You have just described the fallen human condition. Plato spoke of Man having a tripartite soul or three parts forming one organism. The balanced Man would be governed by reason (the head) using emotional force (the heart) to guide the body to serve its needs. But as we've seen it doesn't work that way. The fallen human condition has Man being governed by his appetites or the body. The emotions serve them and reason rationalizes them.JoeB wrote: ↑Sun May 17, 2020 9:20 amGood, an example...
This person probably understands very well what they're doing, although their behaviour might seem a bit incomprehensible from the outside.
There is in normal discourse a difference between understanding and believing such-and-such. The criterion of a behavioural assessment of someone's understanding elides this difference. It posits I think an ideal of understanding along the lines, to understand perfectly compels belief and action in accordance with the understanding. But I think this ideal, though interesting, is only abstract. If we can have a degree of understanding then maybe that's all we ever have.
I understand the risks of smoking, but smoke nonetheless - so do I not understand them well enough, or not care, or don't believe it'll happen to me, or am I just addicted?
Understanding can be defined as state in which a person thinks, feels, and senses the reality of the external world as a whole. We do not understand since the human organism doesn't function as a conscious whole. He is governed by either reason, emotion, and appetites depending upon which way the wind is blowing. Plato wrote of our problem in the chariot analogy and our corrupt dark horse. It does seem a person needing to be normal could work on his inner life but it is far more difficult than we are aware of so we become hypocrites in which we say one thing and do another while being unable to "understand"