On understanding people, structure, desires, and ourselves

Stephen Grimm defends the idea that for understanding people, we need to think of understanding not only in terms of grasp of structure (be that causal or of other kinds) but also in terms of a notion of understanding-as-taking-to-be-good. In this paper, I critically examine this idea. First, I argue that in some cases, understanding-as-taking-to-be-good can be explained in terms of understanding-as-grasp-of-structure. Then, I consider one further way in which understanding-as-taking-to-be-good could be obtained through something which is not a form of grasp of structure, which narrows and refines Grimm’s understanding-as-taking-to-be-good concept.