The Degrees of Understanding and the Inferential Component of Understanding

Current debates on the nature of explanatory understanding have converged on the idea that at least one of the core components of understanding is inferential. Philosophers have characterized the inferential dimension of understanding as consisting of several related cognitive abilities to grasp a g...

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Main Author:	Stefan Petkov
Format:	article
Language:	CS EN SK
Published:	Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences 2021
Subjects:	ecological theory of predation explanatory understanding scientific explanations unification Philosophy (General) B1-5802
Online Access:	https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2021.28401 https://doaj.org/article/3e946dd271ff42f694b89cfb2fbcb741
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:3e946dd271ff42f694b89cfb2fbcb7412021-12-02T17:39:50ZThe Degrees of Understanding and the Inferential Component of Understandinghttps://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2021.284011335-06682585-7150https://doaj.org/article/3e946dd271ff42f694b89cfb2fbcb7412021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.sav.sk/journals/uploads/11292200orgf.2021.28401.pdfhttps://doaj.org/toc/1335-0668https://doaj.org/toc/2585-7150Current debates on the nature of explanatory understanding have converged on the idea that at least one of the core components of understanding is inferential. Philosophers have characterized the inferential dimension of understanding as consisting of several related cognitive abilities to grasp a given explanation and the nexus of complementing explanations to which it belongs. Whilst analyses of both the subjective epistemic abilities related to grasping and objective features of the inferential links within explanations have received much attention, both within theories of explanation and in the literature on understanding, the criteria for evaluating the specific structure and organization of explanatory clusters or nexuses have received much less attention. Nevertheless, two notable exceptions stand out—Khalifa’s characterization of an explanatory nexus and theories of explanatory unification. I take Khalifa’s ideas, together with the basic criteria of successful explanatory unification, as my starting point. To both, I make some corrections and additions, in order to arrive at a more robust notion of an explanatory nexus and ultimately show that its structural properties and the inter-explanatory relations it contains are relevant to the resulting understanding. I propose to represent such nexuses as directed graph trees and show that some of their properties can be related to the degree of understanding that such nested explanatory structures can offer. I will further illustrate these ideas by a case study on an eco-logical theory of predation.Stefan PetkovInstitute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciencesarticleecological theory of predationexplanatory understandingscientific explanationsunificationPhilosophy (General)B1-5802CSENSKOrganon F, Vol 28, Iss 4, Pp 746-776 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	CS EN SK
topic	ecological theory of predation explanatory understanding scientific explanations unification Philosophy (General) B1-5802
spellingShingle	ecological theory of predation explanatory understanding scientific explanations unification Philosophy (General) B1-5802 Stefan Petkov The Degrees of Understanding and the Inferential Component of Understanding
description	Current debates on the nature of explanatory understanding have converged on the idea that at least one of the core components of understanding is inferential. Philosophers have characterized the inferential dimension of understanding as consisting of several related cognitive abilities to grasp a given explanation and the nexus of complementing explanations to which it belongs. Whilst analyses of both the subjective epistemic abilities related to grasping and objective features of the inferential links within explanations have received much attention, both within theories of explanation and in the literature on understanding, the criteria for evaluating the specific structure and organization of explanatory clusters or nexuses have received much less attention. Nevertheless, two notable exceptions stand out—Khalifa’s characterization of an explanatory nexus and theories of explanatory unification. I take Khalifa’s ideas, together with the basic criteria of successful explanatory unification, as my starting point. To both, I make some corrections and additions, in order to arrive at a more robust notion of an explanatory nexus and ultimately show that its structural properties and the inter-explanatory relations it contains are relevant to the resulting understanding. I propose to represent such nexuses as directed graph trees and show that some of their properties can be related to the degree of understanding that such nested explanatory structures can offer. I will further illustrate these ideas by a case study on an eco-logical theory of predation.
format	article
author	Stefan Petkov
author_facet	Stefan Petkov
author_sort	Stefan Petkov
title	The Degrees of Understanding and the Inferential Component of Understanding
title_short	The Degrees of Understanding and the Inferential Component of Understanding
title_full	The Degrees of Understanding and the Inferential Component of Understanding
title_fullStr	The Degrees of Understanding and the Inferential Component of Understanding
title_full_unstemmed	The Degrees of Understanding and the Inferential Component of Understanding
title_sort	degrees of understanding and the inferential component of understanding
publisher	Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences
publishDate	2021
url	https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2021.28401 https://doaj.org/article/3e946dd271ff42f694b89cfb2fbcb741
work_keys_str_mv	AT stefanpetkov thedegreesofunderstandingandtheinferentialcomponentofunderstanding AT stefanpetkov degreesofunderstandingandtheinferentialcomponentofunderstanding
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The Degrees of Understanding and the Inferential Component of Understanding

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