Tag: Understanding

Understanding (also called intellection) is a psychological process related to an abstract or physical object, such as a person, situation, or message whereby one is able to think about it and use concepts to deal adequately with that object.
An understanding is the limit of a conceptualization. To understand something is to have conceptualized it to a given measure.
It is difficult to define understanding. If we use the term concept as above, the question then arises as to what is a concept? Is it an abstract thing? Is it a brain pattern or a rule? Whatever definition is proposed, we can still ask how it is that we understand the thing that is featured in the definition: we can never satisfactorily define a concept, still less use it to explain understanding.
It may be more convenient to use an operational or behavioural definition, that is, to say that “somebody who reacts appropriately to x understands x”. For example, one understands Swahili if one correctly obeys commands given…