Prediction and the Goal of Understanding
Issue: • Author/s: Sofia Elisabetta Walters
Topics: Cognitive science, Epistemology, Philosophy of mind, Philosophy of science
This paper explores the problem of the goal of understanding, proposing that understanding may be linked to prediction. The approach taken is functional and evolutionary, and it integrates an epistemological perspective with the insights of the predictive processing models of cognition. I first consider the possible goals of understanding, taking as few epistemological assumptions as possible. I take into account the notions of ends in themselves and of explanations, and I distinguish between internally-oriented goals and externally-oriented goals. Then I present how prediction might be connected with the goal of…
Understanding with Epistemic Possibilities: The Epistemic Aim and Value of Metaphysics [Special Issue]
Issue: Issue 19 • Author/s: Ylwa Sjölin Wirling
Topics: Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ontology, Philosophy of science, Theoretical philosophy
According to a recent proposal, the epistemic aim of metaphysics as a discipline is to chart the different viable theories of metaphysical objects of inquiry (e.g. causation, persistence). This paper elaborates on and seeks to improve on that proposal in two related ways. First, drawing on an analogy with how-possibly explanation in science, I argue that we can usefully understand this aim of metaphysics as the charting of epistemically possible answers to metaphysical questions. Second, I argue that in order to account for the epistemic goodness of this aim, one…