Understanding Understanding

Richard Mason

Description

How is understanding to be understood? Are there limits to understanding? What of importance, if anything, could lie beyond understanding? And do we need to understand knowledge before we can know about understanding? Richard Mason's argument is that a critical theory of under¬standing, modeled on past theories of knowledge, cannot be workable.

Understanding may bring wisdom: an uncomfort¬able thought for many philosophers in the twentieth century. Yet philosophy aims at expanding understanding at least as much as knowledge. How we understand understanding affects how we understand philosophy. If we put aside a narrow view of under¬standing based upon a Cartesian model of knowledge, we may gain a more liberal, open understanding of philosophy.

Mason's treatment of these fascinating problems offers a clear and lucid dialogue with a number of contemporary philosophical schools and with philosophy's past. His discussions include the thought of Hume, Henry James, Heidegger, Frege, Charles Taylor, Michael Oakeshott, Wittgenstein, Gadamer, James Joyce, and the Guyaki Indians. This fascinating book contributes to the work of many of these traditions as well as to the nature of understanding in areas as diverse as physics, music, and linguistics.

Introduction

1. What We Understand

2. How We Understand

3. Understanding and Knowledge

4. Intelligibility

5. Failures of Understanding

6. Beyond Understanding

7. Wisdom

Notes

Bibliography

Index of Names

Sujets

• Philosophy
• History of philosophy

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791486122
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

U N D E R S TA N D I N G

U N D E R S TA N D I N G

S U N Y s e r i e s i n P h i l o s o p h y

George R. Lucas Jr., editor

R I C H A R D M A S O N

understanding understanding

S T A T E U N I V E R S I T Y O F N E W Y O R K P R E S S

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2003 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State University of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207

Production, Laurie Searl Marketing, Fran Keneston

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mason, Richard, 1948– Understanding understanding / Richard Mason. p. cm. — (SUNY series in philosophy) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-5871-7 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-7914-5872-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Comprehension (Theory of knowledge) I. Title. II. Series.

BD181.5.M27 2003 121—dc21

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2003042557

for Margie

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Contents

I NTRODUCTION , 1

C HAPTER O NE WHAT WE UNDERSTAND, 7

C HAPTER T WO HOW WE UNDERSTAND, 21

C HAPTER T HREE UNDERSTANDING AND KNOWLEDGE, 39

C HAPTER F OUR INTELLIGIBILITY, 51

C HAPTER F IVE FAILURES OF UNDERSTANDING, 67

C HAPTER S IX BEYOND UNDERSTANDING, 89

viii

CONTENTS

C HAPTER S EVEN WISDOM, 105

N OTES , 115

B IBLIOGRAPHY , 125

I NDEX OF N AMES , 131

Introduction

A physicist tries to understand quantum mechanics. A parent tries to under stand a child. A critic tries to understand a new style of painting. A historian tries to understand the movement of grain prices in ancient Rome. We may be baffled by other people, by ourselves, by life, by other societies, by the arts, and much more. A desire for understanding has seemed akin to a natural human instinct of curiosity. What we want may not be extra information but something—some form of understanding—that will make sense to us, or for us. What sort of definition or theory could possibly tie all this together? The scope of understanding is so wide that any general, unifying account may seem too ambitious. This book is an investigation into understanding and how it is to be understood. An interest in understanding goes far beyond philosophy, but the subject should be central to philosophy, both in its origin and in its aims. Plato wrote that a sense of wonder is appropriate for a philosopher: that philosophy 1 has no other foundation, in fact. The starting point for the philosopher’s inquiry can be a need for understanding. The aim of the philosopher can be to achieve not more knowledge, but better understanding. The title of this book is reflexive because the subject is. Anyone present ing a theory about understanding must be aiming to understand it: surely a philosophical task. But there is a need to tread carefully, to avoid begging the question. To set off by trying to define understanding would be a poor start. Can we assume that a definition—or a theory—offers a route to understand ing? The first chapter of the book is a wide but noncommittal survey of the many areas where understanding has some bearing, to give some measure of the subject and its variety. These areas will include people, history, societies, languages, texts, the natural world, religions, and the arts. There is no reason to begin by assuming that any of these should have primacy, or that a model that makes sense for one of them should be applicable to any others. Theorists have been tempted both by diversity and by simplification.

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