The Epistemic Value of Understanding, Henk W. de Reg
- the most important distinction:
“Scientists may prefer theories with particular pragmatic virtues because they possess the skills to construct models for explaining phenomena on the basis of these theories. In other words, they have pragmatic understanding UT of such theories. I suggest to rephrase this with the help of the notion of intelligibility. If scientists understand a theory, the theory is intelligible to them.” pg.593.
When I first think of the pragmatic virtues, I thought those are related to the application of theories such that these virtues are the distinction point of being a scientist vs. being an engineer. However, as I read through, I realized the author is actually mentioning a way of theory choice based upon the pragmatic understanding of theories.
- a clarification question/criticism:
“The fact that deductive reasoning—and accordingly deductive-nomological explanation—involves skill and judgment has two important implications. First, skills cannot be acquired from textbooks but only in practice, because they cannot be translated in explicit sets of rules. Accordingly, to possess a skill is to have ‘tacit knowledge’.” pg.589.
I somewhat agree with this statement, but the following explanations are not really supporting this idea. There are examples for implicit learning, unconscious and unintentional learning, internalizing rules and developing cognitive skills as a physical skill. However, the author then wrote the existence of such a mind is also problematic. So, I’m not clear on how skills can be developed excluding explicit sets of rules.
Idealization and the Aims of Science, Potochnik
- the most important distinction:
“Understanding is at once a cognitive state and an epistemic achievement. Because understanding is a cognitive state, it depends in part on the psychological characteristics of those who seek to understand.” pg.94.
The important distinction here is the statement of ‘who seek to understand’, which emphasize a certain level of human cognition. This is also what makes a person a scientist.
- a clarification question/criticism:
“But these idealizations are specific to their purposes. This requires focus on one particular scientific aim (at a time), and one particular deployment of that aim, to the exclusion of others.” pg.108.
I believe idealizations can be made to reach a general rule or law, excluding any specific cases. For example, ideal gas law we learned in high school is general enough to be applied in both near vacuum and high pressures. If we want to be specific, we may use a modified version of the equation by including relative humidity etc. Therefore, idealizations can aim a broader view of the topic instead of being so specific.