Scientific Understanding:What It Is and How It Is Achieved (Philosophy - Enlightenment - Critique)

by: Anna Elisabeth Höhl (Author)

Publisher: transcript publishing

Publication Date: 2024/4/27

Language: English

Print Length: 260 pages

ISBN-10: 383767262X

ISBN-13: 9783837672626

Book Description

Understanding is an ability manifested by grasping relations of a phenomenon and articulating new explanations. Hence, scientific understanding is inextricably intertwined with and not possible without explanation, and understanding is not a type of propositional knowledge. Anna Elisabeth Höhl provides a novel philosophical account of scientific understanding by developing and defending necessary and sufficient conditions for the understanding that scientists achieve of the phenomena they are researching. This account of scientific understanding is based on and supported by a detailed investigation of an episode from scientific practice in biology.

About the Author

Understanding is an ability manifested by grasping relations of a phenomenon and articulating new explanations. Hence, scientific understanding is inextricably intertwined with and not possible without explanation, and understanding is not a type of propositional knowledge. Anna Elisabeth Höhl provides a novel philosophical account of scientific understanding by developing and defending necessary and sufficient conditions for the understanding that scientists achieve of the phenomena they are researching. This account of scientific understanding is based on and supported by a detailed investigation of an episode from scientific practice in biology.