> I put this question to Kate when we were all younger: > "(1) Please describe the notion in your mind when you wrote: "understanding a thing".
Kate now answers: "Understanding means that you know something about the thing you didn't know before looking at it." I had also asked: > "(2) Given the four other "common sense" guesses at what you might have in > mind, why would you think your single phrase would serviceably > clearly "express" the notion and only the notion in your own mind." > Kate now answers: > "I thought understanding always meant getting some fact or other piece of > information you didn't have before,whether talking, hearing music,reading, or > seeing." > Recall the Andean shepherd who has never heard of cellphones, but now finds one on the mountainside. He discovers that if he puts his thumb on the front it goes beep. That's new info about the thing. And Kate would evidently say the shepherd now "understands the thing". You'll recall the shower of criticism I brought down when I argued that Kate's original line was unclear. Not unreasonably, thought I, this implied the listers thought her line was okay as is -- it did the job of conveying her notion. So, suspiciously, I asked that any lister describe the notion that came to his mind when he read her original phrase, and explain why he felt that was the one and only notion that would come to a reader's mind. I had no takers until Saul's description of his (quite different) notion this afternoon. I doubt that anyone else on the forum would accept that the shepherd's acquiring such a "new piece of info" about a thing would justify saying he now "understands" the thing -- and this, I feel, corroborates my suspicion. Because I've jabbed so often at "fuzziness" in phrases and apparent notions, I know I've become a pain in the skull. But I confess I hope I'll always do it when I see a discussion, because it will be based on fatally ambiguous phrasing and ideas, is bound to be fruitless. Two listers complained that I should have simply asked Kate to clarify her phrase in the first place, instead of explaining why I judged it unclear. But listers and I have regularly found just calling something "unclear" is unsatisfactory. How many times have we seen this response to such an accusation: "Why is that unclear?" I had also asked: "(3) why do you feel it was a serviceably clear notion to begin with?" I now feel that Kate has answered this. She has always felt it was fairly clea r that to "understand a thing" is to get a new piece of info about it. We can guess that she feels if something it clear to her, then the phrase she feels "puts it into words" must be clear to the likes of our listers. That's a fairly clear notion -- though I'd guess it's not one that any other person on the forum (or in philosophy in general) would share. To address my third question, Kate requested: > > What are the other meanings understanding could have again please. > > I'll resend the entire original email in a minute (Saul: you'll see in that posting a few days ago I already did do what you now say I should have done re "boundary".) But a jiffy summary of the various imaginable notions of "understanding" I mentioned is this: 1. To understand what a thing is for, to "recognize" it. "Yes, I understand that's a cellphone, but I have no idea how to use it." 2. To know how to work it. "John recognizes a computer when he sees it, but doesn't begin to understand it. He doesn't even know how to turn it on." 3. To know WHY it works. 4. "Understand" in the sense of "understanding" a language. There are lots more notions of "understanding" that might arise when people see the word. "Jack understands horses." "I thought we had an understanding". "Her understanding has been eroded by Alzheimer's." etc. but it's true that the context often prevents many of them from arising. ************** Get fantasy football with free live scoring. Sign up for FanHouse Fantasy Football today. (http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020)
