Hi, interested in phliosophy, and have used philosophy forums before; they are fun, though I will probably shy away from bothering with political discussion: I'm "one of the most left wing people on the planet"!! Especially interested in existentialism, aesthetics and science, though I know little about any of them. Cheers,
clemon

Hey guys, my name is Kris.

I have been studying theology, philosophy and English literature for nine years at university (primary focus being philosophy for the past five years). I've always been driven by questions revolving around understanding. What does it mean to understand? Is this a term only to be used when "success" is evident - to understand is to understand correctly or there is no understanding at all - or is there such a thing as "wrong understanding"? Can we ever not understand something and if yes, what does that look like? What does it mean to understand a thought, a concept, an object, a series of events? What does it mean to understand another person? Can we ever understand an other (correctly, at all)? Should we even strive to? What does it mean to understand myself? How does my understanding of myself shape the possibilities I have of relating to an other? Why is it that our ability to relate to one another, the nature of any given relationship seems to hinge on understanding, its quality or the lack thereof? And what is there to learn in thinking about these questions in a philosophical way? Is there headway to be made? How do our answers to these questions influence the choices we're confronted with daily when in contact with others - war or peace, indifference or love, to understand or to leave be, freedom or commitment, communication? And are any of these admittely hopelessly naive and painfully insufficient questions even somewhat able to open up a line of inquiry that isn't doomed to eternal mediocrity or - even worse - a traditional academic career?

At least these questions have led me down various paths, including French and German existentalism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, philosophy of language and American pragmatism. I am currently working on papers involving Jean-Francois Lyotard, Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers. The last few years were mainly spent with these characters along with Emmanuel Levinas, Samuel Beckett, and some lesser known figures like Josiah Royce or Francois Laruelle (sometimes you just gotta get a little weird). Truth be told, it is difficult to find people interested in these authors, so I hope to find some companionship in this forum.

Apart from these things, my life is pretty boring. I spend my days mainly working in an administrative job to pay the bills, not get trapped in an ivory tower, and because I do not find any value in working for professors whose only concern in life is the furtherance of objective truth accompanied by a crusade against people who are of the opinion that "wrong understanding" is a thing and that weird Kant interpretations are usually far more interesting than Kant himself. My nights I spend at a bar, smoking and drinking way too much, hunched over some book, being asocial, surrounded by good people who are used to it, like me anyway, and for the most part have no fucking idea why the heck I'm doing all of this. Maybe some of you can sympathize a little more. ;)

Is this a term only to be used when "success" is evident - to understand is to understand correctly or there is no understanding at all - or is there such a thing as "wrong understanding"? — KrisGl

Wrong understanding is usually called misunderstanding. It's a tricky concept to grasp, because to the person who has the misunderstanding, it is not distinguishable from understanding. So in any situation where a person believes oneself to understand, it may actually be misunderstanding which the person has, but it is impossible for that person to actually know whether it is misunderstanding, or understanding.

This implies that there is a third person perspective required; an observer is necessary to make the distinction between understanding and misunderstanding. Or, a person may act as the observer oneself, at a later time in retrospection, through introspection. The observer either corroborates the understanding/ misunderstanding, which strengthens the belief that it is understanding, or else provides a distinct understanding, indicating that one, the other, or both, are misunderstanding. Then we might seek another observer, and so on, to the point where we might ask if it is ever possible to know for sure whether an apparent understanding is not really a misunderstanding. I believe, this is commonly known as the infinite regress of justification, and it's an issue looked at by Wittgenstein in his critique of skepticism.

My nights I spend at a bar, smoking and drinking way too much, hunched over some book, being asocial, surrounded by good people who are used to it, like me anyway, and for the most part have no fucking idea why the heck I'm doing all of this. Maybe some of you can sympathize a little more. ;) — KrisGl

Ha! I spent a good 20 years drinking in bars (many of them smoking too). But mainly getting to know and appreciate complete strangers. Conversation is a minor hobby.

What does it mean to understand? Is this a term only to be used when "success" is evident - to understand is to understand correctly or there is no understanding at all - or is there such a thing as "wrong understanding"? — KrisGl

Interesting. I have always assumed we don't really understand each other, we just make sense of others the best we can. A primary interest of mine is the ideas people believe and why.

