ABSTRACT
Starting from a survey of current theories of scientific understanding, I offer a new account that reveals the extent to which these theories are in fact complementary. Rather than depending on its connection with explanation, my account builds from the prevalence of pictorial language and treats the characteristic content of understanding as pictorial. By virtue of the distinctive ways in which they present their content, pictures exemplify, unify, show mechanical (and other) causal relations, allow for multiple readings and contextualise their content. These same features have already been identified as characteristic of understanding in the literature. Clearly distinguishing understanding from knowledge, by specifying their characteristic content as pictorial and propositional, respectively, helps to reveal the distinctive virtues, evaluative procedures and success conditions of each.
