Papers by Federica Isabella Malfatti
Philosophical Issues
In making sense of the world, we typically cooperate, join forces, and draw on one another's comp... more In making sense of the world, we typically cooperate, join forces, and draw on one another's competence and expertise. A group or community in which there is a well-functioning division of cognitive-epistemic labor can achieve levels of understanding that a single agent who relies exclusively on her own capacities would probably never achieve. However, is understanding also collective? I.e., is understanding something that can be possessed by a group or community rather than by individuals? In this paper, I develop an account of understanding phenomena according to which understanding a phenomenon requires reasonably endorsing an adequate and intelligible epistemic mediator that accounts for this phenomenon. I then show that understanding, conceived along these lines, can be attributed to collective entities. An important result of my arguments will be that a collective entity's understanding cannot (always) be reduced to the sum of the understandings of the individuals belonging to it. This is because a collective entity can sometimes be rightfully claimed to understand a phenomenon while none of its individual members understands it. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
Wir Menschen streben danach, die Wirklichkeit zu verstehen. Eine Welt, die wir gut verstehen, ist... more Wir Menschen streben danach, die Wirklichkeit zu verstehen. Eine Welt, die wir gut verstehen, ist eine, die wir «im Griff» haben, mit der wir gut umgehen können. Aber was heißt es genau, ein Phänomen der Wirklichkeit zu verstehen? Wie sieht unser Weltbild aus, wenn wir ein Phänomen verstanden haben? Welche Bedingungen müssen erfüllt sein, damit Verstehen gelingt? Die Kernthese des Buches ist, dass wir Phänomene der Wirklichkeit durch noetische Integration verstehen. Wir verstehen Phänomene, indem wir den entsprechenden Informationseinheiten eine sinnvolle und angemessene Position in unserem Weltbild zuschreiben und insofern unser Weltbild in gewissem Maße der Wirklichkeit entspricht.
Philosophical Inquiries, 2018
There are two main things I want to do in this paper. The first is to defend the idea that unders... more There are two main things I want to do in this paper. The first is to defend the idea that understanding, and not knowledge, is to be recognized as the aim of science, and to show how this idea can be strengthened and sharpened in light of structural realism. The second is to investigate the connection between understanding and structures, in order to give some tentative insight concerning what is involved in an act of understanding and what is to be recognized as a plausible necessary condition for understanding. In the first section [I] I recall and emphasize the gap between knowledge and understanding, highlighting the differences concerning the epistemic object involved. In the second section [II] I present the main idea behind structural realism in philosophy of science and examine its direct consequences concerning epistemology. In the third section [III] I try to connect the results of these two lines of inquiries, in order to show how understanding, better than knowledge, ca...
It is widely acknowledged in the literature in social epistemology that knowledge has a social di... more It is widely acknowledged in the literature in social epistemology that knowledge has a social dimension: we are epistemically dependent upon one another for most of what we know. Our knowledge can be, and very often is, grounded on the epistemic achievement of somebody else. But what about epistemic aims other than knowledge? What about understanding? Prominent authors argue that understanding is not social in the same way in which knowledge is. Others can put us in the position to understand, but when we understand something, this accomplishment is to be credited mainly if not entirely to us, as it is due to the successful exercise of our own cognitive abilities. In this paper, I show that the social dimension of understanding closely resembles the social dimension of knowledge. I distinguish between three different ways in which a subject can depend upon another subject for (either the acquisition or the possession of) a certain epistemic good. I then argue that all these kinds o...
Erkenntnis, 2019
Testimony spreads information. It is also commonly agreed that it can transfer knowledge. Whether... more Testimony spreads information. It is also commonly agreed that it can transfer knowledge. Whether it can work as an epistemic source of understanding is a matter of dispute. However, testimony certainly plays a pivotal role in the proliferation of understanding in the epistemic community. But how exactly do we learn, and how do we make advancements in understanding on the basis of one another’s words? And what can we do to maximize the probability that the process of acquiring understanding from one another succeeds? These are very important questions in our current epistemological landscape, especially in light of the attention that has been paid to understanding as an epistemic achievement of purely epistemic value. Somewhat surprisingly, the recent literature in social epistemology does not offer much on the topic. The overarching aim of this paper is to provide a tentative model of understanding that goes in-depth enough to safely address the question of how understanding and te...
