Abstract

This article discusses the different concepts of understanding that have been advanced over the last hundred years or so and the relationship between theories of understanding and theories of meaning, with a specific focus on the opposition between a mentalist and a public-social conception. In particular, the following are critically presented: 1) Wittgenstein’s conception of understanding and the inferentialist authors who refer to him; 2) the pragmatic-contextualist approach; 3) the recent perceptualist conception of understanding