Professor Alison Hills, St John’s College, Oxford University

Forthcoming in Nous

Understanding Why.
Abstract
I argue that understanding why p involves a kind of intellectual know how and differs
from both knowledge that p and knowledge why p (as they are standardly
understood). I argue that understanding, in this sense, is valuable.

1. Understanding why.
There are several kinds of understanding, including:

Understanding what a sentence means: e.g. Jane understands what “the cat sat on the mat”
means

Understanding a subject matter: e.g. Susan understands chemistry

Understanding that p: e.g. I understand that you are leaving tonight.

Understanding why p: e.g. I understand why the caged bird sings.

My purpose in this paper is to give an account of the latter, understanding why p (where p is
some proposition); all reference to “understanding” here be to understanding why p.1
You can have understanding why relating to different subject matters.

Moral understanding: for instance, understanding why an action is right or wrong; a person is
good or bad, a character trait is a virtue, and so on.

Aesthetic understanding: for instance, understanding why one painting has aesthetic value and
another does not; why one work of literature is profound, and so on.

1
It is an interesting question, but one I will not have space to discuss in any detail, how understanding
why relates to other kinds of understanding. I am inclined to think, for instance, that understanding why
p (where q is why p) requires understanding that q is why p, though I will not argue for this here.

1
Philosophical understanding: for instance, understanding why free will is compatible with
determinism (or not); why personal identity is based on psychological traits (or not) and so
on.

Mathematical understanding: for instance, understanding why Fermat’s last theorem is true.

Scientific understanding: for instance, understanding why this tree has fallen down, why
global warming is occurring, and so on.

I have written about moral understanding in earlier work, and my goal here is to
establish that a similar account can be given of understanding why p in general.2 I won’t
resolve every issue about the nature of understanding that is raised in the course of this
discussion, and at certain points I indicate where the account could be developed in different
ways.
Recently, understanding why has been the focus of some attention, but its nature and
its relationship to propositional knowledge are still in dispute. Some think that understanding
why p is a kind of propositional knowledge; others do not, but do not agree among themselves
as to why not.3
In this paper, I intend to show that there is an important epistemic state with a
different role to that traditionally filled by propositional knowledge. I will call this state
understanding why. This is partly stipulative but only partly: I believe that my account of
understanding why captures central features of our common use of the term.
I will contrast understanding why with what I take to be a standard conception of
propositional knowledge, which has the following characteristics:
1. Knowledge is factive. If S knows that p, then S believes that p and p is true.
2. Knowledge is inconsistent with certain types of “luck”. If S knows that p, then S
was not “lucky” to believe that p, for instance, S was not in a “Gettier” type situation,
or in a “fake barn” type situation (I will have more to say about luck and knowledge
later).

2
Moral understanding is described in Hills (2009, 2010).
3
Kitcher (2002), Woodward (2003a, p. 179), Lipton (2004, p. 30) Grimm (2006, 2012) and Khalifa
(2012 ) argue that understanding is a kind of knowledge. Zagzebski (2001), Kvanvig (2003), Pritchard
(2010a and 2010b) and Newman (2014) argue that it is distinct, but on different grounds. I will point
out the differences between my conception of understanding and theirs as my account unfolds.

2
 3. Knowledge cannot be based on defeated evidence. If S has evidence for p but the
evidence that she has is defeated – outweighed or undercut by other evidence – then S
does not know that p.
4. Knowledge can be transmitted by testimony. If S knows that p, and T knows that S
is trustworthy and S tells T that p, T can come to know that p too.

It is part of the standard conception of knowledge that to have knowledge you need
the right kind of justification, and that if you have lucky true beliefs or beliefs based on
defeated evidence, you do not have the right kind of justification for knowledge. And though
there is a lively debate about exactly how knowledge can be passed on by testimony, it is very
widely recognized that it can. Knowledge has a very important social epistemic role: much of
our knowledge comes “second hand” and testimony is a very common way of sharing the
knowledge that we have.
It is much more controversial whether the standard conception of knowledge is the
right one or whether we should prefer a non-standard conception according to which
knowledge can be lucky, or can be based on defeated evidence. For the purposes of this paper,
I will simply assume the standard conception of knowledge, though there will be some
discussion and defence of it at certain key points.
I will argue that understanding why is different from this standard conception of
propositional knowledge: it is consistent with luck, it can be based on defeated evidence and
it cannot (easily) be transmitted by testimony. Finally, I argue that it is valuable.

2. Understanding why p.
What is it to understand why p? If you understand why p, you believe that p, for
instance, that lying is typically wrong. And you also have a view as to why p, that is, the
explanation or reason why p (that q is why p, or p because q), for instance, that lying is
typically wrong because it is not a way of treating people respectfully. You cannot understand
why p if p isn’t true, or if your belief as to why p is mistaken. So understanding why is factive
(it is also not transparent: you can have more or less understanding than you think).4

4
Most accounts of understanding why agree that it is factive, though Zagzebski (2001) develops a
conception of understanding (though not understanding why specifically) which is transparent and not
factive.

3
 Understanding why p, though, requires more than the correct belief that p because q.
It requires a grasp of the reason why p, or more precisely, a grasp of the relationship between
p and q.
This is a familiar metaphor and an extremely important one, since this “grasp” is one
of the distinctive features of understanding. Unfortunately it is not very clear: what is it to
grasp the relationship between two propositions? The best way of thinking of it is by an
analogy with the grasping a ball or cup of tea or similar. If you grasp a ball, you have it under
your control. You can manipulate it, move it, turn it round, and so on, that is you (normally)
have a set of practical abilities or practical know how, which you can exercise if you choose.5
How does this idea of grasping a ball transfer to the grasp of the relationship between
propositions? When you grasp a relationship between two propositions, you have that
relationship under your control. You can manipulate it. You have a set of abilities or know-
how relevant to it, which you can exercise if you choose. 6 For instance, if you understand
why p, you can give an explanation of why p and you can do the same in similar cases. If you
find out that q (where q is why p), you can draw the conclusion that p (or that probably p, if q
only makes p probable). And you can do the same in similar cases. More formally, if you
understand why p (and q is why p), then you believe that p and that q is why p and in the right
sort of circumstances you can successfully:
(i) follow some explanation of why p given by someone else
(ii) explain why p in your own words
(iii) draw the conclusion that p (or that probably p) from the information that q

5
Grimm (2010) gives a similar general account of “grasping”; Grimm 2012 also defends the view that
to have understanding is to have a set of abilities or know-how to answer “what if things were
different” questions. The view sketched here elaborates that suggestion. Newman (2014) also argues
that understanding requires abilities (e.g. the ability to generalize) but not the ability to apply it to new
cases. De Regt and Dieks (2005) think that understanding requires abilities too, but they are addressing
a different kind of understanding (understanding a phenomenon using a theory, rather than
understanding why p) and specify a different ability (the ability to use a theory to explain the
phenomenon without performing exact calculations). However this ability does not seem to me to be
necessary for scientific understanding, let alone for understanding in general.
6
I said that physically grasping something could be explained as involving a certain kind of know- how
and that the same is true of the kind of grasping relevant to understanding why. Know-how is usually
thought of as a kind of practical knowledge and associated with action – knowing how to ride a bike, or
how to swim, for instance. But there can be intellectual know-how too, knowing how to draw
conclusions, give explanations, put propositions into your own words and so on. Understanding why
can be thought of as requiring intellectual know-how.

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 (iv) draw the conclusion that p’ (or that probably p’) from the information that q’
(where p’ and q’ are similar to but not identical to p and q)
(v) given the information that p, give the right explanation, q;
(vi) given the information that p’, give the right explanation, q’

I will call this set of abilities, “cognitive control”: if you understand why p (and q is
why p) then you have cognitive control over p and q and thus you can (in the right
circumstances) manipulate the relationship between p and q.7
Is understanding why (partly) constituted by these abilities? Or is it the ground of
these abilities? I favour the former account, but it is one of the questions that I will leave open
here. I will address some further questions about understanding why in the next sections,
however.

i. What is an explanation of why p?

