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.

Kareem Khalifa (Author)

9781316646915, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 12 December 2019

264 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.4 kg

'Kareem Khalifa's Understanding, Explanation, and Scientific Knowledge is a splendid book, written in a beautiful and accessible style. It provides the ultimate articulation of his account of explanatory understanding that I am sure will be regarded as one of the landmark publications on the topic of scientific understanding.' Daniel Kostic, Metascience

From antiquity to the end of the twentieth century, philosophical discussions of understanding remained undeveloped, guided by a 'received view' that takes understanding to be nothing more than knowledge of an explanation. More recently, however, this received view has been criticized, and bold new philosophical proposals about understanding have emerged in its place. In this book, Kareem Khalifa argues that the received view should be revised but not abandoned. In doing so, he clarifies and answers the most central questions in this burgeoning field of philosophical research: what kinds of cognitive abilities are involved in understanding? What is the relationship between the understanding that explanations provide and the understanding that experts have of broader subject matters? Can there be understanding without explanation? How can one understand something on the basis of falsehoods? Is understanding a species of knowledge? What is the value of understanding?

1. The philosophy of understanding
2. An illustration: Bjorken scaling
3. Understanding and ability
4. Objectual understanding
5. Understanding without explanation?
6. Understanding and true belief
7. Lucky understanding
8. The value of understanding.

Subject Areas: Philosophy of science [PDA], Philosophy of mind [HPM], Philosophy: epistemology & theory of knowledge [HPK], Philosophy [HP]