Compare and contrast knowing a friend to knowing how to swim, knowing a scientific theory and knowing a historical period.

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Theory of Knowledge Paper

Jeremy Sutton

TOK

9/4/06

Compare and contrast knowing a friend to knowing how to swim, knowing a scientific theory and knowing a historical period.  What conclusions about the nature of knowledge can you reach?

        In every language, words are used as a means of communication. Many of these words have meanings that are ambiguous, sometimes having more than one meaning. Words referring to the human mind, such as love, memory, and especially knowledge, are the most associated with ambiguity.

        Knowledge is usually associated with different types of knowing. Though the difference is not present in the English language, romance languages, such as French and German, have more than one word that mean “to know.” I myself take French, and I know that there are two different words that mean “to know:” “savoir,” which refers to knowing a fact or piece of knowledge, and “connaître,” which refers to knowing how to do something, or to be acquainted with. It still is hard for me to use those two different words in the right contexts, since as an American I am not used to distinguishing between the different uses of the verb “to know.” Therefore the question is, what are the differences between these sorts of knowledge? How is knowing how to swim any different from knowing a friend?

        The contrast between these sorts is identified with how one obtains the knowledge. When you “know” a person, you don’t actually know the person in his or her entirety. You know a person, or friend, through acquaintance and repeated exposure. One knows how to swim by repeated attempts, and by experience, or learning from how your body responds to the environment. Knowledge differs enormously, for knowing where you left your keys and knowing how to play soccer are completely different pieces of knowledge, obtained in completely different ways. Knowledge of facts is called explicit knowledge, while knowledge of skills is called implicit knowledge.

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        Now that it is proven that knowledge has many differing forms, why do we use only one word for them? How is knowing a scientific theory different from knowing a historical period, when both sorts of knowledge derive through language in text books and in class? Historical knowledge states something past, and involves nothing that predicts. If history says that the U.S. lost the Vietnam War, any more evidence recovered during that time frame will remain consistent with that fact. A scientific theory, on the other hand, predicts that something will fall into accordance with that theory. Another point is ...

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