According to my account, understanding why and explanation are very closely
connected: if you understand why p, you can normally give an explanation of why p in your
own words, and do the same in similar situations. I do not propose to give a full account of
explanation here, but I shall say a little about it.
An explanation is an answer to the question: why p? It’s possible to answer that
question in a more or less full and detailed way, using more or less fundamental terms (for
instance, answering a question like “why did she decide to pick the blue box” in the language
of folk psychology or of neuroscience). There may be – perhaps usually there is - more than
one adequate answer to the question “why p” and hence more than one explanation why p.
Different kinds of explanation are to be expected from different subject matters, for instance,
many scientific explanations are likely to be causal explanations, but explanations in
mathematics and morality will not be causal, or not typically causal in any case.
There are rival accounts in the literature of what constitutes a good explanation, for
instance whether it must consist of covering laws, or can include ceteris paribus laws, or be

7
This account leaves open the possibility that there may be (unusual) circumstances in which you
cannot successfully exercise the abilities, yet you still have understanding why.

5
perfectly good without including any laws at all. I will not adjudicate between them here
(though I am inclined to think that explanations in some subjects need not include laws).8
Understanding why p requires grasping the relationship between q and p, where q
explains why p. Depending on the context, more or less full and elaborate explanations might
be required. There may be background assumptions that can be taken for granted in some
context and so need not explicitly feature in an explanation. In some contexts, a certain kind
of explanation may be expected (for instance, a folk psychological rather than a
neuroscientific explanation of a piece of behaviour), and in others a different kind of
explanation.
Again, depending on the context, the question of why A is F may be calling for
different answers, because there is an implicit contrast case to be explained. For instance,
suppose you want to explain why lying is normally wrong. Your question might really be:
why does lying wrong when telling the truth is not? Or the question might be: why is lying
wrong when not saying anything (i.e. not saying p, rather than saying not-p), is acceptable,
which is a much more difficult question and will have to be answered with a detailed and
subtle account of testimony, communication and respect. What it is to explain why lying is
wrong - and so what it is to understand why lying is wrong - may therefore be quite different
in different contexts, depending on the background assumptions, expectations for the type of
explanation and implicit contrast at issue.9

ii. Since you can have the abilities to a greater or lesser degree, does understanding come in
degrees?
With this sketch of explanation in mind, what exactly is required for understanding?
An explanation might involve a ceteris paribus clause – would someone who understood why
p have to be able to specify fully this clause? Would her explanation have to be couched in
the right sort of language – describing fundamental particles and forces, or natural properties
(rather than ones of the special sciences, or evaluative ones, or “folk” properties)? What if
there is more than one explanation of a phenomenon, would she have to be able to give all

8
There is a considerable literature on the nature of explanation. Just a selection include Strevens (2008)
Woodward (2003a, 2003b), Ruben (1990). Different types of explanation are specifically discussed in
Leibowitz (2011), Jenkins (2008).
9
Similar phenomena have been pointed out with regard to knowledge that p, which can (but as
Hawthorne 2003, p 77-80 points out, need not) motivate a contextualism or contrastivism about
knowledge.

6
relevant explanations? To fully explain why p, where q is why p, would she also have to be
able to explain why q?
Explanations can be more or less full and detailed. You can be better or worse at
explaining yourself in your own words. You can be better or worse at making judgements
about related cases. Since these constituents of understanding why come in degrees, it is
tempting to think that understanding why p comes in degrees too. So Mary would understand
why free will is compatible with determinism, for instance, better than John if she were
(under normal circumstances) able to give more detailed and convincing reasons why it is
compatible, answering more objections and so on.
We do talk about understanding why (in at least some contexts) as if it comes in
degrees and there is some suggestive linguistic evidence supporting this.10 “Understands why
p” is “gradable”, that is, it is similar to verbs such as “regret” or adjectives such as “tall”.11 A
linguistic sign that an expression is “gradable” is that it can be modified. For instance:

1.a. Peter is very tall.

b. Jane is not very tall.
c. Peter regrets laughing very much.
d. Jane does not regret laughing very much.

It is not at all natural to modify “understands why” with “very much”:

2. a. # Peter understands very much why he needs to go shopping.

b. # Jane does not understand very much why she needs a new job.

10
The evidence is suggestive but not conclusive and there are alternative possibilities. Notably, you
might think of understanding why p as something that you either have or not. You have it if you can
give a good enough explanation in this and similar cases, that is, there is a “cut-off” point, which marks
the difference between having understanding and not having it all. Now there are a number of different
possibilities. This crucial “cut-off” point could be fixed in all contexts; or it might vary. Perhaps the
pragmatic importance of the context might shift the standards as well. If this is right, you might lose
understanding by moving from a low stakes or low standards context to a higher stakes or higher
standards context. Each of these possibilities has some appeal (and there may be viable combinations
of the two views as well), but I favour an account according to which understanding why p comes in
degrees, since I think the linguistic evidence best supports this.
11
See Stanley (2005), ch 3 for the marks of gradability, with special reference to knowledge
(understanding why is not discussed). Kvanvig (2003) distinguishes between understanding and
knowledge at least in part because he takes understanding but not knowledge to be gradable.

7
But there are very natural constructions with “understand why” modified by “very well”:

3.a. Peter understands very well why he needs to go shopping.

b. Jane does not understand very well why she needs a new job.

And there are other possible modifiers:

4. a. Peter understands completely why he should not lie to the police.

b. Jane does not completely understand why it is a mistake to defend herself in court.
c. Susan barely understands why she should be polite to her colleagues.
d. Theresa fully understands why she should not kill an innocent child.

And the modified claim can be conjoined with an unmodified claim without inconsistency, as
in:

5.a Susan is tall, but not very tall.

b. Susan regrets laughing, but not very much.

6.a. Susan understands why she should be polite, but not very well.
b. Susan understands why she should not lie to the police, but she does not fully understand
why.

Finally, there are natural comparatives. You can compare different people who both
understand why p, and you can compare the same person with regard to her understanding of
two different propositions:

7. Peter understands why he should not lie to the police better than he understands why
it is a mistake to defend himself in court.

8. Peter understands why he should not lie to the police better than Susan does.

9. Peter understands why he should not lie to the police better than Susan understands
why it is a mistake to defend herself in court.

8
 This linguistic evidence suggests that there are grades of understanding. There are
some grounds for taking knowledge why to be gradable too, for the following sentences are
acceptable:

10. a. Peter knows very well why he should not lie to the police.
b. Peter knows full well why he should not lie to the police.
11. Jane does not know very well why it is a mistake to defend herself in court.

But there are perfectly acceptable modifiers of “understands why” that are not at all felicitous
with “knows why”:

11. a. # Peter knows completely why he should not lie to the police.
b. # Jane does not completely know why it is a mistake to defend herself in court.
c. # Susan barely knows why she should be polite to her colleagues.
d. # Theresa fully knows why she should not kill an innocent child.

Nor is this merely an artefact of English, for the same is true in French
Je comprends complètement …is fine, whereas
# Je sais complètement …is not

And also in Russian

Ja vpolne ponimaju, pochemu… is fine; whereas
# Ja vpolne znaju, pochemu… is not.

And also Hebrew

ani legamrei mevin(/mevina) lama… is fine whereas
# ani legmarei yodea(/yodaat ) lama… is not.

Suppose that there are three reasons why cows are not purple, and Peter knows them
all, whereas Mary knows one of them. There is a perfectly good sense in which Peter has
greater knowledge why cows are not purple than Mary does: he knows more propositions of
the form: “q is why p” than she does. Thus knowledge why is gradable to some extent (as the
linguistic evidence shows).
Understanding why has the same phenomenon –a gradability of “quantity” – but it
also has a gradability of quality (how completely, fully, barely or partially you understand
why p). This is linked to the set of abilities, cognitive control, that is an essential part of
understanding why (but not of knowledge why), as I explain in the next section, and it is why

9
there are some of the linguistic expresssions of gradability that are acceptable for
understanding why but not for knowledge why.

iii. Are all the abilities required?