Truth be told, it is difficult to find people interested in these authors, so I hope to find some companionship in this forum. — KrisGl

This site has many actively engaged readers of esoterica, so you should find some people to talk to. Royce doesn't come up all that often, his absolute idealism could be interesting to hear more about. Welcome.

At least these questions have led me down various paths, including French and German existentalism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, philosophy of language and American pragmatism. I am currently working on papers involving Jean-Francois Lyotard, Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers. The last few years were mainly spent with these characters along with Emmanuel Levinas, Samuel Beckett, and some lesser known figures like Josiah Royce or Francois Laruelle (sometimes you just gotta get a little weird). Truth be told, it is difficult to find people interested in these authors, so I hope to find some companionship in this forum. — KrisGl

Interesting but intimidating! There’s always so much to read and only so much time. But it sounds to me as if you have a multi-faceted and rich perspective so I think you’ll be a great contributor. Welcome!

@Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, you are right. Misunderstanding it is. ;)
And yes, the infinite regress of justification is a sucker. What pragmatic solution would you propose?

@Wayfarer
:) Yeah, I get intimidated by it, too. Imposter syndrome is a real thing, sometimes I feel like a dilettante at best. Thank you for the warm welcome.

@Tom Storm
Mhm, conversation is a minor hobby of mine, too! It is really quite something how quickly this appreciation for each other can form, given all the adverse circumstances. Sometimes it needs little more than the reluctant companionship of strangers being kind of a mess in the same dingy place.

Royce is underappreciated. Have you ever heard of his notion of loyalty to loyalty? I find it moving. Very hopeful and kind in its nature without drifting into the reckless and profane.

I have always assumed we don't really understand each other, we just make sense of others the best we can. — Tom Storm

Interesting. Why have you always assumed that?

Interesting. Why have you always assumed that? — KrisGl

Intuition and experience. How could we truly understand each other, except through approximations? Many of us are strangers to ourselves, let alone to others...

Have you ever heard of his notion of loyalty to loyalty? I find it moving. — KrisGl

I know very little about it but I have to agree with Royce's basic thrust, as I understand it, that ethics is social and relational.

I know very little about it but I have to agree with Royce's basic thrust, as I understand it, that ethics is social and relational. — Tom Storm

Mhm, maybe we should start a thread about it. I could do so later if you'd like and talk a bit about it. It's quite near to my heart these days.

Intuition and experience. How could we truly understand each other, except through approximations? Many of us are strangers to ourselves, let alone to others... — Tom Storm

Yeah, I get the intuition. These approximations are interesting though. It is what we do at a ... let's call it phenomenological level in everyday life, right? We do somehow, sort of understand each other. Probably never to a "full extent", but somehow we do try. To follow the notion that others are simply not our's to understand, to be radical about that would indeed lead to chaos. It is not practical. And maybe it also isn't even true. Maybe we can fashion approximations of understanding of each other.

What right do these approximations have though, when we look at them through the lense of thoughts from someone like Emmanuel Levinas who very stricktly and convincingly I'd say makes the point that the Other is never our's to "have" to grasp with our greedy little imperialistic fingers of understanding, trying to make them fit a certain picture, a certain form we've only conjured up in our heads?

let's call it phenomenological level in everyday life, right? We do somehow, sort of understand each other. Probably never to a "full extent", but somehow we do try. — KrisGl

Yep - kind of what I meant when I said -

we just make sense of others the best we can. — Tom Storm

To follow the notion that others are simply not our's to understand, to be radical about that would indeed lead to chaos. — KrisGl

Well, chaos is pretty big right now and seems to come down to people not understanding, hence the culture wars and tribalism that are at the heart of our conflicts. Richard Rohr, an interesting and radical Franciscan priest (I'm an atheist), says dualistic think is the limiting mindset which divides the world into binary categories like "us vs. them," "right vs. wrong," or "sacred vs. secular" - which generate internecine conflicts and violence. Anyway, see you on the threads.

