There is, among philosophers involved in the debate concerning the nature and epistemology of understanding, a general recognition that this state has a grasping component that accounts for some of its distinctive features. This paper defends the view that this component of understanding consists of a knowledge of how to use a particular explanation to account for a given phenomenon. The way in which a subject acquires this knowledge is examined and the result of this examination is shown to highlight (...) the particular contribution of the grasping component of understanding to the distinctive features of this state. (shrink)

This paper examines the question as to whether propositional seeing is best thought of as a way of knowing a proposition to be true. After showing how Pritchard’s distinction between objective and subjective goodness motivates a negative answer to this question, I examine a challenge raised by Ghijsen for Pritchard’s construal of that distinction. I then turn to the connection between propositional seeing and belief. I argue that doxasticism about propositional seeing – the claim that propositional seeing involves belief – (...) ultimately lacks independent motivation and I offer a model of propositional seeing that explains how propositional perception can provide one with a rational basis for forming a perceptual belief. Finally, I discuss in what way the proposed model of propositional seeing may remain compatible with the claim that propositional seeing is a way of knowing a proposition to be true. (shrink)

Knowledge is widely regarded as being incompatible with epistemic luck, but according to several philosophers, the same does not hold for understanding. This paper examines to what extent understanding is vulnerable to epistemic luck. After discussing the weaknesses of some of the cases that have been offered to support the conclusion that understanding tolerates environmental epistemic luck, I turn to a more recent one offered in favour of the opposite conclusion. I argue that this case does not manage to establish (...) that understanding is vulnerable to environmental luck; this even if the fact that understanding comes in degrees is taken into account. Finally, I examine the vulnerability of understanding to intervening luck – the type of luck present in classical Gettier cases – and conclude that when such luck is present, one's understanding is necessarily sub-optimal; a conclusion that does not hold, according to what I argue, when it comes to environmental luck. (shrink)

The present paper examines a type of sceptical hypothesis put forward by Adam Carter that specifically targets understanding—the Confusion Hypothesis. After clarifying the nature and scope of that hypothesis, it discusses Carter’s favoured virtue perspectivist answer to the challenge it raises. It is argued that this answer is ultimately unsatisfying as it is unable to explain how a subject can obtain assurance that her grasp of a given body of information actually results from the competences she comes to appreciate as (...) being reliable. A different answer that relies on the practical dimension of the specific grasp involved in understanding is then offered and is shown to avoid the problems faced by Virtue Perspectivism. (shrink)

It is natural to regard understanding as having a rational dimension, in the sense that understanding seems to require having justification for holding certain beliefs about the world. Some philosophers however argue that justification is not required to gain understanding of phenomena. In the present paper, my intention is to provide a critical examination of the arguments that have been offered against the view that understanding requires justification in order to show that, contrary to what they purport to establish, justification (...) remains a plausible requirement on understanding. (shrink)

This paper discusses the conditions under which an agent is rationally permitted to leave some uncertain propositions relevant to her decision out of her deliberation. By relying on the view that belief involves a defeasible disposition to treat a proposition as true in one’s reasoning, we examine the conditions under which such a disposition can be overridden and under which an agent should take into account her uncertainty as to a proposition she believes in the course of a particular deliberation. (...) We argue that, in some contexts, an agent can be faced with the choice of either accepting or not accepting a proposition she believes in the course of her deliberation. We provide a description of such higher-order deliberations within the framework of expected utility theory and draw conclusions regarding the phenomenon of pragmatic encroachment on knowledge. (shrink)

This paper examines the nature of the specific grasp involved in moral understanding. After discussing Hills's ability account of that central component of moral understanding in light of problematic cases, I argue that moral grasp is best conceived of as a type of knowledge that is grounded in a subject's moral appreciation. I then show how and why the relevant notion of moral appreciation is connected to moral virtues and to one's affective and motivational engagement with moral reasons. Finally, I (...) discuss the connection between moral appreciation and a subject's ability to offer moral explanations in relation to the debate between pessimists and optimists about moral understanding's testimonial transmission. (shrink)

The present article examines two important challenges raised by Steup for explanationist accounts of evidential fit. The first challenge targets the notion of available explanation which is key to any explanationist account of evidential fit. According to Steup, any plausible construal of the notion of available explanation already presupposes the notion of evidential fit. In response to that challenge, an alternative conception of what it takes for an explanation to be available to a subject is offered and shown to be (...) able to shed better light on the specific role played by that notion in explanationist accounts of evidential fit. The second challenge relies on the claim that the explanatory goodness of competing explanations is determined by their evidential fit, rather than the other way around. In response to that challenge, it is argued that explanationists can concede that the relative explanatory goodness of an explanation is in part dependent on that explanation’s likeliness on the overall evidence possessed by the subject without thereby conceding that Explanationism about justification is circular. (shrink)

Certainty The following article provides an overview of the philosophical debate surrounding certainty. It does so in light of distinctions that can be drawn between objective, psychological, and epistemic certainty. Certainty consists of a valuable cognitive standing, which is often seen as an ideal. It is indeed natural to evaluate lesser cognitive standings, in particular … Continue reading Certainty →.

This paper discusses the ability of explanationist theories of epistemic justification to account for the justification we have for holding beliefs about the future. McCain’s explanationist account of the relation of evidential support is supposedly in a better position than other theories of this type to correctly handle cases involving beliefs about the future. However, the results delivered by this account have been questioned by Byerly and Martin. This paper argues that McCain’s account is, in fact, able to deliver plausible (...) results in cases involving such beliefs and that explanationism, if properly articulated, is illuminating with respect to the justification we have for holding such beliefs, as it manages to correctly distinguish evidence that only supports believing probabilistic claims about the future from evidence that is sufficient to believe that a particular event will happen. (shrink)

This article examines Smith’s recent treatment of the problem of statistical evidence and the conception of epistemic justification that he puts forward. Two possible solutions to the problem of statistical evidence that result from his analysis of cases involving a contrast between statistical and individual evidence are considered. The solution resulting from Smith’s conception of epistemic justification is shown to be inferior to the solution calling for an explanationist conception of epistemic justification. As a result, Smith’s analysis of cases illustrating (...) the problem of statistical evidence, given his own standards of theory choice, is shown to support an explanationist conception of epistemic justification as an alternative to the probabilistic conception that he urges us to reject. (shrink)

This paper aims at elucidating the connection between explanatory considerations and epistemic justification stipulated by explanationism which take epistemic justification to be definable in terms of best explanations. By relying on the notion of truthlikeness, this paper argues that it is rational for a subject to expect the best explanation she has for her evidence to be more truthlike than any of the other potential explanations available to her by virtue of containing a class of propositions that, given her evidence, (...) she is justified in believing. Based on this elucidation of the connection between explanatory considerations and epistemic justification, an explanationist account of the evidential support relation is then offered. (shrink)

This paper discusses an assumption on which explanationist accounts of the evidential support relation rely with a focus on McCain’s recent account. Explanationist accounts define the relation of evidential support in terms of relations of best explanation that hold between the evidence a subject possesses and the propositions she believes. Such a definition presupposes that the explanatory virtues of what best explains a subject’s body of evidence is indicative of its truth. Yet, recent cases offered in the literature against McCain’s (...) account show that there is no straightforward way of vindicating this assumption. (shrink)

In a recent issue of this journal, Miloud Belkoniene challenges explanationist accounts of evidential support in two ways. First, he alleges that there are cases that show explanatory virtues are not linked to the truth of hypotheses. Second, he maintains that attempts to show that explanatoriness is relevant to evidential support because it adds to the resiliency (stability) of probability functions fail. I contest both of Belkoniene’s claims.