On Understanding

I've been lying in my bed this Saturday morning thinking about how we come to understand a given idea, concept or phenomenon. For example, "the pursuit of happiness", where in the United States this is synonymous with the so-called American Dream. We can understand, in its whole, what it means to pursue happiness, what it means to desire it and why. But how do we come about to understand the details and nuances of such an idea? Some individuals appear to come to an understanding simply by being told or instructed of its meaning by others—whether these be parents, teachers, religious figures or the government. But that seems to me insufficient, inadequate and in some cases utterly incorrect if we want to have actual understanding about an idea. And I think the rationale behind this is sensible and straightforward: if one wants to understand the world, the world in which one exists, one must be able to define, appraise, critique and even seek to change the meaning of a given idea or phenomenon (as far as this would be possible). And in order to do these things one cannot rely on static and passive "understanding" imparted by others. One must have the ability to reason the meaning of a thing, and thereby to reason something into understanding.

How would you do this? What is meant by reasoning something into understanding? I think it really just means that you endeavour to think upon a thing from all possible perspectives, and to compare and contrast the factual and actual implications and consequences it has upon the world in which it exists. In the case of the pursuit of happiness, we can, for ourselves, define what is meant by it. But more importantly, we can come to understand what is meant by it by critically thinking about how it is sought, how realistic it is to achieve, the many manners in which it is achieved and the positive and negative consequences it has on ourselves, our peers and our society. This, I believe, is what is meant to understand.

M.M. — 19-Mar-2016