Theory of knowledge - Essay Example

Theory of knowledge Introduction Theory of knowledge is a field that has been researched and evaluated by many philosophers such as Immanuel Kant and Friedrick Nietzsche in an attempt to comprehend the function of human mind and its ability to reason. Despite this attempt, there is still much that needs to be researched and understood in that definite and certain conclusions have not been made on epistemology. This research paper attempts to describe and explain theory of knowledge by looking at its definitions and ideas related to knowledge as justifications, truth and rationality. More so, it looks at the beliefs and views earlier philosophers on knowledge. Knowledge can be defined as the acquaintance of facts, tenets and truths from a study or investigation or it can be defined as acquaintance of facts and truths from experience. This definition leads us to conclude that theory of knowledge is a justified true belief. As a branch of philosophy, theory of knowledge deals with questions regarding the nature, scope and sources of human knowledge. Therefore, theory of knowledge or epistemology is concerned with the following questions: what the aspects and conditions of sufficient knowledge? What are the sources of true knowledge, what are its structure and limits? As the study of justified true belief, theory of knowledge focuses to answer questions such as how do humans understand the idea of justification? What renders or makes justified beliefs justified? And is justification of beliefs internal or external to an individual’s mind. In order to understand what entails knowledge, it is vital to discuss knowledge from a propositional point of view also referred to as knowledge that. This kind of knowledge is different from acquaintance knowledge and knowledge how. For instance, in Mathematics, it is known that 1+1=2, but there also knows how to put the two numbers together, one arrives at the answer. Therefore, it is important to make distinction between knowing that, how and acquaintance knowledge. Traditionally, there existed two methods to theory of knowledge. Empiricism which stresses that we get our knowledge via sensory experiences while rationalism on the other hand which claims that people gain their knowledge through reasoning. The source of human knowledge have been attempted to be explained by philosophers. Due to this, there are two ways that have been used to explain the source of human knowledge in that on one side, rationalism explains that human knowledge is based on rationality or reason while on the other hand, empiricism states that human knowledge is based on experience or posteriori knowledge Many people have argued that human knowledge originate from experience but It is more sensible to argue that neither side can be neglected instead what need to be done is that both schools of thought that explain the source of human knowledge should be combined so that it makes more sense. Hence this can be classified as justified true belief. Knowledge is basically a belief or convection that someone has in something or a thing. However, knowledge can be enhanced by a combination of reason and experience. Plato Plato argued that in order to demarcate the difference between knowledge and opinion must be reasonably or rationally justified. It is from this view that Plato stresses that knowledge is innate. This is because from his dialogues with Socrates, Plato presents the perception that soul existed before birth with the structure of perfect knowledge and good of everything. Therefore, when something is learned, it can be recalled. According to his argument, he made clear distinction between knowledge and mere opinion which he said is not certain. In order for human mind to make a belief that is dependable or reliable, there has to be substantive evidence on it. This, therefore, leads to justification of our beliefs. Justification is established by the distinction between believing that something is true and between knowing that something is what it is (Sosa 143-5). For instance, for a belief to be justified, it has to be endorsed by some other idea so that it can be dependable or relied upon. More so, the concept supporting it must be believed to be true and lastly, it is significant that we have a substantive or credible and viable reason for us to believe that the idea endorsing our belief is actually real. When all these ideas are put together, it constitutes true and credible knowledge. Additionally, it is important that our knowledge that we acquire be true or real. Truth is the capability of the information acquired being consistent with evident presented and truths about it. Thus, all information is believed to be true and it is known to be true, which in turn makes up credible, reliable knowledge. Rationality is the ability to act using reason in relation to the facts of reality of certain scenario or situation. Thus, if one is having false knowledge, they are not in a position to act rationally but on the other hand, if they have true and credible knowledge, they will be in a position to act or behave rationally. It is vital to note that it is possible for people to act reasonably or rationality without their knowledge since they posses wrong knowledge. The only way to avoid such kind of situation is that individuals need to reason cautiously about any scenario before they act on it. Plato advocates for rationalism approach and argues that there is what they call self-evident truth in that they imply certain things are necessarily true, universally and always. In other word, they advocate for what they call as prior truth which means knowledge that people posses beforehand in that people have knowledge of things before even looking at the world the senses reveal to us. Some people argued that human beings have innate knowledge that is derived from our rational nature as human beings but not from experience, deduction or induction as argued by empiricists. This is due to the fact that human beings have knowledge via the soul’s recollection and not senses (Sosa 150-1). The idea of innate knowledge argue that human beings are certain of