Non-Tethered Understanding and Scientific Pluralism

Publikation: Beitrag in FachzeitschriftForschungsartikelBeigetragenBegutachtung

Beitragende

Abstract

I examine situations in which we say that different subjects have ‘different’, ‘competing’, or ‘conflicting understandings’ of a phenomenon. In order to make sense of such situations, we should turn our attention to an often neglected ambiguity in the word ‘understanding’. Whereas the notion of understanding that is typically discussed in philosophy is, to use Elgin’s terms, tethered to the facts, there is another notion of understanding that is not tethered in the same way. This latter notion is relevant because, typically, talk of two subjects having ‘different’, ‘competing’, or ‘conflicting understandings’ of a phenomenon does not entail any commitment to the proposition that these subjects understand the phenomenon in the tethered sense of the word. This paper aims, first, to analyze the non-tethered notion of understanding, second, to clarify its relationship to the tethered notion, third, to explore what exactly goes on when ‘different’, ‘competing’, or ‘conflicting understandings’ clash and, fourth, to discuss the significance of such situations in our epistemic practices. In particular, I argue for a version of scientific pluralism according to which such situations are important because they help scientific communities achieve their fundamental epistemic goals—most importantly, the goal of understanding the world in the tethered sense.

Details

OriginalspracheEnglisch
Seiten (von - bis)371-388
Seitenumfang18
FachzeitschriftJournal for General Philosophy of Science
Jahrgang52
Ausgabenummer3
PublikationsstatusVeröffentlicht - Sept. 2021
Peer-Review-StatusJa

Externe IDs

Scopus 85106065571

Schlagworte

Schlagwörter

  • Scientific pluralism, Understanding, Understanding’s tether