Abstract

Teachers strive to help students grasp significant propositions beyond merely knowing their content. The phenomenal theory holds that grasping a proposition requires corresponding phenomenal experiences, such as visualizing or perceiving its referents. We argue against this theory and propose an alternative: One grasps that p if and only if one mentally processes p in a way that enables relevant counterfactual reasoning about it. This account not only explains intuitive cases of grasping without phenomenal experiences but also clarifies the precise epistemic role of such experiences. Finally, we demonstrate the practical value of our account by showing how it can be applied to assess students’ grasp of philosophical propositions.