My account of understanding sketched above includes six abilities that were essential
to understanding why p. Could more abilities be required? Or fewer?
The six abilities are attempts to clarify cognitive control. I would not rule out the
possibility that more abilities could be part of this.
It might be argued, however, that there are two sorts of abilities specified here – the
ability to draw the right conclusion or grasp the right explanation, and the abilities to do so
consciously, explicitly, and ultimately, articulately. Giving an explanation in your own words
(even following an explanation given by someone else) requires linguistic abilities that people
might not possess, even though they understand why p perfectly well. Perhaps you can grasp
why personal identity is based on psychological rather than physical continuity (for instance)
without being able to explain it very well. Understanding should not be defined as needing
significant linguistic abilities.
The first point to note in reply is that understanding why only requires that you
normally can put an explanation into your own words and so on. It is consistent with this that
you understand why p, even though you cannot explain why p is true.
Even with this caveat, one might think that linguistic abilities are not an element of
understanding why. I think that there is something to this objection, and I am willing to
describe the kind of understanding I outlined previously as explicit understanding, and to
distinguish a different kind. Let us say that you tacitly or implicitly understand why p, if p is
true and q is why p, provided that you believe that p and under normal circumstances
you can draw the conclusion that p (or that probably p) from the information that q;
and
you can draw the conclusion that p’ (or that probably p’) from the information that q’ (where
p’ and q’ are similar to but not identical to p and q).
What I mean by “draw the conclusion p from the information q” here is that you
correctly believe that q and on that basis you draw the correct conclusion (p). You do not
have to represent q as the basis of p or even necessarily be explicitly aware of it at all. Even
the judgement that p may be implicit.12

12
The difference between implicit and explicit understanding is somewhat similar to Sosa’s well-
known distinction between animal and reflective knowledge. Animal knowledge does not require the
knower to have an “epistemic perspective” on her belief. Reflective knowledge that p requires the
knower to understand why p is true and to understand how the way in which her belief that p is

10
 I think that both implicit understanding and explicit understanding are important
concepts. I will be focus on explicit understanding in this paper (from now on, what I call
understanding will be explicit understanding why p), though I will briefly return to implicit
understanding in the final sections.
A second objection is that this account of understanding is too demanding in a
different way. To understand why p, it might be said, you need true beliefs as to why p.
Perhaps you also need some grasp of this explanation, for instance, you need to be able to
generalize from it. But you do not have to be able to draw conclusions about similar cases. 13
Cognitive control comes in degrees: you can be better or worse at following
explanations, drawing conclusions, giving your own explanations of similar cases, and so on.
If you have cognitive control to some extent, you may have some understanding of why p.
But to understanding completely why p, you need complete cognitive control. After all, how
do you test whether someone really understands why global warming is occurring, or why
stealing is morally wrong? You ask them a series of “What if…?” questions.14 What if the
initial conditions were different? What would be the consequences? What if there was a
different outcome? How could that be explained? If someone cannot answer these questions,
they do not understand why p very well, whatever else they can do. They do not have
cognitive control to a great enough extent to have complete or full understanding why p.

3. Is knowledge why p sufficient for understanding why p?

As described above, understanding why p has some very important features in
common with knowledge that p. Understanding why p, like knowledge that p, is factive and
not transparent. Since they are quite similar, and since knowledge is the focus of so much
contemporary epistemology, it is natural to ask: do we need separate accounts of
understanding and knowledge? Isn’t knowledge necessary and sufficient for understanding?

sustained is reliably truth-conducive (Sosa 2009 p.138). But there are significant differences between
them too, notably that reflective knowledge must be reliably formed, whilst understanding (on my
conception) need not be. I suspect that implicit understanding is available to (some) animals and to
small children, though I will not make the case for that here.
13
This objection is made in Newman (2014).
14
See Woodward (2003a, pp 203), see also Grimm (2010, p. 341).

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 A first point to note is that it is not just English that draws a distinction between two
epistemic states. Separate terms for understanding and knowledge (and for understanding why
and knowledge why in particular) are found in many languages, including French:

Je sais que… I know that …

Je comprends que … I understand that …

Je sais pourquoi… I know why…

Je comprends pourquoi… I understand why…

And German

Ich weiss dass… I know that…

Ich verstehe dass… I understand that…

Ich weiss, warum… I know why …

Ich verstehe, warum… I understand why …

Russian

Ja znaju, chto… I know that…

Ja ponimaju, chto… I understand that…

Ja znaju, pochemu… I know why…

Ja ponimaju, pochemu… I understand why…

Hebrew

ani yodea(/yodaat) she-… I know that …

ani mevin(/mevina) she-.. I understand that…

ani yodea(/yodaat) lama… I know why…

ani mevin(/mevina) lama… I understand why…

12
 The distinction can also be drawn in Danish (vide/ forsta), in Irish (Tá fhios agam go
bhfuil … /Tuigim go bhfuil … ) amongst others. This is not of course conclusive evidence
that understanding and knowledge are two separate states, especially as the difference
between the two expressions is not always clear. But it is suggestive, especially when put
together with the previous linguistic evidence that understanding why is gradable in a way
that knowledge why is not.
The claim that understanding why p must be different from knowledge that p is not
very controversial. You can know that p – for instance, by perception or by testimony -
without having any idea why p is true. The same is not true of understanding why p.
But what about knowledge why p? Perhaps it is necessary and sufficient for
understanding why p. But though they have some important similarities, I do not think that
knowledge why p is either necessary or sufficient for understanding why p, provided that we
accept a plausible account of knowledge why, namely, that you know why p (where q is why
p) only if you know that p and you know that q, and this is standard propositional knowledge.
The claim that understanding and knowledge are separate states is highly
controversial. In the next section I will argue that knowledge why p is not necessary for
understanding why p. Here, I tackle the slightly less controversial claim that that knowledge
why p is not sufficient for understanding why p.
This claim is less controversial because sentences like “you know why p but you
don’t understand why p” sound perfectly natural to most people. In short, I suggest that this is
because understanding why p and knowledge why p are separate states that play different
epistemic roles. In order to satisfy its role, understanding why p requires cognitive control,
but this is not essential to the epistemic role of knowledge why p.
Suppose that you know why giving a money to charity is right, namely because we
owe assistance to the very needy. You were told this by your parents. You understand what
the statement means. You believe it and it is true. You have formed it in the right way to have
knowledge (by testimony from sources you rightly believe to be reliable). But you won’t
necessarily yet have the abilities to make accurate judgements about other, similar cases –
where you are aware that your sacrifice would be more significant, or that the needs you
could meet are not pressing. And so on.15 So you can have knowledge why without cognitive
control, and so without understanding why.
Of course, to have knowledge why, you need abilities too. In normal circumstance, if
someone asks you why giving money to charity is right, you need to be able to answer. And

15
The same point is made by Grimm (2010).

13
not just by “parroting” an answer, but because you understand what you are saying. But to
have knowledge why, you do not need to be able to judge new cases correctly: this kind of
cognitive control is essential to understanding, but not knowledge.
Or at least, that is true given a standard account of knowledge. But maybe the lesson
that we should draw from this example is that the standard account of knowledge is wrong: it
is too weak. Suppose you come across someone who confidently says that we should give
money to charity because we owe assistance to the very needy, but is stumped if asked about
those who are needy, but not very. Is it not tempting to say that this person didn’t really know
why we should give money to charity?16
I think it is tempting. And this would suggest that the standard account of knowledge
is indeed not sufficiently demanding, and that to have knowledge you need something very
close to the same cognitive control that understanding why requires.
But though it may be tempting to say that you don’t really know why we should give
money to charity if you cannot answer related questions, I think that there is an even more
forceful pull in the other direction, denying that knowledge requires cognitive control. After
all, if we are careful in how we delineate what knowledge you have, it is very plausible that
you know why we should give money to the very needy. You formed that judgement in
exactly the right way to get knowledge. What you do not know are some related propositions:
why we should give money to the less needy. That is, you know why p, but not why p’, and
you can know why p without being able to explain why p’.
A powerful reason for preferring the less demanding conception of knowledge is that
it allows knowledge to play one of its extremely important epistemic social roles: namely that
knowledge can be shared quite easily though testimony. If someone who knows asserts: “q is
why p” and you understand what they say and rightly trust them, you come to know why p.
But that wouldn’t be true if knowledge required cognitive control, because usually this cannot
be passed on through assertion alone, or at least not easily. You cannot normally pass on the
ability to draw conclusions or give explanations about similar cases simply by telling
someone that q is why p (or even telling them that, plus that q’ is why p’ and so on).
Cognitive control is something that typically comes with reflection and practice. Other kinds
of ability or know-how too are difficult to pass on through testimony alone. Hardly anyone
learns how to swim or ride a bike by reading a textbook or listening to an explanation of how
to do so. Guidance from an expert can certainly help, but that help does not necessarily take
the form of assertions passing on standard propositional knowledge; or even if it does, that
only works if it is combined with practice. Testimony alone is not normally enough.

