Stephen Grimm

What do artificial intelligence (AI) systems “understand”? This question arises not only in assessing a system’s intelligence but also in evaluation practices to ensure the safe and responsible deployment of AI. Drawing on scholarship from philosophy and cognitive science, and informed by current practices in AI, we develop a framework for asking more precise questions and making more precise claims about machine understanding. We conceptualize understanding as a relation between a system (S) and a target of understanding (T), and we discuss how to specify the relation, the system, and the target, offering a landscape of options in each case. Our goal is not to defend a particular account of understanding, but to provide conceptual tools for those working to assess or advance machine understanding.

This paper develops a new framework for thinking about how understanding comes in degrees and what it means for an agent—human or artificial—to “understand” the world. We argue that understanding a target involves appreciating its modal structure, and that growth in understanding proceeds both vertically (penetrating deeper into the levels of the target) and horizontally (appreciating more of each level’s elements). We identify four levels of understanding: mapping a target’s elements (Level 1), grasping their powers and capacities (Level 2), identifying difference makers (Level 3), and apprehending necessitators (Level 4). We then apply this framework to the ongoing debate about whether AI systems possess world models, clarifying what is required for such models to be vehicles of understanding. While we remain neutral on whether current AI systems genuinely understand, we argue that our framework illuminates key issues and charts a path for future research.

This chapter has two roles: (a) to introduce some of the key themes and questions in the volume, and (b) to indicate where several of the essays stand on these questions. One of the main questions asked is whether understanding human actions differs in important ways from understanding events in the natural world, and a contrast is drawn between how the “humanistic tradition” answers this question, as opposed to the “naturalistic tradition.” A further central question is why we desire firsthand understanding in areas such as philosophy, morality, and aesthetics, and whether this firsthand understanding is compatible with deferring to the testimony of others on these matters.

In this chapter, I address the challenge of evaluating different philosophical ways of life—such as the Platonic or Confucian traditions—given that professional philosophers are typically trained to analyze arguments rather than lived practices. I propose a new framework that breaks down these traditions into three distinct, evaluative components: the "original position" (our starting point, often characterized by deficiency or ignorance), the "vision of the good" (the ultimate goal), and "the way" (the specific spiritual exercises, rituals, or practices designed to transition us from the former to the latter). By applying this framework to the Platonic, Confucian, and Weilian traditions, I demonstrate how it allows for a more granular assessment of a philosophy's merits. Rather than accepting or rejecting a tradition wholesale, we can critically evaluate the plausibility of its anthropology, the desirability of its ideal, and the effectiveness of its practices. This approach not only clarifies the distinct structure of philosophical ways of life but also invites interdisciplinary collaboration with psychologists and sociologists to test the empirical claims embedded within these traditions.

In this chapter, I examine John Henry Newman’s epistemology in A Grammar of Assent, focusing on the relationship between inquiry, inference, and the unconditional act of assent. I begin by contrasting Newman’s "real" account of how the mind actually functions with John Locke’s "theoretical" requirement that belief must always be proportioned to evidence. I argue that Newman correctly identifies assent as an "all-in" attitude that brings the dynamic process of inquiry—inherently characterized by an "alloy of doubt"—to a close. A central element of my analysis is the "illative sense," the faculty Newman identifies as guiding the transition from the conditional state of inference to the unconditional state of assent. To address the common objection that assent must admit of degrees, I draw on contemporary epistemology, specifically Jane Friedman’s distinction between settledness and stability. I propose that Newman’s "indefectible" assent refers to the binary state of settledness, while the feeling of "strength" in belief refers to stability. Finally, I consider how Newman’s views interact with modern Bayesian frameworks, ultimately showing how his description of everyday assent provides a robust defense for the legitimacy of religious belief.

