I examine situations in which we say that different subjects have ‘different’, ‘competing’, or ‘conflicting understandings’ of a phenomenon. In order to make sense of such situations, we should turn our attention to an often neglected ambiguity in the word ‘understanding’. Whereas the notion of understanding that is typically discussed in philosophy is, to use Elgin’s terms, tethered to the facts, there is another notion of understanding that is not tethered in the same way. This latter notion is relevant because, typically, talk of two subjects having ‘different’, ‘competing’, or ‘conflicting understandings’ of a phenomenon does not entail any commitment to the proposition that these subjects understand the phenomenon in the tethered sense of the word. This paper aims, first, to analyze the non-tethered notion of understanding, second, to clarify its relationship to the tethered notion, third, to explore what exactly goes on when ‘different’, ‘competing’, or ‘conflicting understandings’ clash and, fourth, to discuss the significance of such situations in our epistemic practices. In particular, I argue for a version of scientific pluralism according to which such situations are important because they help scientific communities achieve their fundamental epistemic goals—most importantly, the goal of understanding the world in the tethered sense.

我研究了以下情况：我们说不同的主体对现象有“不同的”，“竞争的”或“矛盾的理解”。为了弄清这种情况，我们应该将注意力转移到“理解”一词中经常被忽略的歧义上。尽管哲学上通常讨论的理解概念是用埃尔金的术语束缚于事实，但还有另一种理解概念却并非以同样的方式束缚。后一个概念是相关的，因为通常说到两个对一个现象有“不同”，“竞争”或“矛盾理解”的主体并不需要对这些主体以束缚的方式理解该现象的主张作出任何承诺。单词。本文的目的是首先分析非束缚的理解概念，其次，阐明其与束缚观念的关系，第三，探讨在“不同”，“竞争”或“矛盾的理解”发生冲突时究竟发生了什么，第四，讨论这种情况在我们的认知实践中的重要性。特别是，我主张采用一种科学多元主义的观点，在这种观点中，这种情况很重要，因为它们可以帮助科学界实现其基本的认识论目标，最重要的是，从束缚的意义上理解世界的目标。