Many varieties of understanding subsist in a thinker’s having the right kind of mental connection to a certain body of fact (or putative fact), a connection often called “grasp”. The use of a single term suggests a single connection that does the job in every kind of understanding. Then again, “grasp” might be an umbrella term covering a diverse plurality of understanding-granting mind-world relations. This paper argues for the former, unified view of grasp in two ways. First, it advances a broad, ability-based construal of grasp, along with a test for lack of grasp, that suggests that a certain specific connection plays an essential role in many varieties of understanding. Second, the paper considers a number of challenges to the thesis of unity that arise in a range of different kinds of understanding (scientific, moral, objectual, humanistic), and seeks to disarm them.

许多种类的理解存在于思想家与某个事实（或假定事实）的正确心理联系中，这种联系通常被称为“把握”。使用单个术语表示在每种理解中都能发挥作用的单一联系。话又说回来，“把握”可能是一个总称，涵盖了各种赋予理解的心智-世界关系。本文从两个方面论证了前一种统一的抓握观点。首先，它提出了一个广泛的、基于能力的把握解释，以及一个缺乏把握的测试，这表明某种特定的联系在许多种类的理解中起着至关重要的作用。其次，本文考虑了在一系列不同类型的理解（科学、道德、客观、人文）中出现的对统一论点的一些挑战，并试图解除它们的武装。