Person of Experience or the Person of Theoretical Knowledge Wiser - Essay Example

Is The Person Of Experience Or The Person Of Theoretical Knowledge Wiser? Why? The person of experience is wiser than the person of knowledge. There are certain reasons why I regard this. In the following paper I shall explain my point of view with references drawn from eminent philosophers. Aristotle is one of them with whom I shall start the discussion, as we know his knowledge theories are respected by all of us till date. We are often wrong in considering experience to be of weaker power than knowledge. Without experience, knowledge can never be used in a proper direction. I can show you what the Rationalists say about this matter. According to them knowledge is something which is actually gained automatically with human experiences. On the other hand a person having only theoretical knowledge falls short when it comes to application. An experience person is the man/woman who has performed the same act in the past and therefore he/she is aware of all the little troubles that may turn up. These practical little trifles are never written in books. This is where the experienced people excel. Theories provide us with questions whereas practical experience is something through which we can not only know the answers but also evaluate the relevance of the questions. Moreover, this is also true that no questions in theoretical knowledge can be formed without the experience. Theories can produce questions but in most of the cases those questions are only for question’s sake. In reality, they have no meaning whereas the questions, which come out of practical skepticism, have enough logical sense in them. There are concrete evidences to prove the authenticity of the questions that come from first hand experiences. There is a term in philosophy, which is known as “propositional knowledge”. This is actually a combination of theoretical knowledge and practical experience. For a proposition we need to compare what we believe and what is true. This is why this segment of philosophy is widely different from the lucky-guess part of theoretical knowledge. ‘Acquaintance’ and ‘description’ are the two terms which have been successfully used by Bertrand Russell. According to him, knowledge by description is actually the theoretical knowledge whereas acquaintance makes the sense of practical experience. What Russell points out means that only description can never give someone the actual picture of the subject. To understand it properly one has to acquire first hand experience. For instance we all know about the legend of Robin Hood but it is entirely a theoretical knowledge. We cannot provide evidences for the theory and that is why Robin Hood is still a myth and not a fact in history. I shall draw Descartes’ reference to show that practical knowledge or experience is much stronger than the theoretical one. According to this great philosopher, there are many things to decide before coming to any perfect conclusion. One is never able to come to any conclusion if there is no existence of the object he/she is looking for. Of course, one can go on imagining anything but concrete evidences are needed to a great extent to prove a theory. Descartes was right in refuting the concept of ideal which was an invention of Plato. Descartes brought the idea of Epistemology. In this subject people learned to evaluate the knowledge they have through comparing it with practical experience. Descartes was a supporter of reasoning and sense experience rather than intuitions. He started a rationalist approach towards epistemology. (“Notes for Class Fifteen: Epistemology and Descartes”, 2008) Although being Plato’s disciple, Aristotle did not consider all of Plato’s theories to be correct. The concept of ideal objects is where he completely differs from Plato. Plato always supported the concept of eternal forms and said that everything is to be judged by reason and reflection. Aristotle did not find it logical and he said everything that is ideal has to be learned by experience and not by reflection. Aristotle believed in physical existence and he considered nothing to be more real than practical life. In these ideas Aristotle is in fact very much like Descartes. Aristotle also said that it is in the hands of human beings to change the experienced reality. A sculptor can turn the stone into a beautiful sculpture, a work of art. Both of them can be felt and seen and there is nothing for reasoning to do here. This is one of the cases where reasoning is defeated by first hand experience. (Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.)”, 2008) We can vide what Aristotle says. He says that senses are the primary things with which all of the creatures have come to this earth. The usefulness of the senses is true and apart from that they have also taught them to love themselves as well as the whole planet. On the other hand, to gather knowledge is a basic human instinct and they use their senses as the primary means to know more. Aristotle considers the sense of sight to be the highest among all. What Aristotle says about the animals is very practical and supports my belief to a great extent. He says that animals do not have intellect like human beings and this is why whatever they learn is through the process of experiences. They depend entirely upon their memory of various experiences through which they have gone in the past. According to Aristotle this is the most justified way to learn things, whether they are part of science, arts of any other subject. He completely defies Plato’s theory of imitation where the latter expressed his idea that we the human beings try to imitate the ideal objects, which we can find through our reasoning power. Aristotle says that the process of learning is the same for everyone, whether an animal or a human being. Art, according to Aristotle, was an invention, which was not only impressive but was also useful. Some of them were about the basic necessities of life although the themes varied from they were in the primitive days. Then Aristotle comes to the discussion of wisdom. Wisdom is something according to Aristotle, which makes a man more perfect than the others. This exactness can only come when the man has passed through the same kind of experience beforehand. He will never be able to reach the level of perfection if he knows nothing about the practical use of the knowledge. When a man has judged the effectiveness of his knowledge, he can be regarded as a wise man. Otherwise, no matter how knowledgeable the person is, his knowledge will remain within him as notions. (Aristotle, 350 BCE) According to Aristotle, all men are wise from their birth. We can take this theory from a different modern angle. What he means to say is human beings have a kind of basic wisdom, as man is the most intellectual creature on the earth. But, we are not trained in ethical virtues, which are the most important parts of a human life. ‘Hexis’ is the term by which Aristotle represents the idea of ethical values and the term actually means ‘disposition’ in English. These are the aspects, which the human beings learn with the help of theoretical knowledge. Yet they remain unable to apply the ethical virtue unless and until the ethical education is mingled with practical wisdom what we call ‘experience’ or in the Aristotelian term, ‘phronesis’. This is an enough clear statement where Aristotle directly says that the completeness of a human being is never possible without incorporating experience in his or her character. This is a theory, which ultimately shows that the accumulated knowledge is useless in a man if he does not have experience of how to execute it in the proper way. (“Aristotle’s Ethics”, 2007) We do realize these things numerous times in our daily life. A man who is good at geography will tell about how to reach Africa; but a man who himself has been to Africa can guide you to the place in reality and he is aware of all the little things that are needed for the successful tour. This is called experience. A man of experience is not only wise but he is also able to evaluate knowledge with a practical point of view. A student of art knows very well how the sculptures are made and the traditions they follow, but a sculptor who makes them can tell him all about the little practical things which the theoretical part of art misses out. References 1. “Aristotle’s Ethics”, (2007), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/ (accessed on September 27, 2008) 2. Aristotle (350 BCE), “Metaphysics”, available at: http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.1.i.html (accessed on September 27, 2008) 3. “Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.)” (2008), UCMP, available at: http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/aristotle.html (accessed on September 27, 2008 ) 4. “Metaphysics”, Aristotle (Translated by W. D. Ross), available at: http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.1.i.html (accessed on September 27, 2008) 5. “Notes for Class Fifteen: Epistemology and Descartes”, (2008), Philosophy, available at: http://philosophy.tamu.edu/~sdaniel/Notes/96class15.html (accessed on September 27, 2008) Read More