some things even when it is difficult to explain and describe how they arrived at the concept. More so, the idea of innate or rational knowledge holds that people posses some ideas are independent and do not depend on experience. For instance, ideas about God are innate since they do not require experience. The basic aspect of necessary truth is tied down in the self-evident truth in that people do not really have to thing or reason about things because it has to be true. For instance, it is argued that mathematical truths are thought of as self-evident. This is due to the fact that one does not need to go all over the globe counting things so as to proof this. In fact, some mathematical things such as one plus one equals two you require to belief before even counting. In addition, in order for people to know more, they need to add deduction to their reasoning. Deduction is what we usually think of thinking in that adhering to rules of logic; we can unravel the truths from other truths using a method known as syllogism a pattern that was discovered by Aristotle. For example, we may argue that all men are mortal. I am a man, I am also mortal. This will always be real or true, if the earlier two parts are true. Empiricism focuses on empirical truth as true knowledge which argues that people derive their knowledge from their sensory experience of the world. Most people tend to belief that empiricism is the same thing as science, this is not the case. For Plato, this is not true and hence he classifies them as mere opinions. This is because; empiricism is closely associated to human mind while science is more historical than philosophical. Empiricism argues that there is no innate knowledge since human knowledge is based on empirical truth derived from direct observation. For example, knowing a person who resides in a particular State is a result of observation that one made and it is possible for other people to make similar observations rather than relying on our prior knowledge to claim to know something as true. Furthermore, empiricism argues that in order for people to develop a more intricate body of knowledge from observations, they must make use of induction or indirect empirical knowledge. This is based on the conceptualization that we perceive observations and carefully extent them to cover more ground than we could have covered directly. This is called generalization. More so, empiricism takes the use of epistemological realism which states that the senses reveal to us reality that is true. The basic aspect of direct realism argues that what we see is what we gain in that the sense presents the world more accurately than the mind. To add on that, there is also critical realism which contends that people see sensations, the pictures or images of the world in the real world. The central question in epistemology that was asked Plato is centered on the idea that under what condition does one knows something or claim to have knowledge of something. From this question, it is argued that in order to know what someone know can be deduced from the fact that one is justified in believing things as true. More so, it important to unravel what we know, that is, the scope of our knowledge which in most cases it is believed that people know less than what they think they know or even nothing. Arguing from a skeptical point of view, it can be said that beliefs lack certain status. Epistemologists are concerned in the matter of when one claims to know what they believe. This matter entirely depends on the believers point of view to which he or she has access to. It is argued that external matter of whether what one’s belief is true is relevant to the matter of whether it comprises knowledge, thus it advocates that internal factors are relevant to the issue of whether beliefs are true or constitute knowledge. This point of view argues that knowledge is acquires through reason (Sosa 153). On the other hand, there is the external argument that matters of knowledge depend entirely on factors such as how the belief was caused, thus holding to the issue that knowledge is gained through senses or what people perceive in the external world. In sum, Plato, dismissed empiricist arguments that knowledge is derived from experience and instead held that true and real knowledge is innate because human soul existed before birth. Immanuel Kant According to Kant, it is significant to differentiate analytic and synthetic judgments since it is possible that some judgments might turn out to be synthetic and priori at the same time. Therefore, Immanuel Kant implied that all posteriori judgments are based on the fact that experience alone cannot be used to comprehend the meaning of something. It only means some judgments but not all synthetic judgments can be said to be posteriori since geometrical and mathematical judgments cannot be based on experience. This is because, they could not have been known from senses or experience. Kant consents that it is right for rationalists to argue that we know what we know or about things in this world with reason or certainty while empiricists are also correct by stating that such knowledge attained by certainty cannot be limited to truths by definitions nor cannot it be offered by experience. Instead Kant argues that we know and understand about the world as we experience it in accordance with the unchanging and universally shared frame of mind. We reason or think about the world in terms of space, categories (like cause and effect), time, possibility, reality and substance That is to say that whatever people think or reason, they ought to think about it in certain manner (For instance, as having existing or not existing), not because that is the manner in which the world is, but instead that is the way that our brain or mind command experience (Sosa 171). In sum, Kant argued that we cannot claim to have knowledge without sensation but sense alone cannot offer knowledge either. People cannot clam to know things about the world not because we go outside our mind to compare and contrast what we experience with reality outside it but instead, the world we know is already structured