Lawler, Insa (2017) Understanding why, knowing why, and cognitive achievements. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Duncan Pritchard argues that a feature that sets understanding-why apart from knowledge-why is that whereas (I) understanding-why is a kind of cognitive achievement in a strong sense, (II) knowledge-why is not such a kind. I argue that (I) is false and that (II) is true. (I) is false because understanding-why featuring rudimentary explanations and understanding-why concerning very simple causal connections is not a cognitive achievement in a strong sense. Knowledge-why is not a kind of cognitive achievement in a strong sense for the same reason knowledge-that is not. The latter thesis requires showing that having (p because q) information is not equivalent to having information about facts or principles that establish the explanatory connections between the phenomena in question. I make a positive case for this claim and defend it against objections. Based on this argument, I identify an alternative feature that sets understanding-why apart from knowledge-why: The minimal condition for understanding-why and knowledge-why with respect to their content, respectively, is not identical. Knowing why p merely requires information that some explanatorily relevant dependency obtains. Understanding why p additionally requires information about facts or principles that establish the explanatory connections between the phenomena in question.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Lawler, Insa insa.lawler@uni-due.de 0000-0002-1250-6020
Additional Information:	Final draft; accepted for publication in Synthese
Keywords:	understanding why; knowing why; cognitive achievement; reductionism about understanding why; causal explanation
Subjects:	General Issues > Explanation
Depositing User:	Dr. Insa Lawler
Date Deposited:	30 Dec 2017 20:01
Last Modified:	30 Dec 2017 20:01
Item ID:	14246
Subjects:	General Issues > Explanation
Date:	December 2017
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/14246

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• Understanding why, knowing why, and cognitive achievements. (deposited 30 Dec 2017 20:01) [Currently Displayed]
  • Understanding why, knowing why, and cognitive achievements. (deposited 20 Jan 2018 19:59)

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