Understanding beyond knowledge. Fiction, models, and cognitive gain

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dc.contributor.authorDantas Freitas Estrela, KĂȘnio Angelo
dc.coverage.spatialBulgaria
dc.date.accessioned2026-06-22T14:14:49Z
dc.date.available2026-06-22T14:14:49Z
dc.date.issued2026-06-18
dc.description.abstractThis paper examines the epistemic status of understanding and argues that it cannot be adequately reduced to propositional knowledge or to justified true belief. The analysis challenges strictly truth-centered accounts of cognition and defends a conception of understanding grounded in structured interpretive engagement with representational systems. Drawing on recent debates in epistemology and philosophy of science that distinguish understanding from knowledge (e.g., Kvanvig 2003; Grimm 2006; de Regt 2017), the paper situates understanding as a distinct epistemic achievement with its own normative profile, irreducible to belief or information possession. It is argued that scientific models, literary fictions, and contemporary AI-mediated representations systematically rely on idealized or non-literal structures that nonetheless yield genuine epistemic gains. The central claim is that understanding arises through norm-governed practices of interpretation and use, rather than through the mere accumulation of accurate propositions. Scientific models contribute to understanding by isolating explanatory dependencies, fictional narratives afford experiential, perspectival, and meaning-structuring insight, and AI systems support human understanding by facilitating linguistically mediated exploratory and interpretive activities. In each case, departures from literal truth function as epistemically productive constraints rather than as defects. By articulating a unified framework that accounts for these practices, the paper clarifies the relationship between understanding and knowledge and defends the legitimacy of fictional and idealized representations as indispensable components of human sense-making and cognition.
dc.identifier.citationBalkan Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 18, N° 1 (2026) pp. 32–49.
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.5840/bjp20261813
dc.identifier.issn1313-888X
dc.identifier.orcidhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-3899-3004
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12254/7644
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherPhilosophy Documentation Center
dc.rightsAcceso abierto
dc.rights.licenseAtribuciĂłn-NoComercial-CompartirIgual 3.0 Chile (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 CL)
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/cl/
dc.subjectunderstanding
dc.subjectknowledge
dc.subjectscientific models
dc.subjectfiction
dc.subjectrepresentation
dc.subjectepistemology
dc.titleUnderstanding beyond knowledge. Fiction, models, and cognitive gain
dc.typeArticle
dc.type.coarhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501
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