How to Distinguish What Is True - Essay Example

dKarl Akesson Your Teacher Full 17 February How Can the Different Ways of Knowing Help Us to Distinguish Between Something that is True and Something that is Believed to be True? The different ways of knowing allow an individual to distinguish whether something is true or is merely believed to be true. Truth is a fact or belief that is either true or accepted to be true (Merriam-Webster.com). In order for something to be true it must be accepted so independently. This, therefore, means that if truth is not accepted as such, i.e. independently, by the public, it cannot be considered “true”. Depending on a person’s background, personal beliefs, implications and counterclaims, the “truth” is often a mixture of something that is true and something that is believed to be true. The different ways of knowing can help us in this regard by helping us distinguish between the truths and what we assume to be truths through our perception, emotion, reason and language. This could, in turn, help us distinguish between something that is true and something that is believed to be true merely by helping us to take into account all these personal factors and then viewing the fact objectively without their influence thereon. In short, our ways of knowing can help us distinguish between something that is true and something that is believed to be true. The different “ways of knowing” lead us to different ways by which to approach ideas. Science, for example, is “knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method” (Merriam-Webster.com). This way of knowing elaborates different theories, which are based on tests and experiments. Proof is what assists us in underlying a statement, whether correct or incorrect, which, in a way, justifies reality but might not be believed to be true. We cannot debate logic in mathematics, for example, since 2 + 2 has been proven to equal 4; everyone around us knows it and cannot say otherwise, and, thus, it is the truth. Precise laws are a result of deductive reasoning; though deduction can be wrong, at least one is able to dispute it until it is proven to be true. Science has progressed at a great pace since the industrial revolution; it uses rational methods to explain rational phenomena, and does not foster superstition. We can, therefore, say that the rationality helps us in distinguishing between that which is true and that which is believed to be true. Even though there are certain “religious truths” that can not be rationalised either way and rationality would be of no use to us in such cases. Experimentation is a scientific procedure used to make new discoveries or demonstrate a known fact or prove/disprove a hypothesis. The observation of nature could also be categorized as a way of experimentation; using one’s senses to make observations about the nature of things can also fall under experimentation. Since observation is regarded as the use of direction or sense, these ‘directions’ can be a vector to knowledge. The etymology of knowledge, coming from the Latin word gecnāwan meaning to identify, distinguishes knowing “that” from knowing “how”, something also known as propositional knowledge. This propositional knowledge, contrasting the knowledge of “that” from the knowledge of “how” could be illustrated by mathematics; it is known “that” 2+2=4, just like it is known “how” 2+2=4, i.e. how addition works. Reason is the first element that leads us to truth in knowledge. As a quote attributed to Socrates (Wikipedia.org), “Know thyself” is an age old axiom that leads us towards self-knowledge; this is a very difficult and limitless task. Since men are affected by everything around them, they seem to think subjectively most of the time. This is where science affects individuals: even though they have their own different perspectives, there is certain knowledge that is true not because we believe it to be true, but because it actually is true. The will to explain something by reason, something that distinguishes us from animals, is helpful in this regard. Reason is a human capacity, used by applying logic. Moreover, our senses also play a part in this as well. For instance, if I were to place my hand in fire once and be burnt, it will teach me not to do it again because logically I can see that it is harmful. However, for Aristotle sense is a source of “error” since it allows only one approach partial of reality. According to him the world is divided into two: a world of ideas and of senses. The truth is present in the world of the ideas; the senses only mislead our knowledge of things. So then, how does one distinguish that which is true from that which is perceived to be true? Belief is an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists. How does belief transform into knowledge? The knowledge we hold as true through our beliefs is usually shared by us within the same society; this shows that throughout our lives we are influenced by our perceptions regarding whether something is true or not, resultantly we often cannot distinguish between that which is true and that which we believe to be true. This is a sphere where religion often comes in. Our emotions also play a part in it. For example, the feeling of being in love is something which cannot be gauged as true or only believed to be true. Another example would be saying, “He is a true friend”. We cannot prove this statement even if we “know” it, so we can say that there are things that are true, but we cannot prove them. However, our feelings do lead us to the truth in such situations. We connect to our friends and loved ones emotionally and know it to be true, without it being proven, that they love us and care about us. On the same note, we cannot tell if someone is lying, and we may take his/her words as the truth. So it is clear that our emotions sometimes lead us astray when we try to distinguish between the truth and what we believe to be the truth. We should ask, what is “truth”? In a sense, “truth” is more or less relative; it depends, principally, on our point of view. Universal truth also relies on different point of views to a level where understanding is essentially mutual. However, this brings us to the dilemma: can we ever distinguish completely between the truth and that which we believe to be true? For example, what is religious truth? Can religion make it possible to go towards the truth and to explain an unexplainable phenomenon by reason? Descartes in the Meditations metaphysics tried to prove the existence of God by reason alone, something that was disputed and then declared to be impossible by others. This shows that we cannot explain everything; there are certain things we believe to be true (in this case religious beliefs) but which cannot be proved or disproved to be true by any of the ways of knowing. Science helps us find truth, but these are not applicable in matters of belief or faith. So we can say that certain beliefs (like religious beliefs) are taken to be true because we believe them to be true, and not because they are the proven to be true. Yet it is necessary to make the distinction between truth and what seems true to us. It is frequent that the dividing line between the two is negligible. But can reason explain it all? Rationalism comes from the word Latin meaning; “reason” which is a point of view that states that reason plays the main role in understanding the world and obtaining knowledge (PhilosophyOnline.co.uk). Three philosophers; Rene Descartes, Gottfried Wilhelm and Baruch Spinoza all believed the world could only be understood through logic and reasoning. Rationalism could be used to determine whether a phenomenon is true or believed to be true by weighing the pros and cons along with not accepting emotions that affects the knowledge of understanding. However, we have seen that there are certain questions that cannot be answered through reason/logic alone. Therefore, we come to Constructivism, which is a view of knowledge constructed without human perception. As Giovanni Battista Vico put it, “The norm of the truth is to have made it” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy); here, knowledge is believed to be made, meaning it has to come from a source, and one should experience it in order to believe it. On another level, Sceptics argue that there must at least be basic beliefs in order to know whether something is the truth through the help of perception. In short, we can say that reason and human senses are not sufficient, on their own, to help us distinguish between that which is true and that which we believe to be true. They are helpful on their own, but it is always a combination of these two that brings us to know what is true. The different ways of knowing help us distinguish the truth from what we believe is true. Even though there are certain questions that we cannot answer through our present knowledge, however, laying aside matters of sacred belief (though interestingly there are those who claim that they have enough evidence to prove or disprove sacred beliefs as well), there is enough knowledge for us to be able to distinguish between the truth and what we believe to be true by utilising the ways of knowledge available to us. Works Cited Costelloe, Timothy. “Giambattista Vico.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. n.p., 15 July 2008. Web. 17 Feb. 2010. < http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/vico/> “Know thyself.” Wikipedia.org. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 7 January 2010. Web. 17 Feb. 2010. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_thyself> Nolan, Lawrence. “Descartes’ Ontological Argument.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. n.p., 15 October 2006. Web. 17 Feb. 2010. < http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-ontological/> “Rationalism.” PhilosphyOnline. n.p., n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2010. < http://www.philosophyonline.co.uk/tok/rationalism2.htm> “Science.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 2010. Web. 17 Feb. 2010. < http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/science> Shields, Christopher. “Aristotle’s Psychology.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. n.p., 28 April 2003. Web. 17 Feb. 2010. < http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-psychology/> Shields, Christopher. “Controversies Surrounding Aristotle’s Theory of Perception. (Supplement to Aristotle’s Psychology).” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. n.p., n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2010. < http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-psychology/suppl3.html> “Truth.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 2010. Web. 17 Feb. 2010. < http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/truth> Read More