What pragmatic solution would you propose? — KrisGl

The obvious, I think, is that we proceed in our activities without certitude. We can apply the traditional principle of Aristotle's doctrine of the mean. The two extremes are considered vises, and virtue lies somewhere in between. Proceeding into action with too little certitude is rashness, or carelessness. Requiring too much certitude produces a lack of confidence, which is fear or cowardice.

This implies that we always proceed with some degree of misunderstanding. Because we see this within ourselves, through introspection, when we adopt the 'observe myself' position, we avoid the infinite regress of justification by accepting the fact that we proceed without certitude. When certitude is not requested the infinite regress does not appear.

Further, recognizing that we always proceed with some degree of misunderstanding conditions us to be prepared, always, for the appearance of the unknown. That in itself is a higher level of understanding. This could be known as a 'meta' level cautiousness, which is neither cowardice nor rashness. In the Hegelian dialectic of Being, instead of taking the middle path between the two extremes, as Aristotle proposed, the two extremes are rolled together into one, annihilating each other, and producing a new position, which instead of being the mean between the two, is an assimilation of the two, and this is that higher understanding.

I do not find any value in working for professors whose only concern in life is the furtherance of objective truth accompanied by a crusade against people who are of the opinion that "wrong understanding" is a thing — KrisGl

Well, in me you have a kindred spirit, but you will be hard-pressed to find more than a tiny handful of contributors to this forum who endorse anything other than some variant of realism.

Hey there, chubby smoked salmon, great piece of human existence.

My name is Javier. I am 27 years old. I was born in a shed, near a fjord. My childhood was basically based on two main distractions: painting my mother, father, sister, dog, and mice of my house on canvas, and fishing herrings to eat them with lemon later on. What sparked my interest in reading philosophy? Well, this is quite embarrassing, but everything started when I was coming from my school, and then I saw my father tearing and throwing tiles off the roof :rofl: . I felt scared, and I questioned myself whether that was determined by fate or not. Cool and ropey people, my family. I left them some years ago, and I flew out to Wabash (U.S.A.), where I work as a fishmonger, selling scampi but not herrings. I miss the herrings of my cosy fjord! :sweat:
Nice to meet you all. I hope we could have interactions in the future.

Here is additional basic information if you want to contact me and buy some scampi:

javixu885atgmaildotcom
Mercado municipal de Puente de Vallecas.
Calle De Martínez De La Riva, 4, Madrid, ES 28053.

Well, in me you have a kindred spirit, but you will be hard-pressed to find more than a tiny handful of contributors to this forum who endorse anything other than some variant of realism. — Joshs

More than I had hoped for. Thank you.

Well, in me you have a kindred spirit, but you will be hard-pressed to find more than a tiny handful of contributors to this forum who endorse anything other than some variant of realism. — Joshs

The internet is a double edged sword. It lets a tiny handful of kindred spirits who are seeking to better their understanding (misunderstanding) of reality, like us, unite and work together toward this end. On the other hand, it lets tiny handfuls of freakish evil-doers unite and be empowered by each other, in their quest to destroy all that humanity has worked so hard to develop.

@Metaphysician Undercover

It is a nice way to think of this. These two extremes - rashness and cowardice - often have a way of playing themselves out. When one is overexercised and lead to absurdity, it is often substituted by the other extreme. If this back and forth movement has been going on for a while, one tends to get suspicious of both and this process seems to sometimes play itself out, resulting at some point in this higher understandig you mentioned, where differences between extremes loose standing and the need for certitude is put in its rightful place. Sometimes. Sometimes, and maybe more often, we land at the Aristotelian mean.

I am interested in this process. Reaching that higher level of understanding seems to me to not be a necessary outcome of accepting the fact that neither rashness nor cowardice are worth pursuing. Or maybe it is, if there's only enough time to also let the doctrine of the mean play itself out?

What would you think of the idea that concern for certitude, for knowing and doing "the right thing" has its rightful place in some realms of acivity/communication, but not in others?

And do you think that once a state of higher understanding is achieved it is stable? Or can we backslide?

Reaching that higher level of understanding seems to me to not be a necessary outcome of accepting the fact that neither rashness nor cowardice are worth pursuing. — KrisGl

Well, do not place too high of a standard on "higher level of understanding" then. If you learn something new everyday, then aren't you reaching a higher level of understanding every day?

