Understanding UnderstandingSUNY Press, 2003 M09 25 - 132 pages A study of the scope and limits of understanding. How is understanding to be understood? Are there limits to understanding? What of importance, if anything, could lie beyond understanding? And do we need to understand knowledge before we can know about understanding? Richard Mason's argument is that a critical theory of understanding, modeled on past theories of knowledge, cannot be workable. Understanding may bring wisdom: an uncomfortable thought for many philosophers in the twentieth century. Yet philosophy aims at expanding understanding at least as much as knowledge. How we understand understanding affects how we understand philosophy. If we put aside a narrow view of understanding based upon a cartesian model of knowledge, we may gain a more liberal, open understanding of philosophy. Mason's treatment of these fascinating problems offers a clear and lucid dialogue with a number of contemporary philosophical schools and with philosophy's past. His discussions include the thought of Hume, Henry James, Heidegger, Frege, Charles Taylor, Michael Oakeshott, Wittgenstein, Gadamer, James Joyce, and the Guyaki Indians. This fascinating book contributes to the work of many of these traditions as well as to the nature of understanding in areas as diverse as physics, music, and linguistics. |
Contents
INTRODUCTION | 1 |
CHAPTER | 7 |
CHAPTER | 21 |
CHAPTER THREE | 39 |
CHAPTER FOUR | 51 |
CHAPTER FIVE | 67 |
CHAPTER | 89 |
WISDOM | 105 |
BIBLIOGRAPHY | 125 |
| 131 | |
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able accept answer apparently apply areas argued argument assume barriers beliefs Cambridge University Press capacity cause century chapter claim clear concepts context critical Critique definition Descartes desire difficulty direct distinction everything evidence example experience explanation expression fact feel follow further grasp hard hermeneutics historical human idea imagine imply important intelligibility interest interpretation Kant kind knowledge language laws less limits lines linguistic logical looks mathematical matter meaning meant metaphor method mind nature never objects Oxford particular past philosophical position possible practical present principle problem propositions Pure question rational reading reason reduce religion religious requires rules seems seen sense societies someone sort sounds specific standing styles suggest supposed taken theory things thought tions true truth types understanding understood visual whole wisdom Wittgenstein writing