Synthese, 2020
This topical collection of Synthese is in honor of Catherine Z. Elgin. The idea for it arose in t... more This topical collection of Synthese is in honor of Catherine Z. Elgin. The idea for it arose in the context of an international book symposium dedicated to Elgin's latest book (True enough, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2017), organized by Katherine Dormandy, Christoph Jäger, and myself, which took place at the University of Innsbruck in March 2018. The topical collection comprises fourteen papers addressing a broad array of issues related to True Enough and to Elgin's work more generally, plus a contribution by Elgin with detailed comments and replies. True Enough is an extraordinarily rich, wide-ranging book; it reflects both the breadth and sharpness of Elgin's philosophical gaze and exemplifies the impressive variety of her philosophical interests. In this introduction, I give an overview of the topical collection's content, zooming in on the aspects of Elgin's work which captured the contributors' attention. My discussion will not remotely do justice to the complexity of Elgin's system, but I hope that it will help the reader navigate the topical collection and appreciate how the fourteen papers relate to Elgin's overall project. Keywords Catherine Z. Elgin • True enough • Understanding 1 A change of perspective Mature science is one of humanity's most stunning epistemic achievements. But what makes mature science epistemically excellent? Why is mature science a successful epistemic enterprise? In multiple papers over the last 3 decades (e.g.
Synthese, 2020
We discuss the social-epistemic aspects of Catherine Elgin’s theory of reflective equilibrium and... more We discuss the social-epistemic aspects of Catherine Elgin’s theory of reflective equilibrium and understanding and argue that it yields an argument for the view that a crucial social-epistemic function of epistemic authorities is to foster understanding in their communities. We explore the competences that enable epistemic authorities to fulfil this role and argue that among them is an epistemic virtue we call “epistemic empathy”.
Social Epistemology, 2019
CrossLab geht über die Geräte hinaus und bietet Ihnen Services, Verbrauchsmaterialien und laborwe... more CrossLab geht über die Geräte hinaus und bietet Ihnen Services, Verbrauchsmaterialien und laborweites Ressourcenmanagement. Damit kann Ihr Labor die Effizienz steigern, den Betrieb optimieren, die Betriebszeit der Geräte erhöhen, die Anwenderfähigkeiten verbessern und mehr.
Synthese, 2020
This topical collection of Synthese is in honour of Catherine Z. Elgin. The idea for it arose in ... more This topical collection of Synthese is in honour of Catherine Z. Elgin. The idea for it arose in the context of an international book symposium dedicated to Elgin’s book True Enough (2017), organised by Katherine Dormandy, Christoph Jäger, and myself, which took place at the University of Innsbruck in March 2018. The topical collection comprises fourteen papers addressing a broad array of issues related to True Enough and to Elgin’s work more generally, plus a contribution by Elgin with detailed comments on and replies. True Enough is an extraordinarily rich, wide–ranging book; it reflects both the breadth and the sharpness of Elgin’s philosophical gaze and exemplifies the impressive variety of her philosophical interests. In this introduction, I give an overview of the topical collection’s content, zooming in on those aspects of Elgin’s work which captured the contributors’ attention. My analysis will not remotely do justice to the complexity of Elgin’s system, but I hope it will help the reader navigate the topical collection and appreciate how the fourteen papers relate to Elgin’s overall project.
Synthese, 2020
We discuss the social-epistemic aspects of Catherine Elgin's theory of reflective equilibrium and... more We discuss the social-epistemic aspects of Catherine Elgin's theory of reflective equilibrium and understanding and argue that it yields an argument for the view that a crucial social-epistemic function of epistemic authorities is to foster understanding in their communities. We explore the competences that enable epistemic authorities to fulfil this role and argue that among them is an epistemic virtue we call "epistemic empathy".
