When Should we Trust our Emotions in the Pursuit of Knowledge - Essay Example

When to trust our emotions in the pursuit of knowledge Introduction Knowledge can be defined as the ability to know something and to be able to explain its existence or occurrence. Many things are known by various people while certain other things are not known by certain people. Knowledge is referred to by (Nisbett & Ross, 2008) as the power in a person, and one who has knowledge of certain things is considered to belong to certain ranks in the society. Knowledge of things can be acquired in various ways including through emotions. In this essay, the point at which we should involve our emotions in our quest for knowledge is discussed. This has been done with close examination of emotions as a way of discerning knowledge. Emotions and knowledge The intuitions of common sense in men can draw them into two often-contradictory wings, that is, whether we should trust our emotions to justify the reality of things we see surround us, or whether our emotions only help to distort the images of reality. Against such a background, this essay focuses on the two basic opposing sides in our quest to gain knowledge. At one point, we can base our argument on the fact that we can trust our emotions in making inquiries about certain issues and that reason alone cannot be able to draw on the various realities of the world. In this line, therefore, we can trust our emotions to portray the true picture of reality, as it is suppose to be. Darwin (2002) argues that this is perhaps the basic reason why one may think that human beings evolved from ape- like appearances. Another person may argue on the same issue on the other line and view the same issue as a different altogether. Emotional experiences can therefore lead to contradicting opinions and from different people with the same issue depending on their emotional influences. Our feelings about certain things can sometimes help us in making very sound arguments as such in reality. This is because emotions give a dimensional feeling that reality cannot give in normal life. It is worthless arguing the validity of our emotions as a good way of gaining knowledge without having empirical examples to prove this fact, for the reason that epistemological arguments are used to justify these occurrences. Emotions are instruments of acquiring knowledge. To argue with this line, we can sometimes consider our emotions as the major instruments we can rely on when looking for knowledge about the various things that surround us in the world. For instance, we can argue that the main use of a knife in the house is for cutting, the moment the knife ceases to do this it becomes of no instrumental value in that particular line. If however someone carries a knife in his or her hands and threatens to kill you, the emotions in you will tell you how to react. In this case, therefore, your emotions will first inflict a feeling of fear in you triggering your adrenaline levels and consequently one flees away. In this case, therefore, our emotions trigger the reality that was hidden to us in the process alerts us about whatever reaction, in this case running away from the intended killer. Thus having the right emotions in us makes us see things in their real nature hence gaining the real knowledge of the real objects, and circumstances that we come across. It is however good to notice and take into consideration the kind of emotions to have four different kinds of situations that we come around. These arguments are based on and Mullen and Anderson’s reasoning that the right emotions employed in a situation at the right time always give the right impression of reality on the ground (Anderson & Mullen, 2003). One can involve the right emotions for the right target anyway and come up with a wrong impression of reality; in such a case, this person’s emotions will lead him or her into making the wrong conclusions about the reality on the ground. For instance, if one is in a car and sees a bull strongly tethered by the roadside where the bull is certainly grazing comfortably and he feels afraid, then the person’s emotions are misleading him. What this person is suffering from therefore is a fear tendency for any cow. Unless the cow is potentially loose and is likely to cause harm on any passerby, then no one is supposed to fear being attacked by the bull. Emotions should not therefore be used to judge in such lines because. Such emotional judgments can lead to virtual conclusions other than the reality concerning the real situations. However, the bull might be potentially harmful even when it does not seem to. For instance, on seeing the long and sharp horns that the bull has, the appearance of the eye, the body size and the bellowing in the bull, one might conclude that the bull is of potential threat even when the bull can certainly not do any harm to anyone. To justify these wrongful and fearful impressions, one may describe the features he or she has seen in the bull. The reality in this case is that the bull, expressively might be dangerous and on the other hand the bull is not of any potential danger to anyone because of the condition in which it is, strongly tethered away from the road. In this case, two contrasting emotional experiences are battling for a place in justifying reality in this case, that is, the fact that the bull being potentially dangerous and that the bull cannot be dangerous. The emotional experience telling one that the bull is dangerous despite being tethered tightly far away from the road is the true emotions. Emotions used in such situations can be used to discern the truthful knowledge of the situation on the ground. The emotional feeling of the person therefore gives him the knowledge of the features for