Instrumental understanding

The sciences improve by extending our sensory and cognitive abilities through extrapolation, conversion, and augmentation, as Paul Humphreys has argued. While the opacity of some epistemic enhancers may challenge certain kinds of scientific understanding, I argue that such enhancement is compatible with and extends pragmatic understanding. Drawing on and developing aspects of an epistemology for instruments, I suggest that instrumental functions provide the grounds for extending pragmatic understanding when an inquiry procedure can rely on the instrument’s function to achieve some aim. By continually improving and extending our abilities by relying on instruments, the sciences improve our understanding of the world by extending and enhancing our practical and instrumental facility with it.