Examination of Major Epistemological Constraints - Essay Example

Examination of Major Epistemological Constraints Task: Examination of Major Epistemological Constraints Epistemology is one of the most discussed areas in terms of learning and development. However, several contributions have been made by a number of philosophers in developing epistemological literature based on what is known. This includes origin, nature, limit and how far human understanding and knowledge has reached (Audi 2010, p.239). However, for a proper understanding of the subject at hand, we must first define epistemology, history and the capacity in which they are related. Similarly, it is fundamental to comprehend these terminologies for reasons of building a strong argument and supporting points with regards to the subject matter. A precise definition of epistemology is the study of nature, limits of the human understanding and origin of concepts and logical framework of various ideologies. However, there are some key points to note in epistemology for instance the possibility of various pulls of knowledge. Additionally, the kind of knowledge that is in question. It further seeks to find out whether some knowledge is in born or all knowledge is acquired (Fumerton 2006, p.66). History, on the other hand, is the study and analysis of past chronological events, facts and knowledged that has either been documented or is evident in various aspects. One of the most significant way of predicting the future happenings is by using past historical events (Neustadt & May 1988, p.25). Similarly, in the intelligence, world history has been used greatly to learn the behavior and the reactions various armies, kingdoms, dynasties and empires. However, in as much as history is playing a major role in the development intelligence, and further act as a learning tool, it also has various applicational limitations. There are several underlying factors that contribute to limiting history as a learning tool with regards to intelligence (Butterfield 1965, p.35). In the United Kingdom (UK), for example, the intelligence unit was termed as the invincible man by both government and the general public. Additionally, most of these operations were not heard of. It was a silent movement, and most of its work was a secrete. Due to the high level of secrecy of the United Kingdom (UK) Secret Service, most of its operations were never documented hence limiting history as a tool for learning. In the early 20th century, most countries had spies who were responsible for gathering intelligence in a foreign country on behalf of their country. Due to this kind of operations it made documentation of the secret service strategies and operations extremely vulnerable. If this kind of information would leak to another country through spying, then it could put the whole United Kingdom (UK) in jeopardy. As a consequence of this documented history of previous operations, it is very difficult to find hence cannot be used as a historical tool for learning purposes. The existence of the secret service was a major secret to a point that even the UK government denied the very exixtance of this unit in order to protect it from foreign spies and foreign units who sort information in the UK. Another major limitation to using history as a tool of learning in regards to intelligence is that, in the United Kingdom, the documents that were used by the secret service were never kept by the Public Records Office (PRO). These records were exempted from storage by the Public Records Act of 1958. These records were famously know as the blanket exception records (Neustadt & May 1988, p.38). Similarly, the Act grants the chancellor exemption power to withhold these documents that were related to intelligence. The death of basic or primary sources of information posed a great challenge and limitation to historians and other people who would want to use this form of history as a tool of learning and for scholarly purposes. The main aim for this secrecy was to intensify operational security and eliminate any prospects of external attack. The secret agencies claimed that it was a cardinal rule never to disclose one a secret service agent because this could be a matter of life and death hence their operations were so much concealed and never known. Additionally, the whole intelligence gathering process would be jeopardized, if the sources and sensitive information was disclosed. Another aspect is that the spies are generational hence keeping history of such sensitive material would eventually lead to a leak hence leading to putting the whole country in jeopardy in terms of internal security and external attacks (Gaddis 2002, p.254). However, as time passed by, several improvements were made in the intelligence gathering processes and the kind of technology used. Major structural changes took place in the secret service. For this reason, the achieve was open in the year 1977 to publish a few of the literature regarding the secret service. This gave rise to the book “British intelligence in the Second World II”. In general, history has several limitations for using it as the sole tool for learning especially in the world of intelligence. This is due to the reliability of the sources that provide the primary information. For instance, in the secret service information is concealed for operational security purposes. Therefore, using history as a learning tool poses a greatly challenge. Using history as a tool can only be effective, if the primary sources are reliable and sufficient. Furthermore, the past events must be applicable in the present situation, in order to use history effectively as a tool to learn. Additionally, the world is ever changing in all dimensions hence making most of the infortaion that may be available insufficient. In the 20th century, the kind of environment that was created in regards to the secret service and intelligence could not allow for the development of historical learning material (Gaddis 2002, p.30). Most of the philosopher did not dwell much on the subject of secret service and intelligence and thus very little publication was made in regards secret service operation. Intelligence as an academic discipline has been around close to one century (Chen 2006, p.45). Several theories about intelligence have been put forward by several scholars. However, most of the academic work presented has been basically theory hence must be put to test in order to establish its functionality. Intelligence is a biological instinct that all animals posses. Additionally, it