16
Grimm (2012) defends this more demanding account of knowledge.

14
 Because it can be passed on easily through testimony, knowledge allows for
substantial divisions of epistemic labour: you can find out why X and then tell me; I can find
out why Z and then tell you. We will both end up with knowledge why X and why Z.
Understanding why is different. Even if you tell me that w is why x is true and I tell
you that v is why z is true, we won’t thereby have passed on the cognitive control necessary
for understanding: I will understand why z but not why x, you will understand why x but not
why z. Because it requires cognitive control that cannot easily be passed on by testimony,
understanding why typically does not allow for a substantial division of epistemic labour.
Suppose that understanding why does require cognitive control and knowledge why
does not. Is cognitive control itself ultimately explicable in terms of propositional knowledge?
Perhaps cognitive control can be explained as an indefinitely large number of
separate pieces of knowledge why: further knowledge of the explanatory link between p and
q, plus knowledge why p’, and why p’’, and so on. Then though knowledge why p would not
be sufficient for understanding why p, knowledge why [p, and p’ , and p’’ etc] would be
sufficient for understanding why p.17
I don’t think that it is very plausible to identify cognitive control with extra
propositional knowledge. For no particular extra number of pieces of propositional
knowledge guarantees that you have the grasp required of understanding, the ability to draw
conclusions yourself in a new case. And without that guarantee, no amount of propositional
knowledge can be sufficient for understanding why p.
Nor is it obvious that you can specify in advance which conclusions you would need
to draw, in which circumstances, to count as understanding why p. Understanding why p is
open-ended (in a way that knowledge why is not). Again, it is not possible to explain
understanding why p in terms of knowledge why p.18

17
A similar suggestion is made in Khalifa (2012). He accepts that there may be additional skills
required for understanding but describes them as merely “thin” and “trivial” (pp. 27-8). In my view,
this significantly underestimates how difficult it is to make accurate judgements about new cases,
however: extending one’s knowledge (or true beliefs) in this way is far from trivial (seen also Newman
2014, especially pp 60-62).
18
Earlier, I said that understanding why p could be regarded as involving know-how. This might seem
to offer a new line of argument that propositional knowledge is sufficient for understanding why p
because it has been argued strongly that know-how is a kind of propositional knowledge (Stanley and
Williamson (2001) and Stanley (2011)). But there are some key differences, notably that know-how
can be lucky in a way that propositional knowledge cannot (see Cath (2011), Glick (2011), and Stanley
(2011) for rebuttals to some of these arguments). Know-how, unlike standard propositional knowledge,
is also difficult to pass on through testimony. Wiggins (2012) gives an argument similar to the one here
against explaining knowledge how in terms of propositional knowledge.

15
 To sum up. I have described two epistemic states playing two different roles: one
encouraging a division of epistemic labour and allowing the state to be passed on easily
through testimony, but not guaranteeing that you can make judgements about related cases;
the other virtually ruling out a substantial division of labour by making it difficult if not
impossible to pass on the state through testimony, but allowing you to make judgements about
related cases through cognitive control. The first state is knowledge, the second is
understanding why. Since no single state can play both roles, knowledge why p (plus
additional propositional knowledge) is not sufficient for understanding why p.
For all I have said so far, though, it could be that knowledge why is necessary for
understanding why. In the next section, I argue that it is not.

4. Is knowledge why p necessary for understanding why p?

The argument that knowledge is not required for understanding why p has been made
before (notably by Kvanvig (2003) and Pritchard (2010a and 2010b)). The argument typically
proceeds by examples in which it is plausible that someone has understanding without
knowledge. Consider the following, for instance:

a. environmental luck
Suppose that your history class have all been given very inaccurate textbooks, except
for you. You read in your textbook some details about Napoleon’s career, that he was well-
organized, tactically astute and ruthless, and on that basis you draw the conclusion that he was
a great military leader. You are completely right and you are able to explain why he was a
great leader. And you can explain why similar figures (Wellington and Marlborough for
instance) were also very good commanders.
In these circumstances, I suggest that you do indeed understand why Napoleon was a
successful leader. It is widely (though not universally) agreed that in this sort of case, you
have understanding. Another sort of example is more controversial.

b. Gettier luck
Suppose that your history teacher has been teaching you about Napoleon. You
overhear a conversation with a classmate in which she describes a general as well-organized,
tactically astute and ruthless. You assume that she is still talking about Napoleon. In fact she
was talking about Wellington. You now believe, correctly, that Napoleon was tactically
astute, ruthless and well-organized. If you draw the correct conclusion, that he was a great
leader, on the basis of this true belief, and you can draw correct conclusions and give good

16
explanations about similar cases then, just as before, I suggest, you understand why he was a
great general.19

c. defeat
Suppose that you read in your book that Napoleon was tactically astute, and so on,
and on the basis conclude that he was a great leader. But now your history teacher, whom you
regard as extremely trustworthy, tells you that Napoleon was not a great leader. Your teacher
is not basing this judgement on other information or on a different interpretation of what it
takes to be a great general: he simply irrationally dislikes Napoleon. You have no idea about
any of this, but even so, you ignore your teacher and continue to maintain your conclusion.
Just as in the previous example, have the abilities required for understanding, your beliefs are
correct and in short, you understand why Napoleon was great.

I have suggested that it is natural to say that you understand why Napoleon is a great
general in these examples. Yet it is not true to say that you know why he was a great general,
according to the standard account of knowledge. In the first two cases, it is because your true
belief that Napoleon was well-organized, tactically astute and so on, does not amount to
knowledge (and since you do not know that Napoleon was tactically astute and…, you cannot

19
This is called “Gettier” luck, as it is similar to the kind of lucky true beliefs formed in classic
“Gettier” situations. Kvanvig (2003) agrees that understanding is consistent with both types of “luck”.
Grimm (2006) disagrees. Pritchard (2010a, 2010b) asserts that understanding why p is compatible with
environmental but not Gettier luck . However, it seems as plausible to me that you have understanding
in the second as the first example. Moreover I cannot see a principled reason why understanding
would be consistent with one type of epistemic luck, but not another. The difference is described by
Pritchard as follows: “the kind of epistemic luck at play in standard Gettier-style cases “intervenes”
between the agent and the fact… in cases of environmental epistemic luck…luck of this intervening
sort is absent… the epistemically” inhospitable nature of the environment ensures that his belief is
nevertheless only true as a matter of luck” (Pritchard 2010b p. 36). Pritchard does not explain why he
believes that the latter is consistent with gaining understanding but the former is not. He does suggest,
though, that in the latter circumstances, you have a cognitive achievement that is the result of a
cognitive ability. Presumably he would want to say that in Gettier cases your true belief is explained by
luck, rather than by your exercising a cognitive ability and as such is not a cognitive achievement. But
according to my account, you can achieve understanding in Gettier cases, and that achievement can be
the result of a cognitive ability - your exercise of your “cognitive control” - just as much as in a
situation of environmental luck. And of course, cases of environmental luck are ones in which, as the
name suggests, your true belief is partly explained by luck. So even if we agree that the two types of
luck are somewhat different, I can see no good reason why understanding should be consistent with one
but not the other.

17
know that he was a great general because he was tactically astute and …). In both cases the
belief was “lucky”, in the Gettier case it was based on misunderstood testimony; in the
environmental luck case it was based on a reliable source but could easily have been based
instead on an unreliable one. In the third case you have good evidence that your conclusion is
false. Even if you ignore the evidence and draw the conclusion anyway, the justification that
you have for it is undermined and you cannot know that it is true (or, therefore, why it is
true).20
I find all three Napoleon cases plausible examples of understanding without
knowledge. If that is right, knowledge why is not necessary for understanding why. But not
everyone will be as moved by these examples as I am, so it is worth looking at them more
closely.
Is it possible instead that you don’t have understanding in these examples after all, or
conversely that you do after all have knowledge?
Let us begin with the question of understanding. I think it is difficult to claim that you
have no understanding at all in these examples. But perhaps all you have is some background
understanding, of why military leaders who are tactically astute, well-organized and ruthless
are usually great leaders. And possibly you even know that too. Hence you have both
understanding and knowledge of these general propositions.
But when we turn to specific propositions about Napoleon, in the examples, you
plainly do not know that Napoleon was well-organized, tactically astute and so on. So you do
not know why Napoleon was a great general. But perhaps you also don’t understand why
Napoleon in particular was a great general. By distinguishing understanding why a general

20
A third example is more controversial, but I think that it fits the same pattern as the second example
and is a special case of defeat: defeat on the basis of disagreement by epistemic peers. Suppose that you
and your colleagues, whom you take to be as reasonable as you about such matters, decide to discuss
Napolean’s skills as a general. You share all of your information about the decision he made and the
success that he had. You draw the conclusion that he was a great general. But your friends disagree. In
other words, you share the information that q. You (correctly) believe that p on the basis of q; they
(incorrectly) believe that not-p on the same basis. In these circumstances you believe that p and that q
is why p and you are right. And you have the requisite know how: you understand why p. But you do
not know why p. Here is why. Your friend’s opinions that not-p constitute evidence that not-p. After
all, they share your information that q, and antecedently you thought that their beliefs were as good as
you. Even though you correctly believe that p and you have a justification for your belief, the evidence
of their opinions that not-p undermines your knowledge. You understand why p without knowing that p
(and so without knowing why p either). This sort of example is discussed with reference to moral
knowledge and moral understanding in my (Hills 2010).

