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SUMMARY:Kinds and degrees of (scientific) understanding - Henk de Regt (VU
  University Amsterdam)
DTSTART:20150128T130000Z
DTEND:20150128T143000Z
UID:TALK57301@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Christopher Clarke
DESCRIPTION:In my talk I will present my current research project 'Kinds a
 nd degrees of understanding'. Understanding is highly valued in the scienc
 es and in everyday life. In previous work I have developed a contextual th
 eory of scientific understanding (which I will summarize briefly). My new 
 research project addresses the question: How to account for degrees of und
 erstanding? While it appears intuitively\nplausible that understanding com
 es in degrees\, it is not clear how such differences in degree of understa
 nding should be explicated. A related question is whether understanding ca
 n differ only in degree or also in kind. In my presentation I will address
  these questions by focusing on the historical development of science. In 
 particular\, I will discuss the question of whether 'outdated' scientific 
 concepts\ncan still be used to achieve (some degree of) understanding of t
 he phenomena. For example\, can one still use the notion of phlogiston for
  understanding particular chemical phenomena? Although I cannot give a def
 initive answer to this last question as yet (it's the topic of my research
  in the next two months)\, I will present a case from the history of quant
 um theory that sheds some light on the issue.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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