Theoria, 2020
Can we transmit understanding via testimony in more or less the same way in which we transmit kno... more Can we transmit understanding via testimony in more or less the same way in which we transmit knowledge? The standard view in social epistemology has a straightforward answer: no, we cannot. Three arguments supporting the standard view have been formulated so far. The first appeals to the claim that gaining understanding requires a greater cognitive effort than acquiring testimonial knowledge does. The second appeals to a certain type of epistemic trust that is supposedly characteristic of knowledge transmission (and maybe of the transmission of epistemic goods in general) and that is allegedly incompatible with understanding. The third aims to show that there is a certain aspect of understanding (what epistemologists these days like to call "grasping") that cannot be passed on to another person via testimony alone. In this article, I show that all of these arguments can be resisted. Thus, there seem to be no compelling reasons to embrace the standard view.
Erkenntnis, 2019
Testimony spreads information. It is also commonly agreed that it can transfer knowledge. Whether... more Testimony spreads information. It is also commonly agreed that it can transfer knowledge. Whether it can work as an epistemic source of understanding is a matter of dispute. However, testimony certainly plays a pivotal role in the proliferation of understanding in the epistemic community. But how exactly do we learn, and how do we make advancements in understanding on the basis of one another’s words? And what can we do to maximise the probability that the process of acquiring understanding from one another succeeds? These are very important questions in the actual epistemological landscape, especially in light of the attention that has been paid to understanding as an epistemic achievement of purely epistemic value. Somewhat surprisingly, the recent literature in social epistemology does not offer much on the topic. The overarching aim of this paper is to provide a tentative model of understanding that goes in–depth enough to safely address the question of how understanding and testimony are related to one another. The hope is to contribute, in some measure, to the effort to understand understanding, and to explain two facts about our epistemic practices: (i) the fact that knowledge and understanding relate differently to testimony, and (ii) the fact that some pieces of testimonial information are better than others for the sake of providing one with understanding and of yielding advancements in one’s epistemic standing.
Social Epistemology, 2019
Can we gain understanding from testifiers who themselves fail to understand? At first glance, thi... more Can we gain understanding from testifiers who themselves fail to understand? At first glance, this looks counter-intuitive. How could a hearer with a poor understanding of a certain subject matter, or none at all, non-accidentally extract information relevant to understanding from a speaker's testimony if the speaker does not understand what she is talking about? This paper shows that, when there are theories or representational devices working as mediators, speakers can intentionally generate understanding in their hearers by engaging in relevant speech acts without understanding the topic of these speech acts themselves. More specifically, I argue that testifiers can intentionally elicit understanding of empirical phenomena in their hearers even if they themselves lack such understanding-provided that they properly understand the epistemic mediators involved.
Philosophical Inquiries, 2018
Structural realism à-la-Worrall is the view that inasmuch as our scientific theories provide us w... more Structural realism à-la-Worrall is the view that inasmuch as our scientific theories provide us with (partially) adequate descriptions of an objective and independent reality , they do so by shedding light on the way this reality is in itself structured, and not on the so-called nature of existing objects. This position seems to imply that there is something about reality that lies beyond our grasp. I will reconstruct and shed new light onto Wor-rall's position and show that, contrary to how it might appear at first sight, its allegedly negative , or pessimist stance has a positive side: by placing a constraint on our (theoretically mediated) knowledge, structural realism might tell us something relevant about the nature and functioning of our scientific understanding of the world. The paper is divided in three parts. The first part is devoted to a brief reconstruction of Worrall's position. In the second part, I propose a new reading of the position in question by uncovering, highlighting and developing its epistemological consequences. In the last part, I investigate and scrutinize the connection between understanding and structures. The overall aim is to show how Worrall's structural realism, especially in the reading I am proposing here, may provide us with a plausible explanation of the epistemic value of past and actual scientific theories. Keywords: John Worrall; structural realism; scientific understanding. Structuralism uncovers a unity and a coherence within things which could not be revealed by a simple description of the facts somehow scattered and disorganized before the eyes of knowledge.
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Papers by Federica Isabella Malfatti