The characteristics of knowledge are that it must be true; knowledge can’t be knowledge if there is any doubt in any of it. It must be justified. It can’t be true, if it’s not right – e.g. 2 + 2 = 4 not 5 or 6. Knowledge is not in the future. What we definitely know has happened in the past.
Belief can be in past, present or the future; it doesn’t need to be true. Most religions are based on beliefs. Nothing is solid in religion, it is all something that may or may not be true. Belief is something that someone wants to believe, whether it’s true or not.
There are two main types of philosophers,
- Empiricism – where philosophers believe that knowledge comes from our senses
- Rationalism – where philosophers believe that knowledge comes through from our reasons and thoughts
Some say that Empiricism is not a good way to believe where our knowledge comes from. Our senses can deceive us, for example, when we think we see someone we know on the street and wave to them, but our eyes have deceived us, because it isn’t who we thought it was. Our thoughts are part of our knowledge, if we had no thoughts, we wouldn’t have knowledge of anything, because we couldn’t think about them.
Belief can be very convincing, so convincing that we think we actually know it. For example “I know that all crows are black” how do we know this? There might be a very rare species of white crow. We are only assuming, yet we are stating that we know. Another example is “if I let go of a piece of chalk, I know it will fall and make a sound”, the laws of gravity could take a turn at any point and the chalk we not fall and make a noise, but float in the air. However, there are some arguments that can just be straightforward and true, for example, “I did not have mothballs for dinner last night”, I know this, it was in the past, it has happened, I was there when I ate my dinner, I know that I had a curry, not mothballs, I know there is a difference between what mothballs are and what my curry looked like. This is a justified statement; I believe it, I know it is true and I saw the evidence.
It is impossible to know something, which is yet to happen in the future. It may not happen – there could be a snowstorm tonight, which prevents you go out and doing what you intended, or the world might end tomorrow, so obviously you won’t be able to what you wanted.
