Understanding is a valued trait in any epistemic practice, scientific or not. Yet, when it comes to characterizing its nature, the notion has not received the philosophical attention it deserves. We have set ourselves three tasks in this paper. First, we defend the importance of this endeavor. Second, we consider and criticize a number of proposals to this effect. Third, we defend an alternative account, focusing on abilities as the proper mark of understanding.

We argue that the notion of "mental institutions"-discussed in recent debates about extended cognition-can help better understand the origin and character of social impairments in autism, and also help illuminate the extent to which some mechanisms of autistic dysfunction extend across both internal and external factors (i.e., they do not just reside within an individual's head). After providing some conceptual background, we discuss the connection between mental institutions and embodied habits of mind. We then discuss the significance of our view (...) for understanding autistic habits of mind and consider why these embodied habits are sometimes a poor fit with neurotypical mental institutions. We conclude by considering how these insights highlight the two-way, extended nature of social impairments in autism, and how this extended picture might assist in constructing more inclusive mental institutions and intervention strategies. (shrink)

“4E” approaches in cognitive science see mind as embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended. They observe that we routinely “offload” part of our thinking onto body and world. Recently, 4E theorists have turned to music cognition: from work on music perception and musical emotions, to improvisation and music education. I continue this trend. I argue that music — like other tools and technologies — is a beyond-the-head resource that affords offloading. And via this offloading, music can (at least potentially) scaffold various (...) forms of thought, experience, and behavior. To develop this idea, I consider the “material” and “worldmaking” character of music, and I apply these considerations to two cases studies: music as a tool for religious worship, and music as a weapon for torture. (shrink)

For 4E cognitive science, minds are embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended. Proponents observe that we regularly ‘offload’ our thinking onto body and world: we use gestures and calculators to augment mathematical reasoning, and smartphones and search engines as memory aids. I argue that music is a beyond-the-head resource that affords offloading. Via this offloading, music scaffolds access to new forms of thought, experience, and behaviour. I focus on music’s capacity to scaffold emotional consciousness, including the self-regulative processes constitutive of emotional (...) consciousness. In developing this idea, I consider the ‘material’ and ‘worldmaking’ character music, and I apply these considerations to two case studies: music as a tool for religious worship, and music as a weapon for torture. (shrink)

Scientists often use aesthetic values in the evaluation and choice of theories. Aesthetic values are not only regarded as leading to practically more useful theories but are often taken to stand in a special epistemic relation to the truth of a theory such that the aesthetic merit of a theory is evidence of its truth. This paper explores what aesthetic considerations influence scientists' reasoning, how such aesthetic values relate to the utility of a scientific theory, and how one can justify (...) the epistemic role for such values. The paper examines ways in which the link between beauty and truth can be defended, the challenges facing such accounts, and explores alternative epistemic roles for aesthetic values in scientific practice. (shrink)

Historically left to the margins, the topics of imagination and creativity have gained prominence in philosophy of science, challenging the once dominant distinction between ‘context of discovery’ and ‘context of justification’. The aim of this chapter is to explore imagination and creativity starting from issues within contemporary philosophy of science, making connections to these topics in other domains along the way. It discusses the recent literature on the role of imagination in models and thought experiments, and their comparison with fictions. (...) It then turns to the importance of constraints on imaginings in the scientific domain, as well as whether constraints can hinder creativity. The second part of the paper focuses on the social dimensions of science. It considers imagination and creativity of scientific communities, asks whether the institution of science promotes creativity (and whether we want it to) or if it encourages conservativeness, and ends with a reflection on the politics of imagination and creativity in science. (shrink)

Might traditional Chinese thought regarding creativity not just influence, but also enrich, contemporary European thought about the same? Moreover, is it possible that traditional Chinese thought regarding creativity might enrich contemporary thought both in a more broad, holistic sense, and more specifically regarding the nature and role of creativity as it pertains to scientific inquiry? In this paper, I elucidate why the answer to these questions is: yes. I explain in detail a classical Chinese conception of creativity rooted in Zhuangist (...) philosophy and which centrally involves spontaneity engendered by embracing yóu遊, or “wandering”, rather than novelty or originality. I then illustrate how this conception of creativity can be used to enrich contemporary thought regarding the nature and role of creativity both in general and as it pertains to scientific inquiry in particular, as well as how to engender creativity, by arguing that it might allow us to: i) more easily remove what is frequently an obstacle to creativity, and; ii) better understand creative agents as being more intimately connected with, and as processes within and products of, their environments. Finally, I conclude by briefly remarking on how exploring various cultural perspectives on creativity promises to help us to better comprehend and promote creativity, by encouraging us to become more creative about creativity itself. (shrink)

In this paper, I sketch a new model for the format of the content of understanding states, Compressible Graph Maximalism (CGM). In this model, the format of the content of understanding is graphical, and compressible. It thus combines ideas from approaches that stress the link between understanding and holistic structure (like as reported by Grimm (in: Ammon SGCBS (ed) Explaining Understanding: New Essays in Epistemollogy and the Philosophy of Science, Routledge, New York, 2016)), and approaches that emphasize the connection between (...) understanding and compression (like Wilkenfeld (Synthese 190(6):997–1016, 2018)). I argue that the combination of these ideas has several attractive features, and I defend the idea against some challenges. (shrink)

There has been a burst of work in the last couple of decades on mechanistic explanation, as an alternative to the traditional covering-law model of scientific explanation. That work makes some interesting claims about mechanistic explanations rendering phenomena ‘intelligible’, but does not develop this idea in great depth. There has also been a growth of interest in giving an account of scientific understanding, as a complement to an account of explanation, specifically addressing a three-place relationship between explanation, world, and the (...) scientific community. The aim of this paper is to use the contextual theory of scientific understanding to build an account of understanding phenomena using mechanistic explanations. This account will be developed and illustrated by examining the mechanisms of supernovae, which will allow synthesis of treatment of the life sciences and social sciences on the one hand, where many accounts of mechanisms were originally developed, and treatment of physics on the other hand, where the contextual theory drew its original inspiration. (shrink)

Most papers in theoretical economics contain thought experiments. They take the form of more informal bits of reasoning that precede the presentation of the formal, mathematical models these papers are known for. These thought experiments differ from the formal models in various ways. In particular, they do not invoke the same idealized assumptions about the rationality, knowledge, and preferences of agents. The presence of thought experiments in papers that present formal models, and the fact that they differ from the formal (...) models in this way, is often ignored in debates on what, if anything, we can learn from formal models in theoretical economics. I show that paying due attention to thought experiments in theoretical economics has serious implications for this debate. Differences between thought experiments and formal models are especially problematic for Robert Sugden’s “credible worlds” account. (shrink)