This picture was taken from http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/SOM/01-P40~Knowledge-Posters.jpg
Three Kinds of Knowledge
This picture was taken from http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/SOM/01-P40~Knowledge-Posters.jpg
Experience-
Authority-Reason1. Experience
“What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes,
What we have looked upon, and touched with our hands…”
--John 1:1
Most of the knowledge that we have comes from Experiential Knowledge which is prior knowledge that comes from personal experiences.
Experiential Knowledge enters the mind through the five senses:
Sight-I know Mr. Clark wears a tie because I can see it.
Hearing-I know the bell rings during school because I can hear it.
Taste-I know there is salt on these fries because I can taste it.
Touch-I know there is a hockey stick right in front of me because I can feel it.
Smell-I know there is a pizza in the oven because I can smell it.
Aristotle Explains how some conclusions would not be possible without prior knowledge from the senses in his posterior analytics. This means that the world that is around us would not make any sense if we had not gained prior knowledge and applied that to what we are trying to understand. Aristotle also believed that the mind is an “empty Slate” (tabula rasa) at birth, meaning it lacks knowledge of any kind and during infancy and childhood our five senses take in an extraordinary amount of data, processing it later in life. One kind of experiential knowledge is Empirical Knowledge, which is knowledge that we obtain by measuring something.
2. Authority
“It is this disciple who testifies to these things and has written them down,
And we know that his testimony is true.”
--John 21:24
An
Authority is simply a person who claims to have knowledge that another person does not have. People gain authoritative knowledge from other people who tell about their past experiences-A friend tells you that the Webster ice rink got an addition. St. Augustine of Hippo had similar ideas 1,700 years ago to those that say if you look only at your own experiential knowledge then the world becomes a small place. “I considered what a countless number of things there were which I believed though I had not seen them and had not been present when they had taken place,” were some of his words describing how we believe things without actually experiencing them or being there.Five Points to consider when wondering whom or what to believe:
Do I consider this so-called authority trustworthy?
Might this person have an ulterior motive for telling me this?
If this person isn’t lying, then is he misled or deceived?
From where does he or she get her facts? How does he or she know?
Is there any way to verify this person’s claim?
The Greatest obstacle from knowledge to authority is fear of cost. You don’t question someone unless what he or she says hits home. William O’Malley was a Jesuit priest that wrote about the fear of cost. “An open mind, surely, is a terrible risk,” was one of his lines that stuck out the most, saying that being so vulnerable to the truth can be risky.
3. Reason
“Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it.
Do not count on them. Leave them alone.”
--Ayn Rand
All human beings possess
reason, which is “the power to think in a certain way that we proceed from what we know to what we do not yet know.” There are two kinds of reason. Premises are statements that we already believe are true.Two Kinds of Reason:
Deduction
The power to draw new facts from statements which we already know and believe are true
C.S. Lewis wrote on the topic of Deductive Reasoning in prose
“I am trying here to prevent people from saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Jesus: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be god.’”
Implied Premises are used in deduction
Induction
Making universal generalizations about something based on a limited number or experiences with that thing.
Aristotle’s Prior analytics explains this point
“Thus it is evident that the universal affirmation is the hardest to establish and the easiest to overthrow”