Chapter 3

To quickly address a point that is being discussed:
Although Mason does discuss the question of whether knowledge comes before understanding or understanding before knowledge, I don't think that this exploration of cause and effect is one of the central themes in Chapter 3. It's certainly perplexing because on page 39 Mason states, explicitly, that "understanding trumps knowledge." Later, Mason writes that "knowledge required understanding required knowledge," and elsewhere in the chapter he admits that the two concepts are intimately related. On page 40, he also clarifies his statement on page 39 with regard to the superiority of understanding: "questions about the priority of understanding only arise...in contrast with past claims made about knowledge." In other words, Mason seems to be arguing that (I could be misinterpreting this completely) the perceived superiority or importance of developing theories of knowledge in the past has overshadowed the aim of developing theories of understanding and has thus prompted Mason to defend the idea of developing theories of understanding. I think.

I interpreted Mason's argument as follows:

*Modern epistemology is rooted in Christian needs and traditions, and these Christian traditions focused on knowledge. They did so in the following 6 ways:
a. "Beliefs and knowledge required propositions."
b. "Beliefs mattered," and were necessary for salvation.
c. "Beliefs had relevant support."
d. "The support for beliefs provided it with legitimation."
e. "The formulation of creeds was an intrinsically critical activity."
f. "Your beliefs were essentially yours, and this was important." (43).

I understood some of the above characteristics, but not all. Characteristic (a) implies that the criteria for knowledge and truth was stringent (I drew a parallel to Elgin and foundationalism), characteristic (b) implies that the importance of salvation enhanced the importance of characteristic (a), (c) lost me, (d) lost me, (e) lost me, and (f) seems to suggest that knowledge varied from person to person and was subjective. It would be helpful if we discuss a few of these points in class.

In the next section of the chapter, Mason argued that epistemology was rooted in the Christian traditions and attempted to validate this argument by providing an example of how epistemology could be conceptualized by someone who was not Christian. Mason used the example of Spinoza and pointed out that Spinoza did not view knowledge as individual but as "an activity of human beings, who were part of nature" (44).

After describing modern theories of knowledge, Mason suggests that "a theory of knowledge in the Cartesian mold provides a poor model for any account of understanding, to the extent that any comparison is difficult" (45). This, I think, is central to Mason's argument. Instead of trying to sort through which is superior (knowledge or understanding), I think that Mason is instead trying to emphasize the extent to which understanding cannot be "understood" in the same way that knowledge is understood. This is because understanding does not "start from the self," does not have to be "propositional," and does not have to be "legitimated" in the same way that Cartesian knowledge did (45).

At the end of chapter 3, Mason acknowledges that most of the chapter has been "negative" but concludes by arguing that "liberation [of the theory/theories of understanding] from a model of understanding based on epistemology might be beneficial. Instead of looking for a fundamental reductionist theory of understanding, we could simply try to understand it, in its manifold forms" (49). Based on the way that Mason has explored knowledge and understanding, I would tend to agree with his argument that "one size does not fit all." We should thus not try to understanding understanding in quite the same way that epistemologists understood knowledge.

However, Mason's last sentence ("we could simply try to understand it, in its manifold forms"), left me rather perplexed. I think that discussing this last sentence in class would be extremely helpful.