The Varieties of Understanding: Challenges and new Directions

Keynote speakers

Stephen Grimm
(Fordham)

Allan Hazlett
(WU, St. Louis)

Soazig Le Bihan
(Montana)

Tania Lombrozo
(Princeton)

  • Dialog
  • questions
  • answers

The Varieties of Understanding: Challenges and new Directions

The dawn of the XXI century saw the beginning of an explosion of interest in the nature of the precious cognitive achievement that goes by the ordinary name of “understanding”. Two and a half decades later, the literature produced by epistemologists, philosophers of science, cognitive psychologists, has shed so much light on so many aspects and manifestations of the diverse forms that understanding can take, that it feels appropriate to ask where our understanding of understanding stands at the present, after all those contributions. This conference aims to address that very general question by calling for papers that tackle the following more specific questions and related ones:

  • What distinguishes understanding from knowledge, explanation, and interpretation?

  • Is understanding an epistemically privileged cognitive state? what grounds this privilege?

  • What are the theoretical vs. practical dimensions of understanding? How do they interact / inform each other?

  • How can recent advances in cognitive science, AI, or data science challenge traditional views on understanding?

  • What novel frameworks or theories offer promising directions for studying understanding in diverse contexts (scientific, social, ethical)?

  • How does understanding vary across different disciplines, cultures, and historical contexts?

  • Can diverse epistemic traditions contribute to a more pluralistic view of understanding?

  • How do practical activities (like craftsmanship or performing arts) contribute to our understanding of complex concepts?

  • What role should embodied, tacit, or skill-based knowledge play in our theoretical models of understanding?

The Varieties of Understanding
Challenges and new Directions

June 23-25, 2025

Monday, 23th

10:50 - 11:00
Welcoming
11:00 - 12:40
Stephen Grimm
Fordham University, USA
“Notional Understanding vs. Real Understanding -- in Human Beings, and in Artificial Intelligence”
12:50 - 13:50
David Bourget
Western University, Canada
“Is there a sense in which AI assistants can understand anything?”
 
Lunch Break
16:00 - 17:00
Jake Spinella
University of Illinois, Chicago, USA
“How to Do Things with Propositions: Understanding-Why as Propositional Know-How”
17:10 - 18:50
Allan Hazlett
Washington University, St. Louis, USA
“Exclusive Understanding”

Tuesday, 24th

11:00 - 12:40
Tania Lombrozo
Princeton University, USA
“Machine Understanding”
12:50 - 13:50
Andrés Páez
Universidad de los Andes, Colombia
“Explanation and Understanding in Deep Neural Networks”
 
Lunch Break
16:00 - 17:00
Jocelyn Wang
Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science, USA
“Memory as a Generative Source of Understanding”
17:00 - 18:00
Martina Orlandi
Trent University Durham, Canada
“Ch(A.I.)nging Our Minds”

Wednesday, 25th

11:00 - 12:00
Bruno Malavolta
UNAM, México
“Anti-intellectualism and Scientific Understanding”
12:00 - 13:00
María del Rosario Martínez-Ordaz
UNAM, México
Moisés Macías-Bustos
University of Massachusetts-Amherst, USA
“Structural Understanding: The Unity of Scientific Understanding”
 
Lunch Break
15:00 - 16:00
Otavio Bueno
Miami University, USA
“Understanding and Explanation: Structure and Modality”
16:10 - 17:50
Soazig Le Bihan
Montana University, USA
“Problems and Possibilities: A Pragmatic View of Scientific Understanding”

Aula Luis Villoro
Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Circuito Maestro Mario de la Cueva s/n, Ciudad Universitaria
C.P. 04510Coyoacán, México, CDMX

Scientific Committee

  • Catherine Elgin (Harvard)
  • Luis Estrada González (UNAM)
  • Insa Lawler (UNC Greensboro)
  • Federica Malfatti (Innsbruck)
  • Andrei Ionuț Mărășoiu (Bucharest)
  • Ana Rosa Pérez-Ransanz (UNAM)
  • Michael Strevens (NYU)
  • Pedro Stepanenko-Gutiérrez (UNAM)