Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.10, 2022

Understanding in an Epistemic Context

(Abstract)

Chen Jiaming

In the history of Western philosophy, understanding is an important concept, around which different theories of understanding have taken shape. In recent years, understanding, as a way of cognition distinct from knowing, has become a hot new topic in Anglo-American studies of the theory of knowledge. The theory of understanding, which focuses on the connection between meaning and intentionality (psychological causes), opts to start from the concept of meaning and study understanding in the context of a practical theory of knowledge; it has recourse to a psychological cause in the speaker or actor for understanding the meaning of language and action, especially the grasp of intentionality. The quality of understanding in the field of meaning is expressed in the communication and convergence of the minds of the one who understands and the one who is understood (although it may not be revealed), and this is the basic difference between understanding and knowledge. The basis of understanding is reason, not facts. Reason may include facts, but it is much more than facts. This determines the specificity of the method of understanding, that is, it uses the method of “deduction of the best explanation.”