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6 The Illusion of Depth of Understanding in Science P e t R i Y L i k o S k i L Philosophers of science have a long tradition of making a connection between explanation and understanding, but only lately have they started to give the latter notion a substantial role in their theories. The reason is because understanding is an even more difficult notion than explanation. To my mind, the recent interest in understanding (exemplified by this volume), springs from the fact that explanation is a cognitive activity, and for too long theories of explanation have dismissed the cognitive dimension with the weak excuse of its being a too “subjective” ingredient for a theory of scientific explanation. Explanation is connected with understanding, and therefore philosophy of science needs an analysis of scientific understanding. In this chapter I will employ a well-known scientific research heuristic that studies how something works by focusing on circumstances in which it does not work. Rather than trying to describe what scientific understanding would ideally look like, I will try to learn something about it by observing mundane cases where understanding is partly illusory. My main thesis is that scientists are prone to the illusion of depth of understanding (IDU), and as a consequence they sometimes overestimate the detail, coherence, and depth of their understanding . I will analyze the notion of understanding and its relation to a sense of understanding. In order to make plausible the claim that these are often disconnected, I will describe an interesting series of psychological experiments by Frank Keil and his coauthors that suggests that ordinary people routinely overestimate the depth of their understanding. Then I will argue that we should 100 petri ylikoski de Regt Txt•.indd 100 9/8/09 11:27:01 AM 101 take seriously the possibility that scientific cognition is also affected by IDU and spell out some possible causes of explanatory illusions in science. I will conclude this chapter by discussing how scientific explanatory practices could be improved and how the philosophy of science might be able to contribute to this process. Understanding and the Illusion of Depth What is understanding? Wittgenstein argues that understanding should not be understood as a sensation, an experience, or a state of mind. It is not primarily a process: coming to understand something is a process, but not understanding itself. More generally, understanding is not a special moment or phase, but a more permanent attribute. It is an ability. When a person understands something, he or she is able to do certain things (Wittgenstein 1953,§§143–55, 179–84, 321–24; Baker and Hacker 2005, 357–85.) This does not mean that understanding is some sort of special skill. Understanding consists of knowledge about relations of dependence. When one understands something, one can make all kinds of correct inferences about it, many of which are counterfactual: What would have happened if certain things had been different? What will happen if things are changed in a certain manner ? To get a better grasp of these counterfactual inferences, it is useful to consider the ways in which we can demonstrate that we understand something. In favorable circumstances, understanding allows for successful interaction with an object. Our knowledge of the relevant relations of dependence allows us to make inferences about the consequences of our interventions. We know what can be done and how. We also know what cannot be done. In this way, understanding gives us an ability to control the phenomenon. Understanding comes in degrees, and the amount of control can be used as its measure: other things being equal, the wider the range of control, the deeper is our understanding . With enough understanding of how something works, we can repair it when it fails or even build a new one, and the more failures we can repair, the better is our understanding of it. A similar point applies to understanding human beings. The better we understand a person, the more successful we are in cooperating and communicating with him or her. We are not always in a position to causally interact with the phenomenon, so the amount of control we have cannot be regarded as the ultimate criterion for understanding. If the fact to be understood is in the past, or if we lack means of intervention, we cannot demonstrate our understanding in this way. But there are alternatives. If causal interaction with an object is not possible, we might still be able to demonstrate our understanding...

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