18
proposition is true and understanding why some specific proposition is true, it appears that
understanding and knowledge may go together after all.
But on the other hand, nothing prevents you from applying your general
understanding of military leaders to the particular case of Napoleon. You truly believe that he
was well-organized, tactically astute and so on and have drawn the correct conclusion about
his military skill. Now you have added to your general understanding, specific understanding
of why he was a great military leader (but not of course knowledge why).
Knowledge and understanding both require true belief. And each has an additional
requirement: the truth needs to be “tied down” or “anchored” in a certain kind of way. 21 If you
have knowledge, you believe that p and p is true, and you could not easily have got your
beliefs wrong; your belief was not “lucky”. If you understand why p, your belief why p is
true, but there is no requirement that it was not lucky. Rather, you have to be able to be
sensitive to the connection between p and q in these and similar circumstances: you need
cognitive control. You can have true beliefs with cognitive control as a matter of luck, so you
can have understanding without knowledge.
But is that really right? To understand why Napoleon was great, you need to grasp
why he was great, and to do that you need cognitive control over those propositions. To have
that, you need to be able to draw conclusions and give explanations in similar cases. But if it
is mere luck that your beliefs about Napoleon are true, then you might form false beliefs about
similar cases (e.g. about Wellington). And if you might have false beliefs about similar cases,
surely you do not have cognitive control over the original proposition and its explanation,
because you are not able to draw correct conclusions about similar cases. And so you do not
understand why Napoleon was great after all.
If this argument were correct, then it would be a mistake to think that you could have
understanding without knowledge. Because to have the cognitive control that you need for
understanding, you would also need the “anchor” of knowledge for p and q.
Here is the account I gave earlier: if you understand why p (and q is why p), then you
believe that p and that q is why p and in the right sort of circumstances you can successfully:
(i) follow some explanation of why p given by someone else
(ii) explain why p in your own words
(iii) draw the conclusion that p (or that probably p) from the information that q
(iv) draw the conclusion that p’ (or that probably p’) from the information that q’
(where p’ and q’ are similar to but not identical to p and q)
(v) given the information that p, give the right explanation, q;
(vi) given the information that p’, give the right explanation, q’

21
A metaphor familiar from Plato, Meno (97e ff.).

19
 The key question is: what is it to draw a conclusion or give an explanation from the
information that p’ or q’. I understand cognitive control to require that you have a grasp that
can manipulate the relationship between p and q, and I take that to mean that if you have
formed a true belief that q’, you can correctly draw the right conclusion and similarly, if you
have formed a true belief that p’, you can give the right explanation, q’. Thus if it is true that,
were you to gain true beliefs about Wellington, or slightly different beliefs about Napoleon,
you would be able to draw the right conclusions about their military prowess, then you do
have cognitive control over the proposition that Napoleon was a great general and the reasons
why that is true. And so you do understand why Napoleon was a great general.
This is not the only way that it is possible to conceive of cognitive control. It can be
interpreted as requiring the sort of tie needed for knowledge: for instance, cognitive control
over p and q could be conceived of as requiring that you would form true beliefs about p’ and
q’ if p’ and q’ were true. But this conception of cognitive control forces together two separate
ties that a belief can have: the grasp needed to manipulate conclusions and explanations, and
the formation of true beliefs without luck. They are and should be recognized as two
independent properties. There is no reason to insist that understanding why has both ties.
Finally, it might be noted that all three Napoleon examples are of a kind of normative
understanding, understanding why something is good of its kind. Perhaps normative
understanding can be lucky in these ways, but other kinds of understanding, such as scientific
understanding, cannot.
But there are examples of scientific understanding that are very similar to the
Napoleon cases. Below I will sketch three such cases, though in each the direction in which
you exercise your cognitive control is reversed: you use it to give explanations rather than
draw conclusions:

1. You are aware that rabies is normally acquired by being bitten or scratched by an
infected animal. Everyone in your class has an unreliable textbook except for you.
You read in your textbook that the last known case of rabies in the UK was in 2012.
You correctly judge that that person (patient X) was probably bitten or scratched by
an infected animal and that that is why he contracted rabies.
2. You overhear a doctor talking about a patient who has developed rabies. You think
that he is talking about patient X, but actually he is talking about patient Y (both have
rabies). You judge that patient X was probably bitten or scratched by an infected
animal and that that is why he contracted rabies.
3. You read in a reliable textbook about the last known case of rabies in the UK and
judge that that person (patient X) was probably bitten or scratched by an infected
animal. But your doctor, whom you rightly regard as very reliable, tells you that the

20
 standard theories are wrong and that rabies is not transmitted in that way (he has an
idiosyncratic false theory about rabies). But you ignore him and continue to believe
that patient X was probably bitten or scratched by an infected animal and that that is
why he contracted rabies.

In all three cases, you understand why patient X contracted rabies. But you do not know why
he did (at least according to standard conceptions of propositional knowledge). It seems that
you can have scientific understanding without knowledge in exactly the same way that you
can have normative understanding without knowledge.
Suppose that we accept that in these examples, you do indeed have understanding.
They were supposed to show that you can have understanding without knowledge. And whilst
that is true according to a standard account of knowledge, we might again think that what they
really show is that there is something wrong with the standard account of knowledge.
A proper comparison between the standard conception of knowledge and non-
standard theories is beyond the scope of this paper but I will try to show that the standard
theory is defensible in the light of these kinds of example. So let us consider the Napoleon
cases again. Is it plausible that you know some specific propositions about Napoleon: do you
know why he was a great general?
There is, I think, some temptation to say that you do have knowledge in these
examples. We are often extremely liberal in granting knowledge, including in clear cases of
luck. For instance, consider this case presented by Hawthorne, very similar to the first
Napoleon example:

I give six children six books and ask them each to pick one of the books at random.
All but one contains misinformation about the capital of Austria. I ask the children to
look up what the capital of Austria is and commit the answer to memory. One child
learns ‘Belgrade,’ another ‘Lisbon,’ another ‘Vienna,’ and so on. I ask an onlooker
who has witnessed the whole sequence of events (or someone to whom the sequence
of events has been described) ‘Which one of the schoolchildren knows what the
capital of Austria is?’ or ‘How many of the children know what the capital of Austria
is?’ It is my experience that those presented with this kind of case will answer, not by
saying ‘None of them,’ but by selecting the child whose book read ‘Vienna’—even
though that child was only given the correct answer by luck. (Hawthorne 2003 pp.
68–9)

21
 Hawthorne adds that we are willing to attribute knowledge on the basis of mere true
belief in this situation, no matter how the belief came about (even if it came from an
unreliable source). It seems that in these circumstances, we are solely interested in whether
the child got the answer right, not in how easily she might have gone wrong. Her belief does
not even have to be justified, it just needs to be true, and we are willing to call it knowledge.

If we take this use of “know” seriously, it seems that we should conclude that we can
after all have knowledge in cases of luck, at least in some contexts. That is one possible
response. But we are not forced to agree. Instead we might conclude that we are making a
mistake in attributing knowledge in these cases.

For one thing, our judgements about these situations turn out to be more complicated.
When the possibilities of error and the role of luck are explicitly pointed out, we tend to
withdraw the attribution of knowledge. Consider the following two descriptions of a single
case:

1. You read in a school textbook that Napoleon was well-organized, tactically astute and
ruthless. You believe what you read and your belief is true. Do you know that he is
well-organized, etc?

2. You read in a school textbook that Napoleon was well-organized, tactically astute and
ruthless. You believe what you read and your belief is true. But your textbook is
generally very inaccurate and it is lucky that the few sentences in it you have chosen
to read are true. You have not checked the accuracy of the textbook or of the
sentences you read in it. Do you know that Napoleon is well-organized, etc?

