this topic are full of errors. If you had picked up one
of these other books instead (and we can imagine that they are all within easy
reach!), your beliefs about the Comanches would have been almost entirely false.29
Here is how Kvanvig diagnoses the case:
The basic idea here is that, though knowledge is incompatible with a certain kind
of epistemic luck, understanding is not. Upon learning of the disturbed etiology
of beliefs about the Comanches, as in the case imagined here, we might say that
the person has true beliefs or even true justified beliefs, but no knowledge, if we
have heeded our lessons from Gettier. . . .But we needn’t say the same thing about
the claim of understanding. If the etiology were as imagined, one would be lucky
to have any understanding at all of the Comanche dominance of the southern
plains. So such understanding would count as understanding not undermined by
the kind of luck in question.30
Kvanvig’s diagnosis of the case does have some intuitive pull. That is, it seems
correct to say that, in some relevant sense, the subject in the case understands
the relevant history. But notice that ‘history’ is ambiguous between ‘actual
history’ and ‘historical narrative.’ That is, it is ambiguous between real events
in the world and some representation of those events in narrative form.
Once again, our distinctions allow an alternative diagnosis, and one on
which understanding and knowledge come and go together:
a. Regarding the historical narrative (the representation), S has both sys-
tematic knowledge and understanding. S knows how the story goes, and
understands it.
28 Adapted from Chisholm (1977), 105.
29 Adapted by Grimm (2006), 519. 30 Kvanvig (2003), 198–9.
Episteme: Knowledge and Understanding 299
b. Regarding the representation-world relation, S lacks systematic know-
ledge. For example, S does not know that the story is true. But so too does
S lack understanding that the story is true.
c. Regarding the actual history, S again lacks systematic knowledge. For
example, S does not know that the Comanches had superior weapons,
and that this was a partial cause of Comanche successes in wars against
other nations. (That is Kvanvig’s point.) But so too, we may now say,
S lacks understanding here. The appearance of understanding is ex-
plained by S’s understanding of the story, i.e. the representation.
In no case are we forced to accept Kvanvig’s claim that S has understanding
without knowledge. On the contrary, we may continue to say that knowledge
and understanding come and go together, and in just the way that the account
predicts.
CONCLUSION
The Greek ‘episteme’ has no perfect translation in English, but it is better
translated as ‘understanding’ than as ‘knowledge’ or even ‘scientific knowledge.’
Moreover, a neo-Aristotelian account of understanding—that understanding
consists in systematic knowledge of dependence relations—has many advan-
tages. For example, the account accommodates and explains important relations
between understanding, explanation, knowledge why, and knowledge how.
It also explains why understanding is closely related to knowledge of causes,
and why scientific understanding and scientific explanation are species of
understanding and explanation in general. Finally, a distinction among various
kinds of dependence relation, and an attendant distinction regarding possible
objects of understanding, gives us resources for rejecting two pressing objections
against a neo-Aristotelian account: that knowledge (but not understanding) is
factive, and that understanding (but not knowledge) cannot be lucky.31
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2011 Bled Philosophical Conference for helpful discussion. Thanks also to Catherine Elgin,
Stephen Grimm, Nenad Miscevic, Eleonore Stump, and Kevin Timpe for comments on earlier
drafts and for discussion on relevant topics.
300 John Greco
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http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/aristotle-causality/
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/aristotle-causality/
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2012/entries/aristotle/
	Virtues and Their Vices
	Section III: Intellectual Virtues
	13: Episteme: Knowledge and Understanding
	INTRODUCTION
	UNDERSTANDING
	ARISTOTLE’S ACCOUNT OF EPISTEME
	A NEO-ARISTOTELIAN ACCOUNT OF UNDERSTANDING
	THE VALUE OF UNDERSTANDING
	TWO OBJECTIONS TO THE NEO-ARISTOTELIAN ACCOUNT OF UNDERSTANDING
	Understanding and Truth
	Understanding and Luck
	CONCLUSION
	WORKS CITED