This chapter investigates whether John Henry Newman's epistemology encourages the intellectual vice of dogmatism. Although Newman famously endorsed a "magisterial intolerance" regarding objections, I argue that his philosophical framework supports "committed settling" rather than vicious "permanent settling." By distinguishing Newman’s position from the "tentative settling" advocated by thinkers like Karl Popper and William Froude, I illustrate how Newman views assent as an unqualified commitment that remains revisable under specific conditions. Central to this defense is an expanded definition of the "illative sense," which is presented as the faculty responsible not only for closing inquiry but also for discerning when "accumulating probabilities" require it to be reopened. Drawing on contemporary research regarding "epistemic resilience" (grit) and cognitive load, I argue that Newman’s approach avoids both the "unreal" demands of excessive skepticism and the pitfalls of closed-mindedness, offering a realistic account of how human beings virtuously manage belief.

This ground-breaking book opens up new vistas on the study of the humanities. Co-authored by three philosophers, it offers an in-depth exploration of a range of questions. For example, what, if anything, unifies scholarship in the humanities? Is it possible to attain objective truth in fields like history or literary studies or philosophy, or is everything a matter of perspective or standpoint? It is possible for fields in the humanities to make progress, and if so, how? And what should we make of the political aims of the humanities-for example, the desire by many scholars in the humanities to uncover systems of oppression and domination? Does this interfere with "objective" scholarship or not? A host of new topics are also considered, such as whether or not replication studies are possible and worthwhile in the context of the humanities, and whether deference to other scholars is legitimate in the humanities. Finally, new "case studies" are introduced that look at how fields such as history, literary studies, and musicology advance our understanding of their topics, and a provocative set of new "rules" for interpretation in the humanities are proposed.

The sciences aim to get at the truth about the nature of the world. Do the humanities have a similar goal—namely, to get at the truth about things like novels, paintings, and historical events? I consider a few different ways in which the humanities aim at the truth about their objects, in the process giving rise to epistemic goods such as knowledge and understanding. Two works in the humanities are used as test cases: the historian Tyler Stovall’sParis Noir (1996) and the musicologist Susan McClary’s article, ‘The Blasphemy of Talking Politics During Bach Year’ (1987).

This essay presents an account of what it takes to live a philosophical way of life: practitioners must be committed to a worldview, structure their lives around it, and engage in truth‐directed practices. Contra John Cooper, it does not require that one’s life be solely guided by reason. Religious or tradition‐based ways of life count as truth directed as long as their practices are reasons responsive and would be truth directed if the claims made by their way of life are correct. The essay argues that these three conditions can be met by progressors as well as sages. Making progress in how one acts in the world, and improving one’s understanding and direction through being part of a community is living a philosophical way of life. The offered view acknowledges more ways to develop the art of living and enables a broader range of people to count as living philosophically.

Despite a recent surge of interest in philosophy as a way of life, it is not clear what it might mean for philosophy to guide one's life, or how a “philosophical” way of life might differ from a life guided by religion, tradition, or some other source. We argue against John Cooper that spiritual exercises figure crucially in the idea of philosophy as a way of life—not just in the ancient world but also today, at least if the idea is to be viable. In order to make the case we attempt to clarify the nature of spiritual exercises, and to explore a number of fundamental questions, such as “What role does reason have in helping us to live well?” Here we distinguish between the discerning and motivational powers of reason, and argue that both elements have limitations as guides to living well.

Among epistemologists and philosophers of science, one often hears that someone with understanding is able to “see” or “grasp” how the elements of a subject “cohere” or “fit together”—but just what is involved in the seeing or the grasping is usually left to the imagination. I argue that the most productive way to make progress on this issue is by first identifying the kind of explanation-seeking why-questions that drive the search for understanding in the first place. In particular, I suggest that if we can get a good grip on why a situation stands in need of explanation for us in the first place, then we will in turn be in a good position to determine how we might satisfy that need. In this respect, I argue that a situation stands in need of explanation for us, and therefore inspires our why-questions, in virtue of our sense that there are various ways that we think the situation might have been. If a situation stands in need of explanation for this reason, moreover, then in order to satisfy the need for explanation our objective will be to identify what the difference between these alternatives depends on. To say only this much still leaves a great deal underdetermined, however, for we might “identify” what the difference depends on in a number of different ways: for example, by having a true belief about what the difference depends on, by knowing this on the basis of testimony, and so on. What is distinctive about the state of understanding, I suggest, is the particular way in which we identify what the difference depends on: namely, by grasping what the difference depends on. I explore at length what exactly this grasping amounts to.