What would you think of the idea that concern for certitude, for knowing and doing "the right thing" has its rightful place in some realms of acivity/communication, but not in others? — KrisGl

This is another issue covered in Aristotle's Nichomacean Ethics. There are different levels of certitude which are proper to different subjects of study. I agree with this principle, and we can see it clearly in comparing the consequences of failure in different activities. When the consequences of failure are very significant, then a higher level of certainty is required before proceeding, in comparison with when the consequences of failure are less significant. There is an entire field of study called "risk management", which deals with these principles.

And do you think that once a state of higher understanding is achieved it is stable? Or can we backslide? — KrisGl

I don't think backsliding is likely, in general, except when our minds get feeble, like in old age. So, in that sense backsliding is also inevitable. But the significance of it is avoided by passing the responsibility to the next generation, therefore gains are maintained.

However, since absolute certainty is never achieved, the "higher understanding" is never stable. As in my reply above, about learning something new everyday, the horizon, beyond which lies the higher understanding, turns out to be a false boundary, merely the appearance of a boundary, created artificially by the 'hinge propositions' we assign certainty to, as the canvas to our representations. So in some sense the skeptic is always crossing that boundary, but in another sense, the horizon always maintains its appearance in front of us, being simply reformulated, so that we discover (create) new horizons as we travel the journey.

Well, do not place too high of a standard on "higher level of understanding" then. — Metaphysician Undercover

A certain kind of readiness, state of anticipation or maybe just the openness to the mere possibility of the appearance of the unknown does seem to me like a higher level of understanding, a "meta" level cautiousness, if you will. A place where maybe the whole "spectrum of certainty" with rashness or carelessness as its extremes loses meaning. I did not mean to draw into question that such a way of being exists. I just wonder how one gets there. And then I can't help but notice that "getting there" does not seem to be a necessary outcome of accepting that either end of the spectrum isn't working for, but rather against us. How do we take the step from the doctrine of the mean to a sort of Hegelian higher understanding?

There are different levels of certitude which are proper to different subjects of study. I agree with this principle, and we can see it clearly in comparing the consequences of failure in different activities. When the consequences of failure are very significant, then a higher level of certainty is required before proceeding, in comparison with when the consequences of failure are less significant. — Metaphysician Undercover

I see. I was thinking more along the lines of ... are there activities, like for example inquiries into mathematical issues, which require a certain kind or level of certiude, and others, for example social interactions where sometimes (only sometimes, not always) requiring certitude for the "next step" is driven ad absurdum by the unavailability of knowledge of the other's actions, or inner workings if you will before they occur, are shown to us? One might call it contact with absolute and not just relative otherness. It seems to me like the higher understanding you talked about might very well be situated here.

And then again the question: How is it that when communicating with an other we evolve from simply accepting that there is always a level of uncertainty involved, making compromises, assuming we have played through some scenarios of how things might unfold, factoring in that the other might always yet surprise us and landing at a level of certainty that seems good enough for now to act upon, trying to be neither rash nor cowardly, but somewhere in the middle. How is it that sometimes this way of risk management thinking is reinterpreted, "aufgehoben" to use Hegel's term? And why is it that every explanation of how we might shift our thinking here seems to be inadequate to explain exactly how it happens? At least no explanation comes to my mind which would lead necessarily to this new way of thinking or maybe being.

What an excellent name!!!

Well, do not place too high of a standard on "higher level of understanding" then. If you learn something new everyday, then aren't you reaching a higher level of understanding every day? — Metaphysician Undercover

Not necessarily. I might learn a brand of shirts, X, is manufactured in country 1. Next day I learn brand Y is manufactured in country 2. Next day I learn Z is country 3. Is my understanding increasing?

If I learn how brand X is manufactured, maybe I've reached a higher level. If I learn how Y is manufactured, and it's a different method than X, maybe I've reached a higher level. If I learn the different manufacturing methods are due to historical, cultural, or geographic differences, I'm in all kinds of levels!

