Catherine Elgin (Harvard University)
To understand a topic is to reflectively endorse a systematic, interconnected network of epistemic commitments in reflective equilibrium where that network is grounded in fact, is duly responsive to evidence, and enables non-trivial inference, argument, and perhaps action bearing on that topic. Such understanding is holistic and non-factive. Models are felicitous falsehoods that organize, filter, and synthesize vast amounts of diverse information. Even an omniscient God would do well to deploy idealized models if she wanted to understand the patterns and regularities of fluid dynamics or population biology.
