There is a great difference between knowing and understanding. Everyone can answer “yes†when asked if they know music. Of course, ‘all god’s chilin’ know music. We receive answers that go on forever when we ask a teenager if they know music. We awaken instant and sentimental memories when we ask an older person to tell what they know about music. A great deal of emotion is contained in our ‘knowing’ about music.
Silence and puzzlement is our response when we ask a person “do you understand music?†Occasionally the question “do you understand music?†receives an expression of delight and a verbal outpouring. The person who understands music–they are few and far between–has studied music in a way very few of us have. I suspect such a person is not only a lover but also a student of music. I do not understand music but I do understand the meaning of “understanding musicâ€.
I create this musical metaphor for the purpose of illuminating a state of affairs of which we are seldom conscious.
Our formal educational system teaches us the knowledge required for making a living. Our formal education does not teach us the understanding required to live well. The development of understanding is something each of us must create on our own. If we do not recognize this fact we will not pursue this understanding and if we do not pursue this understanding we will remain intellectually naive.
We start our formal education experience as intellectually naïve children and end it twelve to eighteen years later as well informed intellectually naïve grown ups.
After formal education ends our understanding begins. The task of understanding is a private enterprise by me and for me. Understanding begins with this recognition and continues as one creates a process for the solitary activity of self-learning. I think a person could look at self-learning as a hobby, it could be one of your hobbies like tennis or golf, just a few hours each week and I suspect after a while it will become a very important part of your life style. Developing a sophisticated intellect is a solitary study lasting a lifetime.
Carl Sagan is quoted as having written; “Understanding is a kind of ecstasy.â€
No problem. No reply is necessary except occassionally saying that what I am doing is worth while. My purpose is to make conscious things that will ordinarily go undetected. I hope that by bringing these things to the consciousness of the reader that occassionally it will induce curiosity and further study by the reader.
I think of understanding as being a creation of meaning by the thinker. As one attempts to understand something that person will construct through imagination a model–like a papier mache–of the meaning. Like an artist painting her understanding of something. As time goes by the model takes on what the person understands about that which is studied. The model is very subjective and you and I may study something for some time and we both have learned to understand it but if it were possible to project an image of our model they would be unidentifiable perhaps by the other. Knowledge has a universal quality but not understanding.
I would say it is subjective and primarily intrinsic value. If I study “Philosophy in the Flesh” for several months, which I have done, and finally gain an understanding it is primarily of intrinsic value but could be of great extrinsic value. For example the early framers of our constitution studied the philosophers such as Locke and Mill and that then turned into a magnificant extrinsic value for the world.
Not putting words into your mouth Mr. coberst, but it sounds strangely akin to manifest enlightenment.
Which regardless of mundane terminology, I would agree with from the intrinsic value perspective, but would agree less on the extrinsic value, or value offering.