and organized according to certain innate pattern that is the human brain or mind. Knowledge is possible due to the fact that it is about how things appear to us in this world and not about how things are made. Therefore, reason offers us the form or structure of what we know while the senses on the other hand, offer the content or information. Kant arguments were that we can claim to know about things we experience and structure in terms of mind’s form. For instance, soul or God and metaphysics cannot be claimed to known because we have not experienced them. In addition, Kant’s philosophies on theory of knowledge was that we will not be a position to know if our concepts about the world are real or true or it implies that we have redefine what is true as that which we experience instead of that which senses or experience presents. In simple terms, Kant meant that human beings are limited to things as they appear thus either we will never at one particular point know if our concepts are real or true or if we ought to redefine what truth means. Experience according to transcendental philosophy is the first product to which our comprehension gives rise, by working on the sense impression. It is argued that human experience is the first method of knowing new information that initially we did not know. Despite this, experience does not guarantee people true universality because reason is so eager in that such universality or kind of cognition is more stimulated by experience than satisfied. Therefore, such universal cognition that is characterized by intrinsic necessity must be independent of experience and certain by itself. Hence, they referred to as prior cognitions or knowledge by contrast what is borrowed from experience is the cognized posteriori or empirically (Sosa 174). Therefore, it can be argued that even among our experience there is an admixture of cognitions that must originate a priori and that act a mechanism for our presentation of the senses. Experience enables human beings to believe that at least they can say more about the things and objects that appear to our sense than mere experience would teach us and via them do assertions incorporate true universality and strict necessity like as merely empirical cognition cannot apply. Therefore, according to Kant, in terms of time, no cognition in us precedes experience and all our cognition starts with experience. Despite the fact that all our cognition starts with experience, that does not mean that all of it arises from experience. Our experiential cognition is composite in that it consists of what we receive via the impressions and what our cognitive power supplies from it-self. It is vital to note that if our cognitive power is unable to make such addition, people may not be in a position to differentiate it from that basic material until long practice has made us more attentive to it and designed in distinguishing and separating it from the basic material. Priori cognitions needs to be distinguished from empirical cognitions whose sources of information are posteriori such as experience. In addition, much of cognition or knowledge gained from experiential sources that we can or do partake of it a priori. This is so because people attain or gain knowledge not directly from experience but rather from universal rule, even though that rule itself was indeed borrowed by us from experience. For a long time, philosophers have argued about sources of human cognition or knowledge in that we must differentiate pure cognition from empirical ones. For instance, experience does not teach us that something is defined in certain manner. This is due to the fact that when humans think of some things in necessity, such thought is derived from a priori or innate judgment. More so, experience has no capacity to provide its judgments with real or strict universality but only via induction with assumed and comparative universality. In sum, it can be said that judgment is thought with true or strict universality which means that when thought in a way that is not accepted, then judgment is not derived from experience but instead a valid absolutely priori. Hence, it can be stated that empirical universality is only as a result of our choosing to upgrade validity from one that holds in most cases to one that hold in all cases. This sis due to the fact that universality points to a special cognitive source for judgment or power of prior knowledge which is the basis for human knowledge as argued by rationalists unlike from empirical argument that human knowledge comes from experiences of the world. From this argument, it can be said that human cognition is made of such judgments that are necessary and in the strictest universal sense and hence can be inferred to a pure prior judgment. For instance, it can be said that all change must have cause, in this kind of reasoning, we can say that the idea of cause contains the concept of necessity in cause connection with an effect and a strict universal rule that governs that connection. It is rational to argue that prior principles exist in our cognitions and that they are the foundation of our knowledge as human beings because these principles are indispensable for the possibility of experience and hence authenticate the existence of priori. More so, it is clear that priori knowledge is not only in judgments but it exists even in concepts. For instance, from human experiential of the concept of body, it is possible to shade off everything that is empirical in the body and thus, it is not possible to omit space, which can be said to have existed beforehand. Hence, people have to accept the fact that the notion priori resides in cognitive power of human beings. From these arguments that go beyond the world of sense, where experience or senses cannot provide us with any direction or guide, human reason provides information that we never knew before. Our reason inquiries are superior in that their final purpose or aim are much more sublime than anything our comprehension can learn in the realm of appearances or experience. Once human beings go beyond the arenas of experience or senses, people are assured of not