Understanding is a
psychological
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between t ...
process related to an abstract or physical
object
Object may refer to:
General meanings
* Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept
** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place
** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter
* Goal, an ai ...
, such as a
person
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, ...
, situation, or
message whereby one is able to use
concept
Concepts are defined as abstract ideas. They are understood to be the fundamental building blocks of the concept behind principles, thoughts and beliefs.
They play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied by s ...
s to model that object.
Understanding is a relation between the knower and an object of understanding. Understanding implies abilities and dispositions with respect to an object of
knowledge
Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...
that are sufficient to support intelligent behavior.
Understanding is often, though not always, related to
learning
Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, value (personal and cultural), values, attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, and some machine learning, machines ...
concepts, and sometimes also the theory or theories associated with those concepts. However, a person may have a good ability to predict the behavior of an object, animal or system—and therefore may, in some sense, understand it—without necessarily being familiar with the concepts or theories associated with that object, animal, or system in their culture. They may have developed their own distinct concepts and theories, which may be equivalent, better or worse than the recognized standard concepts and theories of their culture. Thus, understanding is correlated with the ability to make
inference
Inferences are steps in reasoning, moving from premises to logical consequences; etymologically, the word '' infer'' means to "carry forward". Inference is theoretically traditionally divided into deduction and induction, a distinction that in ...
s.
Definition
Understanding and knowledge are both words without unified definitions so
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is considere ...
looked past a
definition of knowledge
Definitions of knowledge try to determine the essential features of knowledge. Closely related terms are conception of knowledge, theory of knowledge, and analysis of knowledge. Some general features of knowledge are widely accepted among philoso ...
or understanding and looked at how the words were used in natural language, identifying relevant features in context.
[Ludwig Wittgenstein, '' On Certainty'', remark 42] It has been suggested that knowledge alone has little value whereas knowing something in context is understanding, which has much higher relative value but it has also been suggested that a state short of knowledge can be termed understanding.
Someone's understanding can come from perceived causes or non causal sources, suggesting knowledge being a pillar of where understanding comes from.
We can have understanding while lacking corresponding knowledge and have knowledge while lacking the corresponding understanding. Even with knowledge, relevant distinctions or correct conclusion about similar cases may not be made suggesting more information about the context would be required, which eludes to different degrees of understanding depending on the context.
To understand something implies abilities and
dispositions
A disposition is a quality of character, a habit, a preparation, a state of readiness, or a tendency to act in a specified way.
The terms dispositional belief and occurrent belief refer, in the former case, to a belief that is held in the mind bu ...
with respect to an object of knowledge that are sufficient to support intelligent behavior.
Understanding could therefore be less demanding than knowledge, because it seems that someone can have understanding of a subject even though they might have been mistaken about that subject. But it is more demanding in that it requires that the internal connections among ones’ beliefs actually be “seen” or “grasped” by the person doing the understanding when found at a deeper level.
Explanatory realism and the propositional model suggests understanding comes from causal propositions but, it has been argued that knowing ''how'' the cause might bring an effect is understanding.
As understanding is not directed towards a discrete proposition, but involves grasping relations of parts to other parts and perhaps the relations of part to wholes. The relationships grasped helps understanding, but the relationships aren't always causal. So understanding could therefore be expressed by knowledge of dependencies.
Examples
# One understands the weather if one is able to
predict
A prediction (Latin ''præ-'', "before," and ''dicere'', "to say"), or forecast, is a statement about a future event or data. They are often, but not always, based upon experience or knowledge. There is no universal agreement about the exact ...
(e.g. if it is very cloudy, it may rain) and/or give an
explanation
An explanation is a set of Statement (logic), statements usually constructed to description, describe a set of facts which clarifies the causality, causes, wiktionary:context, context, and Logical consequence, consequences of those facts. It may ...
of some of its features, etc.
# A
psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...
understands another person's
anxieties
Anxiety is an emotion which is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different than fear in that the former is defined as the anticipation of a future threat wh ...
if he/she knows that person's anxieties, their causes, and can give useful
advice on how to cope with the anxiety.
# One understands a piece of reasoning or an
argument
An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialectic ...
if one can consciously reproduce the information content conveyed by the message.
# One understands a
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
to the extent that one can reproduce the information content conveyed by a broad range of spoken utterances or written messages in that language.
Shallow and deep
Someone who has a more sophisticated understanding, more predictively accurate understanding, and/or an understanding that allows them to make explanations that others commonly judge to be better, of something, is said to understand that thing "deeply". Conversely, someone who has a more limited understanding of a thing is said to have a "shallow" understanding. However, the depth of understanding required to usefully participate in an occupation or activity may vary greatly.