This essay presents an account of what it takes to live a philosophical way of life: practitioners must be committed to a worldview, structure their lives around it, and engage in truth‐directed practices. Contra John Cooper, it does not require that one’s life be solely guided by reason. Religious or tradition‐based ways of life count as truth directed as long as their practices are reasons responsive and would be truth directed if the claims made by their way of life are correct. The essay argues that these three conditions can be met by progressors as well as sages. Making progress in how one acts in the world, and improving one’s understanding and direction through being part of a community is living a philosophical way of life. The offered view acknowledges more ways to develop the art of living and enables a broader range of people to count as living philosophically.

Among contemporary epistemologists and scholars of ancient philosophy, one often hears that transmitting propositional knowledge by testimony is usually easy and straightforward, but transmitting understanding and know-how by testimony is usually difficult or simply impossible. Further provocative conclusions are then sometimes drawn from these claims: for instance, that know-how and understanding are not types of propositional knowledge. In contrast, I argue that transmitting propositional knowledge is sometimes easy and sometimes hard, just as transmitting know how and understanding is sometimes easy and sometimes hard. No general lessons can be drawn about the relationships among propositional knowledge, know how, and understanding by considering the case of testimony alone.

I defend the claim that understanding is the goal of explanation against various persistent criticisms, especially the criticism that understanding is not truth-connected in the appropriate way, and hence is a merely psychological state. Part of the reason why understanding has been dismissed as the goal of explanation, I suggest, is because the psychological dimension of the goal of explanation has itself been almost entirely neglected. In turn, the psychological dimension of understanding—the Aha! experience, the sense that a certain explanation “feels right”, and so on—has been conspicuously overemphasized. I try to correct for both of these exaggerations. Just as the goal of explanation includes a richer psychological—including phenomenological—dimension than is generally acknowledged, so too understanding has a stronger truth connection than is generally acknowledged.Keywords: Understanding; Explanation; Philosophy of science; Epistemology.

In this paper I elucidate various ways in which understanding can be seen as an excellence of the mind or intellectual virtue. Along the way, I take up the neglected issue of what it might mean to be an “understanding person”—by which I mean not a person who understands a number of things about the natural world, but a person who steers clear of things like judgmentalism in her evaluation of other people, and thus is better able to take up different perspectives and view them with a sympathetic eye. Being an understanding person in this sense seems to be a character-level virtue that interestingly combines moral and epistemic elements; it also seems to be a virtue particularly needed in our age of deep political division, where it is commonly said that failures of mutual understanding are partly to blame for this problem.

Despite the recent claims of some prominent Catholic philosophers, I argue that Cardinal Newman's writings are in fact largely compatible with the contemporary movement in the philosophy of religion known as Reformed Epistemology, and in particular with the work of Alvin Plantinga. I first show how the thought of both Newman and Plantinga was molded in response to the "evidentialist" claims of John Locke. I then examine the details of Newman's response, especially as seen in his Essay in Aid of A Grammar of Assent, suggesting that many of Newman's central ideas closely mirror Plantinga's. Finally, I argue that ifNewman and Plantinga part ways at any point, it is with respect to the basicality of specifically Christian (as opposed to theistic) belief.

Among philosophers of science there seems to be a general consensus that understanding represents a species of knowledge, but virtually every major epistemologist who has thought seriously about understanding has come to deny this claim. Against this prevailing tide in epistemology, I argue that understanding is, in fact, a species of knowledge: just like knowledge, for example, understanding is not transparent and can be Gettiered. I then consider how the psychological act of "grasping" that seems to be characteristic of understanding differs from the sort of psychological act that often characterizes knowledge. Zagzebski's account Kvanvig's account Two problems Comanche cases Unreliable sources of information The upper-right quadrant So is understanding a species of knowledge? A false choice.