It is tempting to judge that in (1) you have knowledge and in (2) you do not. Yet they
are presentations of the same case. 22 The same phenomenon does not seem to occur with
attributions of understanding. Many of us plainly judge that understanding is present in cases
of luck, even when the possibilities of error are made very salient indeed. 23

What is the right response to such apparently conflicting uses of “know”? A

contextualist might say that the standard for knowledge has been raised between (1) and (2),

22
This way of presenting the different intuitions was inspired by Nagel (2009).
23
Philosophers who make such judgements about understanding include Kvanvig (2003) and Pritchard
(2010 a and b). Grimm (2010, 2012) agrees though he argues that knowledge is (sometimes)
compatible with luck.

22
perhaps by the mere mention of luck and the possibility for error. Hence though your belief is
still true and you formed it in exactly the same way, you have knowledge in (1) but not in (2).

But we are not compelled to accept that in (1) you really do have knowledge. The use
of the term in such situations may be common but mistaken, a deviant use outside the core
semantics for “knows”. Just as we might say that the use of the term in situations in which we
have false beliefs – “I knew I was going to lose so I was very surprised when I won” – is not a
use that we should try to capture in the core semantics of “knows”.24

How do we determine what is a core and what is a deviant use of “knows”? This is a
difficult question. The main reason for denying that these uses are core is that they conflict
with very appealing intuitions about knowledge itself. First, that knowledge is factive, so any
attribution of knowledge without truth cannot be correct. That rules out allowing false beliefs
to count as knowledge. But it is also very plausible that knowledge requires more than true
belief. It needs the right sort of “tie”; between the belief, the evidence and the truth of the
belief, a tie that is not present when there is the belief is lucky or based on evidence that is
defeated. That rules out ascribing knowledge in cases of luck.

Why do we attribute knowledge in cases of luck and of false belief when the
attributions are false? This is another difficult question that I cannot really answer here but I
will mention just one possibility.25 It may be that we are attributing knowledge on the basis of
a heuristic that works much of the time but which is not wholly accurate; a heuristic like:
“attribute knowledge when the person is very confident in a belief”, or “attribute knowledge
when the person has got the right answer”. When we reflect, we withdraw these attributions
of knowledge because we are using our full grasp of what knowledge requires, not the
heuristic, and in cases of luck and defeat, we recognize that there is no knowledge.26 We do

24
That this is the right interpretation of this kind of case is strongly hinted though not explicitly
endorsed by Hawthorne (2003) pp 69-70.
25
Another possibility is that we attribute knowledge in these cases whilst at the same time recognizing
that the attribution is strictly false, because we want to convey that the person is very confident in her
belief or that she has the right answer and in the circumstances, the factors that rule out her having
knowledge (luck, defeat) are not important. We may succeed in conveying a truth even though what we
have literally said is false. We withdraw the attribution of knowledge on reflection, when we are
speaking more carefully.
26
Nagel suggests that we have two modes of cognition by which we can make judgements about
knowledge: “system 1” which is automatic and heuristic, and “system 2” which is controlled and
analytic (Nagel 2011). It may be that we make the positive judgement that you have knowledge in (1)
using system 1 cognition and the negative judgement about (2) using system 2 cognition. Nothing

23
not withdraw the claim of understanding precisely because understanding does not require the
same kind of tie as knowledge, and so it is consistent with luck and with defeated evidence.

A final concern about the Napoleon cases is that, if I am right, the correct thing to say
about them is: you understand why Napoleon was a great general but you do not know why
he was. And that does sound odd, as does any sentence of the form: you understand why p but
you do not know why p.
Is this a serious objection to my interpretation of these cases and ultimately to my
account of understanding? It would be if the sentence were completely incoherent. But I think
that it is merely an unusual thing to hear. There are several reasons for this. First, because any
sensible person looking for understanding will try to use trustworthy methods in order to try
to get true beliefs. If she does get true beliefs by these trustworthy methods, she will often get
knowledge as well. So the pursuit of understanding will often bring knowledge with it. And of
course, we may be interested in having and pursuing both understanding and knowledge. So
often, understanding and knowledge will come together.
But, it may be replied, situations of luck, or of defeated evidence, are hardly unusual.
We encounter environmental luck especially frequently. So shouldn’t we be quite accustomed
to having understanding without knowledge? But we have now seen that we regularly do
attribute knowledge in situations of luck when we are speaking casually and not reflecting too
much on the possibilities of error. So whilst we may actually have understanding without
knowledge frequently, it may be much less common for us to attribute to ourselves or others
understanding without knowledge. For these reasons, it is surprising to hear “she understands
why p but does not know why”. But when we reflect on the Napoleon examples and others
like them, it is perfectly clear how the sentence can be true.
If understanding why does not entail knowledge why, understanding why will
sometimes be available when knowledge why is not. For certain subject matters in which
knowledge seems particularly difficult to attain – morality, for instance, or perhaps
mathematics – it may be tempting to suggest that agents should aim to acquire understanding
why rather than knowledge. In the next section I will argue that understanding why is
valuable. But here I want to sound a note of caution. Although understanding why has a

follows straightforwardly from this about the accuracy of the judgements in (1) and (2), for sometimes
system 2 judgements are more accurate than system 1 judgements but sometimes the reverse is true.
However, if we use a heuristic for attributing knowledge (e.g. attribute knowledge when there is true
belief) that on reflection we do not think is completely reliable, and specifically, that is not completely
reliable in situations like (1), we have some reason for thinking that our judgement of (1) is mistaken.

24
different anchor than knowledge, it still has a tie. As we all as having true beliefs, you need to
have cognitive control. And it may be as difficult to attain cognitive control over moral
propositions or mathematical ones – or to explain how such control is possible – as it is to
explain how we could know that these propositions are true. It is not accurate to regard
understanding why as a less demanding state than knowledge and hence easier to acquire.
Rather, it is demanding in a different way.

5. The Value of Understanding.

Recently there has been some discussion of the value of understanding compared to
the value of knowledge. Some have argued that knowledge has a uniquely important value.
Others have denied that knowledge is especially valuable.27 Instead, they claim,
understanding is the most significant epistemic aim: it is the goal or aim of inquiry.28 I will
not discuss whether inquiry itself has a goal or aim, since I do not think the question itself is
very clear. Rather, I will argue that understanding why, as I conceive of it, is valuable.
There are very good reasons to think that understanding why p is instrumentally
valuable. It is useful – more useful than knowledge, even knowledge why p - when you need
to tackle a new question because it guarantees that you have the know-how to do this
successfully. For instance, suppose that your physics teacher tells you that action and reaction
are equal and opposite and uses that to explain interactions between two spheres. Will you be
able to use this to answer a “real-world” problem? For instance, what will happen when two
trucks collide, one twice as heavy as the other? If you understand why the spheres interact as
they do, you will be able to recognize that the same is true of the trucks. But if you merely
know what will happen, even if you know why, you may not be able to apply this to new
situations. And in fact, students who are very good at answering abstract questions about
spheres – so good, they certainly count as knowing the answers – can be extremely bad at
answering similar “real life” questions. They do not have the right grasp of the reasons why

27
For instance, Kvanvig argues that knowledge cannot be the supreme epistemic value because the
anti-Gettier clause will be gerry-mandered and inelegant (Kvanvig 2003). Riggs argues that knowledge
cannot be the supremely valuable epistemic aim because it cannot explain why certain cognitive skills
are intellectual virtues (Riggs 2003).

28
Kvanvig (2003) and Pritchard (2010a and 2010b) make this claim. Pritchard’s argument is
considered in more detail below.

25
the answers they give are right, the intellectual know-how, to tackle these questions
successfully, gaining new true beliefs and sometimes even new knowledge.29
The second way that understanding why p is valuable is rather different. If you have
the set of abilities that constitute cognitive control, you can use them: I will call this
exercising your understanding. And in particular you can use it to make judgements,
including forming the beliefs that are part of understanding why p: you can form a belief
about the quality of Napoleon’s generalship on the basis of your opinions about his tactics,
ruthlessness and organization; you can form a belief about why patient X contracted rabies on
the basis of your correct belief that he did. That is, you can exercise your understanding (i.e.
your cognitive control) in coming to understand why p.
This kind of engagement with a subject is rewarding. We take pleasure in following
arguments and drawing conclusions. This enjoyment is both a sign of and a contributor to the
value of understanding. It is not instrumentally valuable in any straightforward way. It is not
possible to separate these pleasures from the understanding itself, since the enjoyment is
precisely in exercising the relevant know-how. And yet the pleasure is not the same as the
understanding, so this is not a way in which understanding is valuable for its own sake.
Nevertheless, I am still inclined to think that understanding – or more precisely,
forming beliefs by exercising your understanding - is valuable for its own sake.30 It is not easy
to argue for this kind of value. My argument here will draw an analogy between the value of
exercised understanding and (one account of) the value of truth.

