I want to combine two hitherto largely independent research projects, scientific understanding and mechanistic explanations. Understanding is not only achieved by answering why-questions, that is, by providing scientific explanations, but also by answering what-questions, that is, by providing what I call scientific descriptions. Based on this distinction, I develop three forms of understanding: understanding-what, understanding-why, and understanding-how. I argue that understanding-how is a particularly deep form of understanding, because it is based on mechanistic explanations, which answer why something happens in virtue of what it is made of. I apply the three forms of understanding to two case studies: first, to the historical development of thermodynamics and, second, to the differences between the Clausius and the Boltzmann entropy in explaining thermodynamic processes.

我想结合两个迄今为止基本上独立的研究项目，科学理解和机械解释。理解不仅是通过回答为什么问题，即通过提供科学解释来实现的，而且还通过回答什么问题，即通过提供我所谓的科学描述来实现。基于这种区别，我发展了三种理解形式：理解什么、理解为什么和理解如何。我认为理解如何是一种特别深刻的理解形式，因为它基于机械解释，它回答了为什么某事发生的原因是什么它是由。我将这三种理解形式应用于两个案例研究：第一，热力学的历史发展，第二，克劳修斯熵和玻尔兹曼熵在解释热力学过程方面的差异。