When to Trust Our Emotions in the Pursuit of Knowledge - Essay Example

Can we know when to trust our emotions in the pursuit of knowledge? Consider history and one other area of knowledge. School: Words: 1290 There is an ongoing debate in the theory of knowledge as to whether emotions and emotional reasoning have a place in the pursuit of knowledge, and if they do have a place, whether this should be trusted at all times. Many believe that true knowledge can only be uncovered using reason and logic, and the scientific method, as this will lead to unbiased truth. However, some believe that emotions and using emotions to interpret or drive discovery is also important. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether we can trust our emotions in the pursuit of knowledge, particularly focusing on knowledge in the fields of history and ethics. Throughout this paper, it will become evident that emotions can play a worthwhile role in the pursuit of knowledge, and there are areas in which it may be appropriate to use emotions, but there will always be a difficulty in knowing whether to trust our emotional reasoning fully. There are many different areas of knowledge to consider when thinking about emotions, and history is an interesting place to start. One of the most controversial events of the last century was the Holocaust, and there are many different emotions that are linked with the event. Many of the people that died in this moment of history still have living relatives, and there are still survivors left today, but there are still people who disagree about this moment. The high emotion linked with the event means that at least part of the difference in opinion is linked to this. Despite the fact that there are photographs and living memory, there are those who think the event was faked or impossible. In this case, emotions have clouded the pursuit of true knowledge, which provides evidence that there is a difficulty in using emotion in this way. To contrast, it is useful to look at the field of ethics, which pursues knowledge in a different way to history or in science, because it is more philosophy and does not try to uncover facts in the same way. Another controversial debate in recent years has been considering drug use. There are people who think that illegal drug use is OK, but people who have had relatives die from these drugs would argue against that. In this case, the emotion of some people has helped them to ‘know’ that drugs are wrong.1 This provides evidence that emotions can be used in the pursuit of knowledge in some areas such as ethics and philosophy, because knowledge is of a different form. However, there is still difficulty in knowing if you should trust your emotions completely, as some emotions like anger may get in the way of coming to a good conclusion, and therefore people should be careful about trusting their emotions in the pursuit of knowledge completely. In personal experience, there have been times in which using emotion has been good, but with evidence to show that we should be careful in trusting this feeling completely. When I was extremely young, it was forbidden to go outside without parents, but I wanted to explore and my emotions told me that this was the right thing to do. In this case, emotions were used in the pursuit of knowledge but in a slightly different way. This type of emotion can be useful in scientific discovery, as choosing the ‘wrong’ path to go down can lead to some good discoveries, and even in history this could be useful. However, many things could have happened on this adventure outside so there is more proof that completely trusting emotions should be limited as there can be dangerous issues that come out of this, and we can never be properly sure of what these are going to be before they happen. It is also important to know that there are different ways of knowing something which are all important and emotion can be important. For example, perception is one way of having knowledge2. In this case, it is thought that what we perceive (by one of the senses) is what we know. This would be the type of knowledge associated with science or even some parts of history, because it depends on what we can observe and therefore measure. This type of knowledge does not have much room for emotion as not many people have emotions that are so strong that their perception changes of empirical data. If emotions are involved, it is likely that they would bias the truth, so again emotional decisions should be avoided. Reason is another type of way of getting knowledge that can be important, and emotions can also be problematic in this. In the example of the Holocaust above, a type of reason can be used to prove or disprove the events but these are largely biased by emotions about the history. In this case, emotions are not to be trusted. Many people think that reason is close to logic, which means that it cannot be changed by emotional inquiry, so any involvement should be discredited and not trusted in every case. However, reason and emotion can at times be used together to find knowledge, as you can reason information about objects based on your emotional response to other objects, and therefore know what your future response will be. Another one of the fundamental ways of knowing is related to personal attitudes3, and this can be related more easily to subjects like ethics and philosophy. Personal attitudes and feelings about the world are the basis of personal knowledge, and a lot of work from ethics comes from what we feel about the world. This type of knowledge is important, just like facts, because it is linked to how we as humans understand the world. Perhaps the important thing to consider about this type of knowledge is that not all people share this knowledge, so it should not be trusted to make judgements about the world in general. For example, we may ‘know’ that human sacrifice is wrong, but previous cultures have ‘known’ that this was the right thing to do. Cultures and people come to these decisions by taking into account their own personal feelings about the events. In conclusion, there are many things to consider when it comes to emotion and the pursuit of knowledge. There are many times when emotion can be bad for true knowledge, particularly in history and other areas seeking to know empirical facts. However, there are areas like ethics which may rely on emotion to make big discoveries and to be linked to personal knowledge, so emotion should not be left out of the process altogether. Emotions are important in knowing about personal attitudes towards the world and knowing things that are important to one person or a small group. However, it is evident that emotions cannot be trusted at all times as they fluctuate, as a person when angry might have different ethics to the same person when calm. These personal emotions should not be used to create knowledge about the world in general, because emotions are extremely personal. It is obvious, therefore, that emotions can be useful in finding knowledge but there is no true way of knowing when and where to trust these emotions. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bastian, S., 2008. Theory of Knowledge. Heinemann, London Lagemaat, R. van de, 2011. Theory of Knowledge for the IB Diploma. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Read More