In this Book
- Understanding Understanding
- Book
- 2003
- Published by: State University of New York Press
- Series: SUNY Series in Philosophy (discontinued)
summary
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 under¬standing, modeled on past theories of knowledge, cannot be workable.
Understanding may bring wisdom: an uncomfort¬able 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 under¬standing 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.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Introduction
- pp. 1-6
- Chapter One. What We Understand
- pp. 7-20
- Chapter Two. How We Understand
- pp. 21-38
- Chapter Four. Intelligibility
- pp. 51-66
- Chapter Six. Beyond Understanding
- pp. 89-104
- Chapter Seven. Wisdom
- pp. 105-114
- Bibliography
- pp. 125-130
- Index of Names
- pp. 131-132
Additional Information
ISBN
9780791486122
DOI
MARC Record
OCLC
56408576
Pages
140
Launched on MUSE
2012-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No