being refuted by experience. In this case, the appeal of expanding and increasing our cognitions is so great that nothing rather than hitting upon clear contradiction can stop our development. Similarly, we have the potential to avoid such contradictions by being curious and cautious in our inventions even though they remain mere inventions. Through mathematics, it is possible to know how much people can learn and know independently of experience or senses but via priori cognition. Intuition is therefore tagged as priori and thus, it is rarely differentiated. This is the reason why humans urge and desire to increase their knowledge sees no boundaries or limitations. Nietzsche Nietzsche just like Kant rejected the possibility of knowing real or true world. According to Nietzsche, in order for one to claim to know the true world, it requires a diaphanous perception of consciousness. This is because since people use their senses to know about the external world. This argument is based on the notion that, since we people have to use their senses, that is, in order to understand the external world, people have to use a particular method. According to Nietzsche understanding of knowledge, objective knowledge is not possible since it is based on the external conditions under which people come to know or learn. He argues that human perspectives are always perceptive in the world and not on the world which means that he disputed the fact that our knowledge comes from our experience on the earth (Sosa 180). Nietzsche argued that human perspectives do not divorce from reality but instead it establishes the seal of our significant and unavoidable engagement or participation in it. In sum , he claims that human knowledge is perspectival despite the fact that our perspectives as humans are sometimes simplification of intricacy of reality, therefore, humans have the ability via careful and rigorous evaluation of the world around us, strive towards attaining more refined accounts of the nature of things, which makes up human knowledge. This is due to the fact that human beings are knower’s of part of natural world who have the ability to reflect on and decide on reasonable sense of their experiences in order to justify their claim of knowledge. According to Nietzsche, human world is referred to as prima facie in that it is characterized by the reflection and potentiality to give reasons. Because human knowledge is inescapable and necessary for our existence, human evaluation and assessment into the relationship between self and world occurs within the arena of looking for justifications and reasons. Nietzsche’s argues that human knowledge is perspectival yet objective turns into his naturalization of Kantian view of human knowledge which turns his will into metaphysics thus transferring the ordering reality from human mind to the natural world. Unlike Kant, Nietzsche maintains that fundamental components of reality are ordered from within rather than human mind or reason. He dismisses the idea of intrinsic nature (Sosa 193-4). According to Nietzsche, perspectivism is the perception that human knowledge and comprehension are conditioned by how we are seeing it. In order to see something, one must be in a certain place, time and see it from a certain specific angle. It is not possible for one to view a thing from different angles at every time at once. Therefore, human beings do not see things, but rather have a perspective of it. Knowledge then takes place within a specific or particular perspective or point of view. Nietzsche argues that there is no knowledge of the whole but rather only the part that one is able to relate to a given perspective. This is not the same arguments as presented by most philosophers such as Kant since it crushes knowledge as it is classically comprehended that knowledge is only knowledge of the whole not part. For Nietzsche, to think in such manner is deceptive, illusionary and wrong as knowledge cannot be whole but part as we perceive the world in parts not as a whole. Furthermore, another element of this view is that whatever knowledge people think have is only human knowledge since it is based on and directed or conditioned by human faculties and processes. This is due to the fact that part of our perspective is the type of creatures we are. The only problem to Nietzsche ideas is that they summarize from this that true knowledge is not possible and that what people are only left with are residue of knowledge since they are not in a position to acquire whole or true knowledge. This where Kant’s and Nietzsche’s philosophies differ because for Kant it is possible to have real knowledge while Nietzsche objects this idea. Nietzsche’s theory of knowledge is also based on the will to power in that he argues that the will to power is the force or impetus within human beings that push or drives them to survive and live. He states that people survive and live by coercing other people and truth to give in to our power. This will of power also drives humans to think about the world and hence, subscribe logic, meaning, comprehension and order to the world because of will of power. In his argument, Nietzsche was proposing for pragmaticism in that reality in his view is not what corresponds to reality rather what allows people to gain their objectives and power. Reason or rationality represents the speed in which we act in order to certain things. Nietzsche refutes that truth; knowledge and reason have nothing to do with the real world. This is because the real world could be different from what we reason it is. Truth and reason ought to direct us to acquire the power and control. Summarily, according to Nietzsche theory, he argues that reasoning and all of experience does not point to any type of truth. He does not think that anything is really true. More so, he believes that reason and knowledge push us down toward weakness. What human beings need is will to power and not truth, due to this; we can call those things that brings us power as real and true. Work Cited Sosa, Ernest. Epistemology: The Classic Readings. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 1999. Print. Read More