Out of various ways we acquire knowledge, knowing by listening to other people’s utterances is an important one. Philosophers in classical India and in the western tradition as well have made various attempts to offer an analysis of the knowledge that we gain through linguistic under-standing. In the present paper I propose to undertake an analysis of linguistic understanding taking cues from Jagadīśa’s Śabdaśaktiprakāśikā. The main issue that I address is whether knowl-edge by linguistic understanding (śābdabodha) could be reduced to other ways of knowing like perception or inference. I have reconstructed Jagadīśa’s arguments to show the irreducibility of the semantic knowledge to other kinds of knowledge like perception. Out of this discussion comes an analysis of the nature of semantic knowledge, pointing to its uniqueness with regard to other ways of knowing.

If knowledge is acquired through linguistic understanding, then such knowledge must “stand in the space of reasons”. And this gives credence to our urge to tie knowledge with justification. I would like to unpack the notion of “epistemically satisfactory standing in the space of reasons” (following John McDowell) and then situate linguistic understanding in this space of reasons. Here comes in the idea of doxastic responsibility. I would like to conclude that linguistic understanding is not a mindless reception of something that has nothing to do with rationality.