How do we take the step from the doctrine of the mean to a sort of Hegelian higher understanding? — KrisGl

I don't think it's a matter of taking a step from one to the other, rather accepting that both are different ways of looking at the same thing. The path toward higher understanding must be a sort of skepticism, because it must be based in the belief that one's current understanding is somewhat deficient. So the current understanding must be questioned in order to produce the higher understanding. The "higher understanding" is simply a matter of bringing the unknown into the known. That is a matter of producing consistency.

Aristotle showed that if we hold fast to the three principle laws of logic, identity, non-contradiction, excluded middle, then sophists such as Zeno can prove absurdities. Simply put, there are aspects of reality which were known as "becoming", activity, change, which appear to defy these fundamental laws. What he determined was that the reality of becoming, motion, activity, and change, requires the reality of possibility. And, he designated possibility, "potential", as a fundamental violation of the law of excluded middle, that which may or may not be.

Hegel's position on this dialectical problem, is that the law of identity is unnecessary. From this perspective, the aspects of reality which defy understanding, do so because they have no identity. Because of this, they have no formal properties, therefore not even the law of non-contradiction can be applied. The opposing properties of being and not-being, roll together in the activity of becoming.

The "higher understanding" which I am alluding to, is simply recognition that these two perspectives are just different ways of looking at the same thing, "the unknown". Aristotle looked at the three fundamental laws and determined that the existence of "the unknown" is due to faults in those laws, specifically the third law, excluded middle. Allowing exceptions to that law produces modal logic, and all sorts of what i would call "designer logic", designed to deal with things which appear to violate the fundamental laws. The Hegelian approach places the deficiency the "fault" you might say, as inherent within the nature of reality. From this perspective, it doesn't matter how we manipulate the laws of logic, there are things which simply have no identity, therefore cannot be understood by us. To bring these aspects of the unknown into the known would require a logic which treats them as something other than things with identity. Either that, or we just accept that these are unknowns which simply cannot be known.

How is it that sometimes this way of risk management thinking is reinterpreted, "aufgehoben" to use Hegel's term? And why is it that every explanation of how we might shift our thinking here seems to be inadequate to explain exactly how it happens? At least no explanation comes to my mind which would lead necessarily to this new way of thinking or maybe being. — KrisGl

This is exactly the problem. There are always aspects of change which evade our understanding. We can never explain "exactly how it happens". The philosopher's desire to know drives one to request that explanation, but it cannot be provided. At first glance, we attribute these issue to being a problem with our language. The language isn't really designed for a complete and full understanding, it has evolved to be efficient for practical purposes. Then when the philosopher tries to apply it in a way to produce an accurate understanding problems appear. So we blame deficiencies in the language. Then we reshape the language (designer logic), and find that similar problems still emerge. Therefore we are faced with the possibility that maybe the problem goes beyond just an issue with language, maybe there is a problem within reality itself, which makes it impossible for us to understand.

Is my understanding increasing? — Patterner

Yes, I would say that learning something new like that is an increase to your understanding.

Yes, I would say that learning something new like that is an increase to your understanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

I wouldn't. Trivia =/= understanding

Understanding trivial matters is still understanding.

I guess I consider 'understanding' to be different from just raw information. Knowing information doesn't seem like understanding to me. I can know, for example, the sentence "King Charles I of England was executed on January 30, 1649" without understanding what a king is, what England is, what executed means, why he was executed, etc. If someone asks me it on a quiz, I can give the correct answer without understanding a single thing about why it's the correct answer or what it means for that to be correct.

edit. When I google "is knowing information the same as understanding?" google tells me:

No, knowing information is not the same as understanding:
Knowing
Is the awareness of facts or details about a subject. It's static and refers to discrete facts.
Understanding
Is the ability to analyze facts and put them in context to form a big picture. It's active and involves connecting information.

That loosely matches my intuitions about why understanding isn't the same as just knowing pieces of information.

That's how I see it, also. I don't think it makes sense to say we understand single facts. I can know many facts, but not understand how they are related. This spherical thing is a baseball. This long, thin, tapering thing is a bat. That mound of dirt is called the pitcher's mound. That's three facts that have no obvious connection. Many more facts can be added without any obvious connections.

