Logos and episteme
Alice WHEATLEY
ABSTRACT: We do not just want to know the truth. We also want to make sense of things, such that we understand. In this paper, I argue that understanding is distinctively valuable because it involves attending to what matters; more specifically, we cannot improve understanding by obscuring what matters. Section 1 introduces some cases that suggest understanding involves attending to what is important, in particular by representing the world in a way that brings what matters to the forefront of the mind. Section 2 explores three ways that a representation can bring what matters to the forefront: (i) selective emphasis (ii) vividness and (iii) resonating with an agent’s concerns. Section 3 argues that we should take an objective interpretation of what matters, such that one’s degree of understanding is sensitive to what is important and not what one finds important. Section 4 clarifies the sense in which understanding has distinctive and, in some contexts, superior epistemic value in virtue of attentiveness to what objectively matters. Section 5 addresses three objections that attempt to explain the value of attending to what matters in terms of knowledge or non-epistemic value.
