Defending Nonreductionism About Understanding

Abstract

In this note I defend nonreductionism about understanding by arguing that knowledge is neither necessary nor sufficient for understanding. To this end, I examine Paulina Sliwa's (2015, 2017) novel defence of knowledge‐based Reductionism (Reductionism for short). Sliwa claims that one understands why p if and only if one has a sufficient amount of knowledge why p. Sliwa contends that Reductionism is supported by intuitive verdicts about our uses of 'understanding why' and 'knowing why'. In reply, I first argue that Sliwa's Reductionism leads to a vicious infinite regress. Secondly, I defuse the motivation in favour of Reductionism by showing how the linguistic data can be accommodated within a Nonreductionist framework.