For example, consider
multiplication
Multiplication (often denoted by the cross symbol , by the mid-line dot operator , by juxtaposition, or, on computers, by an asterisk ) is one of the four elementary mathematical operations of arithmetic, with the other ones being additi ...
of
integer
An integer is the number zero (), a positive natural number (, , , etc.) or a negative integer with a minus sign (−1, −2, −3, etc.). The negative numbers are the additive inverses of the corresponding positive numbers. In the language ...
s. Starting from the most shallow level of understanding, we have (at least) the following possibilities:
# A small child may not understand what multiplication is, but may understand that it is a type of
mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
that they will learn when they are older at school. This is "understanding of context"; being able to put an as-yet not-understood concept into some kind of context. Even understanding that a concept is not part of one's current knowledge is, in itself, a type of understanding (see the
Dunning–Kruger effect
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias whereby people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a certain type of task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge. Some researchers also include in th ...
, which is about people who do not have a good understanding of what they do not know).
# A slightly older child may understand that multiplication of two integers can be done, at least when the numbers are between 1 and 12, by looking up the two numbers in a
times table. They may also be able to memorise and recall the relevant times table in order to answer a multiplication question such as "2 times 4 is what?". This is a simple form of operational understanding; understanding a question well enough to be able to do the operations necessary to be able to find an answer.
# A yet older child may understand that multiplication of larger numbers can be done using a different method, such as
long multiplication, or using a
calculator
An electronic calculator is typically a portable electronic device used to perform calculations, ranging from basic arithmetic to complex mathematics.
The first solid-state electronic calculator was created in the early 1960s. Pocket-sized ...
. This is a more advanced form of operational understanding because it supports answering a wider range of questions of the same type.
# A teenager may understand that multiplication is repeated addition, but not understand the broader implications of this. For example, when their teacher refers to multiplying 6 by 3 as "adding up 3 sixes", they may understand that the teacher is talking about two entirely equivalent things. However, they might not understand how to ''apply'' this knowledge to implement multiplication as an
algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specificat ...
on a
computer
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...
using only addition and
looping as basic constructs. This level of understanding is "understanding a definition" (or "understanding the definition" when a concept only has one definition).
# A teenager may also understand the mathematical idea of abstracting over individual whole numbers as variables, and how to efficiently (i.e. not via trial-and-error) solve algebraic equations involving multiplication by such variables, such as
. This is "relational understanding"; understanding how multiplication relates to division.
# An
undergraduate
Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-lev ...
studying mathematics may come to learn that "the integers equipped with multiplication" is merely one example of a range of mathematical structures called
monoids
In abstract algebra, a branch of mathematics, a monoid is a set equipped with an associative binary operation and an identity element. For example, the nonnegative integers with addition form a monoid, the identity element being 0.
Monoids ar ...
, and that theorems about monoids apply equally well to multiplication and other types of monoids.
For the purpose of operating a
cash register at
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...
, a person does not need a very deep understanding of the multiplication involved in calculating the total price of two
Big Mac
The Big Mac is a hamburger sold by the international fast food restaurant chain McDonald's. It was introduced in the Greater Pittsburgh Region, Greater Pittsburgh area in 1967 and across the United States in 1968. It is one of the company's fl ...
s. However, for the purpose of contributing to
number theory
Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic function, integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777 ...
research, a person would need to have a relatively deep understanding of multiplication — along with other relevant arithmetical concepts such as division and
prime number
A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways ...
s.
Assessment
It is possible for a person, or a piece of "intelligent" software, that in reality only has a shallow understanding of a topic, to appear to have a deeper understanding than they actually do, when the right questions are asked of it. The most obvious way this can happen is by
memorization of correct answers to known questions, but there are other, more subtle ways that a person or computer can (intentionally or otherwise) deceive somebody about their level of understanding, too. This is particularly a risk with
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
, in which the ability of a piece of artificial intelligence software to very quickly try out millions of possibilities (attempted solutions, theories, etc.) could create a misleading impression of the real depth of its understanding. Supposed AI software could in fact come up with impressive
answers to questions that were difficult for unaided humans to answer, without really understanding the concepts ''at all'', simply by dumbly applying rules very quickly. (However, see the
Chinese room
The Chinese room argument holds that a digital computer executing a program cannot have a " mind," "understanding" or "consciousness," regardless of how intelligently or human-like the program may make the computer behave. The argument was pres ...
argument for a controversial philosophical extension of this argument.)