29
See Lambert 2012 p. 23. Does this show the students don’t have knowledge of the answers to the
initial questions? Surely they do. They can recall them accurately, and so on. Does it show they don’t
understand the propositions properly? By any normal standards, they do understand them. Perhaps if
they fully understood the propositions, they would be able to answer all related questions. But that
would be to introduce implausibly high standards for understanding a proposition, and would render it
extremely difficult to know any proposition by means of testimony.
30
Pritchard (2010b) has given the most developed argument that understanding why p has final value.
His argument turns on the idea of an achievement, which is defined as a success that is due to one’s
ability. Pritchard distinguishes a strong achievement, which involves overcoming a significant obstacle,
from a weak achievement, which does not. He suggests that strong achievements are always finally
valuable. Then, he argues that understanding is always a strong achievement, and so always finally
valuable. According to my account, acquiring understanding means acquiring know-how and
exercising understanding involves exercising that know-how. This certainly can be good. But it is not
obvious that it always is: it is not good if exercising that know-how is exceptionally easy or an
inefficient means to your end, or morally or pragmatically inappropriate. Pritchard might insist that the
achievement of understanding is overall good, even so, but has given us no reason to accept that.

26
 True beliefs are often instrumentally valuable, as a guide in action. But they are also
valuable for their own sake. Why? Precisely because they are true. Again, it is hard to argue
for this sort of claim, but we can expand on it a little. True beliefs are valuable for their own
sake because they are an accurate reflection of the way things are: they are a mirror of nature.
What does it mean for a belief to mirror nature? The metaphor has typically been
understood in terms of the relationship between the content of the belief and the facts. A
belief of the content: “Tibbles is a cat” mirrors the world if Tibbles is indeed a cat.
But a set of beliefs might also mirror the world in virtue of their form; by which I
mean the similarities between the relationships between those beliefs and the relationships
between the facts in the world: for instance a dependence between two beliefs might mirror a
dependence between two facts. Suppose Tibbles is a mammal in virtue of being a cat (that is,
Tibbles’s being a cat explains her being a mammal). And suppose that you draw the
conclusion Tibbles is a mammal on the basis of your belief that Tibbles is a cat (that is, your
belief that she is a cat explains your belief that she is a mammal) then clearly there is a
similarity – a mirroring – between your beliefs and the world, that cannot be explained fully
in terms of content of those beliefs alone, but also must refer to the relationship between
them: one of your beliefs depends on the other, just as there is a dependence between the facts
in the world.
Now understanding why p makes available both kinds of mirroring. Like knowledge,
it requires the content of your beliefs (that p, and that q is why p) to mirror the world, i.e. your
beliefs must be true. In addition, by exercising your understanding, you can mirror the
structure of the world within the structure of your own thoughts as well as their content. If
mirroring the world is valuable for its own sake, exercising your understanding in order to
understand why p must be valuable twice over. 31
Knowledge, by contrast, does not guarantee that you have the abilities to draw these
connections. It is perfectly possible for you to know that Tibbles is a cat, to know that Tibbles
is a mammal, and to know that Tibbles is a mammal because she is a cat, all because you have
read a book about Tibbles. These may be three separate, isolated pieces of knowledge and
they may stay that way. Perhaps you will draw connections between them later on and your
knowledge that Tibbles is a mammal will depend on your knowledge that she is a cat. But

31
A similar suggestion is made by Grimm (2012), though he does not distinguish two kinds of
mirroring, rather he suggests that understanding why may involve a deeper kind of mirroring that
knowledge. The problem for this account, as Grimm notes, is that it is not plausible that all
understanding why involves a deeper or more profound mirroring than knowledge of some very
important truth. By contrast, it is consistent with my account that mirroring in terms of content can
sometimes (perhaps often) be more significant than mirroring in terms of form.

27
having knowledge does not guarantee that you have the ability to draw these connections,
having cognitive control, essential to understanding why, does.
On the other hand, there can be costs in trying to acquire and exercise understanding
why p, rather than getting knowledge. Suppose that you have a problem with the wiring in
your house. You could try to acquire some grasp of why things might have gone wrong to
judge the problem for yourself. But this is not necessarily a good idea. It is slow, you might
make a mistake, and in the meantime you have an urgent fault that needs to be fixed. Instead
you could ask a qualified electrician, and trust what he says. In this situation, knowledge can
solve your practical problem and it is much easier to attain than understanding.
Understanding and knowledge are both worth having. Which you would and should
choose to pursue on a given occasion depends (at least) on your interests, the availability of
expert testimony and the importance of getting the answer right quickly. When the matter is
pressing, the costs of a mistake are high and expert opinion relatively easy to obtain, as in the
faulty wiring example, it may be inappropriate to try to exercise your own understanding. By
contrast a philosophical question – for instance, do we have free will? - does not need to be
answered urgently, experts (at least uncontroversial experts whose opinions you can take on
trust) are difficult to find, and the experts that there are do not agree with one another. Finally,
exercising philosophical understanding is - at least for some people - enjoyable.
If this is correct, understanding why is valuable. But even if it is, knowledge might be
more important. I want now to address briefly a couple of arguments for that conclusion.
There are many such arguments and I do not have space to consider them all here.32 Rather, I
will discuss two different elaborations of the idea that knowledge is distinctively valuable
because of its role in action.33 I will argue that understanding why has at least as important a
role in action and in acting for reasons as knowledge.
First, Williamson argues:

Knowledge is superior to mere true belief because, being more robust in the face of
new evidence, it better facilitates action at a temporal distance. Other things being
equal, given rational sensitivity to new evidence, present knowledge makes future
true belief more likely than mere present true belief does. (Williamson 2000: 101).
32
In particular, I do not have space to consider arguments that knowledge is distinctively valuable
because it is part of having a good human life that you pursue (and sometimes achieve) knowledge. I
suspect it will equally be true that a good human life involves the pursuit (and sometimes the
achievement) of understanding.
33
Note that both of were originally arguments that knowledge was more valuable than (justified) true
belief, not that it is more valuable than understanding. Yet both hope ultimately to show that
knowledge has a unique epistemic authority.

28
 Even if knowledge is more robust than true belief, is it also more robust than
understanding? That is by no means obvious.34 For instance, one reason why knowledge
might typically be more robust than true belief is because it is “tied down” in a way that true
belief is not. But so too is understanding why p, though the “tie” is of a different kind. 35
There is some (anecdotal) evidence that understanding why p makes you less likely to
forget that p than merely knowing that p does.36 Moreover, if you understand why p, you are
more likely to gain new true beliefs (possibly even knowledge) in the future: if your
circumstances change so that you discover that q’ is now true, you can work out that p’ will
be true. Since you have a command over the relationship between q and p, you might even be
able to manipulate a situation to your advantage (to make it the case that q’ is true rather than
q, for instance, so that p’ is true rather than p). Knowledge by contrast, since it does not
require cognitive control, does not guarantee that you can do this.
Consider Williamson’s example:

Some hunters see a deer disappear behind a rock. They believe truly that it is behind
the rock. To complete their kill, they must maintain a true belief about the location of
the deer for several minutes….If the hunters know that the deer is behind the rock,
they have the kind of sensitivity to its location that makes them more likely to have
future true beliefs about its location… (p. 101)

It is possible that the hunter’s knowledge helps them to maintain true beliefs about
the whereabouts of the deer better than if they had merely true belief. But suppose that they
understood why the deer disappeared behind the rock. For instance, they correctly judged that
the deer was hiding because it was frightened by a noise. They would be able to infer that to
encourage the deer to come out from behind the rock, they needed to make the deer less
frightened by being quiet and making no sudden movements. These hunters will be able to

34
In Hills 2010 I accepted Williamson’s argument and argued that knowledge (of non-moral facts)
would be sufficient for successful action. I still think that that may be true if you have knowledge that p
at the time at which you act, but I am not convinced that it is true in the example above, in which the
hunters have knowledge that p at t1 but act at t2.
35
Indeed arguably in the original Platonic version of this argument, the “tie” is more like the tie of
exercised understanding than that of knowledge: “True opinions too are a fine thing and altogether
good in their effects so long as they stay with one, but they won’t willingly stay long and instead run
away from a person’s soul, so they’re not worth much until one ties them down by reasoning out the
explanation” (Plato, Meno, 97e-98a).
36
Lambert 2012 p. 23-7.