is intelligence that enables the animals to respond to stimuli. This kind of mechanism varies widely from one organism to another. Intelligent in the animal kingdom is essential for survival. Furthermore, it is has been used over the years by human to extract information from captives and prisoners. Many empires, dynasties, kingdoms have used intelligence to get information about their enemies and rivals. They have managed to send spies into a foreign land in order to extract information for purposes of war, attack and invasion. Many aspects of history involving intelligence have been recorded. For instance, in ancient India where the Machiavellian treaties were signed. Intelligence in the past involved an organized effort of gathering information (Gaddis 2002, p.24). The Roman empire used to gather a lot of intelligence before going to war because the understood the fact their victory in the war greatly depended on the amount of information the had about their enemy. The French also contributed greatly to the evolution of intelligence from their industrial revolution and the introduction of new conditions. However, the French had two major approaches of intelligence, these included the physical intelligence and the verbal intelligence. The physical intelligence involved the use of marching armies, flying aircrafts, campfire smoke, feeling ground vibrations among other forms. However, this was overtaken by another form of intelligence which was known as verbal intelligence. Verbal intelligence included getting information from written sources or sometime oral sources. Some of the major aspects of this form of intelligence included stealing plans and reports form enemies, overhearing orders of troops among many other forms. However, on the other hand, history is one of the most imperative aspect in the human life because it explains several phonominons and provides a mild prediction of what events might occur or take place in the future. For this reason, human beings have always documented history in books, journals, magazines and other forms of print media. This helps them reflect back and read the major causes of past happenings hence enabling them predict the future and avoid making similar mistakes. However, in the field of intelligence history has been evident in very many aspects. For instance, in the current world, technology has immensely advanced with armaments becoming more and more sophisticated. These treats that eventually lead to attack compromise the country in terms of productivity, business growth and economic development. Similary, the damages that may be caused by an attack may be massive hence making gathering of intelligence a critical component in performing an investigation. However for effective management of risks one has to look at a threat wholistically. In the past few years of the twent-first century, the secret intelligence has experienced a major transformation in terms of security and intelligence internationally. Security and intelligence are now given top notch priority in the international arena. Similary, the general public’s expectations have risen to a whole new level in regards to security and intelligence. Intelligence has come a long way in terms of development and advance ment. Additionally, one should understand that intelligence exists in both the offence and the difference, but the way it may be applied is totally different in both cases. Futheremore, there should be a clear distinction between the accompanying effects and the defining effect. For instance, one can say that all elephants are the gray in colour, but the degree of the colour gray cannot be used as the defining aspect of elephants. It is merely one accompanying characteristics. The defence characteristic in an army heavily relies on information which is termed as intelligence. The army cannot prepare for an attack if it does not have adequate information as to how and where the attack will take place. However, while intelligence is very critical in the defence part, it is equally a contingency to the offence part. To effectively justify the statement, there are certain points that must undergo keen consideration. The first one is the relative frequency of defence in which the intelligence aspect successes over the offence. Secondly, nations that are aggressive most times tend to ignore the aspect of intelligence. However, on the other hand, nations that defensive heavily rely on intelligence in order to effectively plan their moves. A good example of this is Poland during the world war one and two. The fear that Poland as a country had in regards to the neighboring countries gobbling her up gave them strength to defeat Germany. Similarly, Britain also focused a lot on balance of power basing most of her by then foreign policies on it. However, this approach demands the employment of extremely high intelligence. The british secrete service is well known for being the best in applying intelligence techniques. Intelligence faces several problems one being to predict what is going to happen is a major challenge because the main aim of intelligence is to predict everything that is going to happen for adequate preparation. Due to this problem the intelligence is continually developing technological tools that will enable it accurately predict the occurrence of events. For instance, during the second world war intelligence was used to break codes and decrypt messages that were sent via a communication media. Currently, technological observation tools have been advanced, and it is very hard for any event to occur in the world without being predicted of noticed. Surveillance has been highly advanced hence including radar technology, advanced camera systems and sophisticated scanning systems. Additionally, due to the current technological advancement it is fairly difficult to get any nation off guard by launching an attack due sophisticated tools of intelligence gathering and tools that can scan a wide range. Furthermore, the technology for instance camouflage has been used by several nations to conceal weapons and armies in times of combat or aggression. However, accepting the information that has been delivered by intelligence is sometimes hard for the commanders to take thus a challenge in dealing with it or acting upon it. In the past few years, the relationship between the policy makers and the intelligence gathering sections has been heavily scrutinized by the general public hence putting intense pressure on these departments, for instance, in the US and UK. This is clearly evident