But I understand the game of baseball.

I don't think it makes sense to say we understand single facts. — Patterner

I don't think it makes sense to say that we know single facts. Knowing requires understanding. So there is always some type of understanding which underlies any instance of knowing.

Your example is context dependent. Look what happens when I change the context. To know the game of baseball requires that you understand that the spherical thing is a baseball, the long thing is the bat, and the mound is the pitcher's mound.

Understanding provides the connections required for knowing. So, your supposed single facts, are really made possible by underlying connections (understanding). There is a relation between the spherical thing, and the name "baseball". Likewise with the names "bat", and "pitcher's mound". These are all instances of understanding, when you understand the meaning of a word. Then each of those words having meaning which goes beyond the simple relation between name and object, given by the context of the game, baseball.

That's how I see it, also. I don't think it makes sense to say we understand single facts. I can know many facts, but not understand how they are related. This spherical thing is a baseball. This long, thin, tapering thing is a bat. That mound of dirt is called the pitcher's mound. That's three facts that have no obvious connection. Many more facts can be added without any obvious connections.

This seems to fits with the intuition that things are also not fully intelligible in themselves (partially yes, else we would need to understand everything to understand anything). As far as I know, this idea really starts to come into focus in the (Neo)Platonic, Aristotlean, Stoic synthesis of the Patristic philosophers, with the idea of all finite things or concepts only being intelligible as part of whole (for them Christian Logos/Christ), e.g. St. Maximus, but also some guys before him. Even "two" is not intelligible without a concept of number, the other numbers, magnitude/multitude, etc. (and for the Artistotle-influenced Patristics it also only exists where contingently instantiated or the subsistent unity of the Logos).

Hegel would he someone who pushes this idea particularly far, which is interesting because he lived in a period where atomism had been somewhat ascendent (although maybe more in Britain).

What I find interesting is how this idea seems pretty strong for the medievals but then sort of gets lost. I suppose a similar idea is that things are (in part) defined by their relations and so we can't have a metaphysics where things are just their building block parts.

But to roll this forward to the present day, I think this would be largely consistent with information theoretic conceptions (or at least some of them).



I took a class on the philosophy of AI not that long ago and it revolved almost entirely on the processes you could use to structure atomic propositions relative to some agent, with desires just represented at a certain sort of atomic belief that needs to be made true (with action being determined by other atomic beliefs about how to make the desire proposition true).

It was interesting, but I couldn't help thinking that this seemed to be structuring the model of intelligence around what is easy to model and not how thought actually works.

I took a class on the philosophy of AI not that long ago and it revolved almost entirely on the processes you could use to structure atomic propositions relative to some agent, with desires just represented at a certain sort of atomic belief that needs to be made true (with action being determined by other atomic beliefs about how to make the desire proposition true).

It was interesting, but I couldn't help thinking that this seemed to be structuring the model of intelligence around what is easy to model and not how thought actually works. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It's not how thought actually works, because it's far to simplistic. A computer is far faster than a human mind, in doing the things that it does, but those are always simple tasks. Then, since it's so fast at doing simple tasks, we can assign it a whole bunch of simple problems, and when it solves them all very quickly that creates the illusion that it is doing complex problems, when it really is not.

The issue of "understanding" mentioned by Patterner, is the way that parts fit within a whole. That is a complexity. From the Aristotelian perspective, and what you mention, when you remove the part from the context of its whole, you cannot get a complete understanding because you cannot observe the thing's function. The thing's function is what it is doing, so it's an activity, and this is a concept of relations to others. That leaves two ways of looking at the thing, one is to describe the thing, what it is, and the other, what it does. So by Patterner's example, "the bat" names the thing described as the "long, thin, tapering thing". But within the context of the game, it is what one hits the ball with. Meaning can be developed in these two distinct directions.

I don't think it makes sense to say that we know single facts. Knowing requires understanding. So there is always some type of understanding which underlies any instance of knowing. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's true. But I don't always learn any amount of any type of understanding underlying anything each time I learn a new fact. I know what metal is. I know what a penny is. I know who Lincoln was. I know about the calendar. Learning that a particular penny in my pocket was minted in 2003 does not give me any new understanding of anything.