29
maintain true beliefs about the whereabouts of the deer, in part because they will be able,
through their understanding of why the deer is behind the rock, to affect where the deer
goes.37 In this sense, understanding is at least as useful for action as knowledge and
potentially more so: at any rate there is no reason to think that knowledge is uniquely
valuable.
A different argument for the importance of knowledge in action is made by Hyman.
Hyman argues that knowledge is the ability to be guided by the facts (Hyman 2010, 2006).
When I act on the basis of knowledge, the facts are my reasons for action: “if I know that
Larissa is due north, my knowledge gets exercised or expressed whenever the fact that Larissa
is due north informs or guides the way I think or act – in other words, whenever it is one my
reasons for modifying my thought or behaviour in some way.” (Hyman 2010 p. 411). Being
guided by a fact is for that fact to inform your decision as to what to do or what to think.
Hyman argues that if your belief just happens to be true, you are “as if” guided by the facts,
but that is not sufficient for the fact that p to be among your reasons for action.
Though not a fully developed account of acting for reasons, this is an intriguing
suggestion and there is a lot that might be said about it.38 Here I want to consider whether it
provides an argument that knowledge is more valuable than understanding. I will argue that it
does not, because in order for you to be guided by a fact, you need to understand why your
action is the thing to do (i.e. it is the thing to do because of that fact).
Hyman talks about the way that knowledge that p can be “exercised” or “expressed”
when the fact that p “informs” or “guides” my thoughts or actions. But knowing that p is not
always sufficient for that knowledge to inform your further thoughts. It is by no means
impossible for you to know that Larissa is due north, need to go to Larissa, and be wholly
unable to draw the obvious conclusion.
Being guided by a fact is to be responsive to it, that is, to draw the right conclusion
on the basis of those facts, and to draw a different conclusion if the facts are different.39 To be

37
Couldn’t the same be said of hunters who knew why the deer was hiding behind the rock? But as I
have already pointed out, you can have knowledge why p without the kind of know how needed to
draw conclusions about similar cases, in which case you would not necessarily be able to work out how
to influence the deer’s movements.
38
One key question is whether facts (rather than psychological states or propositions) can be reasons
for action at all. For the sake of argument, I will assume here that they can.
39
Could you not be guided by the facts by simply acting in the way that was appropriate, without
drawing any sort of conclusion about what is the thing to do? I think that purposive, intentional action,
an action performed for reasons (rather than a mere instinctive movement) will involve this sort of
judgement, though (like your grasp of your reasons) it can be implicit rather than explicit or conscious.
This is one of the important functions of implicit understanding.

30
guided by a fact, you need to use a set of abilities that are by now very familiar to us: the
ability to draw conclusions that are appropriate given the facts as they are, and (in normal
circumstances) to draw a different conclusion if the facts are different. That is, you need a
cognitive control of the relationship between your conclusion and the facts that support it.
Is it really true that you need cognitive control to be guided by the facts? Wouldn’t
knowledge that this action is the thing to do, and knowledge why it is the thing to do be
sufficient?
No. You can have knowledge why without being guided by the facts, without even
being able to be guided by them. To see this, suppose that you have a reliable friend, Honest
John. Honest John tells you: you should take that road (but doesn’t explain why). You trust
him and act on this basis. Are you guided by the facts – and if so, which facts? I do not think
it is at all plausible that you are guided by the fact that this is the road to Larissa. You have no
idea that it is, or that John is recommending it for that reason. But at the same time you are
obviously not wildly guessing what to do. You are being guided by your recognition that John
told you to take that road (and that he is reliable and trustworthy). You have cognitive control
over the relationship between the propositions “Honest John told me take this road” and
“Taking this road is the thing to do”. You did what he told you, and if he had told you to do
something else, you would have done that instead.40
Now suppose instead that John did not tell you what to do, but instead told you that
that road is the road to Larissa. He expects you to draw the right conclusion about what to do.
But you do not, because you do not have cognitive control of the relationship between this
proposition and the conclusion: this is the thing to do. Obviously, once again, you are not
guided by the fact that this is the road to Larissa, even though you know that it is.
Now we are ready to think about a case where John tells you both what to do “take
this road”, and why “because it is the road to Larissa”. You take the right road. Are you
guided by the facts? And if so, which facts?
It might be tempting to think that this case is different from the previous two, for now
you know that there is a connection between your taking this road and its being the road to
Larissa. Are you now being guided by the fact that this is the road to the Larissa?
The answer would be yes, if, having been told that it’s the road to Larissa, you could
draw conclusions, theoretical or practical, on that basis. But you can’t. Or more precisely, you

40
It might be questioned whether a piece of testimony like this can be a reason for taking the road, as it
is not a feature which favours taking the road (e.g. that it is a good quality road leading in the right
direction). It is true that you are not thereby acting for the reasons that make this the right action, in that
sense, but nevertheless, that a reliable, trustworthy person told you that this action was right can be a
(subjectively) good reason for performing the action.

31
can draw exactly one conclusion – the one that John told you, that you should take this road.
But to be guided by a fact, it is not sufficient that you can draw exactly one conclusion on the
basis of it. You need to be disposed (under the right conditions) to draw a different conclusion
if the facts are different: the facts needs to make a difference to the conclusion that you draw.
That is not to suggest that you are not guided by anything at all. As before, you are
disposed to trust John and to do what he says. You are guided by John. Now, there may be an
indirect sense in which, if you are guided by X and X is guided by the facts, you are guided
by the facts too: we may use this casually to say that when you do what John says, you are
guided by the facts. But in this context “being guided by” is not transitive. For here “being
guided by” means that you are disposed to draw conclusions on that basis, and you may be
disposed to draw conclusions on the basis of X and X may be disposed to draw conclusions
on the basis of Y, without your being disposed to draw conclusions on the basis of Y. So even
if you know that this is the thing to do, and know that that is because p, you are not guided by
the fact that p unless you have cognitive control over p and the relevant conclusion.
Hyman says that to be guided by the facts is for the facts to be your reason for action.
If this is right, you cannot act for the fact that q, without having understanding and using it to
decide what to do. Not that you need to understand why q, of course, rather you need to grasp
that q is a reason for some action A, that q makes A appropriate, or right, or the thing to do.
What of Hyman’s original argument, that knowledge that p is essential for that fact
that p to be your reason for action? Hyman is interested in one aspect of being guided by the
facts, namely the relationship between your belief that q and the fact that q. I am interested in
quite another, namely the relationship between your belief that q and your conclusion about
what to do. Our two accounts are not necessarily rivals, then: even if I am right that you need
to understand why this action is the thing to do (where q is why it is), for q to be your reason
for action, Hyman might be right that knowledge that q is also necessary. In fact I am
sceptical about that, but I won’t make the case here, for my purpose is to show that
understanding plays a role at least as important as that of knowledge in acting for reasons.
Once again, there are no grounds for thinking that knowledge is uniquely valuable.
I want to end with some brief comments about the implications of the argument of
this paper, that understanding why p differs from knowledge and that both are valuable.
First, the implications in epistemology. The focus of epistemology in recent times has
been knowledge. But whilst knowledge has a very important epistemic role, there are other
epistemic states that have other epistemic roles that are at least as important. One of these is
understanding why.
There are at least two obvious places where this will make a difference. First, we will
need a notion of expertise relating to understanding, as well as one relating to knowledge.
Secondly, we will need to develop a notion of epistemic rationality relating to understanding

32
why p. In particular, the appropriate response to testimony and to disagreements with
epistemic peers (or superiors) may differ, whether the epistemic standards are set by
understanding or knowledge.41
Recognizing the difference between understanding and knowledge also has
implications for philosophy of mind. Belief is often characterized as a mental state with an
important relationship with knowledge: for instance as an essential component of knowledge,
or as a state that is aiming at (but sometimes falling short of) knowledge. But a cognitive state
in some ways remarkably similar to a belief plays a similar role in understanding why p (in
the form of a “belief” that p and a “belief” that q is why p). Should these also be characterized
as beliefs? Or as a cognitive state which is different from a belief (as I have called it
elsewhere, a “ulief”)?42 Either way, we will have to change or at least refine our familiar
conception of belief.43

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