1 Forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien (special issue on Knowledge and Questions) KNOWING THE ANSWER, UNDERSTANDING AND EPISTEMIC VALUE

ABSTRACT. This paper principally argues for two controversial theses: that understanding, unlike knowledge, is distinctively valuable, and that understanding is the proper goal of inquiry. 1. One of the most central topics in contemporary epistemology concerns the issue of epistemic value; in particular, the value of knowledge. Knowledge has been the focus of much of our epistemological theorising, and this prompts the question of why. What is it about knowledge that prompts us to regard it as distinctively valuable in this way such that it is worthy of this scrutiny? It is, I would suggest, incumbent on any epistemological theory that it can answer this question, even if the answer that is offered adverts to some error on our part. That is, while one validatory answer to the question might proceed by offering an explanation of why knowledge is distinctively valuable, an alternative, revisionary, answer to the question might proceed by explaining why knowledge isn’t distinctively valuable while conjoining this explanation with a further story about why we might have naturally thought it to be distinctively valuable. In what follows, we will begin by exploring the prospects for a validatory response to the question. We will refer to the task of answering this question