That's true. But I don't always learn any amount of any type of understanding underlying anything each time I learn a new fact. I know what metal is. I know what a penny is. I know who Lincoln was. I know about the calendar. Learning that a particular penny in my pocket was minted in 2003 does not give me any new understanding of anything. — Patterner

I think the difficulty here is with your assumption that understanding must be of something. Consider understanding to be the relationships which create the whole from the parts. As such, it is an unobserved part of the whole, which is determined through retrospect and logical analysis. Context is of the essence here, because a so-called "fact" which is learned as a fact at one time, will be at a later time, integral to an understanding.

This is why there is the appearance of infinite regress, each "fact" is composed of smaller facts united by understanding. But those smaller facts must be also composed of even smaller facts, so some would propose fundamental elements, similar to atoms, elements of knowledge.

Now, consider that you can learn about a relationship between two things, yet be completely unfamiliar with the whole, which would put the learned relationship into a larger context. Faulty speculations, and assumptions about the larger context is what leads to a lot of misunderstanding.

What I am saying, is that knowing is what produces closure to the understanding, making a whole "thing" out of the underlying understandings (or misunderstandings). And knowing is fallible because it may consist of misunderstandings. This is where mistake is common, in producing closure, judgement, which creates an object of knowledge, a supposed fact, when there is misunderstanding inherent within that object.

So your example, "that a particular penny in my pocket was minted in 2003" is an object of knowledge, a particular "thing", a supposed fact. However, I assume that it consists of an understanding of the relation between the penny and the numbers printed on it. That's how you learned this fact, by looking at the numbers. But this fact requires an understanding of the relation between the numbers printed, and the actual time of printing. We can call that "the meaning" of the printed numbers. But there is always the possibility of misunderstanding here. Suppose the company doing the minting used the same mold for a number of years, producing coins with the same numbers for numerous years, or their timing for updating molds did not correspond with calendar dates. Then you would have misunderstanding of the meaning of the printed numbers, producing the possibility of a false "fact".

So all your examples, ("I know what metal is. I know what a penny is. I know who Lincoln was. I know about the calendar."), are individual objects of knowledge, which rely on underlying understanding. To facilitate discussion, we often will simply call the underlying understandings "meaning". So those objects of knowledge imply that you understand the meaning of "metal", "penny", Lincoln", "calendar". To look at these understandings is to look inward into existing conceptual structures, objects of knowledge, with the use of logic, to understand "meaning". Though the simple term "meaning" facilitates discussion, "meaning" is actually very difficult to understand. To look outward, is to utilize the internal understanding to create an object, a larger whole, such as your example 'this penny was minted in 2003'.

Some of this probably seems very counter-intuitive, and confusing, because the 'moving outward', creating the larger whole, is actually moving from the more general toward the more specific, or in your example, even the particular coin in your pocket. Therefore the larger whole is actually the more precise, specific individual. But this is based in Aristotelian logic, in which the more general inheres within the more specific. So for example, "human being" inheres with "Socrates", as a defining feature essential to an understanding of "Socrates". And, "animal" inheres within the definition of "human being", as an essential feature, required for an understanding of "human being". And so on. In this way, we can understand context as having the more general inside the more specific. Then the whole, being the object of knowledge is the most specific, and ultimately the individual, the particular.

I have often posted that I am entirely lacking in knowledge of most things discussed here. So I don't know when someone is saying things that are easy, commonly discussed things, and I just don't know the lingo. I can't get out of your first paragraph.

I think the difficulty here is with your assumption that understanding must be of something. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't know how there can be understanding if there is nothing to understand

Consider understanding to be the relationships which create the whole from the parts. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's exactly my point.

As such, it is an unobserved part of the whole, which is determined through retrospect and logical analysis. — Metaphysician Undercover

I assume, by 'unobserved', you mean with eyes, or whichever sense.

Context is of the essence here, because a so-called "fact" which is learned as a fact at one time, will be at a later time, integral to an understanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

Entirely likely. But it is, as you just said, s fact that is learned, And if it 'will be integral to an understanding at a later time,' then it is not when learned. It is just a fact.