a dangerous bull that one describes and which inflicts fear on the person. Even if the bull is not justifiably dangerous in this case, it is true that when left loose, it may be potentially dangerous in justifying the emotions of the fearful person. The fear factor in a person can make him or her feel that the bull tethered by the roadside, by possessing the features of a fierce bull is equally dangerous while the bull is actually harmless. History and knowledge History studies the past events in relation to the present and to project the future according to Richard Lagemaat, historical facts can be more emotions based than expressing the truth of the matter (Lagemaat, 2010, p. 300). The linking of the past with the present can be based on pure emotions and not reflect the true prediction of the future occurrences and have the knowledge of what is to come. For example, when a severe drought was experienced in an area several years ago and a similar drought reoccurs in the same region five years later, then people can be able to predict the recurrence of the same drought in the fifth and the sixth intervals if the third and the fourth occurrences were correspondent to the described intervals. In this way therefore, the people gain the insight of the coming drought by simply counting the duration in time. Emotions used in this case to predict the coming of the drought after the same interval could therefore be considered right because of the surety built in the past times. If the onset of the drought was preceded by a spectacular occurrence such as the migrations of certain birds or animals, then the moment these are seen migrating from one part to another, then people become aware that the onset of the drought is approaching. Historical facts can therefore in this case be used to justify the reality on the ground and be used to predict the coming of the drought. The knowledge of the drought is therefore acquired by studying the chronology of the past events. Historical facts therefore can serve as a genuine source of knowledge if correctly observed and personal biases are not involved in them. Lagemaat argues that historical accounts may be misleading when it comes to predicting and justifying the reality of knowledge (Lagemaat, 2010, p. 309). First, the historical accounts are recorded by man and mistakes are bound to occur in the process of their transition from one generation to another. Errors of omission and redundancy are the most commonly made mistakes in recording historical accounts. These are likely to give a wrong justification of reality due to misinterpretation. We can use the example used above to justify when to apply emotions to discern the future occurrences. Using the drought example, the occurrence of drought can be predicted to be taking place over five years. This can be provoked by the abrupt changes in the atmospheric conditions making the predictions quite erroneous. Besides, the significant migration of the birds or animals that signify the onset of the drought may be triggered by other factors such as interferences of the ecosystem in their former habitats by humans that may make these animals or birds move away eventually than has been the normal predictions. This will therefore lead to the distortion in the normalcy of the common knowledge about the drought. In such a case, emotional experiences just in the migration of birds cannot be correct if used to predict the coming of the drought. Emotion and natural sciences Natural sciences deal with the study of the phenomena in their natural setting. This is done through observation of the natural phenomena from which hypothesis are made. These can be done by carrying out experiments (Lagemaat, 2010, p. 408) when the experiments confirm the hypothesis made, and then a law can be derived from these confirmations. Various scientific laws can be integrated to make a theory explaining the natural phenomena in a simpler way. Emotions can however distort the observations of phenomena leading to wrong confirmations of the hypothesis formed and consequently a wrong scientific law is formed which leads to wrong justifications. In explaining this, we have used the example below. Scientific experiments can be open to flaws stemming from the observer biases. Scientific experiments can be influenced by researcher’s emotional influences. For example in observing color changes in a laboratory experiments various assumptions can be made based on known conclusions observed by the previous researchers, besides observers who are color blind can make wrong observations leading to the distortion of the final findings. Natural sciences should be based on factual findings and on making scientific observations, emotional influences should not be applied. Conclusion In conclusion, it is true that knowledge can be gained through the observance of emotions as well as in the observance of the keenly recorded historical facts. Profound and sound application of emotions can be used to discern knowledge in various fields of knowledge in both the social and scientific fields such as ethics, and mathematics among other subject areas. At the same time, the above discussions also point strongly that both emotions can be misleading if not correctly observed and applied in the process of acquiring knowledge. References Anderson, D., & Mullen, P. (2003, August 16th). Errors and the Phenomenology of Value. In Quassi- Realism , pp. 149- 165. Darwin, C. (2002). Theory of Evolution: Revised Edition. London: Cambridge University Press. Lagemaat, R. V. (2010). Theory of Knowledge for the International Baccalaureate. London: Cambridge University Press. Nisbett, R. E., & Ross, L. (2008). Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgements. New Jersey: Englewood Cliffs. Read More