Examinations are designed to assess students' understanding (and sometimes also other things such as knowledge and writing abilities) without falling prey to these risks. They do this partly by asking multiple different questions about a topic to reduce the risk of
measurement error, and partly by forbidding access to reference works and the outside world to reduce the risk of someone else's understanding being passed off as one's own. Because of the faster and more accurate computation and memorization abilities of computers, such tests would arguably often have to be modified if they were to be used to accurately assess the understanding of an artificial intelligence.
Conversely, it is even easier for a person or artificial intelligence to fake a ''shallower'' level of understanding than they actually have; they simply need to respond with the same kind of answers that someone with a more limited understanding, or no understanding, would respond with — such as "I don't know", or obviously wrong answers. This is relevant for judges in
Turing test
The Turing test, originally called the imitation game by Alan Turing in 1950, is a test of a machine's ability to artificial intelligence, exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. Turing propos ...
s; it is unlikely to be effective to simply ask the respondents to mentally calculate the answer to a very difficult arithmetical question, because the computer is likely to simply dumb itself down and pretend not to know the answer.
As a model
Gregory Chaitin, a noted computer scientist, propounds a view that comprehension is a kind of
data compression.
In his essay "The Limits of Reason", he argues that ''understanding'' something means being able to figure out a simple set of rules that explains it. For example, we understand why day and night exist because we have a simple
model—the rotation of the earth—that explains a tremendous amount of data—changes in brightness, temperature, and atmospheric composition of the earth. We have compressed a large amount of information by using a simple model that
predicts it. Similarly, we understand the number
0.33333... by thinking of it as one-third. The first way of representing the number requires five concepts ("0", "decimal point", "3", "infinity", "infinity of 3"); but the second way can produce all the data of the first representation, but uses only three concepts ("1", "division", "3"). Chaitin argues that comprehension is this ability to compress data.
Religious perspectives
Cognition
Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
helps us gain
knowledge
Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...
which can
affect our level of understanding or 'right view' as expressed in
buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
. Understanding also is seen in the
seven gifts of the Holy Spirit helping an individual with their insight into God's providence.
See also
*
Active listening
*
Awareness
Awareness is the state of being conscious of something. More specifically, it is the ability to directly know and perceive, to feel, or to be cognizant of events. Another definition describes it as a state wherein a subject is aware of some inform ...
*
Binah (Kabbalah)
Binah (meaning "understanding"; ''Bīnā''), is the third '' sephira'' on the kabbalistic Tree of Life. It sits on the level below Keter (in the formulations that include that ''sephirah''), across from Chokhmah and directly above Gevurah. It i ...
*
Chinese room
The Chinese room argument holds that a digital computer executing a program cannot have a " mind," "understanding" or "consciousness," regardless of how intelligently or human-like the program may make the computer behave. The argument was pres ...
*
Communication
Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...
*
Concept
Concepts are defined as abstract ideas. They are understood to be the fundamental building blocks of the concept behind principles, thoughts and beliefs.
They play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied by s ...
*
Epistemology
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Episte ...
*
Hermeneutic circle
The hermeneutic circle (german: hermeneutischer Zirkel) describes the process of understanding a text Hermeneutics, hermeneutically. It refers to the idea that one's understanding of the text as a whole is established by reference to the individua ...
*
Informational listening
The process of informational listening focuses on the ability of an individual to understand a speaker's message. It is a huge part of everyday life, and failing to understand the concept of informational listening can be very detrimental to one' ...
*
Ishin-denshin
is an idiom commonly used in East Asian cultures such as Japan, Korea, China, which denotes a form of interpersonal communication through unspoken mutual understanding. This four-character compound's (or ) kanji (Chinese characters) literally tran ...
*
Lie-to-children
*
List of language disorders
*
Meaning (linguistics)
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...
*
Natural language understanding
*
Mental model
*
Nous
''Nous'', or Greek νοῦς (, ), sometimes equated to intellect or intelligence, is a concept from classical philosophy for the faculty of the human mind necessary for understanding what is true or real.
Alternative English terms used in p ...
*
Perception
Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...
*
Thought
In their most common sense, the terms thought and thinking refer to conscious cognitive processes that can happen independently of sensory stimulation. Their most paradigmatic forms are judging, reasoning, concept formation, problem solving, a ...
References
External links
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{{Authority control
Cognition
Concepts in epistemology
Concepts in metaphilosophy
Concepts in metaphysics
Concepts in the philosophy of mind
Intelligence
Knowledge
Metaphysics of mind
Ontology
Thought
Virtue