Is formal describability sufficient for full understanding?
I drafted this text in Hungarian and then translated to English, so I apologize in advance if the terminology is not always correct.
This is a topic I've been thinking about for a while and I'd love some help orienting myself within the relevant literature.
It started with an interest in higher spatial dimensions (so 4D space): I began with Edwin A. Abbott's Flatland and then moved on to broader popular science books on the subject. During my philosophy studies (I'm currently before starting Master's) I started thinking about a related but more abstract question: when can we actually say we understand something we have no direct experience of, and no intuitive grasp of, but which is mathematically fully coherent?
This question, obviously, comes from thinking of the fourth spatial dimension: through a chain of logical steps we can arrive at a formal description of such a space, yet we will never be able to experience it. The question that interests me is whether formal describability is sufficient for full understanding.
Is this essentially just another way of framing the a priori vs. a posteriori distinction? I'm aware that hermeneutics, cognitive limits (Kant, Chomsky), and philosophy of mind are all potentially relevant frameworks, but these are broad starting points at best. Could you point me toward more specialized literature on this specific question? Or let me know if I'm just reframing something that has been already discussed in other works? Thank you!