Golden State Today

In the latest episode of Berkeley Talks, three University of California, Berkeley professors from diverse disciplines — psychology, biology, and ethnic studies — explore the profound question: What is understanding?

“When I think about it through the lens of being a psychologist, I really think about understanding as a demonstration of, say, knowledge that we have about the world,” said Arianne Eason, an assistant professor of psychology. “But that knowledge doesn’t necessarily have to be through what we say. It doesn’t necessarily have to be explicit. It’s really about shaping the way that we engage with the world around us and with those around us and being very flexible.”

Eason continued, “I think a lot of times if we’re thinking about the college context and what is understanding, people’s first reaction might be, ‘I’m able to give an answer.’ But that’s not really understanding. It’s really about being able to apply it to different contexts that you may not have seen before. And I think kind of wrapped up in that for me is a recognition of what you don’t know. To really understand also means to recognize what you don’t understand and where the limits of your knowledge are.”

The fall 2024 discussion also featured Christian Paiz, an associate professor of ethnic studies, and Hernan Garcia, an associate professor of molecular and cell biology and physics.

This conversation is part of a video series for "Research, Discovery and You," a course designed for new students offered every fall semester by Berkeley’s College of Letters and Science. The course introduces students to various ways of thinking and approaches to knowledge production across the college's 79 majors.

"Research, Discovery and You" is taught by Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, professor of psychology and associate dean of student outreach and engagement at the college; along with Aileen Liu, director of curricular engagement initiatives at the college.

The video series was supported by both the College of Letters and Science and the Division of Undergraduate Education’s Instructional Technology and Innovation Micro Grant Program.