in during the war on Iraq whereby the United States and the United Kingdom were both charged with distorting information in regards to intelligence so that one could have an upper hand in terms of decision making. However, it is important to clearly understand the process of intelligence gathering, and how important intelligence is to the country’s national security. Intelligence is studied a very complex conceptual framework and most scholars have studied the intelligence aspect from a political angle and international relations because these are the major areas in which intelligence has the greatest impact. The exitance of intelligence comes about because government always hide information from other government (Command of her majesty 2004). Intelligence is a process, and it has fundamental requirements. However, the functions involved include the collection of information, analysis of the gathered information. In the twenty first century intelligence heavily relies on technology and sophisticated search engines. However, the current position of intelligence is less of uncovering secretes and more of separating useful information from the pull that has been created in all the communication media. However, in as much as many countries for instance the United States have heavily invested in intelligence there comes a times when there is a failure in the intelligence (Jervis 2010, p.2). A good example to illustrate a failure in intelligence is when an event gets the United States by surprise. This is perceived as a failure. When critically analyzing the intelligence gathering procedure, most of the steps followed are very precise (Rosati & Scott 2011, p.194). Furthermore, the are aimed at pin point the leads that will help get useful information about the subject in question. For instance, the collection and analysis of vulnerable information or data from the field or primary source. The second critical step is tracking any suspicious codes, and the third critical component of gathering intelligence is identifying, monitoring and understanding the key participants involved. However, some of these steps of intelligence gathering are very detailed and require a lot of concentration and dedicated staff following the complexity of the data. For example, the collection and analysis of vulnerable data requires constant monitoring of close to 3000 source at a time. Additionally, these sources need to be normalized, prioritized and analyzed in depth. History plays a crucial part in the intelligence discipline following a number of related reasons. The success of an intelligence unit relies on informative sources and relevant information. However, as much as these are some of the key components of effective intelligence, history also can be attributed to the success of an intelligence unit. Studying, analyzing and understanding the pattern of events that have occurred in the past can crucial, when dealing with an unknown enemy (Gill & Phythian 2006, p.62). Human beings are habitual in nature. This means that they have a pattern that they adopt over a period of time. This can be instrumental in gathering of intelligence because it is possible for the team to come up a with an effective strategy of gathering, analyzing and understanding information. Additionally. Looking at the previous studies, history is a critical component of predicting future occurrences. In the field of intelligence, someaspects like past information are very important in analysis and assessing situations. As a result, intelligence borrows greatly from history in order to accomplish its mandate. History also provides a lot of background information in the process of gathering and analyzing intelligence information. Additionally, history also plays an important aspect when trying to identify, monitor and understand key players. Another central role of history in the field of intelligence is to prevent failures form happening. Failurers are situations whereby something happens unanticipated happens, or the secret intelligence did not see coming or predict. By using history and previous occurrence of events then the secret intelligence is able to establish the probability of occurrence of a particular event hence become more prepared to effectively handle the event (Khan 1991, p.263). However, intelligence failure cannot be avoided at all times because people are not always right all the time. Sometimes the intelligence secret service misdiagnose a situation or miscalculate hence causing intelligence failure. Similarly, intelligence failure can be caused by lack of preparedness hence occurrence of events get the secret service off guard. It is important to note that history is very significant in the development of intelligence and security not only in the United Kingdom but globally. The most relevant example about how history is vital in the development of intelligence and security include the war on Iraq and terrorist. Various intelligence agencies use previous information about their kind of operations and their patterns of attack to predict the future and what they may be up to next. This shows the use of history in solving current problems, which are at hand. In conclusion, security and intelligence id one of the most important aspects in any country globally. However, each country has its own unique approach to the way they carry ou their intelligence activities. Similarly, history plays a major role in the development of intelligence and security enhancement in any particular country. However, there are several limitations as to why we cannot solely rely on history as a tool of learning in relation to security and intelligence. Furthermore, the main reason as to why we cannot solely rely on history as a learning tool in the field of intelligence is because of the nature of operations that are involved in intelligence. It is so secretive that the information is so much concealed andcannot be accessible due the degree of sensitivity. Most of the information is never found on the public domain because governments believe that the secret service will lose its integrity if there operations are uncovered or known to the general public. Due to the development of technology a lot of things have changes for the better hence increasing the accuracy of the information collected as intelligence for a particular event of group of people. Some of the most powerful gadgets user by intelligence currently include COMS, security cameras, radar and sophisticated communication gadget. 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