“To attain knowledge, add things everyday. To attain wisdom, remove things every day.
—Lao Tse
Epistemology is concerned with the ideas of understanding how we know something. It is the study of knowledge, of how we justify or defend that knowledge, and of the rationality of our belief in the truth of that knowledge.
As an example, I can ask what does it mean to know something? This is an inquiry into the nature of knowledge. How do we identify those examples of when someone knows something from those when someone does not know something? While this may seem quite simple, it is much more difficult to answer this question than it would seem at first glace.
One way we use the construction to know is as an expression of certainty. For instance, one may say, “I just knew that cold front was going to come through this afternoon, but it didn’t.” We commonly use this type of construction, but is it really knowledge? Can we really know something that is, in fact, not the case? Can we only know something that is true?
Even if we restrict ourselves to factual knowledge, we still encounter multiple usages of knowledge. We may know how to do something, sometimes called procedural knowledge. An example of this type of knowledge is that one may know how to drive a car, and may also be able to drive that car from New York to Boston. Another type of knowledge is familiarity. One may know their best friend, or know the streets of their hometown like the back of their hand.
However, epistemologists look at another type of knowledge: Propositional knowledge. A proposition is something that can be stated in declarative sentences, “A robin is a type of bird,” or “It is 231 miles from Houston to Dallas via I-45.” Propositional knowledge is transdisciplinary, it includes knowledge from many different academic disciplines; and while any truth may be knowable, there are truths that may also be unknowable. Our goal in learning is to determine what can be known, and as such, we must also understand what it means to know something, i.e. meta-epistemology.
There are many qualifications for propositional knowledge. We can understand knowledge as abstractions, such as in the area of ethics, for example. A priori and a posteriori knowledge are claims based on whether one has previous experience or not. Empiricists believe all knowledge is grounded upon experience, while rationalists believe all knowledge is ultimately based on reason.
What exactly comprises knowledge? If we look at knowledge as a mental state, in that we may know something mentally—that knowledge exists in our minds—then some entity which is unthinking cannot have knowledge. We must also have a belief about a particular thing, for if we do not have a belief about it, we cannot have knowledge about it. For instance, if I set a goal to make an “A” in my physics class next semester, yet have no knowledge of what the course assignments will be, I cannot have belief in my abilities to achieve an “A” regardless of my desire to do so. Likewise, if I have never experienced the thought of achieving an “A” in my physics class, how can I possibly know that I will?
Knowledge, it seems, requires a level of belief, yet not all beliefs comprise knowledge; some beliefs are true, while others are false. Our efforts at learning are about our efforts to gain additional knowledge, to acquire true beliefs—of learning—while minimizing or correcting any false beliefs. We could even state that our efforts in learning are driven by our desire to know the way things actually are.
When we form a belief, we seek to integrate what we think is true in our minds with what is true in the world—a sense of integrity. Sometimes we form beliefs for other reasons, for instance to manipulate others or ourselves. However, when we pursue knowledge, we are attempting to match truth of the world with truth in our minds. Sometimes we fail at this effort and the beliefs in our mind do not accurately represent the way the world is. The term lifelong learning is just that, we humans are continuously in pursuit of gaining the ever-increasing accuracy of our beliefs about the world.
Keep in mind, when we speak of beliefs, we are speaking of what we believe to be true, and the difficulty in this is that we don’t always agree with each other what is true. There is subjective truth—that truth we believe to be true as we see it from our own perspective—and objective truth, the truth we all can agree to believe is true. Knowledge then requires of us to know something regarding the truthfulness of what we are gaining knowledge about, a way to valuate the belief.
You and I may be discussing our beliefs in the effects of poverty on high school students. You may have a belief based on your own personal experience— or lack of it—and I too, may have beliefs based on my on experience. Because we also come from different backgrounds, and may have different values or religious beliefs, these differences can affect our perceptions of truth in our beliefs. Truth is a condition of knowledge, and this knowledge is based on previously held beliefs about truth.
It seems in order to acquire knowledge we must first have existing knowledge with which to value the new knowledge. What if we begin thinking of knowledge, not as the destination—we acquire it and then we’re done—but as the journey, an ongoing internal dialogue about gaining an ever more accurate understanding of our beliefs of the world? Would this free us from the burden of being wrong for holding inaccurate beliefs about the world?
As we begin to play with the concept of knowledge, what it is, where it comes from, and what value we place on it, I find myself thinking about all the things I thought I knew growing up. As I’ve grown up, I’ve learned that many of these childhood beliefs did not match with my evolving perception of the world I lived in. Yet, I would never have been able to develop my beliefs without first having these first misguided beliefs with which to test my new knowledge against. As I’ve grown older, my beliefs have changed and matured. I expect them to continue to do so, for our experiences of the world do not cease as long as blood flows through our veins.