Vincent G. Potter - On Understanding Understanding: Philosophy of Knowledge
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On Understanding Understanding: Philosophy of Knowledge
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This basic introduction to the philosophical inquiry into the fundamental questions of human knowing features a range of carefully designed study questions.
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On Understanding Understanding : A Philosophy of Knowledge
author
:
Potter, Vincent G.
publisher
:
Fordham University Press
isbn10 | asin
:
0823214869
print isbn13
:
9780823214860
ebook isbn13
:
9780585171401
language
:
English
subject
Knowledge, Theory of.
publication date
:
1994
lcc
:
BD161.P729 1994eb
ddc
:
121
subject
:
Knowledge, Theory of.
Page i
On Understanding Understanding
Page ii
"Thoroughly understand what it is to understand, and not only will you understand the broad lines of all there is to understand but also you will possess a fixed base, an invariant pattern, opening upon all further developments of understanding." Bernard J. E Lonergan, S.J.
Page iii
On Understanding Understanding
A Philosophy of Knowledge
by Vincent G. Potter
Fordham University Press New York
Page iv
To my students without whom this book would never have been written and especially to Hani, Inga, and John
Page vii
Contents
Introduction: Fundamental Notions
1
1. Skepticism
15
2. Structure of Knowing
35
3. The Role of Sensation
44
4. Other Positions on Sensation
59
5. The Role of Conceptualization
76
6. Judgment
90
7. Complementing the Classical View: Abstraction and the A Priori
101
8. Complementing the Classical View: Truth, Error, and Conceptual Frameworks
116
9. Memory and Testimony
130
10. Inference: A Source of Knowledge
141
Epilogue: Integrative Wisdom
156
Appendix I: The Fourth Condition
159
Appendix II: Heelan's Q-Lattice
162
Appendix III: Being Mistaken and Being in Error
165
Appendix IV: Derrida and Deconstructionism: A Summary for the Simple
166
Bibliography
170
Indices
177
Page v
On Understanding Understanding
Page 1
Introduction Fundamental Notions
The "Philosophy of Knowledge" is that branch of philosophy which tries to determine in a general way what the nature and scope of man's capacity to know are. Precisely what this determination will turn out to be cannot be foreseen at the beginning of our investigation since the very reason for undertaking such a project is to find that out in a methodical and systematic way. Nonetheless, even at this point, we do have a vague sense of what we are after, and, presumably, we have had enough experience of our ignorance and capacity for error to motivate us to take up this arduous task.
Our common-sense notion of nature tells us that an investigation into the "nature" of anything means at least that we are asking "what sort of thing is it?" To be sure, this question is none too precise, but it will do for a beginning. Again, our common-sense notion of "scope" tells us that an inquiry into the "scope" of anything means at least that we are asking "how far does it extend?'' Again, this imprecise query will do for the moment.
Notice that we are not asking whether we know anything at all. The reason is, as we shall see in detail later, that this question cannot be asked at all, because to have asked it is to have answered it affirmatively. The real issue in any philosophical discussion of human knowing is to determine what is meant by "knowing" and what general conditions must be fulfilled before one can legitimately make a claim "to know." Plato tried to answer these questions in the Theaetetus where he took up the distinction made in the Republic between knowledge (epistemee) and true belief (doxa).1 The term "epistemology" means (the "logos" or theory of "episteme'' or knowing).
English uses the term "to know" in a variety of related, but different, senses. Thus, we speak of "knowing" a person or a place or a thing, in the sense of "being acquainted with it" or, perhaps, "being familiar with it." Again, we speak of "knowing" something, in the sense of being aware of it or of having heard of
Page 2
it. Further, we say that we "know how" to do this or that, or that we "know" a certain poem of Shakespeare's. All these uses have the sense of having acquired a skill or habit of some sort. Moreover, we speak of "knowing that," where the "that'' introduces a proposition describing or explaining some aspect of the world and claiming it to be so. In a word, ''knowing that" is propositional knowledge which when asserted claims to state a truth about the world. To be sure, we can make truth-claims about knowing something by acquaintance, or about knowing how to do something, and these claims are shown to be true or false by exhibiting appropriate evidence, in the one case by recognition, in the other by execution. In this sense of the word a claim is either true or false. Our study is concerned with this last sense of the term only.
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